Chapter 31
Heebie let out a high-pitched yowl that could only mean one thing: Dina was a cruel, cruel mother who deserved to go to jail for never feeding her poor, precious cat.
“Yes, I know, I know. Jail for mother. Jail for a thousand years,” Dina muttered in her best Heebie voice, resemblant of a rich old lady of the landed gentry.
Heebie was being particularly antsy this morning as Dina got ready for work, slipping on a cream turtleneck jumper that would keep her warm. She slid open her window a touch, the chilly November breeze sending Heebie bounding for the still-warm duvet. There was nothing better than that first breath of fresh air in the morning.
She slept better when Scott was with her, but they’d spent last night apart since she’d stayed late at Serendipity to bake today’s pastries. Dina had been working on a recipe for madeleines that reminded you of the feeling of your first kiss, but Scott kept popping into her head and before she knew it she’d made Scott-infused madeleines that were far too horny and carnally minded for her to serve to any customers.
How quickly her life had adapted to having Scott in it, and how natural it all felt. Dina had found that as the days ticked past, Scott’s life intertwining with her own in more and more ways, she thought less about the hex. She still checked his tea leaves, and Scott still wore the evil eye necklace, and it all seemed to be working. Maybe it wasn’t as powerful a hex as she’d thought. Maybe it had weakened over time.
Dina sniffed the cold air and felt her magic twinge in anticipation. Perhaps that was why Heebie was meowing and seemed restless. There was a snowstorm in the air. The crisp sting of ice on her nose and the scent of ozone gave it away.
As a familiar, Heebie had an uncanny way of noticing things even before Dina’s witchy senses did. Dina turned around to see the cat sitting by her food bowl, scowling in her owner’s direction, entirely unimpressed. Or perhaps it was just hunger after all.
She ate a quick breakfast of porridge with caramelized bananas and apples, adding enough cinnamon to warm her cheeks and get her circulation moving. Her phone buzzed from the bedside table.
“Hi, Mama, what’s up?” Dina answered.
“Dina, it’s your mother.”
“Yes, I know, Mama. Is everything okay?” There was a skittish energy in her mother’s tone that did not bode well.
“No, habiba. I had a dream last night, about you.” Nour’s voice was grave. Dina didn’t blame her—her mother’s dreams had always tended to act more like visions, with even the strangest, surrealist dreams coming true in some respect.
“What happened in the dream?”
“You were building this wall, and it was huge. And I was on the other side, with your father, and Scott was there, and we kept shouting at you to stop building. But you didn’t listen. The wall grew and grew and all I could hear was you crying on the other side and I couldn’t come and comfort you. And then I woke up.” Nour let out a long sigh on the other end of the line. “Does that mean anything to you?” she asked.
Dina stared off in silence, her eyes fixed unblinking on her kitchen counter.
A numbness seeped into her body. It did mean something to her. It meant that her worst fears were coming true. Her mother’s magic never lied. There was a very real wall between them, in the shape of the hex. But if Scott was on the other side of that wall—well, that meant he wasn’t safe. Her mouth opened to speak, to tell her mother about the hex. But shame gripped her throat, suffocating her.
So Dina said, “No, Mama. I don’t know what it could be about. I guess I should expect some bad news?” She probably sounded far too cavalier and wondered if the falseness in her voice was that obvious.
“You sure you don’t know what it’s about? Could it be about Scott?” her mum prodded.
“Of course not!” Dina replied, with a little too much enthusiasm. Thank god her mum hadn’t video-called. She doubted she’d have been able to hide the way the blood had drained out of her cheeks, or the heavy feeling in her limbs.
“Well, all right then. But keep your eyes open, all three of them!” Nour said, a muffled sound coming from her end.
“I will—what is that sound?” Dina heard a faint crackling.
“I’m just burning some sage by the phone. Maybe it’ll do something,” her mother said gravely.
“I’ll be careful, Mama. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Oh, Dina, all I do is worry. That’s my job as your mother.”
—
As Dina arrived at Serendipity Café that morning there were already a few of her regulars waiting for the shop to open. As well as catering to the harried commuter, Dina had a select few retired regulars who liked to sit with the paper or do their crosswords with a muffin.
“You’re early today, George!” Dina winked at one of her regulars as she undid the shutters and flicked open the magical wards that kept the café safe from burglaries and general vandalism.
“It’s the cold, I can feel it in my bones today, Dina. I need some of that turmeric drink you made me last week.”
“Let’s get you inside where it’s warm then, shall we?”
Dina spoke a silent spell as she entered the café, and the lights blinked on and the boiler sparked to life, sending heat rattling into the old iron radiators behind the sofas. In ten minutes the whole café would be toasty and warm, smelling like freshly ground coffee. There was nowhere else Dina would ratherbe.
George settled himself at his usual table overlooking the curved windowpane.
“Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be right with you!” she called, as she slipped out of her coat and donned her quite frankly adorable Serendipity Café apron. She didn’t need to wear an apron, and certainly the frills weren’t necessary, but she felt damned cute in it, and on the colder days it kept her warmer.
Dina spent the next thirty minutes serving a slew of early-morning customers before the shop had even technically opened for the day. She busied herself trying to dust chocolate powder onto cappuccinos in various shapes.
When Robin waltzed in ten minutes early for their shift, at a reasonable seven forty-five, they looked at the filled seats with alarm.
“Did we change our opening hours?” they asked, slipping their own apron on and pushing their hair out of their eyes.
“Nope, but there’s a snowstorm coming,” Dina replied absently, her mind concentrating on the extravagant and entirely unnecessary latte art she was attempting. It was meant to look like a snowflake but it was more like a misshapen spider web. She frowned, flicking her wrist, and the frothed milk moved around until it looked like a perfect symmetrical snowflake.
“A snowstorm? Oh, well, that explains it then,” Robin said dryly.
“People sense these things, even if they don’t always realize it. Also, it’s bloody cold,” Dina replied.
Together, they knuckled down as the rush-hour crowd entered the café.
Dina prided herself on the fact that even the most harried-looking commuters seemed to breathe a little slower as they entered Serendipity, the creases of their frowns flattening out, their shoulders sagging in relief.
Sure, a cup of coffee couldn’t make your whole day better, but a good coffee, a really great one, could make all the difference to how a person approached the rest of their day. And in Dina’s experience, state of mind always mattered more than actual events.
The rush began to slow down just after nine. Most morning coffee drinkers would be sitting at their desks by now, sipping their drinks and eating one of Dina’s delicious cinnamon buns, feeling a little lighter as they scanned through their morning emails. Exhilarated yet cozy. As if they’d just slipped into a pair of warm socks.
Dina tidied the tables, lighting an amber candle on each one with a twirl of her finger as she went past. There were only a couple of people sitting in the café now and they were too enthralled by their books and papers to notice her performing a quick sweep of cleaning magic on their tables as she passedby.
The hum of the coffee grinder normally soothed Dina’s inner monologue, but not today. The call with her mum had left her rattled. Dina didn’t like the way the image of the dream wall had settled into her bones, nor the way it felt simultaneously surreal and yet familiar. Like she might have dreamed it herself but forgotten it upon waking.
She tried to shake herself out of it by scrubbing the dishes extra clean, but that didn’t work. She wished Scott were here already, so she could talk about it with him. Maybe he’d understand. He’d certainly been opening up more to the way her magic worked the past few weeks. An idea popped into her head then: She’d make him a blend of tea. That felt like an acceptable “I need to vent about my feelings but also I think I love you a whole load and my love language is gift-giving” kind of present.
“Robin, can you take over from me out here?” Dina called. A few minutes later the coffee grinder slowed to a quiet hum and Robin emerged from the kitchen with two full bags of deliciously scented ground coffee, which they would sell over the counter.
“You know, I don’t even need to wear perfume anymore. People always tell me I smell amazing.” They laughed, setting the bags down on the counter. “Are you heading back to bake?”
“No, I think I’ll make some tea blends.” Dina smiled and headed into the kitchen.
There was some bread baking in the oven, and a row of cupcakes cooling on the counter, which she’d frost in an hour or so. The whole room smelled like a hug.
Sensing a buzz from her phone, Dina pulled it out and opened her group chat with Immy and Rosemary that they’d named “The Weird Sisters.” It was a flurry of photos from Rosemary that she’d taken at her local haunted house and Christmas tree fair.
Immy had responded with: Did they have a chainsaw room with a murderous Santa like last year?
Dina replied, Cute, let me send you my mulled wine recipe , to which Rosemary responded: Yes please! And no creepy Santa but they did have axe-wielding elves, had so much fun.
Her friends were insane—and she adored them.
Dina hummed to herself as she pulled out an empty jam jar from a busy cupboard. It was still labeled “Apricot Jam” from the batch her mum had made for her last year—jam that tasted like bottled sunshine.
There wasn’t an exact science to the magic, but Dina often found that the best tea blends were ones she put into second-hand jars, ones that had been full of delicious, wonderful things.
She clipped her curls out of her face and headed into the pantry. The walls were lined floor-to-ceiling with all manner of jars and boxes, all individually labeled in Dina’s messy handwriting. She kept her spices together, along with other baking essentials like fresh vanilla, cake flour, and a tin that was labeled “Eye of Newt” but actually contained nutmeg.
Her tea selection had several shelves dedicated to it. Aside from the specialty blends she made for the shop, Dina kept a collection of tea and tisane ingredients, which she could mix into more personal blends at a moment’s notice. Dina never felt more in her element as a kitchen witch than when she was looking through her pantry.
Scott’s tea blend needed to be something that encapsulated his energies yet also helped him in some way. A tea to drink in the middle of a long work day, Dina decided.
She twirled a curl around her finger as she focused. She hadn’t met any of his fellow curators yet, but from what Scott had told her they could be a bit of a handful. So the kind of tea that would help him get through a long meeting. Something to sharpen a tired mind. Dina knew just the thing forit.
She scooped up several jars and laid them out on the counter before her. Black tea—afull-bodied assam, cacao nibs, dried ginger and…it was missing something. Dina stepped back into the pantry and surveyed her shelves with her hands on her hips.
She knew that this would need one more ingredient to be perfect for Scott. Lion’s mane mushroom? Perhaps a little too earthy. Clove? Too heavy: It would overpower the other flavors. As her eyes skirted over the rows of jars, she spotted it. A small glass jar with a dark red powder in it. Dried beetroot! Perfect! Energizing yet slightly sweet and smooth, and it would make Scott look like he was drinking some kind of red-velvet-themed drink. Which was also his favorite cake flavor. Dina smiled as it all came together.
She didn’t want to rush this. It wasn’t every day you made your first magical tea blend for the man you were in love with.
Dina made two jars full of Scott’s blend—one for his office and one to keep at home. She scrawled his name on the two labels and stuck them onto the jars. She even added a love heart; she couldn’t help herself. She lifted one of the jars to her face and took a deep inhale. Warm, spiced, and sharp—just like Scott.
Suddenly, her phone vibrated in her pocket.
“Hello, is this Dina Whitlock?” A woman’s voice she didn’t recognize.
“It is.”
“My name is Claire, I’m a paramedic and Scott has you down as his emergency contact. I don’t want you to worry, but we have Scott in our ambulance at the moment, and we’re taking him to hospital.”
Her blood froze.
“What happened?”
“He had a fall at the British Museum. A ladder broke underneath him, we think, and he hit his head.”
Oh god,no.
“Can I talk to him?” she said. Her body felt numb; her voice belonged to someone else.
“Not right now, I’m afraid: We’re still waiting for him to regain consciousness. Because it’s a head injury, we’ll need to take him for some scans once we arrive at the hospital, just to make sure there’s no internal bleeding.”
Dina heard the beeps in the background, pictured Scott lying unconscious in the ambulance, blood seeping into his hair.
This is all your fault. You did this.
“I’m coming. Tell me where to go,” she heard herself say, and she bundled on her coat and left the café.
Wake up—please, Scott. Wakeup.