Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Florence, Now
Only a handful of customers had come in that afternoon, almost as if the shop had decided against its normal habit of enticing people off the streets.
Normally, Florence would welcome the quiet.
It gave her a chance to wander and see what new mysteries Ink & Pages had for her, to be alone with her thoughts.
But the last thing she wanted now was space to think.
The look in Evie’s eyes stayed with Florence long after the door closed behind her. It should’ve been easy to go with her, to hold her hand as she took in the damage—whatever that might be—to be the sister Evie needed and the aunt Clara deserved. But Florence’s fear bound her to the shop.
Even the thought of going up the driveway, of seeing the front door, the yellow walls, the black-trimmed windows, made her palms sweat and her heart race and her throat close up.
She wanted to tell herself it was the curse.
With October thirteenth so close, she couldn’t bring herself to go back there.
But if that were the case, she could’ve visited these last thirteen years, or at the very least driven past.
The first year, she tried to stop by on Evie’s birthday only to end up pulling over in a full-blown panic attack.
She’d given it another shot after Clara was born and she was old enough to understand birthdays, but as soon as Florence reached the bend in the road that would reveal the old Queen Anne, her eyes spotted over and there was a roaring in her ears.
The year her mother died, the curse had almost claimed Florence instead.
Her mother had summoned her and Evie home with a spell, and though Florence had tried to talk her sister out of listening to the call, Evie feared for their mother’s life.
When they’d arrived, the honeysuckle vines had wound their way around Florence.
They’d pinned her to the ground. They’d closed around her windpipe.
Then, they stopped. Like they’d never touched her at all. The curse had taken her mother instead.
But it wasn’t only the curse that kept Florence from going home.
She couldn’t visit Honeysuckle House without being reminded of everything bad that had happened behind its walls.
Though her mom was long gone, Florence’s memories of her lived on—not only in her mind, but in her body.
She rubbed at the scar along her forearm and wished she were stronger, or at least a little bit closer to healing.
She considered calling Evie, but after the way things had gone earlier, that probably wasn’t the best idea. Better to give her sister space.
Instead, she sent a text to Angela.
Is the house still standing?
She’d hoped for an immediate response, but the message had sat unread for the past hour, twisting up her stomach even more. She stood idly scratching between Ink’s ears with one hand and tapping her fingernails against the counter with the other. She needed a distraction.
Her eyes landed on the front window.
“What do you think we should put on display?” she asked Ink. “I’m leaning toward something seasonal.”
The kitten blinked his eyes open and looked up at her, but he didn’t speak. Of course he didn’t. Her niece might have summoned him, but he was still a cat.
“Do you have any ideas?” she asked the shop.
In response, there came a thump, thump, thump of books hitting the ground a few shelves over.
Ink rubbed his head against her hand before he hopped up, leapt from the counter, and trotted off in the direction of the sound.
Florence followed him into the stacks, where she found a handful of paperbacks laying face up in the aisle, the same ones that were waiting for her that morning. All books about sisters.
It was just like the shop to be at once helpful and meddling—the way Florence imagined a good mother might be. She gathered up the paperbacks along with the kitten and headed over to the front window.
Ink sat atop the stack of books in her arms as she stared at the current display.
A banner of fake leaves hung across the glass.
Beneath it, hand lettering read, “Fall in love with reading.” From the leaves they’d hung a host of romances perfect for the season.
And, of course, an empty shelf for the shop to add whatever book a passerby might need.
Now, it seemed, the shop wanted her to put witchy books on display. “We need something catchy for the window,” she said to kitten. “Maybe, ‘Reading is magical?’ Is that too corny?”
Ink looked up at her, tail twitching, and meowed in response before he started swiping his paw at one of the dangling books.
“That’s not a no.”
Florence shifted away from the banner, trying not to drop the kitten and the paperbacks along with him. Ink meowed in protest before leaping off the stack and slinking away to make mischief elsewhere, leaving Florence even more alone than before.
As she considered the window display, Owen appeared on the other side of glass. Their eyes met, and he held up a bag of lemons and several cans of kitten food. After everything that had happened, Florence forgot he promised to come back.
Despite the unfamiliar warmth in her chest, she willed her smile away.
She was glad Owen was there, in more ways than one, but most importantly because he was in danger at Honeysuckle House.
Even if she hadn’t grown close to him yet, she could feel desire turning the pages of her heart, and she feared that would be enough to make him a target for her family’s curse.
She reached the door before he did and held it open, the tinkling of the bell overhead mirroring an unwelcome flutter in her chest that she promptly ignored.
Until she could get him to agree to stay away from Honeysuckle House, she couldn’t risk even thinking how nice it was to be shorter than someone for once—by at least five inches!
—or how seeing him cast an unexpected light into far corners of her heart she’d long abandoned. He smiled down at her.
Before Florence could say anything, Ink shot out the door and wound his way around Owen’s legs. “I guess wet food was the right choice.” He held out the bag of lemons and said, “I wasn’t sure how many you needed. I figured the more the better.”
Florence was starting to think there weren’t enough lemons in the world to protect her family. “At this rate, my sister probably needs them more than I do.”
“I can bring some back to Honeysuckle House with me,” Owen said.
Florence blinked at him. “You’re going back there?”
He tilted his head to the side. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Don’t tell me Evie is already letting people in the house again.” Florence’s anger took the place of the shame that had settled into her.
“I’m not following,” Owen said.
“Wait. You don’t know?” At his blank look, she said, “Honeysuckle House caught fire.”
Owen’s eyes flashed with something Florence couldn’t quite read. He covered his mouth with his hand and glanced out the shop windows as if he could see the house from there. “I heard someone talking about a fire at the store, but I didn’t realize … Is your family okay?”
“They were here when it happened,” Florence said.
“And the house?” he asked. “The bees?”
Florence hadn’t even thought about the bees. At that moment, her phone vibrated. She fished it out to find Angela’s name staring up at her.
The house is okay. Evie and Clara are staying with me tonight. We’ll be here a little longer if you think you can manage it.
A little bubble popped up showing Angela was typing something else. Then it disappeared, reappeared, disappeared, until, finally, one last message came through.
I know it would mean a lot to Evie.
Florence stared at her phone, the anxiety that had wound itself up in a knot in her chest finally starting to unravel.
“It looks like the house is okay.” Florence set the lemons down near the register and leaned against the counter for support. Then, she mumbled, “I should be there.”
“It sounds like I may need to get another room for the night,” Owen said. “I can give you a ride.”
Florence glanced up at him. If ever there was a time to try to visit the house again, it was now. She was going to be thirty-nine in a few days. She needed to lay her old ghosts to rest.
But she couldn’t do that with Owen, not with the curse closing in on her.
“I need to watch the shop,” she said.
Owen took a quick look around them. The room was empty save the two of them and the cat.
“Are you sure?” Owen asked. “I’m already headed that way.”
She opened her mouth and almost agreed to go with him. Then she shook her head.
“I’ll put these here, then.” He set the cat food on the counter. “See you around?”
Florence nodded. “Thanks for this.”
His answering smile only made everything much worse. Florence watched him turn and walk away. Once he was well out of sight, she took a long, slow breath. Then, she flipped the sign to Closed and grabbed her bag, leaving her new kitten in the shop’s capable hands.
The fall chill still hung in the air. Florence let a breeze blow her loose hair across her face and opened the car door.
She dropped her bag in the passenger seat, then took a steadying breath before she turned the key.
The rain started up once more as she left downtown and followed the winding road that would take her to her childhood home.
With each passing second, her heart rate kicked up. Her hands felt sweaty, her chest and throat and face, hot. “You can do this,” she whispered to herself. As she neared the last bend in the road, her breath came in shallow gasps.
Her vision began to spot over.
Her throat constricted.
Her chest burned.
She moved the car to the side of the road and cut the engine. She dropped her head as she tried to catch her breath. Her tears fell hard and fast as rain pounded against the roof, and a sob tore through her throat.
“It’s not fair!” she shouted. “I’m supposed to be past this by now!
” She cried, and she cried, and she cried.
The house was only a few hundred feet away, just out of sight, but she couldn’t bring herself to see it.
She closed her eyes tight, let the panic take her.
It coursed through her hot and sharp until her breath came in shallow gasps and her whole body shook with the force of it. Then, the anger came.
“You did this to me!” she screamed as if her mother could hear her. “You made it impossible for me to go back there. I used to love that house. Now I can’t even look at it!”
She slammed her fist into the steering wheel, and the horn blared. “Dad is dead because of you. You kept us here. You knew what could happen to him, to any of us, and did nothing to stop it.”
Her voice had gone hoarse, but still she carried on.
“I’m supposed to be free from you. You’re gone, and I’m glad.
I’ve been glad since the day it happened and I knew I’d never have to hear your voice again.
You’d never get another chance to twist me up inside and make me doubt who I am and who I’ve become.
You’d never get to hurt me. But here I am, still hurting and still broken and still unable to be who I need to be for Evie. ”
Florence threw back her head and screamed. Everything she’d done to protect her family had been for nothing. She was as lost as she’d always been, still living in her mother’s shadow.
As she sat in her car on the side of the road weeping and raging and feeling more alone than ever, something warm brushed the fabric of her skirt.
Then, a gentle kneading. She blinked her eyes open and swiped at her still-falling tears to find Ink—who she thought she’d left back at the bookstore—had crawled halfway out of her canvas bag and set to making biscuits out of her thigh.
He looked up at her through wide yellow eyes and meowed softly.
Florence laughed through her tears and dropped her hand to scratch between his ears.
He immediately butted his head against her palm and started purring.
Though Florence worried after her niece and her magic and what it might mean for the curse, she found herself grateful for Clara’s spell.
She lifted Ink and held him to her chest as she looked out over her steering wheel, where she knew, just beyond the trees, Honeysuckle House waited for her. Ink rubbed his head against her chin, and she wept into his fur.