Chapter 18
PRUDENCE, CHRYSANTHEMUMS & STAYING
CROW’S NEST HALLOWEEN FEST FUNDING IN DANGER!
Town’s Council voted NO on the proposal to fund the Halloween celebration in Crow’s Nest, citing scarcity of the current budget.
Our sources claim the debates ran deep into the night and focused on pagan connotations of the festival and how they encroach on religious freedoms of some of the Crow’s citizens.
Mayor Fowler was unavailable for a comment.
Watch this space, and watch the town hall.
—Crow’s Caw
“I can’t believe this!” Pru was afraid to raise her voice, she was afraid to move, she was afraid to breathe.
In her hands a chrysanthemum flower bloomed.
One that had been closed and dormant, not yet ready to show its face.
And now, in her joined palms, bright and joyful, the yellow catching the last rays of the evening sun, the petals were unfurled and moving with the gentle ocean breeze.
“You did it!” Next to her Ceridwen’s smile was soft and proud.
They had been working when time allowed, folding the lessons in between busy touristy days on the island and Pru reading everything she could get her hands on about the craft.
“And the organized cults?”
“We don’t judge, Prudence. I mean, we do, as some of them are deeply harmful.
As long as there has been magic, there have been groups of people who wanted it, desired it, appropriated it, and manipulated it.
But not all of them are evil and not all of them are destroying the world.
” Ceridwen sipped her chamomile tea and gestured around her, looking like royalty indulging in a quiet afternoon.
Pru, who had not developed a taste for herbal teas no matter how hard she tried, watched her avidly.
Books were amazing, but this? Priceless.
The wisdom, the sheer amount of information this woman possessed.
Her cozy cottage on the outskirts of town, just under the Sky Blue Cliff’s footsteps, was filled with plants and books. Walls and walls of them.
It reminded Pru of the Atelier that was coming together now that most of the interior work was finished and Rhiannon was filling the shelves with old manuscripts.
The antique spines and leathery covers kept drawing Pru in.
The secrets they held. Like the woman herself.
She shook her head at herself, at her mind that kept wandering back to Rhiannon no matter where Pru found herself and no matter what the conversation was about.
“Rhiannon had always had the knack of research, deeper and more extensive than my own curiosity had ever been. She can talk your ear off about the medieval times, the crones, and the herbalists. The midwives and the village rejects. She can write a thesis on the burnings and the hangings. And she can probably teach on the current trends and development directions of the magic-adjacent cults. Like Wicca and the others. I never cared much for the academic bent of the issue.”
Ceridwen took another sip of her tea and caressed the petals that unfurled more under her touch, their bright yellow turning more vibrant, sparkling with life and magic.
Pru gave her a furtive sideways glance, then sighed when she saw the nonchalance. Too much nonchalance.
“You know she’s restoring the old Crowhart Compendium. Does that count for something?”
Ceridwen hummed a disbelieving note.
“I’ve been waiting for her to get to it for years. But I suppose it’s a step in the right direction. As I said, she is more knowledgeable in craft history than I am. You really should—”
Pru just shook her head and Ceridwen gave her a mirthless smile.
“Ceri, I know you’re trying to get me to speak to her again. About the craft.”
“Smart girl. Two birds, one research subject. And it’s for everyone’s good. Hers. Yours. And you, my dear, have been pining. Yearning. Longing. A veritable gothic heroine on the marshes.”
“We don’t have those, Ceri. I have not been pining. Or yearning. Or longing. I’ve not been doing any of that. We talked, you know. And I’ve seen her every day these past weeks. Heck, my possum almost lives at her place.”
Ceridwen’s laughter was pure schadenfreude.
“I bet she must love that! Her pristine Persian rugs and her highly curated furniture. And there’s Patches bringing in trash for Boleyn. Priceless.”
Pru pursed her lips.
“She’s mostly over it. I mean, Patches is. The courtship has been successful. So there’s only the occasional piece of trash, something shiny usually, that she brings in. She’s like a crow, I swear.”
Ceridwen kept laughing, tears shining on her lashes.
“You can’t tell me this isn’t hilarious. And the cat?”
Pru bit the corner of her mouth to restrain her smile. It would not do to laugh at the budding romance between the two critters.
“Boleyn has allowed Patches into her sanctum.”
“If this is some kind of euphemism—”
“Ceri!” Pru lifted her hands and covered her ears. “I do not want to hear a word about this anymore.”
Ceridwen’s eyes were brimming with merry tears, and she was holding on to the table in front of her, her delight overflowing.
Pru watched her with a sense of envy she had not expected to feel.
She’d have to think about where the feeling originated and why was it so acute in her.
Was it Ceridwen herself? Or was it her unbridled freedom, her joy, that was contagious and that was so easily given?
A pair of eyes just a shade darker speared in her memory and tugged at her heart strings.
She’d give a lot to see those particular eyes be filled with this much simple happiness.
But then Rhiannon would probably dismiss the entire thought as fanciful and change the subject.
She had been doing a lot of that lately.
It felt like a careful retreat. Too careful.
Word by word. Day by day. Rhiannon was slowly laying the foundation of her own disappearance from Pru’s life, despite having told her about her wife and their marriage.
Or maybe because of it? Had Pru pushed too hard?
Had she wanted too much again? Pru thought that if she asked Rhiannon about how careful she was with her, how tentative lately, she’d say it was for her own good.
That she was just walking a thin line between overwhelming her with the past and not promising anything in terms of a future.
A very narrow path, paved with good intentions, no doubt.
Or maybe she was indeed being fanciful and there were no intentions to speak of? They had good sex. They had their businesses next to each other. Pru’s heart was her own issue, and Rhiannon wasn’t responsible for it being this foolish.
She placed the chrysanthemum gently on the worktable and stood up.
Ceridwen’s gaze followed her. When she reached the end of the small orchard where they preferred to have their lessons, Pru turned around to see Ceridwen much closer than where she left her.
A hand on her cheek forced her to look up.
“You deserve the world, Prudence. Its entirety. Not a slice, not a piece, and certainly not crumbs.”
The fingertips on her skin caressed her jaw, and a tracing her dimple before angling her face up. In the distance, a rumble of thunder made her shiver.
Pru closed her eyes and surrendered to the touch, for just one moment.
It was warm and soft and easy. Too bad none of those held her captive and refused to let her go without so much as acknowledging of the hold.
She leaned in and touched her lips to Ceridwen’s.
To see. To feel. To test. Herself mostly, but also Ceridwen.
The warmth shimmered once, just under the surface, and was gone the second Pru stepped back.
Thunder sounded much closer. As if it had entered the garden and watched them kiss.
Judging. Jealous. Yet remarkably contained.
When Pru blinked, Rhiannon stood by the gate, eyes dark and unreadable, the sky wild behind her.
And the sight of her—hair in the wind, pale skin, and feral feverish eyes—made the magic in Pru’s veins sing.
One look. One single look ignited her from within.
Whereas Ceri’s warmth was washed away in an instant by the storm of this woman.
She wanted to laugh. To rage and shake her fist at the stormy sky.
Instead, Pru lifted her face and watched raindrops fall all around her.
Then she took one step and met the rain head-on.
She did not go home. By the time she left Ceridwen, Rhiannon was long gone. Perversely, Pru wondered what would await her when she came back home. A storm? A conversation? Nothing at all?
Instead of confronting Rhiannon, Pru allowed the rain to guide her along with her thoughts. There was no escaping their direction. There was no running away from their fulcrum. No matter how much Rhiannon had shared, there were secrets standing between them like sentinels guarding their troubles.
So Pru went to the one place that could give her some answers without demanding an explanation. The one place that kept popping up in her mind every time she tugged on that loose thread of memory that she could not quite untangle.
As she rang the doorbell, she realized that not for a second did she think of the sprawled-out mansion as her home anymore. The tiny apartment was not hers either. She sighed and shuffled yet one more thought for later.
Her father’s face at seeing her was so open and joyful, Pru felt a pinprick of guilt in her chest. They didn’t see eye to eye on pretty much anything, but she knew he loved her, and that was a rare gift. She brushed her lips over his stubbly cheek and came in, the storm still raging outside.