Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
The following Tuesday, Mira closed the shop for a trip to the bank’s branch in Heartfield.
Armed with the letter and a folder full of papers, she met with a somewhat sympathetic clerk, who had graciously given her an early appointment on the extremely short notice of Mira knocking on the door the minute he unlocked it.
The man took his time to listen to her plight, awkwardly waited when she had to pause and collect herself lest she cry in front of this poor man who had done nothing wrong, and eventually walked her through her options, all of which ended on the same depressing note.
At the end of the appointment, Mira left his office near tears, with her bank account close to empty, and no idea how to make this work.
At least she had bought herself a month to come up with a plan, and the cancelled late fees at least left her with the tiniest amount of breathing room.
It wasn’t much, and she was still faced with the crushing reality of a debt that would, for the foreseeable future, eat up any and all profits from her fledgling shop and then some.
What was she supposed to live off of, after all of that?
At least she still had her stories. Maybe she could make that work somehow.
Though maybe it would be smarter to focus on the shop instead, to expand her stock and add some of the more complicated potions with a better profit margin.
Though when she tried her hand at some of those, late into the night with shaking hands and burning eyes, she achieved nothing but a waste of ingredients that she couldn’t afford.
“Sod it!”
She tossed her stained apron into the laundry tub, wiped the tears from her stinging eyes, and stomped off to wash up. Which largely meant laboriously filling a bowl and wiping herself down with a washcloth, because the water still came in unreliable trickles, and tonight was no exception.
Too wound up to sleep but too frazzled to continue working on that damnable potion, Mira made herself a cup of tea and went to sit on the steps to her back porch.
The view of her garden in the moonlight was stunning, and almost enough to make her cry again.
She loved that garden. She loved the house.
Loved Emberglen and its people and even the shop, frustrating and overwhelming as it could be at times.
But now? She felt cornered. She might be able to keep up, for a while.
But what if things got worse in the shop?
What if she couldn’t afford the honey anymore, or the bottles?
What if a big expense came up? One unexpected bill was all it would take, and she’d have nothing left.
Unless she acted first. She knew the disastrous state of the market in the area, but she didn’t have a mortgage to pay off.
She could accept a lower price. Settle for the land value, if she had to.
Maybe Golden River would be happy to snatch it up to put a new warehouse on it, to store more things that nobody here could afford in what was almost certainly an elaborate and of course perfectly legal tax evasion scheme.
It might work, if she was lucky. It might get her just enough money to pay off the debt and move back to Willow Harbour.
Maybe she could stay at home for a bit, sleep on the sofa just until she found another job.
Maybe Rue still wanted to move out, and they could find something small and cheap together.
Something that would remind Mira every day of what she could have had. If she’d just been less of an idiot. If she’d just paid some damn attention.
“Stupid,” she muttered, watching the grass rustle and sway in the back part of the garden.
She had been so, so stupid. Mira sipped her tea, unable to find much joy in her favourite flavour.
Of course it had all been too good to be true.
She should have known, but she’d been blinded by all those things that had seemingly fallen perfectly into her lap over night. Why had she not questioned any of that?
Because of desperation. Because she had needed this escape from the emporium and its miserable drudgery under a boss who only cared about the monthly reports.
Because she had blindly believed Uncle Lochlin’s letter, and his intentions.
And he had probably expected her to know this!
Expected her to act like a reasonable adult, not like a child distracted by a giant lollipop.
A reasonable adult would have gone through all those papers twice with a fine-toothed comb.
Instead, she had skim-read anything that hadn’t seemed important at the time, and now here she was.
At least a child would have had the excuse of not knowing how to read.
Despondent, Mira stared out at the moon-bleached garden. How long until she couldn’t hold on to this anymore? Was she just prolonging the inevitable? Maybe it would be better to get ahead of things, before she messed up her finances beyond repair.
“No!”
Her resolute declaration spooked some critter or other that skittered away in the high grass. Mira didn’t pay it any mind. No, she would not give up so quickly. She had made a new home here, new friends, maybe something else, too. She’d be damned if she gave that up without a fight.
“Sorry I’m late!” Mira took off her hat and shook out her hair. “I had a mishap in the shop that needed cleaning up.”
“Mhm.” Yoni watched as Mira scooted into the bench. “That’s been happening a lot recently, huh.”
Mira paused. “What?”
“I can smell it all the way across the street,” Yoni said dryly. “And Marigold refuses to go over when your kitchen stinks to high heaven.”
“Hey, it’s not that bad!”
“Or is it.”
Mira huffed. “Fine, maybe it is. It’s temporary though. I’m just trying to figure out some of the more advanced recipes.”
“Expanding your stock again?”
“Hopefully.” Loathe to get any deeper into the subject, Mira reached for the daily specials menu on the table. “What are we having today?”
Soon enough, a new hire balanced a tray to the table, with two cups of the ‘summer special’, a mix of lemon, mint, and firebloom that had sounded intriguing enough for Mira to pay a little extra.
Not like it would make much of a difference right now.
They waited patiently for the young man to unload the cups, politely ignored a miniscule spillage, and watched him hurry off to take another table’s order.
“I’m not sure he’s looking at a long and prosperous career in the hospitality industry,” Mira mused. Yoni chuckled.
“He’s not. That’s Clara and Hamish’s son. He’s studying to be a teacher, and he’s come to visit to spend the summer and make some pocket money for the coming semester.”
“Oh? I haven’t seen him around, when did he get here?”
“Last Saturday.” Yoni took a slow sip of her tea. “Have you left your kitchen at all this whole week?”
Maybe it was a simple observation, but Mira felt guilty nonetheless. She needlessly stirred her tea, watching the decorative mint leaves go under in the swirl.
“I’ve been pretty busy,” she finally said. “I saw someone come by, but I didn’t know it was their son.” She peered up to find Yoni’s hawkish eyes on her. “I’m sorry, I kind of lost track of time. I shouldn’t lock myself away so much.”
“Why are you apologising to me?”
“Because I wanted to see you, I just… forgot.”
“Well, fortunately you didn’t make any promises, so consider yourself forgiven.” She paused. “It would be nice though to see you a little more often.”
Mira ducked her head, cheeks red. “Noted. I’ll be sure to remember that the outside world exists, not just stare into a pot all day.”
“Very courteous,” Yoni replied. “What has you so buried in new recipes, anyway? The shop seems to be going well as it is, why the sudden desire for new potions?”
Mira’s hands froze around her cup, and her throat felt suddenly tight. It was one thing to change the subject, but quite another to ignore a direct question – or lie about it. But Yoni didn’t have to know. That was Mira’s problem to solve. Not like she could do anything, anyway.
“Mira,” Yoni said slowly. “You have that look. Spit it out.”
“What look?”
“The ‘there’s something we need to talk about’ look. You had that in the greenhouse, too. What is it?”
Mira lowered her eyes. “It’s nothing. Nothing that matters right now, anyway.” She forced herself to look back up and smile. “Just some kerfuffle with the inheritance. I’ll figure it out.”
“With the inheritance?” Yoni’s brows knitted together. “Do you need a solicitor? I can ask my parents if they-”
“No!” Mira sighed. “No, legally, it’s all in the clear.” She looked away. “I was being stupid. I missed a loan that Uncle Lochlin took out, and I just got the notice.”
“A loan?” There was an odd undertone in Yoni’s voice. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“It already is,”Mira muttered. “If I’d known, and not just skimmed the papers like an idiot…” She grimaced. “It’s enough that I considered selling the house and moving back home for a hot minute.”
“Sell the house.”
Mira raised her head. Yoni’s tone was hard, and so were her eyes. “Well, it’s not an immediate concern, I just-”
“You just thought that taking the money and moving away would solve that problem.”
“It’s not like that. But I wiped out my savings trying to fix this, and it’s not like I can brew money in a pot, can I?”
“No, of course not,” Yoni said curtly. “You can just gallivant back to your big city and find it there instead.”
A spark of anger ignited in Mira’s chest. “That’s not what I said!”
“You considered it,” Yoni replied. “You said you were here to stay.”
“I am.” Acutely aware of the glances from the surrounding tables, Mira forced herself to lower her voice. “I want to! I wouldn’t have said that if I didn’t. But this won’t go away just because I’d like it to. I had to consider every option.”
“Naturally.” Something shifted, and now Yoni sounded so, so calm. She grabbed her bag off the bench. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have tried, that’s on me.” She dropped some money on the table and stood. “I’ll know better in the future. Enjoy your tea.”
“Yoni-”
She was gone so quickly that Mira didn’t even make it out of the bench before Yoni was out the door and out of sight.
Now people really were staring, and she shrunk back into her seat, cheeks hot, head in her hands.
Great. Fantastic. She’d screwed that up good and proper, hadn’t she.
She should’ve deflected. Pretended that everything was fine.
But that kind of thing was its own poison.
If things weren’t going to be fine, then what?
She’d still have to come clean, it just would be worse.
None of that made this hurt any less though.
She sat there, staring at the table and rethinking her life choices, until someone gently cleared their throat next to her. It was Clara’s son.
“Is, uh. Everything all right? Do you want another cup?” He awkwardly gestured at the tea. “It looks cold.”
Mira tiredly shook her head. “No, I’m good, thank you. Can I just pay?”
She left the half empty cups on the table as she headed outside.
Of course Yoni was nowhere to be seen. She’d probably gone straight home.
Which meant that Mira was liable to run into her if she went, too, and that idea was extremely unappealing right now.
She badly wanted to talk, to explain, to justify, but that wouldn’t do any good right now.
Best to let Yoni cool off and try to talk later.
Until then, Mira went down to the village green to sulk to her heart’s content, and maybe have a little cry in a quiet corner about the fact that her life, new and fragile as it was, was falling apart so quickly, and there seemed to be so little she could do about it.