22. Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
A n ear-piercing shriek and crash sent Willow running into the shop in time to see a flash of orange fly through the open door and across the courtyard.
‘Not again,’ Willow said. Boxes of tea lay scattered on the floor and A Spell for Calm candle rolled towards her. She scooped it up and mumbled, ‘I wish,’ under her breath. At least there were no customers this time to appease with apologies and complimentary tea. It was becoming difficult to explain the random behaviour of the usually genteel cat without mentioning the ghostly feline. They either didn’t believe, became scared, or embroiled Willow into a discussion on hauntings which lasted forever.
‘Yes, again,’ said Amber as she retrieved the packages and continued to replenish the depleted shelves. ‘I think Vincent and Black Cat have unfinished business.’
‘Vincent and I have unfinished business. It’s getting beyond a joke. I’ll have no stock by the time they sort it out between themselves.’
‘It isn’t his fault. BC keeps appearing, provoking a reaction. Vincent has a reputation to keep up. He’ll have gone to strut around town where he is king to feel better. Honestly, though, Black Cat is never normally so active. Can’t you do something? Talk to him maybe,’ said Amber.
‘To Black Cat? The fact he’s still here centuries after his first sighting is a testament to his perseverance of staying. I doubt I can do anything. He’ll have retreated to wherever ghost cats go by now.’ When she first moved into the crumbling shop, curiosity led her to dig into its history hoping to find more on Old Percy, his real name at least, but while the apothecary remained elusive, she was surprised to find records about a ghostly black cat wandering around the street in the 1850s. As with real black cats, some believed he was a warning of trouble ahead, others believed he brought luck. Since he showed Willow the store and her next chapter of her life began, she’d always believed in the latter, but the recent chaos he was creating didn’t feel lucky at all.
‘Well, he’s hanging around for a reason. There is a change in the air, I can feel it,’ Amber said, dismantling the boxes.
This echoed Willow’s view, but to hear it out loud made her uneasy. What was coming?
‘So, was love in the air at yours yesterday?’
‘For me, at least. Look at what Jack got me.’ Amber waved her arm making a silver bracelet with a dragonfly charm gleam in the light, ‘He also made me dinner, candles, the works—the vegetarian lasagne was burnt but it didn’t matter. It’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?’
Willow listened to her apprentice gush over her romantic evening. How simple youthful love seemed. Willow hoped it stayed that way for the pair. She’d witnessed Jack and Amber’s friendship blossom into first love with the exponential rise of heart doodles and portraits of him on the Emporium’s notepads and receipts. Every scrap of paper succumbed to graffiti when creativity hit if Amber’s sketchbook was not in reach, reminiscent of living with Louise in their uni days. Willow would miss them when she went to university. Maybe BC’s increased sightings were nothing to do with Willow, Nate, and a teapot with its zany tea cosy, but her junior apprentice. A warning of the challenges ahead for the young pair as they headed into a year of fresh adventures. It made sense, Willow decided, Amber was as integral to the Emporium as she was.
‘What about your dad? He’s not replied to any messages. He went, didn’t he?’
It was a shame if his nerves stopped him going. The pair had been talking online for weeks after forming a connection over a shared love of gardening. Willow saw the potential chemistry flowing in the real world.
‘He went, but I don’t think it will be an everlasting love affair. But he is seeing her again at the weekend.’ Amber shook with laughter, but she refused to elaborate under Willow’s interrogation. It was his story to tell.
***
‘Let’s just say, Wills, it wouldn’t have mattered what I wore, especially the finer details like the shirt buttons I was worried about. Her eyesight was dire, and she refused to wear glasses because they make her look old. Old. She was old enough to be my grandmother. Don’t laugh. It was excruciating.’
Vincent opened a lazy eye as Glenn’s voice echoed around the back room from the speakerphone and resumed his snoring curled up beside her feet while she caught up with paperwork at her desk. He had long been forgiven his antics. Rosa’s voice serving customers drifted in from the shop floor. Willow visualised Glenn dressed up, expecting the beautiful slender woman he had seen on her profile, only to be confronted by the aged version, and felt his pain.
‘She wanted a toy boy?’
‘I don’t think she did, not really. She’s nice and liked the flirting but then we got on well. She wanted to come clean. Face to face. She was very apologetic for duping me.’
‘But Amber said you were seeing her again at the weekend?’
‘I am. We spoke about gardening and her late husband’s roses. I’m going to hers in a professional capacity to see her garden. If the dating side of things isn’t working, at least I’m getting new customers. What about you? Were you surprised by a dozen red roses on your doorstep?’
‘No roses. No card. But I got a teapot and tea cosy.’
‘Well, that’s one way to get to your heart. From whom?’
Willow remained silent but doodled a series of interlocking hearts on a scrap of paper. Bloody hell, I’m turning into a teenager. She dropped the pen to the floor. Vincent pounced, ready for a fresh game.
‘Ah, Nate. Have you spoken to him?’
‘No. There was no name, it might not have been him.’ She ripped off the offending page of drawings letting her know exactly what her heart thought.
‘But you suspect it was? Just do it.’
‘I don’t want a relationship, Glenn.’
‘It isn’t a relationship; it is polite to say thanks. The gift was thoughtful. Go on. Just do it. Now.’
***
‘Every night, it’s the same. As soon as I switch the fan on, he moans. I open the window and he moans about the seagulls. Seagulls, I ask you. He should experience the hot flushes I do, and he wouldn’t moan about the bloody seagulls. This is the man who slept through our Susan screaming as a baby.’ Willow forced herself to focus on Mrs Pugh but failed. She had heard it all before, and once Mrs Pugh started talking, she rarely paused for breath. Her mind drifted to the conversation with Glenn and cursed him; responding to the gift wasn’t that easy. When she opened her phone, Nate’s face filled the screen, sending her heart racing. His voice would draw her in, making it impossible to walk away again. From the corner of her eye, a gaggle of teenage girls hovered around the Wishing Spell range, all with their mobiles out taking selfies and texting. Probably to each other. Maybe that was the way to do it. A text, a brief message that was simple, impersonal, but polite.
‘Don’t you agree?’ said Mrs Pugh. Willow hoped she nodded in the correct place and urged time to hurry so she could close the shop and be alone. Away from Rosa and the ghosts.
***
With tea brewing in the pot, Willow sat at the kitchen table with Vincent sprawled on it.
‘Okay, let’s do this.’ Inspired by the teenagers, she snapped a photo of the teapot and its tea cosy followed by a short thanks, ignoring the last message he’d sent asking Why? She pressed send before she could delete.
Her phone pinged with an incoming message while she took her first sip of tea. She gingerly opened it.
‘Glad you like it. How’s the tea? That place lures you in like the Emporium.’
‘What do I do now?’ Willow asked Vincent who didn’t respond, ‘He’ll expect an answer.’ Torn, it was tempting to switch off her phone and ignore him. It’s a text, it means nothing. Her phone pinged again. An image of a red teapot for one sat on an immaculate kitchen surface, unlike hers. It was easy to visualise the surrounding monochrome sterile kitchen with all the mod cons. What must he have thought of her mismatch of styles and old furniture?
‘I even drink tea at work. You have converted me to at least one a day.’
‘You make tea in a pot at work?’ she replied. Willow wasn’t sure exactly what he did except it was his PA’s wife who let out Sand Dale cottage. There were so many things she didn’t know.
‘Of course, I have it on authority, teabags are for heathens. Well, George makes it. He finds the process quite relaxing.’
‘Unbelievable. You make your PA make your tea–that doesn’t count.’
The conversation pinged back and forth, making it easy to fall into the banter until her tea was cold. She spluttered out the icy tea. What was she doing? Her heart leapt with joy and a smile formed while the alarm bells rang louder, but she continued to type a reply.
Insomnia made her slip into the workroom to blend the tea for Mrs Pugh. A sleepless night was manageable if it proved to be productive. Her phone lit up, notifying her of another message. A photo of his kitchen appeared on her screen. Flour covered the once-clean surfaces. ‘I can’t sleep.’
‘Me neither.’ She answered with a photo of the workbench covered with spell-making tools. Her cauldron sending wisps of rose-tinted smoke into the atmosphere.
‘What are you doing?’ she typed.
‘Bread. Tea isn’t the only ritual I discovered is relaxing.’ He drew her in again, she wanted to know more. Why was he baking bread in the middle of the night?
‘You should try it. The smell when you wake up to fresh bread, the taste as you bite into it, is perfection.’ She didn’t want the bread, she wanted him, to taste him, feel him and inhale the familiar sandalwood of his aftershave. These desires were not part of the plan.
‘Come on, Vincent. I need to clear my head.’ I need to stop this now . She switched her volume off, slipped her phone into her pocket, and headed into the night. The street lights reflected on the cobbles and her footsteps echoed along the empty streets. It was just her and her cat. Up on the headland, the town below slept. It was her home, and the spot she stood belonged to her and Louise, but now it was also his. Forget the nights with Louise; all she could recall was him, his touch and the first kiss. The full moon hung low in the sky, blinding the neighbouring constellations. She retrieved her phone, snapped a photo, and shared to Nate. It failed to do the landscape justice; the captured impressive moon reduced to a pinprick of light. As she expected, it pinged.
‘I miss it. I miss you.’
***
Willow scooped up the mail from the doormat and flicked the door sign over to open when Rosa sprinted across the courtyard, late as usual.
‘Sorry I’m late. Alejo’s teacher wanted to see me about … God, you look knackered. I thought I had a rough night with Alejo having nightmares and my mother giving her usual non-helpful advice.’ Rosa shrugged off her coat and tied her Enchanted Emporium apron round her waist.
‘The sleep spell’s not working then.’ Willow had created the spell for Alejo herself. Full of calming herbs and gems, the small pouch promoted relaxation and pleasant dreams.
‘It didn’t get the chance. Mum found it under his pillow and threw it out, declaring she didn’t want that mumbo jumbo in the house. The sooner I find somewhere else to live, the better. I don’t understand it. She’s happy enough to drink her revitalising tea and use that herbal rub for her arthritis. But a simple pouch of—’
‘I’ll make another. Maybe put it somewhere more discreet.’ Mrs Smith’s reaction didn’t surprise her. Many locals were happy to accept the benefits of the tea, but even after trading for several years, anything else still carried the age-old stigma against witchcraft.
‘Why are you so tired? A spell gone wrong or is it something to do with that silly tea cosy and the inane grin on your face every time the mobile in your pocket vibrates. It’s against the business ethic, you know.’
Heat rose to Willow’s cheeks. It was one of the strict rules she often berated Amber for—no mobiles on the shop floor. It was bad enough the customers had an over-reliance on them, like the women browsing the jars for spell ingredients while consulting their Pinterest feeds. Only one bore the glimmer of a hereditary witch, but the others might learn. If they concentrated and relied less on their phones and more on intuition.
‘I’ll make tea.’ Willow left Rosa’s laughter behind her, carrying the mail. Secluded in the back room, she opened the new message. The first after his declaration, neither brave enough to expand their feelings more. An image appeared showing thick toast dripping with melted butter and a mug of tea with the caption:
‘Wish you were here.’
So do I but it is not an option . ‘It would be better with cheese,’ she typed her safe reply.
The kettle on, she sifted through the post—bill, bill, junk mail—and raised her eyebrow at a cream envelope addressed to her but posted by hand.
An icy breeze swept by and a faint Mrs Marley craned her neck to see who the sender could be, her excitement strengthening her. Willow shook her head and shielded it from view.
‘You’re so nosy. It will only be a thank-you card.’
Rosa handed over the change to a contented customer clutching their package with the swinging cat charm when Willow came through to the shop and passed her the tea.
‘That took forever to make. I guess you got sidetracked by your phone. Any gossip? Has he—? Is everything okay?’
Willow forced a smile and willed her hand to stop shaking. ‘Yes. It’s all good. Everything is fine.’
***
Everything was not fine. A trio of ghosts stalked Willow all afternoon, chilling the shop to teeth-chattering temperatures without her rebuking them. When she waved Rosa goodbye and spun the shop sign to closed , her shoulders sagged, and despair replaced the fixed smile. Mrs Marley violently shuddered when Willow walked through her to the workshop. Only Mr Marley’s hushes stopped his wife vocalising her disgust at the violation. Vincent remained at his witch’s side as she locked the door behind her, leaving the spooks to gossip.
Willow wasn’t sure how she’d got through the day with no further interrogation from Rosa, who readily accepted her boss’s pale face and vagueness as symptoms of a brewing headache. The constant stream of difficult customers helped cover the lie as Willow worked on automatic, refusing to let her concentration slide to the cream envelope in her desk drawer until now. With trembling hands, she re-examined the envelope and, with a deep breath, slid the card out. Large blooms of lilies filled the card. Her mum’s favourite flower. A glimpse of the exotic, she would say, especially when she was undergoing treatment, a reminder of all the places she wanted to see when she was better. Their floral meaning ranged from virtue through friendship to devotion, but to Willow, it always meant betrayal and hurt. Death. Before they married, Stuart would arrive with a bunch of lilies declaring his love. Later, they arrived after Willow woke to her mum crying or wearing a fresh bruise around her wrist or eye. After the funeral, the house brimmed with them; their cloying fragrance filled the air until she stamped on every bouquet before discarding the crushed, mangled blooms in the bin. No, she would not pin this card on the staff noticeboard with others.
Her lacklustre attempt at convincing herself it was cruel coincidence, a mistake by an unwitting customer wanting to express their gratitude, was crushed when she opened it to the wave of hatred the writer left with his capitalised penmanship. With no signature, the words themselves confirmed her fears.
You should have been mine, my Goldilocks.
The words were nothing; they were everything. This wasn’t a troll reaching from the other side of a screen. It was him. He had found her. It was white lilies that brought him into her life and for a brief time she’d reduced her abhorrence to them to a simmering dislike, believing the twist of fate had turned in her favour.
He’d been waiting at the counter, ready to check into the hotel, when she began her shift. A posh Greek resort, it made a pleasant change from the bar work she often took to pay for her travels. She’d held her hand up instructing him to wait. Bemused, he watched her scoop up the flower display of the offending white lilies in front of him and throw them in the bin.
‘What did they do to you? Not perfect enough for you, Goldilocks.’ He chuckled at his own joke, flashing his perfect white teeth. The lilies weren’t welcome but five minutes in the presence of this smooth-talking Spanish Adonis was. She wasn’t interested in a relationship, but she found herself looking forward to his visits to the reception desk where he lingered longer than the enquiry needed. And then the bouquets arrived with no lily in sight. During his two-week stay that became four, his mission became to make her life perfect. Eventually, with the urging of the rest of the hotel’s staff who were drunk on the possibility of romance, she agreed to a date. He always asked for her opinion, giving her three options like the fairy-tale protagonist he anointed her as. His charm, certainty, and his more affluent lifestyle swept her away. He made the impossible destinations true. Her plans for solo backpacking became a pair. Not satisfied with youth hostels and camping, he dined and slept in high-end hotels and destinations. She was living a dream, not knowing the nightmare to come.
Willow checked the envelope again. With no stamp, it was hand-delivered and that meant only one thing; he was in the locality. He could be anywhere, watching and waiting. He had invaded her space. The card fell as she sank to the floor. A chill crept through her veins; an icy fist clenched her heart as she tried to comprehend what it meant. Alone, she succumbed to the panic attack. Her vision blurred. Vincent nudged her, chattered, and forced his lumbering body onto her trembling knees. Her tingling fingers found his fur and his warmth gradually grounded her until the gasps for air developed into sobs.
***
Through the gap in the curtains, the moonlight illuminated the patchwork squares on her quilt. Vincent purred and his tail twitched as he dreamt. At least one of us is getting some sleep. Rafe knew where she lived. Willow couldn’t escape the shredded card’s toxicity that crept through her home. Its tendrils of hate squeezed her heart, forcing the long-sealed box of memories to fling open to the last day that began with, ‘Goldilocks, my little Goldilocks.’ The innocent pet name her mum had called her soon twisted into something to hate. Except she wasn’t his. She wasn’t anyone’s. He didn’t belong in her current life, yet his resurgent power bombarded and crushed down on her, forcing her to gasp for air and forget how far she’d come. It took all her willpower to remember it. The angry witch inside her screamed for her to destroy the card, banish him, and cast his evil out of her life. Again.
With the flourish of a magician’s assistant, she whipped the bedspread away and wrapped it around her shoulders against the chilly February air that seeped through the aged window frames. Vincent glared while she groped for her slippers and reluctantly rose from the bed to follow his witch down the stairs.
Willow retrieved the torn pieces of card from the workshop’s bin and threw them in her cauldron. The flame of a black candle danced while she selected the required ingredients from the rows of bottles above the workbench. The old witch’s room called, and Willow battled the temptation to find a more powerful spell in the old dusty books, one created by a witch who had no qualms about stepping into darker magic. No, the unknown consequences of using someone else’s magic were too great. The New Year fog had protected her, but other businesses paid a heavy price in their profits. She had to do it her way. Herbs groaned and crunched under the pestle as she ground them against the stone mortar. She sprinkled them into the cauldron with a dash of black salt and a couple of drops of Amber’s protective oil. It was too late to regret using it for conjuring the fog, but she was reluctant to use all the remainder now. What if things escalated? Using a blazing taper, she ignited the card. Wisps of smoke curled upwards, and she breathed in the herbal aroma, focused on Rafe’s image, and chanted the banishing spell. Blue flames consumed the card’s broken image until charred ash remained. His face wavered as the words pushed him away from her thoughts, the Emporium, and her life.
She unlatched the workshop door, pulling the quilt tighter around her. Hard frost clung to the leaves on the evergreen bushes in the Emporium’s garden and white crystals on the path sparkled under the gaze of the moon. The cold nipped at her ankles and through her thin pyjama bottoms as Willow walked to the mosaic circle she had painstakingly created with pebbles, polished glass, and shells. Four lanterns hung on posts, one for each compass point. She cast her circle, lighting the candle for north, east, south and finally west. Standing in the centre, with Vincent by her side, she placed the cauldron on a dedicated, flat stone altar. The quilt fell when she extended her arms upwards, calling for the Goddess’s help. An increasing breeze caught the ash; it rose spiralling towards the stars. Rafe’s face, his arrogant smirk, faded into the shadows. Standing still, Willow waited for the surge of power flowing through her body to complete the spell and to feel the expected overwhelming calm, but nothing came. The sense of foreboding and panic remained. A black cat watched from the garden wall as the witch withdrew into the building in defeat.