Chapter 22
PRUDENCE, STEALING HISTORY & CONFRONTATIONS
GRAND OPENING OF CROW & CAT RUINED!
The Crowharts are cursed! Rhiannon Crowhart’s antique bookstore unveiled its new name today, and while most attendees seemed to enjoy the fun behind Crow & Cat, someone did not appreciate it nor the owner.
Lisa Poorson caused quite a commotion with hair-raising accusations and insults, and the store itself was broken into.
Sheriff Redding stated that nothing was stolen. Instead, the culprit left a bloody souvenir behind.
Has the creepiness of Halloween started a touch too early in Crow’s Nest? Or is Rhiannon Crowhart being targeted?
Watch Crow & Cat on Market Square.
—Crow’s Caw
In the resulting cacophony of people rushing into Crow & Cat, of Rhiannon coaxing Boleyn and Patches out from the chimney, of Lachlan checking all entrances, and of Victoria cursing out everything and everyone, Prudence tried to stay out of the way.
“How the fuck did she even get in? And again? I thought you changed the locks.” Victoria’s voice was hard, her hands bending and unbending a piece of pipe she had brought with her.
Pru made a mental note to have Ceridwen teach her that move.
Making flowers bloom was great and so was setting barrier around herself or around anyone else, but twisting a metal pipe into a knot? That was next level.
She moved closer to Rhiannon, who was pacing the length of the shop, and took the picture out of her trembling hands. Pru was certain Rhiannon didn’t even realize she had done that.
“I changed them here.” Lachlan shrugged and looked at her apologetically. “We didn’t think we needed to do so upstairs.”
Victoria unknotted the pipe from the neat bow she had made just seconds earlier.
“You didn’t think. Great. Amazing.”
“Can we please focus on the issue at hand and not on assigning blame?” Ceridwen, the voice of reason, moved to stand between Victoria and Rhiannon.
Pru tuned out the bickering and looked at the photograph.
In the brilliance of the morning sun pouring through the east-facing windows, the dark brown eyes looked particularly expressive on the glossy print, even if half the face was smeared in crimson.
The paint transferred to her fingertips and stood in sharp relief on her pale skin.
Pru barely noticed it, no matter how stark the contrast or how vivid the imagery. She had seen it before, this crimson on her hands. In her dreams, two months ago, the day Rhiannon unlocked her magic.
“For what is yours, for the sin, you shall bleed.”
The words from her vision didn’t scare her. Not as much as the eyes on the picture she was holding. The beautiful, doomed ones that watched her, unseeing. The eyes she had seen all her life. The eyes she had looked into just a few days ago.
The eyes from the portrait in her father’s study.
It felt a bit surreal, all the little tendrils of information, snippets of premonitions, pieces of the puzzle that had been laid in front of her these past few months, had all led to this.
“I confess nothing quite has the allure of Europe, the French croissants alone are to be tasted to be believed…”
“Margaux was married in Europe…”
“Blackmailed on Dragons…”
“Mayor Fowler wanted the building for ages…”
Her skin crawled and she was afraid she might lose her breakfast at any moment, still Pru stuck it out and stayed with Rhiannon as the first wave of panic subsided.
Rhiannon kept throwing her strange looks, wordless inquiries about her silence, but Pru just held her, running her hands through the long curls, feeling the auburn warm her skin, sinking into the muted thrum of contained magic, letting her own settle around them, calming them both, even if Rhiannon could not feel its true heat.
“Are you okay?”
Pru nodded, hiding her face in the crook of Rhiannon’s neck. What could she say? Should she say anything?
Her father… Her own father…
Loyalty was a concept Prudence never struggled with. Her family was known for sticking together through thick and thin. They weren’t close, the Fowlers, and yet they were survivors, and family above all was expected and delivered by all.
But what was family? Her heart beat in her ears, a steady tattoo of life, of love. What a time to realize she was irrevocably in love. The love people lived for. The love people died for. What a time to realize that family was here, in her arms, even if they’d be empty soon enough.
And so there were no questions of loyalty.
“I have to run an errand, Rhiannon.”
She realized how seldom she said the name out loud, how sweet it was, how much she craved it, the taste, the feel of it in her mouth. She ran her thumbs over the sharp edges of the beloved face.
Beloved. Beloved. Beloved.
Rhiannon narrowed her eyes but dropped her arms, setting her free, and Pru wanted to scream, to fall to the floor and beg her not to.
“Hold me forever!”
But once her question of loyalty was answered, other questions rose even more stringently. She needed answers. And she needed them now.
“I…” I love you. I love you. I love you. “I’ll see you later.”
Rhiannon’s “Come what is meant,” so foreign in that sad, low voice, accompanied Pru all the way to the town hall. It could only mean that Rhiannon had figured out her “errand” was important and was sending her on her with a blessing. Well, she better use some of that blessing, then.
The guard at the massive doors smiled as she passed by him, unconcerned with the presence of the mayor’s daughter in the archives.
All the clues pointed toward the fact that she would likely not find what she had been looking for, and the absence of a divorce decree was her answer. There was a marriage license, but no divorce decree. The groom was marked as “never married” in the paperwork.
Once she triple-checked the boxes in the section inscribed with the year of the marriage, she made herself triple-check the year before it. Then another one before that.
My parents’ marriage was illegal.
She tried not to think, tried to focus on what she had to do. Simply knowing in her gut wasn’t enough. Pru knew she needed evidence.
Heart sinking, she walked the length of the island to the Fowler mansion, thoughts leapfrogging each other in her head.
The evening settled around her shoulders as a shawl, and Pru felt like a thief.
Well, when all was said and done, she was one.
She didn’t bother knocking, the spare key in her hand burning her skin.
The town’s council was in session, and her father was spending more and more time at the town hall anyway, the latest debacle with Paloma Allende and the permits for the works on Viridescent Cliff and Astronomy Resort having him on the ropes.
The hallways and the dining rooms were all a blur until she burst through the door of the small study and looked into the dark brown eyes of the portrait.
The last pieces of the complex, tainted puzzle clicked into place loudly, making her flinch.
She felt tears fall freely down her cheeks and tried to wipe them away.
It wasn’t a time for them. And she shouldn’t cry for any of these people anyway.
They made their beds. The only one who stepped into the eye of the storm guileless and honest was Rhiannon, and she had been the one to drink from the poisoned chalice for everyone.
Pru took the portrait down, refusing to look at it again. She wrapped it in papers from her father’s desk, caring very little what she was ruining or about concealing her presence in the mansion. He’d know she was here anyway. She stuffed the small canvas under her cardigan.
For a brief moment she stopped in her mother’s bedroom and glanced at the Belcourt statues holding such prominent place.
The reasons he had kept them were now glaringly obvious, cold against her body despite the clothing.
Had he loved Margaux? Maybe. A French woman of dubious reputation would’ve certainly caused a lot of issues for him.
Pru tried to remember anything loving about her grandfather, the one who was mayor before her father, and couldn’t. The older Fowler was…not a kind man.
Now, her mother was another story. From an influential and rich family, she’d have gotten Jedidiah the blessing he likely sought. So, was it his guilt? Is that why Margaux was everywhere in this house? Was this his penance? Pru couldn’t quite fathom any of these scenarios.
Still, Pru saw the room with new eyes. Her father kept so few of her mother’s things, practically nothing, the space having been stripped of the wallpaper that she had picked years ago, yet the Belcourts remained.
They didn’t fit—not in her mind, and not in the room.
Heck, not even in the mansion. The Fowler home was all Victorian elegance, and the Belcourts were sharp edges of the modernity her father had so often railed against.
As she made her way to the ground floor again, she passed by the perpetually closed door of the Fowler library and something stilled her steps, forcing her to stop in front of it.
It was unlocked, and as she flipped the light on, she almost gagged at the dust and musty air surrounding her.
Books were stacked up to the very ceiling, papers were strewn all over the floor. The chaos and mess were overwhelming.
Pru was never allowed to be in here. Now the space seemed truly fascinating despite the wreckage.
She was always told to stay out of the library and that it was for her own good.
It was full of easily breakable things, important papers, books that were hundreds of years old.
Nothing a child could handle carefully. Not a place for her.