Page 5 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Magic & Murder (The Hemlock Saga #1)

Saga

It was that lack of self-empathy that had Saga Trygg shifting restlessly in her bed for the past hour. She’d fidgeted, rolled, and ran her fingers into her hairline so many times it had ruffled her bangs and dislodged the silk scarf tied around her head.

The weight of the Brigid medallion she wore was a small comfort, and she layered her hand over it, pressing it into her sternum.

This, unfortunately, had the reverse of the intended effect—all she could feel was her heart pounding.

It drummed in invasive thought after invasive thought until her mind was overflowing with humiliation draped in taffeta. I’m unlovable.

She sat up abruptly. Her fingers combed through the thick Brigitte Bardot–style fringe to brush it from her eyes, only to catch sight of the heavily embroidered ghostlike fabric peeking out at her from the closet.

With a growl, she flung back her covers and stomped over to the offending mass of chiffon and tulle.

She clumsily gathered the skirt of the ballgown wedding dress in her arms before trying to shove it deeper into the closet and close the bifold door.

But the great marshmallow mockery of matrimony would expand the moment she released it, thus pushing on the hinge and forcing the door open again.

Undeterred, she attempted this same ritual two more times before conceding that it was a futile effort.

By conceding, of course, she furiously grabbed the hanger and yanked it from the closet. This feat was also no small effort as her attempts to contain it within the wardrobe had somewhat wedged the skirts against the other clothes, hangers, and shoes.

Saga was reminded of dueling with a particularly stubborn pickle jar. The fabrics clung to each other, and when she finally wrenched the dress free, the momentum caused her to fall back onto the bed.

She laid there, staring up at the ceiling through a veil of tulle, and vaguely wondered if it could just finish the job and suffocate her.

Death by fashion. That would be quite posh. Much better than death by crippling embarrassment and heartbreak. Or at least considerably more English. Her mother would have preferred that.

Her mother also might have preferred that such a death could have happened unseasonably early, rather than fashionably late in regard to the oh-so-blessed event itself.

Before the dreaded in-law dinner. Before so many deposits had been spent on a venue and a caterer and alterations on the very instrument of her demise.

Before the day itself at least, so every close family member and friend wouldn’t bear witness to what she could only pray would be the worst moment of her life. Rejected. Humiliated. Abandoned.

Looking back, it was truly difficult to pinpoint what her mother had abhorred more: the embarrassment of her only child being left at the altar, or that Saga lacked the decorum to hide it. Probably the latter; Audrey Hudson was the human embodiment of “keep a stiff upper lip.”

Seeing the world through a haze of thin white netting again, her heart sank. The sense memory dropped a sudden flash of recollection, like a deck of cards whooshing past her face in a spring flourish, each image quickly overlapped by the next.

Vows, barely made before broken. The way his throat trembled. The exact shade of peacock green that made up his tie. The deafening sound of the chapel doors as they slammed closed. Her mother tapping her toe in exasperation outside the bridal suite while Saga sobbed uncontrollably within.

“You get this from your father,” she’d said.

Stoically casting blame was the closest thing to comfort Audrey had ever managed to utter on the topic.

Anytime Saga dared commit a transgression her mother deemed ill-advised, reckless, embarrassing, or decidedly un-British, it was clearly the result of her father’s DNA.

Her father, who was a born national of Norway.

Her father, who climbed mountains and flew all over the world to save lives.

Her father, who had been dead since Saga was six.

It wasn’t very kind, but respecting the dead required the same sort of sentiment that Audrey Hudson found unforgivably stupid and pointless.

“Respect is only worth faking to keep a dinner table civil, and the dead do not sup,” she would say.7

Needless to say, neither ghost nor god was welcome at her dinner table.

Saga, on the other hand, had quite a few homages to both her father and the goddess Brigid in her modest one-bedroom flat.

The most notable an oak statue, hand-carved and standing just under half a meter tall.

It had been a gift from her grandmother long ago but was recently rescued from dusty attic boxes before she escaped back to London.

It stood on the small altar to the left of her bed, and as Saga let her gaze drop, she met the statue’s eyes. Somehow they were always gentle. Brigid always looked kind. Empathetic.

Even when Saga was feeling merely pathetic. “Does it get easier?” she asked.

The statue, of course, did not answer, but it didn’t need to. These talks, though casual in their nature, were her frequent form of prayer.

“I’m not expecting to just…be better, but I thought at least after three months it…

Pain is supposed to dull with time, isn’t it?

” She sighed, the air blowing the veil briefly off her face.

“I know having this around isn’t helping.

I do. But it’s the nicest thing I’ve ever owned, and after all the money I saved to get it, it just feels… ”

Saga’s heart winced, and she slowly sat up, a hand at her chest, then at her head.

A resigned sigh. “No, you’re right,” she conceded.

“That’s not why I keep it.” She released her grip on the dress and the weight of it dragged it to the floor.

“I think I have this hope that if I hold on to it…” She chuffed in self-deprecating amusement.

Thinking he might come back was too humiliating to utter aloud. “Pretty dumb, right?”

Yet she found no judgment in those delicately carved eyes. No arching brow or pursed lips. Just understanding. Brigid never thought anything was dumb.

Saga’s lips tugged at a weak, crooked smile, and she fingered the golden amulet around her neck once more. “We need tea, don’t we?”

The main space of the flat was not particularly large, but it was multifunctional.

She’d made the most of the kitchen, allowing it to overflow into what would have been a dining room by installing an island in the center for extra counter space and pushing a small table against the wall for dining.

Another altar, larger than that in the bedroom, consisted of a cabinet flush against the wall next to the nook of the kitchen.

Atop it sat a less ornate cast-iron statue, more simplistic in its design, standing before a large cauldron.

She lit a tea candle and placed it within the cauldron as she passed it.

The remainder of the front room was a small sitting area surrounded by bookshelves that had yet to really serve as a place for socializing.

Most of the warm wood was from the original construction, which had been restored and maintained over time.

Prior to Saga moving in, her aunt and grandmother had installed a deep blue jacquard wallpaper.

Despite her tenancy only beginning a few short months prior, Saga had made the small space home.

Vases filled with fresh coppertips were scattered around the room.

Photographs were arranged like collages on the walls—the largest group centered around a four-by-six frame of her and her father.

It was a brightly lit photo, taken just outside Heathrow.

He’d just returned from one of his trips, and she couldn’t have been older than three.

Her grandmother must have taken it—Audrey Hudson never would have been so sentimental, even when she and Saga’s father had been together.

Rich jewel tones made up the plush furniture and throw pillows, wrapped in a warm glow of twinkling amber string lights and accompanied by the lingering scent of cinnamon and clove.

Saga paused at the kitchen window. Being on the ground floor, she had covered the windows with a privacy film that allowed the light in but obscured any details to prevent nosy pedestrians.

The unfortunate result was that the film also obscured her view to the outside.

Still, she could hear the rain quite clearly.

She went to check the meter on the sill and the soft green light emitting from the device’s logo, an oak tree with circuitry for branches.

She tapped the display screen awake: main power and both auxiliaries were fully charged.

The rain had been rather constant in the past few weeks, the kinetic panels collecting more energy than they could store, and so power had been abundant.

Satisfied, she flicked on the electric kettle and began skimming through the small jars of dried herbs. “Hawthorn berries for heartache…”8 Her fingers wiggled before plucking another jar from the collection. “Rose hips for healing.” Both dried ingredients went into a small steeping mesh.

Be honest. The thought crossed her mind so strongly, she could have almost sworn it had been spoken by an unseen guest.