Page 12 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Magic & Murder (The Hemlock Saga #1)

Saga

Didn’t your shift end like an hour ago?” Shai lingered on the word “hour,” teasing it as she leaned back on the counter.

“And this was pressing because…?”

“My grandmother lost her best friend last week,” she answered in a clipped tone. “I wanted to bring her some.”

A deep scarlet flourished over the eighteen-year-old’s face. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

Saga shook her head to dismiss the concern she immediately regretted causing. “Lemon is uplifting for the spirit, can lower blood pressure, and draws happiness.” She removed the mitts and used them as a fan, first on the steaming tart shells, then on herself.

“Is she all right?”

Saga sighed and offered a helpless shrug. “Honestly? I don’t know. She’s always played her sadness close to her chest. When Grandpa died, the only thing she’d say to me was, ‘The wheel turns unyielding.’”

“Huh,” Shai mused. “Really going for that cryptic witchy talking in riddles vibe, isn’t she?”

“That’s Saoirse O’Donnell. One minute she’s baking pies and singing show tunes, the next she’s giving Nostradamus a run for his money.” Saga moved to the fridge, producing two covered bowls: lemon curd and a pale purple whipped cream. “All grandparents have their quirks, I suppose.”

“Sure,” Shai agreed. “But I think I prefer my nan forgetting it’s only Thursday and consequently observing Shabbas twice over her spouting vaguely ominous phrases.”

Saga tsked playfully. “Kept me on my toes growing up, I will give you that.”

“Well, I don’t intend on becoming a ballerina.” Shai sniffed at the whipped cream curiously. “Did you make lavender whipped cream?”

“Lavender Earl Grey. Complements the brightness and draws calm, healing, and protection.”

Shai sat back on her heels and watched Saga. “You’re really into this stuff, aren’t you?”

Saga’s lips ghosted at a sheepish smile. “Does it bother you?”

Shai shook her head. “So long as you don’t try to shove your beliefs on me, you could worship a goat for all I care.

” There was a sort of hardened exhaustion to her tone that could only come from years of experiencing otherwise.

Then it softened. “I do find it interesting, though. Not for me, but… I like learning.”

Saga weighed the sincerity of this statement. “Then, would it interest you to know that witchcraft is a tool of my beliefs but not actually the religion?”

Shai’s brows raised. “How do you mean?”

“I mean, I follow the goddess Brigid, and many witches dedicate themselves to a certain pantheon or a few different deities that resonate with them, but not all of them. I’ve known a Jewish witch, a Christian witch—even an atheist witch. It’s just a tool. Like prayer or meditation.”

Shai made another thoughtful “huh” sound. “Leigh practices too, right?”

Saga nodded. “Her and my nan. My mother…not so much.”

“What about your dad?”

Saga lightly tested the shells with a quick tap of her finger pads.

Still hot, but they were ready to be removed from the tins.

Her focus homed in on the delicate task of not breaking the shortbread cookie crust as she freed the tartlets.

It gave her voice a faraway, distracted sort of quality. “Dad’s religion was adventure.”

“How so?”

“He could never stay in one place for too long. He and my mom met by total fluke, and it was a flash-in-the-pan relationship—they never even got married. He worked for Doctors Without Borders, and in his free time he went skydiving and scaled impossibly large mountains for fun. If you ask me, I think he saw dating my mother in the same way—an extremely dangerous feat that would test his mettle.”

Shai laughed despite herself. “Did you ever get to go with him?”

“Ah…no,” Saga admitted. “He died in a climbing accident when I was six. Honestly, I barely remember him.”

“Oh.” Worried she’d tread on another delicate topic, Shai helped place each tartlet shell on the cooling rack. The rapid change of subject was without subtlety. “Leigh mentioned you were in medical school, right? Was it because of your dad?”

“Yes.” But it hadn’t been, not entirely, and so Saga self-consciously amended her statement. “Sort of.” But that amendment would prompt more details she wasn’t sure she could get into now. She shook her head dismissively. “It’s complicated. Do you know where we keep the pastry bags?”

Shai moved to retrieve them from a drawer. “Regular nibs okay?”

“One regular, one star, please.”

Shai approached with the requested items, her mouth pursed as her mind made a connection that she wasn’t sure she should speak.

Saga recognized her expression and smiled encouragingly, filling one of the pastry bags with lemon curd. “You can ask it.” The bright scent perfumed the immediate area with a sharp citrus note that made her mouth water.

“Is…” She hesitated, unsure how to word it. “Did you drop out because of all this? The witch stuff?”

Saga laughed. “No. You might be surprised to learn medicine and magic go rather hand in hand—though one is never a substitute for the other.” She moved to the tartlet shells.

“I left medicine because one day I looked in the mirror and saw everyone but myself. I saw my dad’s profession, my mother’s expectations, and my fiancé’s ideals…

but not me.” She carefully filled each shell with just enough lemon curd to be brimming but not overflowing.

“Masquerading as other people didn’t seem like a very practical way to keep living my life. So I left.”

“I thought he left,” the words spilled out of the young woman before she could think better of them.

Saga expected it to sting, but it didn’t.

Perhaps she’d dulled that wound earlier that day by replaying it again and again in her mind at 2:00 a.m. She was so far away from it now, dissociated from both Hugh and the girl she’d been that day.

It felt more like something she’d read about—something that had happened to someone else.

“He did,” she admitted. “But it took that to realize I’d left a long time ago—the real me anyway.

I don’t recommend it, but nothing grants mind-blinding clarity about your life decisions like being left at the altar.

” She set down the pastry bag and wiped her hands on her apron.

Shai shifted awkwardly. “I’m sorry, Saga…”

Saga dismissed the apology with another shake of her head and an understanding smile.

She couldn’t help it. Yes, it was an impolite thing to say, but she had been right.

Hugh had been the one to leave. Could she have been more delicate?

Perhaps, but she was a teenager, and Saga was not about to risk a pleasant working relationship by holding someone barely old enough to vote to a standard her own mother couldn’t abide.

“Let those cool a bit longer before offering them to customers. I’ll take two with me across the street with the pastry bag of whipped cream.

” She waved to the bowl with the remaining cream.

“Don’t put this on until you’re ready to serve, or it will wilt, and I will see you tomorrow. ”

The rain had not ceased, but it had eased in its relentless downpour, so much that Saga did not feel pressed to use an umbrella.

17 She peeked out from under Hudson’s awning, lying in wait for the crosswalk before dashing across the street, hunching over the glass storage case of goodies as if it required vigilant protection from the elements.

The town houses across the street, much like the street itself, had changed little since her last residence in London.

The stone and brick stood as strong as the day they were built.

The vertical gardens on the north side were in full bloom, and the tenants had recently added a few solar panels to some of the higher walls facing west. These had been fitted in addition to, rather than replacing the kinetic raindrop tiles the government fitted and maintained on every London roof.

It was rarely necessary to use multiple sources of energy collection, especially with the rainfall being so abundant in town, but there was typically at least one week in summer during which, between the short drought, children being home during the day, and the rare desire to cool their space, the average Londoner had to ration their electricity.

Two energy collection methods were a rare luxury—one that her grandmother now had the pleasure of enjoying.

Saga fished into her pocket for her keys, flipping through them one-handed with the dexterity that comes only with repetition. It was that same practiced hand that turned the knob and lightly bopped the door open with a sway of the hip. “Mamó?”18 She paused, staring into the living room.

Saoirse O’Donnell hadn’t really redecorated in Saga’s entire life.

Among the plush and overstuffed furniture of the parlor sat a leather wingback chair that had been a favorite of her grandfather’s.

It still had his flannel blanket slung over the left arm, and to the right, a small circular end table that displayed his favorite pipe.

Nothing had changed. Not since the day Saga had been born.

Yet that day as she entered, something felt out of place.

Almost as if everything had been shifted exactly three inches from its original location.

Likely this was due to the one glaring difference in the room: the plethora of bouquets and with-sympathy cards—condolences sent by those who knew the toll her friend’s passing would take on Saoirse’s life.

It was enough to make Saga pause and linger on the threshold like an uncertain vampire.

“Saga?” A woman called, her voice still strong and warm despite the years it had weathered.

Saga smiled, the familiar music of her grandmother melting away any unease. “I brought some bakes,” she called back.

“Mo mhuirnín!”19 Saoirse exclaimed in delight, and Saga could hear some shuffling in the kitchen. “I’ll put the kettle on!”