Chapter 13
13
The inside of the house was as beautiful as the outside, but it was the kitchen that stole Dora’s heart. It wasn’t as big as Lenny’s open-plan kitchen in her penthouse, but what it lacked in size it made up for with everything else. There was an old-fashioned drying rack adorned with bunches of flowers and herbs above a well-worn, but much-loved pine table. There was a matching dresser that filled one entire wall of the kitchen, holding rows of jars with neat, handwritten labels filled with everything under the sun. Dora could read some of the scribbled black handwriting from afar: there were dry flowers of all varieties, herbs and spices. It truly felt as if she had stepped into a fairy tale about good witches – there was even a black cat sitting on the bottom tread of the staircase watching her. She smiled at it, wondering if she knew the cat also. Its eyes narrowed and it turned its head away, and she let out a little sigh; maybe this wasn’t a fairy tale after all.
A woman appeared at a doorway and Sephy rushed towards her.
‘Mrs Pitcher, thank you. Is everything okay?’
The woman was staring at the cat. ‘Yes, she’s fine. I tried to check but the cat didn’t let me go up to the very top again. I’m sorry but I wasn’t arguing with it.’
‘That’s fine, it’s okay, Hades was there too. Thank you for coming over.’
Mrs Pitcher was staring at Dora, and she didn’t know if it was her tattoos, nose piercing or just general curiosity.
‘Forgive my manners,’ Sephy said hastily. ‘This is my niece, Dora, and my sister Lenny; they’ve flown in from London.’
‘London, I’ve always wanted to go there, it looks so exciting on all the TV shows.’
Dora smiled. ‘You should, it’s great, lots to do.’
Lenny nodded. ‘It’s a busy place, a lot more exciting than Salem.’
Mrs Pitcher looked at Lenny. ‘Most places are a lot more exciting than here, except for this month when it turns into a full-on circus show. But, you know, it keeps the town busy and brings the money in. Are you here for Halloween?’
Dora looked at Lenny. Halloween was three weeks away. As far as she was aware she wasn’t going to be away from her little shop for that long.
‘It depends,’ Lenny replied. ‘I’m not sure whether it will be warm enough for dancing naked in the forest under the full moon and sacrificing a child.’
Mrs Pitcher gasped. Sephy glared at Lenny then took the woman’s arm.
‘Forgive my sister, she has the worst sense of humour. I think she’s lived in the UK far too long.’
Mrs Pitcher glanced back at Lenny, who was now studying the jars on the dresser. As they walked past Dora noticed the cat hiss and reach out a paw, all of its claws extended. Sephy pulled the woman out of the cat’s reach, turning to wave a finger at it. Sephy ushered the woman out of the door then closed it, letting out a sigh of relief.
‘You know better, Ophelia. How are we ever going to have nice neighbours if you insist on attacking them every chance you get?’
The cat jumped off the bottom step and made her way over to sniff first Dora and then Lenny’s leg. She barely gave Dora a passing sniff but when she rubbed her nose against Lenny she dropped to the floor, lying on her belly purring loudly. Lenny grinned and bent down to stroke the cat’s tummy.
‘I thought you had forgotten me, my old friend. It’s good to see you too.’
‘Ahh, that’s more like it. She’s missed you as much as Hades has missed Dora.’
‘I like that she’s getting feistier in her old age, a bit like me.’
Sephy laughed. ‘A bit, you’ve been grouchy since you could talk.’
‘And you’ve been sweetness and light. We can’t all be as happy as you, it’s just not possible.’
An overwhelming feeling of sickness and tiredness washed over Dora again, and she pulled out a chair to sit down. She put her arms on the table and laid her head on top of them.
‘Forgive me, Dora, in all my excitement I forgot that you needed the anti-homesickness tea.’
Sephy filled a pan with water and lit the gas ring for it to boil. Lenny shook her head.
‘You can take the girl out of the sixteen hundreds but you can’t take the sixteen hundreds out of the girl. Where is your kettle?’
‘This is my kettle.’
‘No, it’s not, you have an electric one. I bought you it.’
‘It’s in the box somewhere, you know I prefer to boil my water this way.’
‘Well, you better find it because I am not waiting around for a pan of water to boil every time I need a hot drink.’
Sephy tutted but carried on. Dora watched fascinated as her aunt took a jar filled with all sorts of herbs from the middle of the shelf and put two heaped teaspoons into a small tea pot, then she tipped the pan of boiling water into it and stirred. Taking a clear glass teacup, she picked a tea strainer out of the drawer and poured the liquid through it, adding a spoonful of honey before passing the mug to Dora.
‘Sip it gently, it will help, then it’s best if you go and lie down in your room and have a little nap. When you wake up you will feel much better and more like yourself.’
Dora lifted the mug to her nose and sniffed. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected but it didn’t smell very nice.
‘The worse it smells then the better it is for you, it’s the same with modern medicine isn’t it, Lenny?’
Lenny nodded. ‘It will help, Dora; I promise she isn’t trying to poison you even though it looks that way.’
Dora trusted Lenny more than she trusted herself, so she blew on the liquid and sipped, grimacing a little, but it didn’t taste as bad as she’d expected. Lenny and Sephy were standing shoulder to shoulder watching her and she was struck by how similar yet different they looked. They both had beautiful skin with no age spots, freckles or blemishes and the only lines they had were tiny laughter lines around their eyes. Dora knew that Lenny was sixty next month, yet her forehead was as smooth as her own and she was half her age. She had always thought that Lenny had work done, but somehow, she didn’t see Sephy as the kind of woman who would inject toxins into her skin to make her look young and she looked as ageless as Lenny.
‘What are you thinking about, Dora, you’re frowning?’ Lenny asked.
She smiled. ‘Just how beautiful you both are and whether you’ve had Botox?’
Sephy laughed. ‘Good God not at all. We are blessed with good genes, Dora, as are you, and I make a pretty good skin lotion that keeps the lines at bay, which I’ll share with you when you’re ready because you’re never too young to start.
Dora let out a huge yawn. Her eyes were getting heavy and Sephy was right, she needed a nap. She heard Lenny whisper, ‘What did you put in that tea?’
Sephy whispered back, ‘Just a little something to ease the sickness and help her sleep. We have a lot to discuss.’
Sephy came and took hold of Dora’s arm. ‘Come on, flower, let’s get you comfortable in bed and you’ll wake up feeling like a new woman. Lenny, a hand would be appreciated. Maybe I was a little too generous with the valerian root.’
Lenny softly took hold of Dora’s other elbow and they both lifted her to her feet. She smiled at them and murmured, ‘Please tell me I’m not dreaming; I want this to be real.’
‘You’re not dreaming, sweetheart.’
They led her up the first flight of stairs, down a corridor where they passed several doors, all painted in different shades of pink. Sephy pointed to the door at the far end, and they helped Dora inside. She could barely keep her eyes open, but the bed was huge, a white cast-iron frame with a big soft mattress on it. Dora sank into it when her aunts lowered her down, managing to kick off her boots as she lifted her legs and closed her eyes. She felt the weight of a heavy cotton throw being placed on top of her and the soft touch of lips as they brushed against her forehead.
‘Sweet dreams, sleepyhead.’
And then she sank into a darkness so black she couldn’t see anything, but she knew she was safe and loved. She was finally home, which was all that mattered.