Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
AGNES
The bell above the door chimed at half past ten, and I looked up from my list of inventory to see Liora pushing through with a laptop bag over her shoulder and a travel mug of what smelled like very strong coffee.
Bracken, her squirrel familiar, darted between her feet and raced across the room, his eyes twinkling up at me. I bent to scratch his wee head, charmed by him.
“Aren’t you handsome?” I asked and Liora grinned.
“He seems to think so.”
Bracken puffed his chest out and I laughed even though it was the last thing I felt like doing this morning. I’d dreaded Liora’s arrival today, knowing I could no longer put off what I’d thought I’d done so well managing on my own.
I’d barely slept. Every time I’d closed my eyes, I’d seen Graham’s face on the street—that mixture of love and frustration that made my stomach twist in knots. And beneath that, Liora’s words had echoed on repeat.
A thread connecting you to the Stone.
A dark knot.
Pivotal.
“You look terrible,” Liora said cheerfully, setting her bag on the counter.
“Thank you. That’s exactly what every woman wants to hear.”
“I mean it in a concerned friend’s way.” She pulled out her laptop and a small pouch that clinked with crystals. “Hence why I’m here. As promised.”
I glanced toward the front windows. The street outside was quiet—mid-morning lull before the lunch rush. A few people wandered past, but no one seemed interested in browsing for books.
“Should I lock up?”
“Probably wise.” Liora was already opening her laptop. “Unless you want to share your reading with a customer.”
I flipped the closed sign and threw the lock.
Tuesday mornings were rarely busy, and despite myself, I glanced across the street at the pub.
Had Graham lain awake like I had last night?
Wondering? Guilt gnawed at me. Maybe it was time I just told him what I knew, even if it meant he’d try to prove it wrong.
Nope, that way lay his destruction. I knew that in my very bones. Keeping this from him had been the right—the only—choice I’d had.
Sometimes doing the right thing meant hurting those you cared about. But I’d rather he walked around with a bruised ego than not have him around at all.
When I turned back, Liora had settled into one of the armchairs I kept in the reading nook, her laptop balanced on her knees. Bracken had relocated to the arm of the chair, grooming his tail with an air of studied nonchalance.
“Right,” Liora said, patting the chair across from her. “Let’s try this again.”
Last time, I received confirmation of everything I’d always thought to be true.
But there was more. And the researcher in me needed more information.
I sat, tucking my legs beneath me and reaching automatically for the moss agate bracelet at my wrist. The stones were cool and smooth, grounding me the way they always did.
“We did most of your chart before,” Liora said, fingers flying over the keyboard. “But we were interrupted before I could really dig into what evolved. And after what I saw at the loch, I think it’s just smart that we examine this further.”
She reached into the pouch and pulled out a clear quartz crystal, pressing it into my palm. “Hold this. It sometimes helps people tune into the frequency.”
“Wait. Will I be able to see the threads?” I asked, surprised.
The crystal was cool against my palm, and I curled my fingers around it, feeling faintly ridiculous. And yet, hope teased me at the corner of my mind.
“I don’t know. I’m still pretty new to this chartweaving stuff, but Sophie’s friend, Matthew, was able to see his briefly, so I’m hoping we can figure out how you can too.
For now, use the stone, and focus. We’ll just see what comes of it.
” Her tone was bright, and I couldn’t help but be emboldened by her optimism.
Liora closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and when she opened them again, something had shifted in her gaze. She looked ... farther away, somehow. Like part of her was seeing something beyond the walls of my little shop.
“Okay,” she murmured. “Here we go.”
She turned back to the laptop, and I watched as she traced her finger above the screen—not touching it, just hovering—as her lips moved silently.
At first, nothing happened.
Then the air between us began to shimmer.
I blinked, certain I was imagining it. But no, there it was, a faint silvery glow rising from the laptop screen, threads of light weaving themselves into a web that hung suspended in the air like a three-dimensional map.
“Oh,” I breathed.
“You can see it?”
“I ... yes. I think so. Faintly.”
The threads pulsed gently, and I realized I could feel them too—a low vibration in my chest, as if I was standing too close to a bass speaker. The crystal in my palm grew warmer.
“That’s your chart,” Liora said softly. “Not just the symbols on a screen, but the actual energy of it. These are the patterns of fate that were written into you the moment you took your first breath.”
I stared at the web of light, mesmerized. Some threads glowed gold and others silver. They intersected and diverged, forming a pattern that was somehow both chaotic and perfectly ordered.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.
“It is.” Liora’s voice was gentle. “You are. Your chart, I mean. It’s one of the most complex I’ve ever seen. All that earth and water—you’re built for depth, Agnes. For holding things. Stories. It’s like, I don’t know, you’re a vessel, really.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not, but I didn’t interrupt.
“Now, watch this thread here.” She pointed to a strand that pulsed between two points on the web. “This is your Venus-Saturn conjunction. Partnership and restriction, bound together.”
The thread shimmered gold and charcoal by turns.
“That’s the soulmate energy I mentioned. The fated feeling. But see how it keeps shifting colors? That’s the obstacle. Something blocking the flow.”
My throat tightened. “The supposed curse on my bloodline, aye?”
“Maybe. Though I’m not a fan of the word curse.
Let’s find out.” Liora leaned closer to the web, her eyes tracking something I couldn’t quite follow.
“I’m going to trace the thread. See where it leads.
Just ... try to stay grounded, okay? I’m not going to tug it or reweave it or anything like that, but usually when I touch these threads, I get images.
I can kind of see how certain things will play out. So let’s just take a look.”
I nodded, gripping the crystal tighter.
Liora’s fingers moved through the air, following the gold and charcoal thread deeper into the web. As she did, images began to flicker at the edges of my vision—fragments, like photographs caught in a strobe light.
Graham laughing behind the bar at The Tipsy Thistle.
Graham standing in my doorway years ago, rain dripping from his hair, asking me why.
Graham’s hands on my waist, his mouth on mine, and that feeling—that feeling of finally, finally being exactly where I was supposed to be.
My eyes burned.
“You loved him,” Liora said softly. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“You still do.”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t make my voice work around the knot in my throat. If I said it out loud, would that make the threat real? Would the loch claim Graham just as they’d claimed every man a woman in my family had loved before me?
Liora’s fingers stilled. “Agnes. I found it.”
“Found what?”
“The knot. The thing that’s blocking the thread.” She pulled her hand back slowly, her face pale. “I need you to see this. Can you lean in? Focus on where my finger was pointing?”
I leaned in, squinting at the web of light. At first, I couldn’t see anything different, just the same pulsing threads, the same shimmering pattern.
Then something shifted and I saw it.
Where the gold and charcoal thread should have flowed smoothly, there was a tangle. A knot of something darker, wound tight around the strand like a vine strangling a tree.
“What is that?” My voice came out hoarse.
“I don’t know exactly.” Liora’s voice was barely above a whisper. “But it’s old, Agnes. And it’s not just in your chart—it’s like it’s connected to something else. Something outside of you?”
“The Stone?”
“Maybe. Or...” She hesitated. “When I saw this during your reading before, I got flashes. And one of them was the loch and something moving beneath the surface.”
The Beithir. My stomach turned to ice.
“And when I saw that thread rising up during the battle—the one connecting you to the island—I’m pretty sure this was part of it.
This dark strand. It’s the same color, the same, I don’t know, texture, I guess?
It’s like...” She struggled for words. “It’s bound.
I don’t know. I’m sorry, I’m just trying to read what I see. ”
Gran’s warning. The loch takes what we love.
“Can you see where it leads?” I asked, my voice steadier than I felt. “The dark strand. Where does it connect?”
Liora bit her lip. “I can try. But Agnes ... I’m worried. I don’t like this at all. And I don’t know what I’m pulling.”
“I need to know,” I said, leaning forward, gripping my hands together, the crystal warming in my palms. Anxiety gnawed in my gut.
“Whatever it is, however bad, I need to understand what I’m dealing with.
I’ve spent years running from this. Accepting it without question because my grandmother told me to.
But I’m done running. I have to be. And, if what you say is correct, well, then somehow, I’m involved and it’s not going to get any better the more I try and run from … whatever this is.”
Liora held my gaze for a long moment, then she nodded. She turned back to the web, her fingers hovering near the dark knot. I watched her take a steadying breath, watched her face shift into that faraway expression as she sank deeper into whatever sight allowed her to navigate these threads.
Slowly, carefully, she began to trace the dark strand.
The air in the shop grew colder, and a chill crept up from the floorboards like mist off the loch.