Chapter Two #2
Returning terrified me. The town saw the sanctuary as something to be proud of. They saw me as a lost cause. A charity case. A poor thing. I became trapped in the cage I was born in. So I escaped, I ran, and I never looked back. I didn’t have a reason to. Until now.
“Ms. McCarthen,” Alaric called. “I need an answer if you are well enough to give one.”
Shit. Groaning, I sat up. What I wanted to offer was a fake smile and a foot up the ass, but I settled for the first.
Thinking of the shop, I felt torn. Dirty Hoes Flower Co.
had become my life, one that I’d built for myself alongside my best friend.
And I loved it, sure. But flowers were never my passion, my future.
It worked well enough, but I couldn’t help feeling like something had been missing all along.
Like I was out of place, never belonging.
My skin ignited with goose bumps and my stomach would hate me for the nerves it’d endure in the coming days.
But I couldn’t lose my family’s sanctuary, the creatures. I couldn’t lose part of me.
So I made a decision. A possibly terrible, undeniably reckless, and tragically ironic decision.
Alaric left a bit later, after paperwork had been signed, t’s crossed and i’s dotted. Remaining in my seat at the desk, I pressed my fingers along my brows.
A knock came to the wall, followed by a peeking Maggie.
“How much did you hear?”
“All of it.” Eavesdropper. My dear friend stood at the threshold with a gentle smile, even knowing what this meant for us. She wouldn’t let me see her sad, not over this. Over an ex, yes. Over me eating the last enchanted brownie, yes. But not this.
Maggie slowly nodded and her eyes flitted to me. “Wine?”
“Wine,” I said. Unfortunately, we’d finished our bottles last night, leading to the greenhouse mishap and whatnot. So we hit the town, walking to Marigold’s little convenience store for more.
After three years of living in Old Ashton, the towering buildings shouldn’t have felt like they were closing in on me, but they did.
I’d grown up in a small town with fewer than ten small shops, all within walking distance.
Old Ashton, where we lived and Maggie grew up, didn’t spread gossip like wildfire and had more shops, taverns, and apartments than I could memorize.
Sandstone and ivory-brick walls, newly done stone streets lined with crape myrtles, and people who dressed to impress.
Maggie knew the town like the back of her hand.
Where the fun happened, who offered the best deals, and which taverns made the best breakfast. She knew how to get there, when to take shortcuts during happy hour to avoid the horses, and how to find a magical bender when you needed one…
which wasn’t often, but the fact it happened was weird enough.
Me? I could barely get us back to the flower shop.
I didn’t like the crowds, the noise, or the tall towers.
Every now and then, I’d spot criminals roof hopping with hoods over their heads and daggers flashing in the sun.
Though if I could see them, I assumed they weren’t very skilled.
Maybe in another life, one where I didn’t lose my breath going to the kitchen for a midnight snack, I’d be something edgy like an assassin.
The air clung on to a chill as the last kick of winter left and spring rolled in.
Unlike my hometown, spring here could be detected by the weather, yes, but also by the clothes, foods, and florals.
Fur coats were exchanged for sundresses.
Soups were switched with sandwiches. And tulips were back at the market.
Back home I could see it in the trees, the flowers.
The birds and the bees. Two different worlds.
“What about a last-night stand?”
What? “What?” I asked, reeling my mind in, as I’d drifted off.
“Like a one-night stand with a stranger before you leave.”
My Gods. Not this again. I slit my eyes.
Maggie obsessed over setting me up with people, or at least dragging me into the dating pool when I had almost no interest at all.
I’d tried a rebound, the “get over someone by getting under someone,” and it didn’t work.
Unable to ever get past talking to someone long enough for the possibility to even arise, I gave up.
“Right,” she grumbled, “not your thing.”
Why I took offense to her response, I didn’t know. “Not my thing? What do you mean? What is my thing?”
“Being lonely in bed with a book.”
I whipped to face her with knitted brows, opened my mouth—and shut it again. She had a point. I liked going out, hanging around friends, and exploring… just not as much as she did.
“Okay, so, not a stranger. What about Harrison? He seemed fun.”
“Not a chance,” I said. Harrison ended things after falling in love on vacation. Which was weird because I didn’t know we had anything to end; we kissed once. A dodged blade.
“Jonathan?”
“Nope.” King’s guard. Self-obsessed, conceited, and a bit too intimidating.
“Okay, Grayson? Nothing’s wrong with him! He’s charming, flirty, respectful—”
True, he was. And yet I felt nothing for him. My heart sat in my chest collecting dust and cobwebs like a witch’s cavern. “Maggie,” I cautioned, “let it go.”
She rolled her eyes and groaned but respected my decision not to sleep with anyone.
People walked by us. Some in their trench coats, probably hiding weapons—or, if it was the guy from the corner, hiding his ferrets.
Others wore cloaks, corsets, dresses, or fighting leathers.
Like I said, Old Ashton had variety within its population.
During the day, everything stayed fine and dandy.
But at night, even as the sun set, it changed.
The atmosphere, the level of danger. Being the biggest town around and close to the kingdom palace, it drew in a criminal crowd of assassins, bounty hunters, witches, and such.
All hungry for power, some hungry for blood.
You didn’t want to get tangled up in a mess with people like the Wraiths, an elite group of assassins.
Gaining their name from their reputation, you never saw them coming and you’d never meet anyone who had.
It became normal to us, though. Us townsfolk stayed to our own.
Moving past Sun and Moon Books, I cupped my hands over my eyes and peeked into the dark window.
Scanning the front shelves for new books, I felt disappointed, as usual.
The bookstore had been the first store I found when I came, and I still visited it more than the others.
But it wasn’t a fun, whimsical bookstore like the enchanted one back home.
They had good books, but favored magical schoolbooks, how-tos, and biographies. I moved on.
“So you’re going to keep it? The sanctuary?”
Maggie’s question caught me off guard. But I knew my answer.
“Yep,” I confirmed. “I hated it with my father, but when my mother was around… it was different.” After she’d passed, my father turned into someone I didn’t recognize.
I hated being there, I hated being around.
But once, it erupted with life and laughter.
“I don’t want to lose that,” I explained.
“I don’t want to lose what it once was and what it could be again… ”
I don’t want to lose who I could be and what I could be, perhaps. I hadn’t found that missing something in Old Ashton. Maybe I would there.
“Are you nervous?” Maggie asked, glancing at my hands.
Noticing the redness from me picking at my fingers, I dropped them.
I hadn’t realized I’d been doing it in the first place.
Me? Nervous? About what? Coming home to the creatures, a whole town of gossiping grannies, and an ocean of locked-up memories?
“I don’t know if nervous is the right word,” I admitted.
“It’s going to be hard, and I don’t have a best friend there to help me. ”
“Mm. True.” She looped an arm through mine and squeezed. “You could always make friends.”
Gag me. “That sounds even worse.”
“Well then, it’s a good thing you can drink wine instead.” She laughed, pulling us into the little convenience store on the corner with built-in shelves stocked full of random products ranging from wine to soap.
The clerk behind the counter sat, her hands occupied with knitting, except her hands weren’t the ones knitting—they waved the needles in magical swooshes.
Cheater, I thought. Despite us coming in once a week, she didn’t know who we were.
This wasn’t one of those places where everybody knew everybody.
We grabbed our usual, a rosé for me and white for Maggie.
Anyone who enjoys the taste of alcohol must be lying.
The taste of wine reminded me of feet, and I’d probably take two sips before tapping out, but hey, it’s the thought that counts.
We got our wine. And we left.
Which meant one step closer to tomorrow. To going home.
Maggie clinked our bottles together. “Here’s to the past us—and the future us.” She cheered, always knowing what to say.
Unfortunately, I didn’t feel the same cheerfulness, but the wine helped.
A hard conversation, too many tears, and one last sleepover later, I stood at the edge of my full-size bed.
Shoved into the corner of a tiny upstairs room, I laid all of my body weight across a suitcase too small to enclose my belongings.
Hiking a leg and grunting, my fingers wiggled around with the nearly rusted silver latch until finally, a small give.
Falling limp, my arms and legs collapsed as if they’d gone through a twelve-hour training day.
Slightly damp hair clung to my cheeks and lips until I blew out an irritated huff to move it.
The cracking sound from the left latch breaking sent a heavy weight into my gut. Mother of suitcase Gods. The first sign I should not return home.