Chapter 10 Old Habits
Aweek and a half of avoiding going into town had proven to be more difficult than Tilly anticipated. It meant no Black Cat coffee runs for her favorite honey lavender latte. It meant no stops at The Lazy Snail for brunch or Michelle's for a croissant.
She didn't eat croissants regularly, but when she was suddenly faced with the idea of not having one, all she smelled was buttery, flaky pastry.
It was easy enough to wave off why she had been so busy. She had taken on the monster that was The Crescent Inn, learning its ins and outs, trying to find ways to update systems and slowly upgrading the parts that needed fixing.
She decided to start with the wallpaper in the front drawing room.
Down came the yellowed posey wallpaper that gave her a migraine, which took four days alone, and up went a lovely blue and cream floral wallpaper that was less busy and brought the room into this decade.
The couches were another subject altogether, but furniture would be the last thing on her list to replace.
The distraction had been exactly what she needed.
The first day with tools in unsure hands and eyes taking in a project she wasn't sure how to pull off, she pulled a particularly rough section of aged wallpaper from a corner that finally gave and released not only the wallpaper but also a cloud of sparkly dust and a slip of paper.
It's not their power to wield.
The script was small and curling. She frowned sitting back on her heels and looking up over the aged floral wall.
At lunchtime, she made sure she had food in the refrigerator for the cleaner and made a chicken salad sandwich for herself as she walked around the inn slowly, thinking.
When the Grandmother clock chimed its lovely way, she walked over and peered into the face to see the black galaxy behind what looked like a wobbling tower.
It was a great Gothic structure. It brought Chief Landry's castle-like house to the front of her mind, and she rolled her eyes.
It was reminiscent of the old deck of tarot that Crystal was never without.
Upheaval and change.
The words whispered through her mind. She frowned and looked back at the picture. There was a feeling of being tilted, of walking into a room only to look around, forgetting why she'd made the journey.
She wasn't sure how long she stared at the clock that didn't keep time.
Her index and middle finger felt frayed, and when she shook herself out of her daze, she stilled the fingers from tapping her thigh.
The suddenness of her mind going blank for a time made her feel out of sorts, and when she looked back at the clock with its dark, ominous tower, she took a deep breath as the words upheaval and change continued to chant in an unfamiliar voice only for her.
She took a picture of it and sent it to Crystal.
A few hours later, she found another piece of paper held behind a wood panel.
In the woods, it is simple
to walk the old world
and justly bow to oneself
"The house is a damn poet," she muttered. This one she folded up to join the other in her back pocket.
But while her hands kept busy, her mind couldn't help its constant pivot to a certain chief who had turned her world more than a little sideways in the forest on the night of Midsummer.
Her life was already sideways enough as it was.
Enough plot twists had occurred that she felt the vertiginous unrest that was digging up old voices, old patterns of thought, and fear. She couldn't allow herself the luxury of a path less taken.
On the evening that she was supposed to get dinner with Ronnie, she decided she needed to finish peeling off old wallpaper in the front hallway, which was a stilted process because of the decades-old glue used, so she texted him a raincheck.
The Covenant hadn't shown themselves since the dinner party, and while there was a shifting in the air, Salem had remained relatively quiet.
Here, in the inn, where she could scrape off decades-old wallpaper and pick up a paintbrush to cover old imperfections, she felt solid. She was accomplishing and fixing.
Crystal, who rarely took to the communication medium of texting, left a note pinned to a gold and black ten of swords card.
The Grandmother clock is a clock for an altruist
An altruist, she thought, turning the word over in her mind.
She saw a text come through- a crying face emoji from Ronnie.
She felt a pang of remorse.
She caught herself, before shaking it away as she threw up her thick hair into a ponytail and gritted her teeth to take on her project. She stayed late, feeling a frenzied need to finish something, checking this off her list.
Freida had been no help, only watching her from her perch at the front desk between chapters of her cozy mystery book with looks of furrowed annoyance at Tilly's whisper-yelled expletives when she dropped a tool or scraped her knuckles.
She'd tried with the night manager to encourage conversation, making her tea and bribing her with Eloise's rosemary and cheddar scones. But the woman simply gave her nothing.
When she brought her a bottle of her honeysuckle honey wine, Freida had shifted her body backwards and scrunched up her nose at the offering.
She tried not to take it personally, but she wasn't sure how not to.
It tickled the old worry inside of Tilly. Maybe Freida didn't like her. Maybe she was already bungling everything, and no one liked her and wondered why Mrs. Ling handed her this monstrous job.
She stifled the thoughts with old reminders that if someone didn't like her and she had tried her best, that was on them.
And she knew it to be true, but yet...the racing thoughts were fast. Her fingers did their little tap tap dance.
It's not their power to wield.
The words stamped into her mind in a solid thump, and she caught her breath as everything else ran for the shadows. Her hand relaxed.
She could do this. Freida didn't know her enough to form an opinion of her. By the time she'd left the inn, her body was aching from the many odd positions she had been in.
The next morning was brutal.
But now she was almost finished with this front room. She had never put up wallpaper before, and it had taken a few misjudged lines to get it, but now she had it down. The smile pulling at her mouth felt like a reprieve.
She hadn't made anything beautiful in a long time. The thought was astounding, echoing through her chest. Her hand reverently ran over the new wallpaper.
The front door jingled, signaling a visitor, and she slid the smoothing tool up, up and into the crease where crown molding met wall before she climbed down from the ladder.
She was proud of the work she had done. She'd taken her time measuring each piece of wallpaper and gave them all of her attention until it was installed just right.
She'd finished the front sitting room and almost finished the front foyer hallway.
Which was a mess of rose wallpaper that looked like the roses themselves had overgrown.
She checked her appearance, smoothing down her long red maxi skirt, admittedly not the best fashion choice to wear when installing wallpaper on a high ladder, but she'd worn her comfortable canvas flats and a cute t-shirt with a red collar and a black cat reading a book.
She rounded the doorframe and saw a tall, dark-haired woman's back as she was looking at a fake plant dangling from the hold of old ropes and made a mental note to take that down immediately.
"Welcome! How can I help you?" She was opening the guest check-in planner and when she looked up her heart stopped as the person turned to face her.