Chapter 3 #3
“It’s fine,” Veda says, bagging the produce in their reusable totes. “I’ve been accosted already with Clinton’s visions.”
That earns a sharp glance between the sisters. “When multiple Seers have visions about the same subject, it means there is something stirring in the Cosmos,” Ruth says.
“Should I be worried?”
Ruth’s smile is the nonanswer she expects.
Everly changes the subject. “How have you been? You haven’t been around since your birthday dinner.”
“Oh, you know me, I never sit still.”
Ruth scrutinizes her. “You should come by for dinner, and don’t say you’re cooking, because we all know your idea of a meal is either frozen, packaged, or purchased.”
It’s true, but she mumbles something about eating at Peter’s, places the last of their purchases into a bag, and immediately starts to clear her booth.
Neither leaves. Worse, they start helping.
As the women fold the checkered tablecloth, Veda pulls the empty bins from underneath the table, places three inside one, and stacks the lids. “How have you two been?”
“Pretty good,” Ruth replies. “But birds keep shitting in my rain gauge.”
Veda suppresses a laugh with her fist. “That’s . . . unfortunate.”
Everly snickers. “What are your plans for the rest of the day, Veda?”
“Home.”
She shakes her head shamefully. “You should drive to Seattle or Olympia, get out of those jeans, take out that nose ring—”
“Or don’t,” Ruth chimes in. “The youths love that sort of look. Just put on something nice and show a little leg. Have some fun out on the town.”
“Yes!” Everly grins. “Do it while your knees still work.”
Veda rolls her eyes. She once had a healthy social life with friends and parties, flings, the occasional boyfriend. Nothing serious. Only fun. That was all she could commit to. But she’s not that person anymore.
“I’m not looking for anything,” Veda says.
Her words fall on deaf ears. “That’s usually when you find your spouse.”
“Sounds like a threat,” Veda mutters.
Everly laughs while Ruth pats her hands. “Oh, honey, you’re in for a rude awakening.”
“I’ll pray every day to the Cosmos that you’re wrong.”
Both women laugh raucously at her opposition.
Everly pats Veda’s shoulder. “As if you have any say in it. You’re brilliant, Veda.
Cynical and distant, but not to worry, someone will outlast your resistance.
They’ll wait patiently for you to open up and want everything they find.
” A soft, whimsical smile appears. “I can’t wait for that to happen. ”
“Still feeling threatened right now.”
Ruth snaps her fingers. “Now that I think about it, my nephew Ian is single, and he’s a great young man.”
Everly perks up. “I have someone better. What about Micah? Moab’s grandson?”
They’re off to the races on another round of Proventia’s Most Eligible Bachelor. Veda has met their second contestant, Micah, a few times. He’s perfectly pleasant and polite . . . if she were looking for a man pushing fifty.
“Now, Everly, stop trying to set Micah up with every woman in Proventia,” Ruth fusses and turns to Veda. “If not Micah, I have the perfect catch for you, my dear. Dr. Simpson.”
Paranoia makes Veda’s fingers tingle.
“In fact, Everett asked about you earlier,” Ruth adds with a conspiratorial waggle of her brows.
At Veda’s deepening frown, Ruth swats as if her distrust is a particularly annoying fly.
“Don’t look like that. His mom and I play bingo together.
He’s a good, stable man. You already work with him at Weston.
He’s a bit of a loner like you, and most importantly—”
“He’s interested,” Everly blurts out.
“Which is such good news. His mom was so worried. He hasn’t been acting like himself since February, when he stopped dating . . . Sarah? Serena? Selena? All I know is she works for the FCD and she did a number on him. It’s good he’s back in the saddle.”
“Congrats to him, but leave me out of it.”
They cackle as if Veda has told a particularly funny joke.
“I’d set him up with Marlene”—Ruth sighs—“but she’s sworn off dating to focus on her career.”
“I still don’t understand. I thought she and the Padillos’ oldest son, Francisco, were interested in one another. Such a lovely man, but when I ask what happened, she doesn’t want to talk about him. I fear I may never see grandchildren at this rate.” Everly sighs with loving frustration.
Everly adopted Marlene at fifteen after Ruth rescued her and a group of teenage Seers from a boarding school that was a front for a quasi-legal experimental facility—not an uncommon fate for Seers abandoned after their Sight manifests.
In fact, almost every Seer family in town has adopted at least one abandoned kid to protect them from ending up in the system.
Ruth and Everly have a similar upbringing but spent the last four decades preventing kids from being taken advantage of, and even after the kids become adults, they never stop caring. It’s evident with Marlene.
Veda awkwardly chuckles while agreeing. Marlene is more Khadijah’s friend than Veda’s, but she’s listened to her talk plenty about not caring about the gender of her partner, only that she wants to marry and have a family of her own.
“Has she said anything to you and Khadijah?” Everly asks.
“I haven’t seen her in at least a month.”
Ruth frowns. “She must’ve meant Khadijah when she said she was spending time with friends.”
As Veda nods along, her gaze falls on Dr. Simpson, who is watching from two tables over.
Ruth follows her line of sight. “Ah, there he is. What do you think?”
“I’m not interested.”
“Beggars can’t be choosy. You’re losing time, dear.”
Ruth’s comment is less about Veda’s age and more about the ticking bomb of her Sanguis Curse.
Veda doesn’t broadcast her affliction, but Ruth knows because Peter has involved the Oracle Council in his quest to heal her.
Aside from Clinton, Ruth has been helpful in contacting old friends who work for the various Centers for Maledictum Research.
The bureaucratic stonewall ended up being so high and dense that breaking through would’ve required an inconceivable amount of money or better connections.
With hope for extraction dwindling, Ruth’s comments have grown more pointed: Veda needs to live like she’s dying, throw caution to the wind, and find someone to hold on to as long as she can.
But that’s not who Veda is. The malignant blood curse has only made her more determined to cling to her dignity until the bitter end.
Each day is a new test Veda passes as often as she fails.
On good days, she clings to routines that give her a reason to get dressed and leave her cottage.
But when the weight of her curse bears down, her days turn dark, and the pain is heavily branded.
Those days remind Veda why she doesn’t make plans for a future she’ll never see.
The air around them shifts, tinged with discomfort, until Ruth says, “If I’m not here when it’s time for the summer bouquets, be a dear and set one aside for me.”
“Okay,” Veda replies. Ruth has said this for the last two years, yet she’s always first in line for her bouquet of peach roses, pink ginger, and red cordyline mixed with masajeana leaves. Colorful and vibrant, like Ruth.
“Oh, and I’ll see you at next month’s town hall meeting.”
Before Veda can decline, the sisters toddle off.
Veda glances at the nearby tables. A few trinkets catch her eye, but the less she owns, the less she has to think about.
Everett approaching her is as inevitable as the awkward conversation that follows.
Constantly wringing his hands as if to soothe himself, he’s a skipping record, stammering through small talk as though either gives a damn about the weather or the size of today’s crowd.
“Did you look at my note?” he asks, jamming his hands into his pockets.
“Sorry,” she says, realizing she hasn’t. Her meeting with Antaris made her forget all about it. Not that it matters, as Everett hands her another before rushing off. This time, she opens it. It looks like a half-finished phone number.
A blur of bright colors in the corner of her eye steals Veda’s attention. Quickly, she identifies the child-size ball of energy barreling toward her with a colorful jersey and cleats as August Sallant.
“Miss Thorne! Miss Thorne! We won!”
“Congrats, August!” Veda doesn’t have the heart to ask what sport, because he’s wearing a blend of uniforms. To keep the hyperactive boy occupied, August plays everything his dad can reasonably sign him up for. How he has energy to play in the dirt after school she’ll never know.
“I played today!” He holds up two fingers, flashing a smile that shows off burgeoning nubs of front teeth that are growing back.
Then he launches into the story of how he won the game, but it starts with him getting up that morning and what he ate for breakfast. It’ll be a minute, and the details will be convoluted and out of order.
He retells parts of it in great detail and omits others entirely. “Then I scored two goals by myself!”
Goals narrows down the list of sports, but she gets her answer when Gabriel, his dad, approaches in a Proud Hockey Dad sweatshirt, looking every bit like someone whose last drop of energy was spent getting his son out of the house.
He’s barely brushed his red beard. Despite August’s endless energy, Gabriel walks at a leisurely pace, carrying three reusable bags.
He’s always smiling and cheerful, greeting a couple of women as they pass by.
They stare at him with interest when his back is turned.
“. . . sparkling flowers poofed. It was so cool!”
Veda has no idea how they got to that point in his story, but she’s happy for him. His dad, on the other hand, looks exhausted. “You okay, Gabriel?”
“Been busy on the case.”
He and his partner, Francisco, inherited the Botanist case a few years ago, after it bounced around the department when no one wanted it.
They were the first to link the murders, and they found Veda’s home invasion by accident while searching keywords in the other Botanist files.
She told them what she remembered, but spinning facial features and the smell of raw magic still make her queasy.
Eyeing her empty bins, Gabriel asks, “Need help carrying these?”
Veda considers declining, but the desire to get everything to the truck in one trip overrides her need for independence.
After signing the table and chairs back in with the farmers’ market coordinator, they gather everything and leave.
August leads the way to the park’s exit, making up nonsensical lyrics to a familiar song.
“Everything okay?” Gabriel asks.
She avoids his questioning gaze, watching August beam at a passing couple, who grin back, enamored. His joy is contagious, but she is immune.
“Are you sure about what you told me about the latest victim?”
“We are, but she’s different than I originally thought.”
“I’m scared to ask.”
“She sent me a stone message before she died. I haven’t reported it to my superiors, and I don’t think I will.”
Veda has trust issues for a long list of reasons, but Gabriel is as by the book as an investigator can be. His doubt is concerning. “Let me guess, you distrust your department as much as I do?”
“No . . . Well . . .” Gabriel shrugs. “My superiors have turned a blind eye to our investigation, so I don’t want to introduce anything that might pique their interest.”
“Sounds like you’ve got something.”
“I might, I think.” Gabriel looks around as if there’s someone eavesdropping. “Do you know anything about trickster pendants?”
“Aside from the basics, I know they don’t conceal cursed marks.”
Fissures bloom bloodred, and a trickster wears the face of a friend.
Clinton’s words can’t be a coincidence. “You suspect the Botanist has one. Meaning . . .”
“The Botanist could look like anyone.” Gabriel sounds excited, but all Veda feels is stony resolution.
Distrusting everyone has never felt more justified.
Still, validation tastes like bile. Memories yank her back to the night she was cursed.
She shuts her eyes, head moving as if she’s scanning the pages of a book, only they’re her memories.
Clouded from panic-induced adrenaline, fractured from flashes of pain, heavy from the pressure of a heart beating too fast. Veda turns inward to pull herself free, but instead sinks into the floodwaters of emotion.
Absorbed in finality, she chokes on hopelessness, grasping for anything to drag her to safety.
This time, it’s the pressure of Gabriel’s hand on her jacket, concern in his eyes.
When she gasps, he asks, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She waves him off. “I was just . . . Don’t worry about it.”
He doesn’t listen to her. He never does. “Case aside, if you need to talk . . .”
“I’m good. Go on.”
After a pause, he does. “I suspect the victim knew it was stolen and possibly the culprit, just like I think she knew what was coming and planned accordingly.”
“She knew she was going to die?”
Gabriel shrugs. “I can’t imagine knowing that kind of thing and continuing to live like nothing is happening. I—”
“Look, Dad!” August yells, pointing. “The poofies are still here! They’re almost as tall as me!”
Veda looks past the gleeful boy. Her breath hitches. Spider lilies spring from the asphalt’s cracks. Unlike in the forest, these glow with an eerie, unnatural hue, brightening by the second. A timer ticking down.
“Come here, August,” Gabriel calmly instructs.
The boy’s joy vanishes as he throws a worried glance at his dad. A small crowd is already gathering. More people join, whispering.
“It’s okay. You’re safe,” Gabriel assures his son, eyes flicking to a man reaching toward the long stamens. “No one touch anything.” His voice rises with authority. “Everyone, back away. This is Omnipotent magic. It’s erratic and highly volatile.”
The man nearly falls over himself stumbling back in alarm.
August rushes to his dad’s side. The last thing Veda hears before tuning out the world is Gabriel on the phone, calling for a team.
It’s not hot, barbed terror that rises in her chest but cold confirmation.
This is a warning. The shift in the Cosmos.
Suddenly, Gabriel is in front of Veda. “I need to report this to my superiors, so you need to go. I can’t keep you out of this if you’re here when backup arrives.”
“I want to stay—”
“Your name is part of a report that is easily pulled if anyone looks hard enough. You don’t need to be here, and neither does August. Take him to Peter and Khadijah’s. I’ll meet you there and fill you in when I’m finished.”
Veda wants to argue, but logic and one look at August simmer her fight. Before backup arrives to cast an Unbreakable Line around the spider lilies, she leaves.