Chapter 7 Another Unexpected Invitation #2
Tilly and Eloise shared a look as they recognized the woman from Jen's ribbon cutting.
Tall, austere, and wearing a different suit.
This time, she was flanked by two other women, both with similar energy as they stood next to her silently.
Her dark hair was pulled back from her severe face, the fire glinting off its angles sharply.
The woman on her right was the same height with lighter hair, softer features.
On the left was a woman with dark skin, light eyes, and a pointy chin.
"I'm sorry," Crystal said kindly. "Can we help you ladies?" There was something in Crystal's eyes, a knowing.
"I hope so," she said with a smile.
Tilly remembered the smile. It wasn't kind, and it wasn't happy.
"You seem to be the coven at the center of Salem's rather," she paused, looking around the circle of women watching them warily, "odd happenings."
"You seem to be showing up where you're not invited," Eloise said, with her sharp charm. "But please, if you're going to continue coming around, give us your names and we'll give you a cherry tart."
"Astra Harding," she laid a delicate hand on her breastbone as she said it, then nodded to the softer woman. "Esther." Her head tipped the other way. "Beatrice." No last names for the other two. The entire formation was angular, perfunctory. "And I know each of you."
Crystal hadn't moved from where she sat comfortably. "We're honored," she said to Astra. "But tell us how we've come to your attention."
Astra's sharp, dark eyes cut to where Crystal lounged. "Because it's my job."
That knowing look in Crystal's eyes seemed to solidify. Information collected, and now she knew something no one else did for certain.
"Ah," the older woman replied. "I wondered when you would come."
The women of The Lost Souls gave each other curious glances.
"Then you know why we're here," Astra's words were cryptic.
"Okay, so we don't know anything going on," Jen cut in. She had already moved to the edge of her seat like everyone else, except for Crystal. "Who are you?"
"I told you, I'm-"
"Astra Harding, yes," Jen said, her voice strong, her eyes intense, though with a hint of wariness that echoed everyone else's. "But who are you? You're giving off...The Fates."
Astra stood straighter if it were possible.
Her head tipped up the slightest, and her body took on the form of an army general.
Before she answered with closed eyes, she raised her slender hands palms up as she whispered unheard words, all eyes on her moving mouth that was painted the darkest maroon.
The world around them stilled. Each woman was held captive by invisible magic, tongues pressed down, and throats closed off to words or sound.
They felt the veil of magic around them pause, then become cold as her eyes opened.
Everyone watched in various degrees of awe and horror as she spoke.
"We are part of The Grand Coven. We are sent to places that have deep pockets of magic, which are abused and used recklessly.
We are the keepers of our lineage, and we fight to keep our secrets.
" Her words were clear, cutting. Her eyes touched each of them like an accusation.
"When we show up, you have passed warning. "
They could not speak. They were held there as her audience. She the intruder who had taken over their safe and magical space, taking the magic and holding it against them. Even the peach tree stood frozen, the cool air not rustling the leaves.
"Magic is not a game. And you will bring an awareness of our kind to people who would see us burn. We will be watching. Consequences for carelessness are dire."
She and her comrades in unison looked at each woman before she dropped her hands, and they walked away.
Their steps were perfectly timed together. They looked as though they moved as one. The moment they rounded the house, the magic released them, and the women in satin let out breaths and coughs, testing their voices and running hands over chilled skin.
"What the hell was that?" Jen coughed out the question they all had.
All but perhaps Crystal. And when they turned their curiosity to the older woman, they saw in her clear eyes a trepidation never before seen on her face.
"That," she said, a wrinkle formed on her usually carefree and smooth skin, "was the ambassador to The Grand Coven. The Coven that keeps all covens in check."
A presence of fear was left behind; they looked around as a ghostly chill slid over their summer-heated skin, asking Crystal questions and receiving paper-thin answers.
And there was a feeling of unsettled anger at the flimsy words, just under the surface, never quite making it above the horizon into spoken existence.
What had Crystal kept from them? And why?
The next morning, Tilly woke in her apartment and padded into the kitchen that felt like a sardine can compared to where she would be spending her mornings soon at The Lost Souls.
Still, no coffee lurked in her cabinet, so she threw on a green and navy polka dot dress and made her way to The Black Cat.
As she was walking, she was also reading a book that had decided to take her mind hostage, which was a risky game for Tilly.
Tilly didn't have the skill of mindful grace when she did things like simply walking.
Adding in reading a novella that had mastered the art of a plot twist? Not her wisest move.
This was proven when she looked to her right when crossing the main street, and as her Mary Jane-clad foot touched the pavement, a shrill and terrifying horn burst through her literary bubble, causing her to scream, drop her book, and jump back onto the sidewalk like a scared cat.
"Holy-""You're supposed to look both ways."
Her face jerked to her left at the deep voice and then up up up until she saw Chief Landry standing a few feet from her, in his uniform and sipping from a pink Black Cat cup. Seeing the pink cup dwarfed in his hand brought a smile she tried to fight against.
"I did look," she argued instead.
"You looked to your right and then stepped. This is a two-way street. You need to look both ways."
"I am an adult, Chief. I do not need to be told how to cross a street."
He turned to her then and looked down at her. His dark eyes held hers for a second before he said, "And yet you almost got run over."
She put a hand on her hip and squared off with him. What was it about this man that brought out her bold self, which rarely made an appearance? She was gentle and kind, overwhelmingly so sometimes. But there was an itch he brought out in her.
"Well, I suppose that I don't need to worry about my safety since you seem to be everywhere." Her glare was a challenge.
His stoic face was a response.
That itch buzzed.
Why was he so unaffected?
"Perhaps the moon decided you needed a personal sentry," he finally replied with a smirk. "She's good at knowing what women need."
She watched as he gracefully reached down, plucking the thin book from where it had been dropped, and then frowned as he held it out to her.
"Did you want to finish it, or did you happen to read the last word before the car nearly took your life?"
Her glare could slice. But by the way that his eyes danced and one side of his mouth lifted, you'd think she had smiled at him. She quickly grabbed it from his waiting hand, the slide of his fingertips against her hand shocking.
"I've read that one," he said, nodding toward the book. "Would you care to join me in discussing it when you are finished?"
He sounded like a professor in a different time, with his careful words and austere sensibility. It was alluring, and she felt drawn to him. Which she would ignore.
"No?" he asked when she didn't answer him. "Shame. I would have loved to hear what I'm sure would have been interesting thoughts." His eyes pierced hers.
She hid the way that his words filled her chest and belly in buzzing by rolling her eyes and looking both ways, left, then dramatically right- twice- before she crossed the street.
She could feel his eyes on her back as she grasped the door of The Black Cat, but she resisted the urge to look back at him.
She would not look back at him, and she would not see his statue face move the slightest, his mouth turn up on the right side in a quirk of a smile as he watched her fling open the heavy shop door.
She had no idea that Chief Theo Landry was becoming more than intrigued by The Lost Souls' Tilly Nguyen and that he often found his eyes finding and following her whenever she was nearby.
He waited until she was safely inside the local coffee shop before he walked to the station, and when he got there, about to walk inside, two dark SUVs pulled into spaces meant for the SPD officers.
He waited until the driver's door opened for a man of medium height and build to walk around the front and open the back passenger door for a woman.
A woman who stepped out with the kind of intentional power that made him nearly sigh, when he saw her sharp-featured face.
"Hey, Theo," she greeted. "We need to talk about some special residents of Salem." She didn't smile. He wasn't sure he had ever seen her smile. But the confident pull of her mouth meant trouble.
This was going to be a long day.
Tilly was frowning as she hovered in the doorway of The Black Cat.
The woman and her shadows stepping out of a dark vehicle in front of the police department was alarming enough.
But the way that Chief Landry's face spoke of familiarity when the dark-haired woman spoke to him, words Tilly couldn't hear or decipher from where she still hovered was concerning. Did he know her?
"Excuse me."
The annoyed voice pulled Tilly back to where she was and she gave an apologetic smile to a woman trying to leave the coffee shop.