The Tangled Life of Tabitha Grey

Chapter 1

‘A little to the left.’

Teetering on the ladder, I couldn’t turn my head enough to look at her. ‘Your left or my left?’

‘… we’re facing the same way,’ Emma pointed out.

‘I know. I meant more – is it actually left or what you think is left?’ I clarified.

There was a long pause and I didn’t have to turn around to know that Emma was holding up her hands, making an ‘L’ with both.

She’d never been good with directions. Once, when we’d been set to meet at the sprawling Great Amwell car-boot sale, she’d told me she was ‘over on the right, near the entrance’.

I’d spent half an hour looking for her, confused because the entrance was on the left, and eventually realised she was at a different car-boot sale entirely, over in Baldock.

So maybe it wasn’t really ‘directions’ so much as ‘practicalities’ in general.

But, then again, she was a creative genius, so that sort of went with the territory.

Still, she was my best (only) friend, well, the only one who wasn’t one of Richard’s mates’ ever-changing girlfriends. At least she was here, helping me. Even if she was also my employee, so she sort of had to be.

My employee. God, that sounded so official and business-y.

I was a businesswoman, officially! Twenty-seven years old and I was about to flip the ‘Open’ sign on my own shop.

The sense of accomplishment was dizzying.

Or perhaps that was just the effect of standing on a rickety ladder.

I glanced down and caught an eyeful of the unforgiving cobbled street below.

I’d always found it charming but, just then, I couldn’t help wishing for a more stable foundation for my DIY efforts.

I waited, my arms starting to ache as I held the heavy drill in one hand and the sign with the other. I’d already affixed it at one point, and I was more than ready to be done with heights for the day.

‘My left,’ Emma finally said with confidence. ‘As in the left that is actually the left.’

I raised the drill to the wooden trim and tried not to wince at the loud noise as it bored a hole.

A few quick bits of hardware later and presto!

Dad’s advice hadn’t led me wrong. Richard would be proud – though he’d probably also tell me I should have waited for him to do it.

Even though he had to look up a YouTube tutorial on how to hang a picture.

I climbed down the ladder and looked up at the sign for the shop – my shop.

It still gave me a tiny thrill to think it.

Emma had painted it for me, drawing the name ‘Ewe and Me’, with each letter illustrated as a different craft supply we sold – ribbon, thread, yarn, a measuring tape, buttons, etc. It looked adorable.

And crooked.

‘I think I meant your left, or like… right,’ Emma said, wincing. ‘Whoops!’

I looked up at it, debating the merits of taking it down right now or having a cup of tea first. We’d been setting things up all morning, trying to finish the last few tasks before the grand opening at the weekend.

Only a day away now. With only the two of us, it had been a slog, but I was no longer five scrolls from the end of my phone to-do list and things were looking up.

At least the nightly spiralling into ‘what have I done?’ territory was a thing of the past. Mostly.

‘Is it really noticeable?’ I asked, trying to gaslight myself into thinking it wasn’t that bad. ‘As in, if you were just casually walking by, would you be all “Look at that stupid wool shop with the crooked sign!” or would it be more like “Ooh! A wool shop! What a lovely sign!”?’

Emma seemed to consider for a moment. ‘I think split the difference and say, “Oh, wow! A lovely wool shop – and what a quirky, crooked sign!”’

I sighed and chewed my lip. ‘Eh, good enough for the next half-hour – let’s have a tea and consolidate our strength. I’ll summit the ladder again later.’

Together we entered the shop, sending the bell by the door jingling.

I’d dreamed of owning a cute little wool shop in the high street in the winding Tudor streets of Leaford ever since I made my first proper jumper at thirteen.

Not just any shop but specifically this one, with its red-brick exterior, cobbled side alley and half-timbered frontage.

When I was growing up, it had been a sweet shop, but now the giant jars of sherbet pips and cherry lips were in a larger unit opposite the library.

My own real shop, with a bell by the door and a clean sparkling bay window filled with bright balls of yarn and crochet projects I’d made to delight and draw in customers.

In my dreams, however, I’d had help putting up the sign from my boyfriend.

Unfortunately, Richard was once again off somewhere ‘networking’.

I didn’t begrudge him the time – he was trying to start his own business as a property developer, after all – but he had promised.

He was also the one with the tools in his car – he’d taken mine to fix ‘something at work’.

Luckily, I’d helped myself to them before he drove off.

What he needed to fix as an estate agent, I had no idea.

‘Thinking about Richard?’ Emma asked, ducking through a bead curtain she’d made of tiny recycled bobbins and clicking on the kettle.

‘It’s scary, how you do that,’ I said, following her.

The ‘staffroom’ behind the counter was only large enough for two breakfast-bar stools, a narrow counter with a kettle and microwave, and two lockers for our personal items. Emma leant against the counter and shrugged, sending her multiple strings of crystal beads swaying.

‘One of my many magical powers… besides it’s written all over your face. You’ve been glum ever since you turned up this morning.’

I glanced at the kettle, a vintage chrome monstrosity I’d brought home from Aunt Lou’s cottage after clearing it out a year ago.

The tab inside said in all caps ‘DO NOT FILL PAST HERE’ and, as a child, I’d always been terrified that it would explode like a claymore if I added a teaspoon too much water.

I used to sprint into the hallway as soon as I’d turned it on.

The same with Lou’s beloved pressure cooker.

Now it was a pleasant reminder of my favourite aunt and the many cups of tea we’d shared as she taught me to crochet in her woodland cottage all those years ago.

‘At least he called,’ I said. ‘He’s got to take every opportunity going, I suppose.

It’s not like he has an inheritance to fall back on to get his business off the ground.

’ I winced, aware that I was parroting one of Richard’s lines.

He’d really wanted me to invest in his business, in our shared future.

But this place had been a dream of mine for so long and it seemed only right that Aunt Lou’s money went towards it.

A few days ago, he’d dropped into conversation that I could still recoup a lot of the inheritance money I’d laid out by selling off the stock wholesale and surrendering the shop lease.

I think maybe he was trying to make me less anxious by reminding me I had options.

Which wasn’t really helpful and didn’t make me feel better.

Still, at least he’d tried. He’d been so excited when I found out how much I was inheriting, it had been so awkward to have to tell him I had plans for the money, but he’d been really understanding.

‘Hmm,’ Emma muttered. ‘Well, as long as he pulls his weight at the grand opening.’

‘He will. He’s really excited.’

I was overselling it. He hadn’t said he wasn’t looking forward to it, though, which was basically the same thing.

Emma made me a regular Yorkshire Tea and herself one of her witchy blends.

We’d met on jury service, of all places.

Both of us freshly eighteen and unsure why on earth we’d been handed this responsibility so early in our adulthood.

I’d been drawn to her because she wore a lot of velvet and handmade jewellery.

She’d also had a magazine she was willing to share and, as it turned out, jury service was really boring.

We’d gone out to lunch that first day in the dreary Fenlowe high street and she’d read my tarot cards over a jacket potato.

I’d crocheted her a card cosy the next day and we’d talked about our childhoods.

Emma had grown up in Ireland but was about as different from her staunch Catholic parents as I was from mine.

Both of us the black sheep of our families.

Emma’s interest in the supernatural was already working its way into the shop.

There were several crystals in my till and a special piece of paper hidden above the door with a mysterious symbol on it.

I wasn’t really a believer in anything like that but, as we were a new business and I’d given up my job as a library assistant to do this, I needed all the luck I could get.

Aunt Lou’s savings wouldn’t keep us going forever.

Perched on stools, we sipped our respective teas and soaked up the feeling of all our work coming to fruition.

At least, I was soaking it up. I couldn’t vouch for Emma.

But it had been an intense few months of effort.

First all the paperwork – the deposits, ordering stock and setting up insurance and electricity, all the boring bits.

Then we’d had to roll our sleeves up and banish the remnants of the nail salon this place had been before.

From the bubble-gum-pink walls to the dust-encrusted crystal chandelier and the leopard-print vinyl flooring.

Not one inch of the place had been well painted or properly finished and there had been pink paint spattered on the kitchen sink, the ceiling and the floor.

As if Mr Blobby had been massacred there.

Half the floor had been rotten from a leaky sink and we’d had to replace the boards and install new flooring.