Page 53 of The Messengers of Magic

Chapter Thirty-Seven

A fter helping change the locks at the Feather Thorn, Ewan walked Adelaide to her car.

The scent of paint still clung to her, sharp and heady, mixing with the crisp bite of evening air.

For a second, she thought he might kiss her, the space between them thinning, breath warming the gap.

Her heart drummed, lips parting, ever so slightly, as Ewan leaned in.

But instead, he reached for her car door and swung it open.

A pang of disappointment flickered, gone as quickly as it came when he spoke. “Would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow?”

“Yes,” she answered, a little too quickly, her cheeks blooming with a quiet embarrassment. She considered mentioning the note, to ease out of the awkward moment, but the thought passed, replaced with excitement.

The idea buzzed in her veins as she drove home, thrilling and nerve-wracking all at once. She hadn’t been on a proper date in years. What should she wear? What would they talk about? Was she even ready?

By the time she pulled into Carolyn’s driveway, she’d already imagined their meal three different ways, each ending in a kiss. And she’d squirmed over how she might mess it up.

Her fantasies evaporated when she spotted Carolyn stepping out of her car, clutching her purple leopard-print bag like a shield.

Adelaide’s heart sank. She’d hoped for a buffer, a few days to let the dust settle. But, of course, fate seemed to have other plans.

Drawing a steadying breath, she turned off the engine and stepped out of the car, already rehearsing excuses, apologies, explanations.

“Hey,” Adelaide said, raising her hand in greeting, or perhaps surrender. She wasn’t quite sure which.

“Adelaide, I’m glad you’re here. Follow me.”

That was it? No, Hey, how are you? Just the click of heels on the stone and the swish of her coat as Carolyn headed up the short pathway to the house.

Adelaide followed, the last of the sun setting the sky alight, orange melting into violet. The cold bit through her jeans, and her excitement from earlier had all but disappeared, replaced with a nervous anticipation.

Inside, Carolyn flipped on the light switch, flooding the open space with a warm, golden glow. Yet, despite the inviting light, Adelaide couldn’t help but feel a little less welcome. The air still held the charge of things left unsaid, and she crossed her arms instinctively.

The wood stove crackled faintly, low embers glowing. Carolyn crouched to tend it, selecting a few logs from an ornate wrought-iron fire ring near the brick hearth. As she placed them on the coals, sparks danced up the chimney.

Adelaide hovered near the kitchen table, fingers nervously picking at its worn, chipped edge. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, nerves crowding her chest. She felt the need to make up an excuse to leave.

Carolyn, seemingly unaffected by the tension between them, moved to the sink, filled a large pot with water, and set it to boil on the stove.

Then she opened the refrigerator. One by one, she gathered potatoes, carrots, turnips, a head of celery, and laid them all out in tidy rows.

Without glancing up, she reached for two cutting boards and placed them on the center island.

“Come,” Carolyn insisted, waving Adelaide over. “Chop this,” she added, handing her the celery and a knife.

The routine broke something. The normalcy of it.

Carolyn peeled the potatoes. Adelaide chopped slowly, the rhythm of the blade steadying her.

For a few minutes, they worked in silence, save for the soft clack on the board and the hiss of water heating.

Adelaide drew a breath, readying to break the ice when Carolyn’s voice cut through the stillness first.

“I want you to know that I’ve had a long think about what we talked about last night,” she began, her hands working quickly.

Her voice was quieter than usual. “I know it’s not my place to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with your own money and life.

I’ll be fully supportive of whatever choices you make, but before you commit to this, I think you should know the whole story behind the bookstore. ”

She scooped the chopped potatoes and celery into the pot of boiling water, the steam rising in soft clouds. Turning back, she handed Adelaide the carrots, then reached for the turnips.

“The bookstore had been in Rowland’s family for centuries,” Carolyn said.

“He inherited it after his uncle passed in the summer of 1919. The building always went to the eldest male heir; that was Rowland. By the time he got it, the place was in shambles, just a dusty, neglected storehouse full of his uncle’s belongings.

” Carolyn’s knife moved against the chopping board, turnips soon joining the others in the pot with a gentle splash.

“It had been more than a shop,” she continued.

“At different times, it was a home, a doctor’s office, even a laboratory. ”

Adelaide kept her hands moving, slicing the carrots as the room filled with the scent of root vegetables and woodsmoke.

“There’s a reason it passed down through the family for so many generations.

They were never allowed to sell it. The shop holds more than memories.

It holds… something else. A secret.” She turned and met Adelaide’s eyes.

“An artifact. Created by John Dee, supposedly. Something that couldn’t be destroyed.

It was hidden in the building, and the family was entrusted to keep it safe, generation after generation. ”

Adelaide’s pulse ticked up. John Dee. That name was burned into her memory. The brass plate on the back of the painting of the man with the large beard. The same painting that had hidden that key. Suddenly, its placement on the stairwell felt intentional. Like a watchman.

Carolyn stopped chopping. Her hands hovered just above the carrots as she studied Adelaide, eyes filled with apprehension, as if she was trying to choose her next words carefully.

“I know how it sounds, all far-fetched, but I believe that artifact is connected to the disappearances of Rowland, and later, Pen Turner. What John Dee hadn’t accounted for was that one day the family line would end, and someone else would own the shop.

Pen Turner was that someone. Before the shop sat empty.

Before you. Neither of them ran off or went mad, as people like to say.

I think something happened to them in that building because of that artifact. ”

“The painting,” Adelaide replied, swallowing. “The big one on the stairs. That’s John Dee?”

Carolyn nodded, tipping more vegetables into the bubbling pot. “Yes. And it’s quite old. Painted in the late sixteenth century, I believe.”

“But, how do you know all this?”

“Rowland told me bits and pieces about his family and the history of the place, and over the years I eventually put it all together.” She glanced up, just briefly, at the ceiling.

Adelaide followed her gaze. The guest room. Her suspicion surged again. Was Carolyn hiding something up there? That glance, it hadn’t seemed accidental. But then again, maybe she was reading too much into it. All this talk of secrets and disappearances had her seeing them around every corner.

Her stomach growled loudly, breaking the tension. Carolyn cracked a small smile and pulled down a mixing bowl and a bag of flour from the shelf above the counter.

“Now you can see why I don’t want you getting involved with that place,” Carolyn stated, cracking an egg into the bowl.

“I think it houses a very powerful source of energy, and God knows where, or what that is, but I’ve always had this feeling…

” She poured in a splash of milk, then stirred.

“I can’t risk you picking up some mundane object only to find out it’s part of the artifact and have you disappear like the others. ”

Adelaide lowered herself slowly into a chair at the table, her hands resting in her lap. “But how do you know it’s the artifact?” she asked quietly. “That caused their disappearances?”

Carolyn paused, her gaze growing distant. “Rowland wasn’t the first of his family to vanish in that place. There were stories, records, of relatives who disappeared long before him. I don’t remember much from when Rowland went missing; I was very ill at the time. But I do remember Pen’s story.”

She reached up to a narrow wooden shelf above the stove and retrieved two small jars, each sealed with a cork top.

Then, one by one, she opened them, and the rich, earthy scents of thyme and rosemary filled the room.

She tapped a pinch of each into her palm, then sprinkled them into the boiling water, along with a single bay leaf.

Her voice softened, almost as if she was speaking to herself more than to Adelaide.

“When Pen first arrived in town, we were all surprised. Rowland had been thought to be the last of his line. But it turned out that his sister Emily’s husband gifted Pen the bookshop in his will.

” Carolyn stirred the pot, then turned back to the counter, hands working the dough.

“Pen was full of life, so eager to make a name for himself, to forge his own path. Everyone loved him. He breathed new life into that place. And then, just like Rowland, he disappeared without a trace one day.”

She floured the cutting board, then lifted the dough from the bowl and set it in the cloud of flour.

Adelaide’s gaze lingered on her great-aunt’s face. Carolyn’s eyes were glassy. She didn’t cry, she wouldn’t, but her sorrow hung heavy in the room. Carolyn tore the dough into small balls, placing each one neatly on the counter.

“Do you really believe there’s something in the shop causing people to disappear?” Adelaide asked. “Maybe Pen just went back to America, like Iain said.” It sounded plausible enough. Perhaps Rowland had left, too, when things got too hard. She would never say that out loud, though.