Chapter Seven
A shout from a nearby alley broke me out of my reverie. “You’ve proved your point!” I called to Bri, glancing around the vacant lot. “Get down before someone sees you!”
“You do want to sell magical objects, don’t you?” Bri asked me, floating obnoxiously over my head. “Because for someone who claims to need my help, you are sounding awfully ungrateful.”
“Come down. Please,” I added hastily. Bri was right.
I did need her help. And I did need a customer.
But I’d learned so much in the past hour that my head was spinning.
I needed time to think, to process, to plan.
Because even if only one in ten objects in the shoppe had magical potential, with Bri’s help, I could be rich within a fortnight.
Once we were back inside the shoppe, the broom now resting reverently on a green damask chaise longue, I began pacing back and forth. “Are you sure you can’t make the magical effects last a little longer?” I asked Bri. “Because then we could—”
Bri held up her hand. “I’m going to pause you right there,” she said. “I agreed to help you with a single magical object. I made the limitations of my powers very clear to you.”
“I know, but—”
“Mm-hmm. I know you think I’m the answer to all your financial woes, but trust me, I’m not. Besides, I have a job of my own. And a grimoire to find. My parents are expecting me home for Yule.”
For the first time, I noticed a few small cracks beginning to show in Bri’s perfect facade.
There were dark circles under her eyes, and a few of her cuticles showed signs of anxious gnawing.
“Where will you look next?” I asked, partly to seem a little less self-absorbed, and partly because I was genuinely curious.
The conservator hadn’t exactly been forthcoming.
“I don’t know. For now, I have to do my job so I can pay my ever-growing hotel bill.”
I couldn’t help arching an eyebrow at Finlay, who’d been silent since we got back to the shoppe. I figured he, like me, thought that Bri had plenty of money to pay her bills. I certainly hadn’t thought she was relying on her job at the bookshoppe for income.
“That’s right, I’m not made of money, either,” Bri said, more defensively than I’d heard her before. “But I’m an outlander. I have to maintain a certain reputation if I’m going to make any inroads here.”
“Hanging around with me isn’t exactly going to help,” I murmured. Finlay’s standing in the community was good, at least, because of who he worked for. Jack Turner was known for his honesty, which was vital, considering he printed Ardmuir’s weekly newspaper.
Bri dismissed my muttering with a wave of her hand. “As long as I pay my bills, no one cares who I spend my time with.”
I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I appreciated it nonetheless. “Listen, I’ll take the broom, if that’s all you can give me. But I’m going to need to demonstrate that it works. Otherwise, how will I sell the damn thing?”
“I have to get back to the printer,” Finlay said.
“I have to get back to the bookshoppe,” Bri added.
Shite. “Well, then, I suppose I’ll have to sell it myself.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Finlay asked, brow furrowed with concern.
“Have you got a better one?” I folded my arms across my chest and tapped my foot. “Didn’t think so. Well, then. Off with you both. Have an excellent day at work. Pray for me, if you think of it.”
Bri rolled her eyes and waved over her shoulder as she left, but Finlay hesitated in the doorway. “About last night…”
“The pie was delicious,” I said, my arms still crossed over my chest, as if I could protect the soft underbelly I liked to tell myself didn’t exist. “Thank you.”
“Willow.” I noticed that Finlay’s gaze was traveling south and glanced down to see what all the fuss was about. Oh. What little cleavage I had was being enhanced by my folded arms.
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes, though I kept my arms where they were out of spite. “Yes, Finlay.”
“It’s only, I know you can take care of yourself. But it’s what I do.” He shrugged. “I like helping people.”
I sighed. “I know you do.”
“So you’ll let me, every now and again? For my sake?”
The corner of my mouth twitched with a grin. He was giving me a gift, and one I was grateful for. “Oh, very well. I suppose you can start by making me another pie.” My eyes flicked up to his, and I was relieved to see he was grinning, too. “I finished yours for breakfast.”
I didn’t spend much time down by the docks, though my father had been quite familiar with the area.
He’d done a lot of trading for the shoppe, and he often frequented the nearby pubs to discuss secret dealings, or so I imagined.
He’d never brought me with him, something I might have complained about if I didn’t hate the smell of the harbor so much: salt water, seaweed, fish that had been sitting out too long in the sun.
It seemed nothing had changed in the years since I’d been down here.
I felt foolish, aimlessly wandering while holding a broom that still felt very much alive. I had until sometime tomorrow for the magic to wear off, which meant I had to get this thing sold as soon as possible, preferably to someone pulling out of port in the next few hours.
I noticed a grizzled old man and a younger boy loading barrels onto a boat and approached them as nonchalantly as possible.
I had never felt more self-conscious. Of all days, did I have to choose today to wear my too-small dress?
I had deliberately avoided the clusters of sailors looking for work, all young men, all unlikely to focus on a broom if I came around “peddling my wares.”
“Good morning,” I said to the old man. “A nice day for sailing.” I cursed myself inwardly for the clumsy small talk. Small nautical talk, at that. Not an area of particular expertise.
“I suppose,” he said, not taking his eyes off his work. “Can I help you with something, miss?”
“Actually…” I licked my lips, glancing at the boy, who was watching me with curiosity. “I believe I’m the one who can help you.”
“How’s that?” The man finally stopped what he was doing and removed his knit cap, rubbing his liver-spotted bald head before pulling the hat back on.
I could feel myself acting dodgy, my eyes darting around, my leg jiggling. But I wasn’t the salesperson my father was. I hadn’t sold anything to a customer outside the shoppe before, and even inside the shoppe, I didn’t push sales on people. “Are you from around here?”
The man narrowed his eyes, putting one arm around the boy, who I presumed was his grandson. “North of here,” he said, deliberately vague.
“Do you come through Ardmuir often?”
“No. First time, and likely the last. Nothing but cheapskates and liars here, from what I can tell.” He eyed me up and down, assessing me. “Which are you?”
I laughed nervously. Both. “Neither. It’s only, well, you may not be familiar with it, but I run a curiosity shoppe. And today I have something very special.” I held the broom aloft. “It’s a magic broom.” I flashed my winningest smile. The boy winced.
“A magic broom, you say?”
I nodded.
“Aye, and I’ve got a magic pumpkin on my boat. Ivan here is really a prince in disguise.”
It dawned on me with humiliating slowness that he was mocking me.
“I’m telling you the truth. Watch.” My hands and legs were shaking as I straddled the broom the way I’d seen Bri do.
She had claimed it responded to body language, and I couldn’t imagine I was communicating anything but fear.
Before I knew it, I’d risen three feet off the ground, leaving my legs dangling and my entire body feeling off-kilter.
The man’s eyes widened, and the boy gave a satisfying gasp. “Get down here, before you hurt yourself,” the man said, grabbing hold of my ankle. Under other circumstances I might have kicked him in the teeth, but as it stood, I was grateful for the anchor.
Somehow, I managed to get myself back down to earth and dismounted awkwardly. “Ta-da.” I waved my fingers in the air like a circus showman. “Not bad, eh?”
The man leaned in close, his yellowed teeth inches from my ear. “You a witch, girl?”
“What? I— No!” I moved the broom behind my back. “I told you. I sell curiosities. I’m most certainly not a witch.”
He leaned back, but he kept one narrowed eye on me. “Even if I had a use for a magic broom, I doubt I could afford such a thing. What are you asking for it?”
Drat. I hadn’t thought this far ahead. “Forty pounds. It’s an absolute bargain.” It was, for a flying broom. But it was also a lot of money for a fisherman. I didn’t even know if he had forty pounds on hand.
“Aye. Which makes me wonder why you’re selling it so cheap. Is it stolen?”
“Now see here—”
“Granddad.” The little boy tugged at his grandfather’s sweater. “Look.”
I glanced in the direction he was pointing, only to see that a modest crowd had gathered on the dock behind us.
I scanned the people, trying to pick out locals from outlanders, but it was difficult.
I hadn’t interacted with anyone besides Finlay and Bri in ages.
My groceries were delivered by a farmer, an old friend of my father’s, and as a small, single woman, I didn’t require much.
I rarely needed anything from the general store, and I obviously wasn’t the social type.
None of the faces looked familiar, but that didn’t mean much.
“I’ll give you fifty pounds for it,” a man said, stepping forward.
It was the trader I’d seen at the Four Swans, exactly the kind of person I’d hoped to avoid.
If I sold a sham broom to him, he might come back and murder me.
A sudden stab of guilt hit me for attempting to sell the broom to the kind old man and his grandson.
It wasn’t that I wanted to cheat anyone.
If the broom would work forever, I’d sell it for the same price. But I needed the money to pay my rent.
The old man stepped closer to me. “We weren’t through negotiating.”