Page 6 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Magic & Murder (The Hemlock Saga #1)
“I miss him.” Her shoulders slumped in defeat.
“I know I shouldn’t, but I do.” It was not a novel confession—certainly, one that wouldn’t surprise a goddess, but it did release some of the tension in her chest. “Turns out, I’m not very good at falling out of love.
” She folded her arms and leaned against the counter.
“I thought if I moved back here, and…steeped myself in the before times, if you pardon the pun, it would…change me.” She wished she wasn’t so sensitive.
She wished Hugh hadn’t made her look like such an undesirable fool in front of everyone.
She wished she had the ability to move on with the pragmatic efficiency that came so easily to her mother.
A soft melody chimed, signifying that the water had reached its desired temperature.
Saga poured it over the steeper. “Maybe trying to go back to how I was is the wrong kind of change. Maybe I can’t get over Hugh by trying to be who I was before I met him.
Because for better or worse, I am the me that met him.
I’m the me that was broken by him… Even put back together, that crack will still be there.
So, I’m not really either person I was, I’m something new. Something different. I’m…”
She remembered she needed the honey pot and carefully lifted the dipper, spinning it as she moved it to hover over the mug of tea. She removed the steeper with her free hand and allowed honey to drip down into the liquid. “Honey to bind.”
It didn’t take much. And after a quick stir, she ladled approximately two sips’ worth into a smaller cup.
She casually set the small cup on the altar before the cast-iron Brigid, cradling the mug to her chest with her other hand.
“I need a real change, don’t I? Something fit for whomever this new me is, but I haven’t the foggiest what that sort of change would even be.
” She took a slow and thoughtful drink as she lowered to sit before the altar.
“I guess this is all to say… I need your help.”
The featureless statue remained silent, yet it felt more like the silence of a listening ear than the quiet of being alone.
“Send me a sign? Which way do I go? I feel very lost.” Saga forced a smile and took a deep breath. “Goddess guide me. I invoke your fire of inspiration. Brigid, tend your flame.”
A door closed in the outside hall, and heartache became panic in a single breath.
There were two apartments located in the former Georgian living quarters behind Hudson’s Café and Confectionary, and for as long as Saga could remember, the one situated on the top floor had only ever been used for miscellaneous storage.
Being the sole tenant and knowing that neither her aunt nor grandmother would call at such an unholy hour, she could only find one logical conclusion: robbers.
This paranoia was only confirmed when she heard the telltale click of someone attempting to turn the handle of her front door—but then it immediately stopped.
Saga didn’t dare breathe. She could hear the muffled tones of a man’s voice followed by footsteps—two sets, perhaps—walking toward the stairs.
Despite being retrofitted to incorporate the latest in natural power, the building was nearly as old as the street it sat on, and as such, the soundproofing left much to be desired.
She clutched her mug to herself tightly and slowly crept toward the door to listen.
She could hear the stairs creak in the way they did when someone moved up them—then, oddly enough, the way they creaked when someone went down them.
Saga had run up and down those stairs enough as a child to know the melodic difference by heart.
Up, down, up, down, then slowly larger gaps between the creaks, interspersed until they silenced completely. The door to Apartment B opened, but it did not close.
It was then that she realized her hands were shaking, and she carefully took a sip of her tea to calm her nerves.
She couldn’t hear anything.
Was that good or bad?
Another tentative sip.
Then, steps back down the stairs. Authoritative steps. Long stride. Men’s dress shoes—hard soles—had a particular way of resonating against the floor.
Saga braced herself as the footsteps approached, looking frantically for some kind of weapon. Her eyes fell on the cast-iron statue.
Before she could scold herself for the sacrilegious thought, she heard the front door open and close again. Then nothing. Her door remained completely untouched.
She stood on her tiptoes to awkwardly gaze out the peephole into the empty hallway.
Cautiously, her fingers unlocked the door; first the chain, then the dead bolt, then the lock on the knob itself.
She cracked it open, her grip tightening on her cup as if to throw the hot tea on any attacker.
Leaning out enough to peer up the stairs, she was just in time to see a warm light pouring out from Apartment B.
Then the door closed.
Saga swallowed and slipped back into the safety of her own apartment, resetting all three locks.
“Maybe Leigh just forgot to tell me she rented out the other apartment.” Her heart still pounding, she abandoned any hope of falling back asleep.
She had to open the café at four for deliveries anyway.
So she resolved to simply start getting ready for the day and to spend extra time and attention on her hair and makeup.
She figured she’d need it anyway to cover up any bags that would undoubtedly form under her eyes in protest of a sleepless night.
It is a truth universally acknowledged among the early-rising business community that whenever someone looks extremely put together for their 4:00 a.m. shift, insomnia is likely to blame. Or thank, perspective depending.
***
Leigh Hudson, owner and proprietor of Hudson’s Café and Confectionary, had inherited the business from her mother and father, as her father had inherited from his parents and so on through the Hudson line.
The initial plan was that she would carry on the legacy alongside her sister, but Audrey had next to no interest in the business, even when she was younger.
Leigh often commented that “these days, unless something exists with precedent in a court of law, Audrey cannot perceive it.”
Now that Saga was back in London, however, she took on managing the café.
Which meant Leigh had the luxury of spending more time with her toddler and husband in the morning.
She would typically appear not long after the morning rush died down and the traffic calmed between the café and her home in Primrose Hill.
“Good morning!” She announced her entry to the entire café with a grand swoop of her free arm, the other carefully balancing her daughter on her hip.
She was a strangely graceful woman, always walking on her tiptoes even when barefoot—as if constantly navigating a complex ballroom dance step.
Her long auburn hair was laced with gold strands and held away from her face with a brightly colored scarf.
Airy skirts swished around her ankles with the slightest movement.
One could spot a regular at Hudson’s by the way they automatically acknowledged Leigh with their own greeting whenever she entered. The reaction was so constant that one could almost imagine some sort of musical sting accompanying her everywhere she went.
“Leigh!” Saga greeted in relief, eager to ask whether she now had a legitimate neighbor or a squatter. She bobbed her index finger in a tiny wave to the smiling child wrapped around her mother’s waist. “Hi River.”
“You look pretty.” Leigh lightly brushed her niece’s cheek with her thumb. “I love the shimmer.” She headed toward the back room, and Saga followed after.
“Em, Leigh, I was—”
“Did the delivery this morning include arabica?” Leigh proceeded to open doors and cupboards, searching through the inventory with one hand.
“Hassan called me in a panic, thinking he’d forgotten to send our shipment of arabica.
I told him it was fine if he forgot to send it—he could just refund us for this week, or take it off the next order.
‘But how will you make the Turkish coffee?’ he said, as if we’d use robusta or something as a stand-in.
I told him we could simply tell people the truth, that we were out of Turkish coffee this week, to which he was horrified, and anyway this is my long-winded way of telling you that if I don’t find that shipment in the next hour, a very sweet but anxiety-ridden coffee dealer will descend upon us, and I think we should be prepared to console him. ”
Saga blinked, taking a second to fully register everything. “Yes, it arrived, it’s already stocked out front.”
“Marvelous!” Leigh appeared to produce her mobile from the ether. “Hassan? No, love, it’s fine, it’s fine. Yes, it did arrive this morning with everything else.”
Saga fidgeted, not certain how long this call was going to last and more and more aware of the pressing matter of determining whether there was an intruder in the apartment next door. She cleared her throat nervously. “I do need to talk to you about something unrelated.”
Leigh nodded to Saga but spoke into the phone.
“Absolutely, I’m certain! Well, I’m at the café right now.
” She gave her niece a sympathetic smile.
“I swear, duckie, I am looking at the arabica, plain as day, I see it. I wouldn’t lie to you.
” Well, she wouldn’t wholly lie to him, anyway.
Her brows raised at Saga inquisitively but the shorter woman shook her head.
She didn’t dare elaborate her distress while Leigh was still on the phone. There was no need to possibly risk putting the anxiety-ridden coffee dealer in a greater panic.
Leigh held up a finger to Saga with a knowing smile. “Those crates must be from someone else’s shipment.”