Page 15
“That’s it.”
But Luke wasn’t done. “I don’t think you understand. It’s a when, not an if. We will have to cross that bridge.”
Sera was cold and cranky and had a very bony pair of wings squashed against her neck, but she took a second to look at him, really look at him, and where she’d expected to find fear or anxiety or even anger, she found only resignation.
“You’re expecting me to come to the conclusion that this is too much trouble,” she realised out loud.
“That’s usually how it goes, yes,” Luke said icily.
“Not here it doesn’t,” said Sera. “This spell I cast? I cast it to keep us safe. It’s never been wrong about anybody, not once. Believe me, I’ve had my doubts about Clemmie, yet here she remains.”
“Who?”
“The point ,” Sera pressed, “is that if my spell invited you in, you get to stay. See you round the front.”
She promptly walked away to avoid any further back-and-forth (and any encroaching frostbite), leaving the choice up to him.
She genuinely had no idea which way he’d go. It wasn’t often that someone at their doorstep turned away again, but on the other hand, it also wasn’t often that that someone at their doorstep already knew her. If she absolutely had to bet on it, she’d have bet that Luke would leave.
And yet, when she reached the front of the inn, there he was.
Luke switched the engine off, got out of the car again, and said, like he was doing her a favour, “Just for tonight.”
Sera gave him a look that would have annihilated an individual made of weaker stuff. “I’m sure I’ll cry myself to sleep as soon as you’re gone.”
His mouth twitched in a brief, speedily suppressed smile. “Are you always like this?”
“Like what?”
“Tetchy.”
“Yes,” said Sera succinctly.
“You never used to be.”
Well, it was high time this conversation came to an end. “I’m a lot of things I never used to be. Are you planning to leave your sister in the car all night?”
He gave her a long, thoughtful look before turning away to unlock the back door. Posy hopped nimbly out of her booster seat and regarded the house with curiosity. Sera couldn’t help noticing she’d left the tablet behind but kept hold of the leaves.
“We’re staying here tonight,” Luke explained to her. “It’s an inn.” This seemed to mean nothing to Posy, so he added, “This is Sera’s house.”
“Sera’s house,” Posy echoed cheerfully.
“And this is Sera,” Luke went on.
Sera smiled. “Hello, Posy.”
Posy smiled back, took Luke’s hand, and then, still refusing to relinquish the leaves in her other hand, used a finger from the hand holding his to point decisively at the front door of the house.
“You don’t waste any time, I see,” Sera said appreciatively. “Come on in, Posy. Are you hungry?”
“Chockit cake?” Posy asked.
“Chocolate cake,” Luke translated automatically, then shook his head.
“That was pretty obvious, wasn’t it? Sorry.
Habit. She doesn’t speak much, so sometimes it’s hard to work out what she’s saying if you don’t know her.
She’s autistic. She doesn’t seem to have any problem understanding what you say to her, though, and she finds her own ways to make herself understood. ”
“You really don’t have to explain,” Sera assured him. “And yes, there’s always cake.”
Posy beamed at her.
Luke examined the old, rustic wooden sign creaking over the front door. “Batty Hole?”
“Yes, it’s ridiculous.” Sera sighed. “And also, as you’ll soon discover for yourself, it really couldn’t be more apt.”
As soon as she opened the front door, the sounds of clinking tableware and overlapping, animated voices drifted to them from the kitchen, but thankfully, none of those sounds involved the giveaway creak of the floorboards in the hallway.
Sera was very, very certain that the last thing Luke and Posy needed right now was an encounter with an overly earnest (and overly armed) knight.
The house’s entryway was an open, comforting space covered in rugs and cluttered with shoes of many sizes.
A tall, crooked table, made out of lovely knotty wood and painted with flowers, stood beside the shoes, and Posy, observing the proximity of the shoes to the empty shelves built under the painted tabletop, put the shoes away at once.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Sera said, but Posy, humming contentedly to herself, kept going.
“She likes things to be in their proper places,” Luke said in a voice that suggested he was very much in sympathy with his sister on that score. “She doesn’t, admittedly, always agree with other people’s opinions on what the proper places for things are…”
“This time, she’s absolutely right,” said Sera, watching Posy take her own shoes off and put them away as well. “Thank you, Posy. If only Theo and Matilda were even half as inclined to put things where they belong.”
On the wall opposite the front door were shelves crammed with books, places for everybody’s post, hooks for coats (Theo’s coat, Sera noted, was on the floor), and the old, overstuffed journal where Jasmine still insisted on writing by hand the names and details of every guest (cheerfully ignoring the fact that Sera had started using a spreadsheet five years ago).
On either side of the shelves, the entryway branched off into two long, airy hallways, one of which led to the living room, Jasmine’s bedroom, and the kitchen, while the other led to the stairs, the downstairs loo (built under the stairs, so good luck not hitting your head on the ceiling if you happened to be taller than a garden gnome), and the bedrooms above.
Sera led Luke and Posy upstairs. The first landing was a snug, in-between space that had decidedly not been designed for people to linger for a chat (and yet it was, inevitably, the place where people lingered for a chat), with a single window on the tiny wall and two more hallways leading to a jumble of rooms on either side.
Matilda and Nicholas had the bedrooms on one end, while Sera’s mostly tidy study and a significantly less tidy box room sat on the other.
Then it was up the next and last flight of stairs to the top of the house.
“Theo and I are down there,” Sera said, pointing to the right before pivoting left. “And these are the two empty rooms. This one here’s got the twin beds.” She fished the key out of her pocket and handed it to Luke. “Dinner?”
“No, we’re okay, thanks. Posy ate her weight in spring rolls about an hour ago.”
“I think Posy and I are going to get on very well.” Sera smiled at her. “I’ll just go get you towels, tea, and that chocolate cake, and then I’ll leave you both to it.”
Luke caught her elbow before she could walk away. “I…” He glanced down at Posy, looked back at her, and cleared his throat. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now I really do have to go. I’ve left the others alone too long already.”
Luke gave her a look she recognised from fifteen years ago, the one that said he thought she was being unnecessarily dramatic. (She usually was, but still.) “What exactly do you think they might have done in the last twenty minutes?”
“I don’t think you appreciate the sort of nonsense the inhabitants of this house are capable of when left unsupervised,” Sera said with feeling.
“I may just go downstairs and find out Matilda has adopted a goat, or Nicholas has heroically stabbed a burglar, or Clemmie has convinced Theo to kidnap someone. And don’t get me started on the zombie chicken. ”
Amusement sparked in his eyes. “You’re not really selling this, you know.”
“You’re only here for one night, remember? I don’t need to sell it.” She smiled angelically. “Also, I hope you have an umbrella. It rains apple blossom tea in this room every Sunday.”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15 (Reading here)
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
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- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
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- Page 39
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- Page 44
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- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54