Chapter 19
The following morning, three young Ladies of Quality turned up on the doorstep of The Arcane Bouquet just as it opened, all clamoring for tea and fortunes to be read.
Apparently the serving class gossip chain was thriving in Ballycastle; their maids had heard from the Countess d’Ackerley’s good woman all about the Tea Witch of Addle Street, and now the young ladies were most eager to learn their future in tea leaves.
“This is not a tea shop,” Nigel insisted, attempting to block the doorway with his body. “This is a flower shop. If it’s readings you want, try Mystic Infusions, over on—”
But the young ladies were not to be thwarted in their purpose. “Oh, Mystic Infusions is a complete scam!” they declared between twittering giggles. “All ‘tall, dark strangers,’ and ‘mysterious moonlit trysts,’ and such bosh. We want real readings from a real tea witch!”
With these words, they crowded in so close, Nigel had no choice but to back down or be trampled. As the young misses flooded the shop floor, he cast a desperate look over their heads to Miss Talbot, who stood fortified behind the counter.
She smiled and proceeded to fill the kettle from the trimming sink.
“Tea is for paying customers only,” she declared sweetly.
Plunking the kettle on the little nook stove, she lit the burner, then turned to the young ladies, hands clasped in professional readiness.
“Can I interest you in some lovely hydrangea cuttings? They make for splendid floral displays.”
With the prospect of tea on their horizons, the ladies set to shopping with a will, each selecting large bouquets of long-stemmed flowers to grace their boudoirs.
The Arcane Bouquet was temporarily filled with the sounds of delightful chatter and many exclamations over the variety of blooms on offer.
Debbie muttered and coughed and rattled her wings from her skull perch, which thrilled the young ladies still more.
“What an ominous thing!” one declared. “It quite gives me the chills!” her friend agreed.
“An apparition of doom!” trilled the third.
Debbie, overwhelmed by these compliments, hid her beak under her wing.
While selections were made and transactions completed, Luna brewed tea in the nook, pouring out into the two porcelain cups and the less-battered of Nigel’s mugs. Each lady received her brew and drank with relish before shoving her leafy dregs back into Luna’s hands.
Nigel observed from a discreet distance while Luna recited oblique fortune after oblique fortune, combining just enough verisimilitude with a dash of restraint and a soupcon of mystery.
The young ladies listened, expressions rapt, interrupting only with the occasional giggle, half-suppressed behind well-manicured hands.
By the time Luna ushered them out the door, The Arcane Bouquet had made quite a tidy little profit, cost of tea notwithstanding.
“You shouldn’t indulge them,” Nigel said when the last of the shop bells had ceased tinkling. “They’ll only tell more of their friends.”
“They will!” Luna agreed, clearing the tea things from the nook. “We’ll be positively inundated with Silly Young Things. Think what good business it’ll be for the shop!”
This wasn’t the message Nigel had intended to communicate.
But as no further tea-seekers arrived on his doorstep that day, he chose to let it go.
A few more customers drifted in and out, one or two every hour or so.
Not enough to justify paying a shop assistant, but Nigel hoped Luna wouldn’t notice this.
She, having swept the display floor, deadheaded the petunias, and created a dozen tasteful bouquets tied with tissue and ribbon—an idea which had not occurred to Nigel, but struck him as rather a fine one—asked if she might slip out into Garden for a little while.
“Why?” Nigel asked, uncertainly.
“I thought I might collect some leaves and flower heads to dry in the kitchen,” she replied. “It seems a shame for you to go on buying expensive Twiglings teas when Garden boasts such variety.”
Nigel balked at the prospect of losing her company. But he couldn’t very well say that and, as he had no other excuses to offer, no tasks to appoint, he nodded his approval. “Only be sure to take Debbie with you,” he added.
It was Luna’s turn to utter an uncertain, “Why?”
“Garden likes to play games sometimes. The paths aren’t altogether trustworthy, but Debbie can navigate them from a bird’s eye view.”
Luna merely laughed at this. “Oh, Garden wouldn’t be so rude to me, Mr. Grimm!”
Nigel didn’t necessarily approve of the confidence with which this was spoken. He’d known Garden his entire life, after all; the two of them had endured a rather contentious relationship. “For my peace of mind, Miss Talbot,” he persisted.
She shrugged and turned to the skull-pot on the desk. “Care to join me, Debbie?”
The raven, torn between a distaste for ever being agreeable and a desire to stretch her wings under an open sky, muttered unpleasantly. In the end, the lure of the sky won out, and she fluttered to perch on Luna’s shoulder as the two of them slipped down the passage.
Nigel found himself suddenly alone in the shop with only flowers for company.
His gaze lingered possibly a little longer than necessary on the empty doorway through which she’d disappeared.
With a sigh, he turned—and caught a glance from the double-delight rose.
“What?” he demanded rather sourly. “She’s been good for business. Even you must admit that.”
The rose offered no opinion. But its whole demeanor was rather too knowing for comfort. Nigel gave it an extra prune to express his displeasure, and it responded by smacking the back of his hand with tiny thorns. “Touché,” Nigel muttered.
It was strange how very lonely the shop felt, deprived of .
. . Debbie’s presence. And, yes, all right, Miss Talbot’s as well, fine.
How could it be that, within a mere three days, she’d somehow become the beating heart of The Arcane Bouquet?
Nigel knew no customers would come until she returned from her Garden ramble—she and her magnetic spirit, which somehow drew people off the street.
He was grateful. Yes. That’s what he was.
Luna’s arrival had already proven transformative, and he’d halfway begun to hope the shop might prove a success after all.
Though, he reminded himself firmly, that was probably a bit presumptive.
In his experience, life always could find a way of taking a disastrous turn.
In this thoughtful frame of mind, Nigel passed the next hour and a half, busying himself with small tasks and trying not to fret.
Just as the clock behind the counter struck 3:30, however, he heard Garden’s door opening, and Debbie’s pronouncement of, “Never mind!” The bird appeared moments later, fluttering back to her skull-pot and settling in for a nice preen.
“Miss Talbot?” Nigel called, peering into the passage. To his great surprise, he found the door propped open by Old Mister Grimm’s dilapidated wheelbarrow, brimming with floral bounty.
“In here!” Luna called, and peeked her head out of the kitchen. “I’ve gathered my harvest and am trying to put it all in some sort of order.”
“Do you need . . . help?” Nigel peered at the wheelbarrow uncertainly. He did not recognize a single cutting. Not a daisy or daffodil to be had in the mix.
“Not at all, Mr. Grimm! I’ve got it well in hand. Let me know if you need me up front.”
Thus dismissed, Nigel drifted back to the counter, where Debbie cast him a longsuffering glance. “Have a nice flight?” he asked.
She fluffed her wings at him.
He propped himself over the account books, pretending to be busy, but all the while listening to Luna’s footsteps venturing back and forth and back and forth.
By the time he’d closed up the shop—carrying in the front doorstep displays and turning the sign around—she had pushed the wheelbarrow back outside and shut Garden’s door again.
But she remained busy in the kitchen for another quarter of an hour.
Nigel had just finished feeding the double-delight rose its evening snack when Luna emerged from the passage once more.
She looked all fresh-faced and wind-swept, with tiny leaves stuck in her hair and a smear of dirt on her cheek.
Nigel felt an overwhelming urge to reach out and wipe that smear away with the pad of his thumb.
An urge he hastily quashed by shoving both hands into his trouser pockets.
“Well!” she declared. “It’s been a day’s work, but I think I’m through at last. Would you like to see the mess I’ve made of your kitchen?”
“Erm . . . yes?” he quavered.
She laughed and said, “Don’t look so frightened, Mr. Grimm! It’s not as bad as all that. Only have a care Mrs. Goddard doesn’t turn on the oven for any reason. I’ve got some young orange llarmi in there, and I don’t want it roasted.”
With these enigmatic words, she caught Nigel by the elbow and pulled him—hands still firmly in pockets—into the kitchen after her.
Here Nigel’s wondering eyes were met with an awesome sight.
His neat, stainless steel kitchen, barely used and sterile, had been transformed into a witch’s laboratory.
Bundles of flowers of all varieties hung from the ceiling, strung up on a network of floral string and wire.
Other large flower heads and sprigs of needles were set out on trays, some near the window, some in shade, depending on the needs of the flora in question.
There were sealed jars (where had she even come by them?) full of petals and leaves, soaking in some liquid.
These were all arranged neatly in the kitchen window.
“And here,” Luna said, popping open the oven to reveal trays of small, green leaves covered in white, downy fuzz, “is that orange llarmi I mentioned.”
“Why isn’t it orange?” Nigel asked, raising an eyebrow.
Luna giggled and gave his shoulder a light smack, by which Nigel determined the question was simply too ridiculous to merit an answer. He forced a smile, pretending he had, indeed, meant it as a joke, and she went on with her presentation.
“Now I’ve got the oven at a very low temperature,” she said, “but you can turn it off before you go up to bed; the heat should remain trapped overnight, and the leaves will be ready by morning. Orange llarmi is best after a long, slow drying period, of course, but a quick dry works in a pinch, and the Silly Young Things certainly won’t notice any difference. ”
“You . . . you mean to serve these? To customers?”
“Of course. Didn’t I say? I can’t have you spending good money on brand-name teas, not when Garden offers so much variety. I thought perhaps I’d sew up some little silk pouches and sell a few of my own blends from the counter. What do you think of that idea?”
“But it’s . . . a flower shop.”
“Yes? These are flowers, Mr. Grimm.” Her brow puckered with sudden uncertainty, she closed the oven door and straightened.
“Have I overstepped? Garden was so generous this afternoon. It seemed as though everywhere I turned, there was another tea plant! It was like being back home with the aunties.” She bit her lip.
“I do apologize if I’ve caused offense. Here you’ve been so generous, and—”
“Oh, no!” he hastened to say and offered what he hoped passed for a smile. “Not at all, Miss Talbot, don’t think a thing of it. I’m simply . . . wrapping my mind around the idea is all.”
She nodded, but still looked rather anxious. “It may not work out, of course. Home-sewn teabags and the like. But I thought, as customers are coming for tea anyway . . .”
“Indeed, an inspired idea, Miss Talbot. And I am eager to try one of your blends.”
Her smile returned at this, though perhaps not as confident as before, and Nigel wished he could go back in time by about thirty seconds and give himself a solid kick in the shins. He knew a spell that could accomplish just that, and was halfway tempted to use it.
The kitchen clock, however, chimed out the hour.
Luna startled, her eyes widening as she took in the time.
“Gracious!” she exclaimed, “I’d best get hustling.
Mrs. Boggs has declared early curfew this evening, something she does on a whim, just to prove she can, the old bat. Do you need anything else, Mr. Grimm?”
“No, no,” he assured her. “Don’t risk the wrath of Mrs. Boggs on my account.”
He escorted her out the front door, locking it behind her. She waved through the window then set off at a brisk trot, looking both ways before she crossed the street. Soon she rounded the bend onto Nettleton Lane and vanished from sight.
Nigel stood a while, not fully realizing what he did. He breathed in deep—and yes! Despite her foray into Garden and her busy day handling numerous other plants and blossoms, there lingered still in her wake that trace of chamomile and lavender. Sweet, faintly elusive, but ever-present.
With a sigh, Nigel turned to face the shop. They were all looking at him. Debbie, the double-delight rose, the tiger lilies, the dahlias. Even the violets peeked out from behind their leaves, their round, purple faces distinctly amused.
“Have you nothing better to do?” Nigel demanded, his voice rather loud in the silence.
“Never mind,” Debbie chuckled, and winked her beady little eye.