CHAPTER ELEVEN #3
He was clever. He was extremely well travelled.
He smelled of sesame and ink and he loved the poets Clementine St Constantine and E.N.
Millar. However, he seemed to hate the house and all of its creaking floors and broken light switches.
He complained constantly to Dot about Theodora and her enterprises and the work she had given him and his inability to go outside or to pay for the poetics journal he liked, and the whole time Dot fretted over her unfashionably long hair and bizarre, bandaged hand, and was, frequently, quite unable to say anything at all.
From that moment with the stew, she became quite taken with him, and quite irritated at herself.
For Dot was, by disposition, prone to having small infatuations with men she had barely spoken to.
This was just one item upon the very long list of things that, she was well aware, made her strange.
Willard had always enjoyed pointing out these traits; it had been his favourite hobby in all of Seafarthing.
Dot found Lio interesting and handsome and, at intervals, almost kind to her, and of course entirely different to every man she had hitherto met.
Yet, whatever small rapport she had built with him was shaken severely when she caught him very early one Wednesday morning, reading a letter that did not belong to him.
It was not unusual for Dot to wake at odd hours, sometimes falling asleep in the afternoon and missing dinner entirely only to rise, groggy, at two or three o’clock in the morning.
She did so on this particular Wednesday and went slowly down the stairs to fetch water from the kitchen.
She did not switch on the lights, so as not to disturb the slumbering house, and there she spotted Lio in the moonlight, transfixed by a maroon-coloured envelope in his hands.
‘Whatever are you doing?’ she asked too loudly.
Lio jumped a metre skyward. He hid the dark envelope from view.
‘Why in heaven’s name are you sneaking around?’
‘I was just—’
‘Never mind,’ said Lio, storming up the stairs and past her. He shoved the envelope into the breast pocket of his pyjamas, and as he did, Dot caught a glimpse of the name. Not Lio, nor Liutprand, nor Robert.
That letter had been for Theodora.
She found herself watching him a little more carefully after that: how he dipped to the storeroom too frequently during his tea shop shifts, how he missed breakfast most days, how he drank his tea. He was kind to Rupert. He was charming to the customers. He was radiant when he wanted to be.
Rupert was yet more confusing. She often caught the boy glaring at her. If she tried to speak with him, he would pretend not to hear. If she entered the kitchen or living room while he was present, he vacated promptly, and Dot was left wondering what she had done to offend him so.
Belchamber, however, was warm and gentle and asked her questions, and she adored him for it.
He taught her about the spirits and the complex rostering system of the tea shop staff.
(‘Alison only works every second Thursday, while Leafe prefers the mid-morning rush. Thistlethwaite gets along with almost no one, and especially not Seamus, which is why those two are never rostered the same day, though she is at least a tidy spirit and Theodora is endeared to her . . .’)
Dot threw herself into her magic lessons; it was all she could do to distract from the affliction.
Theodora had delivered to her room a stack of books: An Anthology of Sortilegium, Daemonology & the Spirits, 1001 Common Runes.
Dot read these with more fervour than she ever had her university texts.
Soon, she had ten runes memorised. Not long after that, she had twenty.
Assisting with packet spells, however, took her a little longer to master.
‘Quick, Dorothy,’ said Theodora as they worked together one Thursday afternoon. ‘The talons will curdle.’
Dot scanned the myriad shelves of the basement workshop.
‘Eye of newt,’ repeated the witch. ‘Before the mixture boils.’
Dot’s hands clenched and unclenched: one bare, one bandaged.
‘Do you need help?’ asked Theodora.
‘No.’
Dot checked the far side of the room again. She rifled through the jars.
‘Not there,’ said Theodora. ‘Down to your left. In the crate.’
Dried amaranth, red lentils, goanna claws, batwing. Nothing at all slimy nor amphibious. Panic rose in her. Dot’s throat tightened.
‘Dorothy,’ said the witch.
‘I’m trying,’ said Dot.
‘They’re just down there.’
‘Where?’
‘There!’
Dot threw up her arms. ‘Theodora, there aren’t any newt eyes here!’
The outburst startled them both. Dot’s hands flew over her mouth. Theodora stared.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Dot, shrinking, ‘I didn’t mean to. Oh, I’m so sorry. I just—’
Dot braced for the witch’s hostility. Oh, she had ruined everything. Theodora would tell her that she was a burden, that she was an imbecile, that she should leave the tea shop for good.
‘Eye of newt,’ said Theodora after a moment, ‘isn’t newt eyes. It’s mustard seed.’
And the witch burst into bright and beautiful laughter.
A deep blush crept over Dot’s face. She turned to the buckets beside her and immediately spotted a container of sand-coloured seeds.
She scooped a cupful and when her eyes met Theodora’s, the witch doubled over and wheezed.
Dot covered her face in her hands. The witch’s cackles rang through the room until, at last, Dot gave in and laughed too.