Page 14 of The Curse of Indy Moore (The Cursed Duology #1)

Where Indy Packs Her Life

Baxter wanted to talk. I wasn’t entirely certain I wanted to listen.

Being near him made my heart soar and drop all at once.

We shared our first kiss by the Keinon River, where I stupidly imagined us doing the same when we were old and gray.

On rainy days, he would ask for a dance, and we’d laugh as the droplets drenched us.

Every week, we tried to meet in the field for a picnic while watching the kids fly their kites.

Our time together was dream-like, romantic in a way we could actually ask for, but all that time meant more to me than him.

Baxter became an anomaly. He didn’t quite fit the spaces he once filled. Now that I had his attention, I grew too full, the space packed too tightly, bursting at the seams.

Aunt Agnes squeezed my hand. “We’ll wait outside.”

I wish she wouldn’t, if only to give me an escape, but she departed, and I had nowhere to go that would make my heart cease its yearning. I approached Baxter hesitantly, wondering what to say, if anything.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” he asked.

Outside, Aunt Agnes and my cousins gawked at Ivory House, based on their craned necks.

Mr. Hawthorne spoke behind us, chipper to have the spotlight.

The villagers had questions, but as he said, time was of the essence.

Even now, knowing it was hardly past daybreak, I worried about returning to Ivory House.

“I have to pack, so just a moment,” I replied.

“For what? What’s going on?”

“I will stay with Mr. Hawthorne for the time being until my curse is settled out.”

If it was.

Baxter forced a smile. “Is that really appropriate? How does your aunt feel about this?”

“I don’t see how it wouldn’t be appropriate, and my aunt is fine with the decision. Regardless, I am old enough to make them for myself. This is for the best.”

“But I don’t trust him.” He settled closer, whispering every word. “We know how artificers are. They’re power hungry and shouldn’t be trusted.”

“You trusted Miss Francesca.”

He stiffened at the accusation. “That was entirely different. We were in public. She was putting on a performance. You want to live with a stranger far from everyone you know. If anything went wrong, we wouldn’t know until it was too late.”

I understood where Baxter’s worries came from.

He had an unpleasant run-in with an artificer in his youth.

He worked for a tailor during his teenage years doing menial tasks.

An artificer had their suit delivered. When they were unhappy with the product, they sewed a rune in Baxter’s coat pocket that cursed him to be late to everything.

It sounded painless enough, even mildly humorous as I had laughed when he first said it, except that the tailor didn’t believe him, and he lost his job in the first week.

By the fourth, he lost his loft, and that drove him to Westshire, where he finally discovered the rune and disposed of the coat entirely.

One unpleasant run-in with an artificer changed the entire trajectory of his life.

Artificers weren’t meant to enchant anyone without consent, but it was only illegal if anyone cared enough to listen. Baxter, the son of a warehouse worker, didn’t have worthwhile connections, so the artificer got away with it. As could Mr. Hawthorne.

“I am not entirely trusting of him, either, but I am more than capable of handling myself, and I won’t be alone. There is another artificer there, Mr. Thatcher. He’s a retired botany professor, and he has proven himself a kind man. They are the most capable hands, and I need that now,” I explained.

“I know, but I’m worried,” he argued between clenched teeth, giving me that same look of disbelief as that night here in the tavern. He couldn’t believe I cut our conversation short, and he couldn’t believe I wasn’t entirely on his side. I was the one in the wrong, again.

“Why? We broke up. More correctly, you broke up with me,” I said.

“Which was a mistake.”

I expected to be ecstatic. Ever since the breakup, I dreamed of Baxter returning one way or the other. He arrived at the front door with a bouquet, or he came into the tavern to apologize. We hugged and made up, and those brief moments of color shared with him bled into my dull gray days.

Instead, as he took my hands and held them against his chest, I became overwhelmed. Trapped in a crowded room, surrounded by prying eyes and overhearing ears, I couldn’t do anything but stand there and drown in his attention.

“Worrying this much about you, I’ve realized that I still care. I’d like to try again, if you would let me,” he said before kissing me. He stole the breath from my lungs like he had the first time, then settled his forehead against mine.

“When you return, let’s pick up from where he left off,” he pleaded.

“I, um… I don’t know if now is the time to be thinking about relationships,” I said, to which he kissed me again, reminding me of how good it felt to have a home in his arms .

“I would argue now is the best time.”

I had always been the forgotten garden. Day in and day out, I thirsted for my first bloom, only to be met by endless thirst. Now, an opportunity was laid at my feet to renew a relationship, to be more than the less-than-a-year girlfriend like I always wanted.

The dress I was so excited to wear could be of use, even if it bore a stain, but I could mend it, as we could mend this.

“Okay,” I whispered.

He kissed my temple. “Write to me, and should that bastard try anything, let me know.”

He held me close, where I settled so easily into his arms, hoping that I hadn’t made another poor decision.

While my aunt and I took to packing, Charlotte made snacks, typically my job.

I offered to do it, but Charlotte waved me off.

Maude and Susannah played under the table with Miss Beamy using one of their string toys.

In my room, Aunt Agnes and I didn’t speak as I tugged the crates out from under my bed, alongside a tattered suitcase.

My whole life fit in a single package. So small, a child carried that suitcase from the room she and her mom called home at a boarding house to the countryside without breaking a sweat.

Even if I had more, I didn’t believe I would have taken any with me.

I would have left items behind, like a promise to myself that I would return, or that Mom may return to find it and me.

The doll, however, was left unintentionally, and I remained apologetic to the potential future owners.

Aunt Agnes grabbed clothes to fold, sniffling all the while.

I worried it would be too cruel to promise I would come home safely.

Mr. Hawthorne said he would try to help, but that didn’t mean he would succeed, no matter how confidently he acted.

Carline felt otherworldly. Pushing her into a fire did little more than irritate her.

She commanded the forest to guide me toward her, or perhaps transported me entirely.

She created a vision without uttering a word.

That was power itself, magic in the most frightening of forms.

To make everything worse, Aunt Agnes had more on her plate because of my absence.

These helping hands Otis spoke of were unlikely to fill the void left ever since Uncle Fern died.

I’ve tried to make up for their unfortunate fate of having to take me in, but there was always something, and I was left standing on the sidelines, wondering why I was there and how I could fix everything.

“You really need more clothes, honey.” She pinched a shirt between her fingers, so patched I couldn’t remember what pieces were left of the original. “This looks more like a blanket than a shirt.”

“It’s comfortable.” I settled my clothes into the suitcase. “I’m sorry for leaving. I’m sorry I can’t be here to help. You’re stressed enough as is.”

“For leaving?” Aunt Agnes’s lips set into a grim line. “Indy, you should not be worrying about work or anything happening here. You need to focus on this curse, on getting yourself free from this demon. That is all that matters. Do you understand?”

“But—”

“But nothing.” Aunt Agnes took me by the shoulders. I was a head taller than her and most of the other women in Westshire, but I somehow felt so small in her arms. “We will make do. Don’t worry about us.”

“It’s hard not to.” My life revolved around them. Every possibility, every chance, every action of every day led to them.

Aunt Agnes kissed my cheek. “We will be thinking of you, too, always. Make sure to write, keep us updated, and please, take care of yourself, and come home safe.”

“I will try.” That was the most I could offer, not quite a promise, more of a hope.

The heft of the suitcase in my palm felt familiar, bringing about a pain that never healed.

Tears fell, but Aunt Agnes believed them to be because of our goodbye.

They partially were, but I simply didn’t want to shy away from the resurgence of an old sorrow.

I had a journey ahead of me, same as I did the first time I held this suitcase.

That little girl had been so lost, so confused on the trajectory her life took that she was silent in despair for months.

I couldn’t be that girl again. I couldn’t drown in that sorrow; otherwise, I would never breach the surface.

In the kitchen, Slate perched on the back of a chair.

I hadn’t seen him follow us. He must have slipped in through the front door when we first arrived and stolen a spoon from the tavern.

The spoon dangled from his beak, the little thief, keeping him preoccupied while Maude ran a finger over his feathers.

Miss Beamy chased a string that Susannah ran around the kitchen table with.

The old girl stopped to catch her breath before a knock sounded at the door. Mr. Hawthorne arrived right on time.

“I love you,” Aunt Agnes said.

“I love you too,” I replied, hand shaking as I opened the door.