Chapter 19
Nineteen
Much to Mira’s surprise, the magpies showed some restraint and did not ruin her entire harvest. Every morning, she woke up to the odd stolen bit here and there, but in the end, when she finally collected her first harvest, she returned inside with not an overflowing basket.
The radishes and beans were fat and looked delicious, the greens of her carrots looked exceedingly healthy, and her beets were coming along nicely as well.
Maybe she’d buy a bag of sunflower seeds as a form of apology some time.
Much to Mira’s chagrin though, no part of this bountiful harvest would do her any good in her potion kitchen.
When she went to set up a new batch of ‘anti-itch’ – a useful little addition to her shop that alleviated hay fever and other assorted reactions – she discovered that she was once again almost out of everything.
Which was, on paper, a good sign. The shop was going well, and she’d rather run out than toss things she had never used.
It did, however, mean a trip across the street to the greenhouse – and Yoni.
They’d spent such a nice evening after her only mildly embarrassing public performance.
When they had walked home together, Yoni had even cracked a few jokes.
Then, the next day, she’d answered Mira’s knock on the door with a strangely guarded expression.
When Mira had asked her if she fancied a walk, Yoni had been mysteriously ‘busy’.
Since then, Mira hadn’t seen much of her, though she had seen the odd curtain move, and someone was opening the door for Marigold, unless the cat had learned how to do that herself.
Whatever her reasons, Yoni suddenly seemed to be avoiding Mira.
Slowly, Mira was beginning to think that she must have imagined whatever she’d thought had been growing between the two of them.
Friendship, if not something else. Now she didn’t seem to even have that. Why, she had no idea.
Hopefully, Yoni would at least still sell her things. Surely, they could maintain a professional relationship?
Ever the optimist, Mira packed a little bowl with the fruits of her hard and often frustrating labour, grabbed her basket, and ventured out to see if she couldn’t figure out what was going on with her equally pretty and unpredictable neighbour.
Heart in her throat, she climbed the steps up to the front door, where she stopped to find a sign taped to the knocker.
Out back in the greenhouse.
Well. Mira chose to take that as an invitation. She went back down and to the right around the house. The greenhouse lay peaceful in the morning sun. When Mira approached, a fuzzy blob moved on the table next to the door. Marigold hopped off and sauntered over to meet Mira with a demanding meow.
“Yes, all right!” Mira obediently bent down and began scratching. “I’ll greet the lady of the house first.”
It took a minute or so until Marigold was satisfied and disappeared around the house.
Now with nothing to distract her – or Yoni, should the need arise – Mira felt her palms get sweaty when she approached the greenhouse.
She could hear rustling inside, followed by indignant muttering about bugs.
She put the basket on the table, peered through the open door, and called out.
“Hello? Yoni?”
A sharp curse, and the sound of metal clattering against stone. The next moment, Yoni’s head appeared from around a large bush in the middle aisle.
“Mira!” She looked a little spooked. “What are you doing here?”
“Hoping to buy something.” Mira gestured to the basket just out of sight. “I also brought radishes.”
“Radishes?” Yoni put something down, then trudged over, wiping dirt off her hands. “Why in the world did you bring radishes?”
“Uh. I have a lot, and I thought… maybe…”
Hm. Perhaps she should have prepared a little better.
There was a smudge of dirt on Yonis face that highlighted her cheekbone, and the fact that she had chosen a shirt sans sleeves this morning wasn’t helping matters, either.
Watching her train of thought disappear in the distance, Mira folded her hands behind her back to hide how badly they were shaking.
“Sorry. I just needed some stuff for the shop, and…” And what? Right! Radishes! “My garden was very generous this morning, and I thought maybe you’d like some? I haven’t seen any vegetable beds back here, and I figured…”
Mira trailed off, suddenly acutely aware of how strange that sounded. Just because she hadn’t seen any didn’t mean they weren’t there. She wasn’t in the habit of snooping around people’s gardens, was she.
“I keep them behind the hedges.” Yoni pushed a stray strand of black hair behind her ear. A tinge of pink appeared in her cheeks. “But I don’t have any radishes.” An awkward pause. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome!” Mira nodded at the open door. “So, uh. My ingredients…?”
“Yes! Of course.” Much to Mira’s surprise, Yoni turned abruptly and went back inside. “Come in.”
This was certainly new. Mira quickly emptied the basket and followed Yoni inside.
The greenhouse was warmer than outside, and more humid, too.
Mira could practically feel her curls unravel.
Grimacing, she tried to smooth them down as she went to join Yoni by the purple wormwood.
Yoni was already digging around the pockets of her apron for her scissors.
“You didn’t even ask what I need,” Mira reminded her. Yoni stilled. After a moment, she released a grumbling sigh. But rather than ask for Mira’s list, she crossed her arms in front of her and turned to face her.
“Right. Listen. Now that you’re here anyway, can we talk?”
Mira tried to swallow the frog in her throat. There was no reason for that sinking feeling. They’d spent a nice evening. And maybe Yoni hadn’t been very communicative after. It happened. She’d just been busy. Right?
“Talk about what?”
Yoni raked a hand through her hair, visibly frustrated. “You know. That. The thing with the–” She huffed. “Us.”
Ah. So she had been nowhere near as subtle as she’d thought, it seemed. Mira bit her lip.
“’Us’ as in…?” she asked cautiously, to which Yoni’s face reddened noticeably.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” she grumbled, not meeting Mira’s eyes. “There is no way you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“I do. I think,” Mira admitted. “I was just… not sure, you know, if you… were aware. Or were…” She made a fluttering gesture. “I didn’t want to mess anything up.”
Yoni inhaled sharply. “Well. Yet here we are. Maybe about to mess things up.”
Mira tried to squash the disappointment seizing her chest. Not yet. She had to know first. “Would it mess things up?” she asked. “If I told you that I like you?”
“’Like me’,” Yoni muttered. “We’re not in school anymore.”
Mira snorted. “What? You started dancing around the subject.” She cleared her throat. Now or never. “Fine. I’ve gotten to know you a little these past few weeks, and yes, I’ve started to think I might be catching feelings. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
The tips of her ears felt hot as she waited for Yoni to respond. Say anything at all, really, because she had grown very, very still, and was now not moving at all. Just when that started to become a little worrisome, she let out a deep breath.
“Yes. Sort of. But also not?” Yoni pinched the bridge of her nose. “Listen, I’m not stupid. I noticed. And I’m not… It’s not that I’m not interested, but…”
“...but?” Mira prodded gently, when Yoni trailed off in unintelligible noises. Nostrils flaring, Yoni glared at her.
“I’m trying, all right? Give me a moment!”
So Mira did. Her heart was hammering an uncomfortable staccato in her chest, and the humidity in the greenhouse suddenly felt a little suffocating. Still, she waited, at least outward patiently, for Yoni to continue while she felt like she was dying inside with each passing second.
“I was engaged,” Yoni said abruptly, turning away from Mira to look at flowering vines trailing down from wires under the greenhouse roof. “Alexander, I think I’ve mentioned him before.”
“You have,” Mira said cautiously. “You said Marigold didn’t like him.”
Yoni’s laugh was sharp and cut short. “No, she did not. I should have listened to her, she’s a smart creature.
” Yoni’s gaze remained fixed intently on the flowers.
“We’d been together for a while. I thought we were on the same page.
Stay here, get married, start a family. He sure never let me think otherwise.
A few months before the wedding, he dumped the news on me that he had an offer of employment in Willow Harbour, and that he wanted to move there. With me.”
Mira blinked rapidly. “He… didn’t tell you before that? At all?”
“Not a word,” Yoni said, bitterness lacing her tone.
“Just presented this plan to me that we’d move, and he’d make money, and I’d raise our children, and that would somehow be fine for both of us.
It wasn’t, and he really should have known better.
He knew I meant to stay and run the greenhouse.
He knew how much that meant to me after my parents had to give it up and move so my father could be closer to his physicians.
” Yoni’s tone became more heated, the red spreading down her neck.
“He thought he could just tell me how much money he would make and that would change my mind. That I could ‘grow flowers on the balcony if I really wanted’. Those were his words. I can still hear him say that.”
Mira felt like she had lost her footing by this point. Unsure where this was going, but very sure of what she thought of Alexander, she dared a response.
“He sounds a little selfish.”
“Hah! You don’t know the half of it.” Yoni turned back to look at her.
“He hid it well, or maybe he really was trying when he promised me all those things. I don’t know, and I don’t care.
I told him if he was moving, I wasn’t. He tried to change my mind, but in the end, I gave him the ring back and told him to get out of my house.
To his credit, he did. He sent me a letter from the city, even, and because I was stupid and heart-sick, I read it.
” She snorted. “He said he was sorry, and if I changed my mind, I could let him know.” She shrugged.
“I turned it into mulch and used it on my sunflowers.”
A strangled laugh escaped Mira. “So he was useful after all.”
Yoni rolled her eyes. “Vanishingly so.” Her shoulders dropped. “Do you understand why I’m telling you this now? Why you need to know that about me?”
Mira chewed on her lip, thinking back to all those little comments. If she meant to stay. If she was here for good.
“I think I do,” she said slowly. “You don’t know if I won’t do the same. Go back to Willow Harbour and leave you here.”
“I wasn’t sure that you wouldn’t,” Yoni said quietly.
“I’m still not, if I’m being honest.” She took a deep breath.
“But… I’m less doubtful now, I suppose. Which is why we’re even having this conversation.
” A crooked smile appeared on her face. “And Marigold likes you. You’ve got that over him already. ”
“Approved by a cat,” Mira said dryly, “thank you.”
“Don’t let that get to your head, she’s still just a cat,” Yoni muttered. She sighed. “So, I suppose what I’m saying is…”
She trailed off, but Mira knew. “You need to hear it from me. That I’m here to stay, and that I won’t just leave you like he did.”
“Yes.” Yoni rocked back on her heels, and her shoulders seemed a little lighter. “I do. I did. I… had to be sure, you know. I mean, you’re never really sure, are you, because I was with Alexander, but-”
“But talking about it is better than not,” Mira said. “I understand, I really do.” She blew out a breath. “You know, there’s no reason to… do anything. Not right now. We could just… keep doing what we’re doing? And see where it goes?”
Yoni looked like a startled deer. “You mean love poems and walks?”
“It was that obvious, huh.”
“Nobody talks about flowers like that, Mira.”
“I never said subtlety was my strong suit,” Mira muttered. “My readers usually prefer it when I’m more direct.”
“I could never have guessed.” Yoni pulled at what was left of her braid. “So. We’d just… spend time?”
“I’d like that,” Mira said. “Even if it never goes anywhere else.”
Yoni ducked her head. “Yes, me too.”
Mira rocked on her heels. “Sooo… Once I have what I need and there’s a pot simmering away on the stove for a few hours… How about we go and have some tea? I heard Matteo is making doughnuts, and he made the raspberry filling himself, I really need to try those.”
“Oh, they’re putting those on the menu? I didn’t notice.” There was a glimmer in Yoni’s eyes, and her tentative smile lit up her whole face. “Yes. Tea and doughnuts. I’d like that.”