Chapter 8 #2
Luna opened her mouth, ready to protest her employer’s innocence, but paused.
After all, there was nothing proper about those kisses he’d given her in the kitchen.
A warm flush roiled in her gut and spread through her body.
She hadn’t exactly been her proper-est self either, had she?
And were it not for Mrs. Goddard’s timely interruption, she couldn’t say just how very improper she might have become.
The inclination to impropriety had certainly been strong in the searing heat of the moment.
“Mr. Grimm is a . . . a gentleman,” she managed, swirling the dregs in her teacup idly, clockwise thrice and counter twice.
Mrs. Goddard’s eyebrow shot up. “Oh, so that’s the problem, is it?” She tsked and shook her head. “Just can’t seem to unbutton his collar, can he?”
Luna’s mind flashed back to the moment when her fingertips had found the bare flesh exposed by his distinctly unbuttoned collar. That hot flush deepened to a full-on blush, and she ducked her head. “Um. Not exactly.”
“But that’s no reason to leave!” Mrs. Goddard persisted. “Some lads just take a little extra encouragement, don’t you see? I’m sure if you let him know how you—”
“No, Mrs. Goddard.” Luna spoke firmly, with more conviction than she felt.
“It’s simply not possible.” She sighed then and pinched the bridge of her nose.
“I can’t explain it. And I really shouldn’t have said anything.
Please understand that . . . that my time here in Ballycastle has been .
. . well, it’s been unexpectedly brilliant.
I’ve loved every moment of working at the shop, and all your excellent breakfasts, and the flowers, and the teas, and everything.
I know I’ll look back on these months as .
. . as just the nicest of my life.” She released a little shuddering breath, determined not to succumb to tears, even as they threatened.
“But it’s time,” she finished dully. Then she looked up and caught the landlady’s eye.
“Please, trust me in this. And don’t say anything to Mr. Grimm. Not until after I’m gone.”
“And where is it you’ll be going?” Mrs. Goddard asked softly.
But Luna shook her head. It was imperative that she vanish without a trace.
She hoped Bromley Bay would prove a big enough city for her to disappear into its depths until she could save up enough to venture farther out, to the Southern Continent.
Beyond the reach of all sorcerers and their machinations.
It was a fool’s dream, of course. She knew it, even when she tried to pretend otherwise. Some fates could not be outrun. They could only be delayed. Her time with Mr. Grimm had let her ignore this reality for a while, but the truth remained. Her fate was closing in fast.
Luna closed her eyes. For a moment, she saw herself again as a young teenager, just beginning to learn the fine art of tea-scrying. She’d been scrying small futures for the aunties for a few months now, but Auntie Apolonia had decided she was ready to attempt a glimpse at her own future.
“Generally speaking, it is unwise to peek into one’s fate very often,” Auntie Apolonia had cautioned, even as she pressed the little pink-chintz cup into Luna’s hand.
“It can be both distressing and deceiving. Many a scryer has gone mad trying too hard to discern what was not meant for their understanding. But one must learn the knack of it if one is to be a true tea witch.” She’d smiled then at the nervous look Luna had given her.
“Don’t worry, child. You’re so young, and the future is still such a wide-open space before you.
I doubt you will see anything too very unexpected. ”
Luna had nodded, eager to get started. She’d swirled her cup as she’d been taught, concentrated the subtle vibrations of her awareness, and peered into the dregs.
An immediate and powerful vision had burst across her mind’s eye.
She saw, as though from a distance, but felt the heart-pounding terror of the moment as though she lived it.
There was a woman—a grown-up version of herself, bound to a dark stone.
And there were tall figures in black robes, seven, eight, ten.
She lost count. What mattered was that there were many, and their arms were upraised, and their voices spoke in a complex chorus, different words falling from each mouth, but weaving together to form a whole of meaning.
The language in which they spoke seared the ears with damnation.
As Luna’s young, terrified eyes watched, she saw her woman-self suddenly convulse in her bonds.
Darkness began to open wide, right there in the center of her chest. Swirling, twirling fingerlike tendrils, stretching out and through and beyond.
Evil was coming. Terrible malevolence, the likes of which she had never imagined, not even in the darkest moments of her life.
And she saw that there was no way to stop it, that her adult-self was entirely helpless against such evil, and—
The shock of the vision was so profound, it had knocked Luna clean out of the stool upon which she sat. Auntie Apolonia had stretched out her hand and managed to snatch her teacup before it fell and shattered, exclaiming as she did so, “Gracious, child! What’s come over you?”
Then she’d looked as well. And Luna, from her place on the floor, had watched her auntie’s fierce features sag into an expression of utmost horror.
The next moment, Auntie Apolonia had stood up so sharply, the rocking chair in which she had been sitting went over backwards.
She dashed the tea dregs into the fireplace, which sputtered and turned green momentarily.
Then, to Luna’s shock, she’d thrown the cup itself to the hearth stones, splintering it into a hundred shards.
Before the scream had even died on Luna’s tongue, her auntie gripped her by the upper arms and dragged her upright.
“Look at me, Luna!” she’d said with terrible sternness.
“I said look at me, child!” Somehow, Luna’s spinning vision had found her auntie’s eyes and locked upon them, old and hard and stubborn beyond all reason.
“Remember, girl,” Apolonia had said then, her thin lips curled back from her teeth in a grimace.
“Remember what your Extremely Great Aunt Amelia said. Do you remember? On the day she died?”
Panic had stolen Luna’s breath. She’d panted and struggled, tears pouring down her cheeks as she shook her head.
Auntie Apolonia had leaned in then, pressing her forehead against Luna’s. And her old voice had sounded like a growl when she intoned: “Fate’s my bitch.”
Luna shivered back to the present, staring down at Mrs. Goddard’s mushroom teacup, but seeing the shattered remains of pink-chintz porcelain in her mind’s eye.
Auntie Apolonia’s voice echoed in her memory: “Fate’s my bitch . . . fate’s my bitch . . . fate’s my bitch . . .”
But the truth was very different. The truth was, an image such as the one she’d seen wasn’t the sort that could be altered.
That’s why it had been so vivid, so strong, even to her adolescent perceptions.
Apolonia knew it as well, though Luna had never been able to get her to admit it.
She’d simply forbade Luna from looking at her future ever again.
A promise Luna had mostly kept over the years, limiting her scryings to immediate, day-of types of futures. Nothing far-reaching.
It didn’t make any difference. Her fate was coming for her, whether she looked or not. Just because one didn’t see the tiger didn’t mean it wasn’t silently stalking one’s footsteps.
A small sigh escaped Luna’s lips. She realized idly that she’d primed the dregs in her mushroom teacup for a scrying.
It was such a reflex action, particularly after these last few months of work at The Arcane Bouquet.
What’s more, she’d unthinkingly tilted the cup toward her, and a vision was trying to take shape.
Only, it wasn’t a singular vision. Luna winced, a little stab of pain entering through her temple as the sure signs of a Double Jeopardy began to play before her Sight.
Two distinct images, overlaying each other in a confused jumble and—
She hastily pushed the cup away. She had no gift for discerning Double Jeopardy visions.
They could only confuse her more, and she didn’t need confusion right now.
She needed certainty and the resolve to take decisive action.
Rising from her seat at the table, she gathered up both her teacup and Mrs. Goddard’s, carried them to the sink, dumped the dregs, and ran water into each cup.
“Luna, dear,” Mrs. Goddard said softly, watching her. “I don’t like to think of you ending up friendless in foreign parts somewhere.”
Luna forced a little smile. “I’ve been friendless in foreign parts many times over these last few years, Mrs. Goddard.
Somehow, I always manage to make a new friend or two.
There are kind souls to be found everywhere, if you know how to look for them.
” Tears filmed her eyes, and she blinked quickly to hold them back.
“Kind souls who bake spiced cake for birthdays and slip an extra sausage or piece of toast onto the breakfast platter each morning.”
“Oh, dearie!” Mrs. Goddard sniffled and grabbed for her hanky. “But when I think of—”
Before she could finish, the kitchen door abruptly burst open, and the ragged figure of Tobias staggered in from the alley.
His eyes were wide, his expression harrowed, and a faint atmosphere of anti-glitter clung to his person, testimony to the horrors he’d just witnessed and survived.
He took one look at his mother and cried out, “Mam!” The next moment he’d thrown himself into her arms like a little boy.
“Ooh, my baby!” Mrs. Goddard cried, leaping up from her seat to wrap him tight in her embrace. He buried his face in her plump shoulder and began to sniffle so loudly, Luna almost felt sorry for him. Almost.