“And leave you to fend for yourself down here? With these ladies and all their questions about our unexpected arrival?” Violet asked, her copper brows flying toward her fringe. “How cruel do you think we’ve become?”
“Let us help,” Beatrix insisted as she slid a hand through the crook of Anne’s elbow.
“But you’ve only just walked through the door!” Anne sputtered. “You must be tired.”
“Not too tired to help our sister,” Beatrix said with a grin. “You’ve forgotten we have a bit of experience with this sort of thing.”
Anne opened her mouth again to protest, but before she could say anything at all, Violet threaded an arm through her other elbow and marched them into the front room of the shop, where they were instantly met by the cries of their customers, who were eager to lure them to their tables.
The Quigley sisters, it seemed, had finally returned home.
CHAPTER 4
A Cart
Appears just before a change of fortune.
By the time the last skirt train had trailed over the threshold and out the front door, the Crescent Moon was heavy with the scent of lingering perfume and questions waiting to be answered.
Though the ladies in the shop had been eager to capture the Quigleys’ attention, the sisters found their thoughts wandering away from the delicate swirls of tea leaves that awaited their interpretation.
One moment, they were trying to decipher the signs, and the next, the familiar sound of their voices entangling in the tea parlor would cause them to pause and seek out one another’s smiles over hat rims and happy customers.
But beneath their satisfaction rested a desire to turn the handle of the clock that ticked above the mantle so they could climb the steps to the family parlor and slip back into the reliable comfort of the past.
“It’s just the same,” Beatrix sighed in relief as she opened the door and took a moment to savor the sight of the crackling fire before sinking into the emerald settee. Her piles of books were still towering on the side table, threatening to topple to the floor if anyone laughed too loudly, and Violet’s knitting remained tangled in a basket next to the hearth, though it looked a bit worse for wear. Tufts of black fur clung to the vibrant red and yellow strands, making it clear that Tabitha had claimed the woolen bundles as her own.
“Only if you forget the fact that it’s on the third floor now instead of the second,” Violet grumbled, treading over the threshold with a heavy tray of tea and steaming cranberry scones in tow. “I don’t know how you make the climb up here every evening, Anne. My toes feel like they’ve been dipped in bronze.”
With that, Violet sat the tray atop the table and threw herself beside Beatrix on the settee, groaning in satisfaction as she burrowed her face in the soft cushions. Sharp winds beat against the windows, filling the room with the rattle of glass panes, but the warmth of the parlor had transformed what should have been the worst of winter into a place of refuge.
“That’s a fine comment coming from someone who spends most of her time at the top of a circus tent,” Anne laughed before moving to sink into the wingback chair.
Knowing that Violet was no doubt threading together a witty retort, Beatrix turned toward the other end of the settee in silent expectation. As she shifted her gaze, though, Beatrix could have sworn she saw the side of Violet’s mouth that wasn’t hidden in the velvet fabric tighten a fraction. But before she could be certain, her sister’s face had settled back into its familiar smile.
“My feet happen to be dangling above the ground and away from the crowd then, I’ll have you know,” Violet said, turning away from the pillow so that she could stretch herself far enough to nudge Anne with her foot. “Not darting from one table to thenext trying to stay out of arm’s reach of the most demanding customers.”
“I can’t believe you left Mrs. Schmitt to me,” Beatrix complained as she removed her spectacles and pinched the bridge of her nose. “And when I can’t even read the leaves anymore.”
“She seemed happy enough trying to whittle out whatever details she could about your latest novel,” Violet replied. “If it makes you feel any better, our Miss Katie Meyer went through two pots of oolong this afternoon trying to catch any detail she could about her wedding. I kept telling her that all I could see were clovers and butterflies, but she seemed determined to find an ill omen.”
“It has nothing to do with her feelings for the groom, I can assure you,” Anne said as she handed Beatrix and Violet some tea before dropping a sugar cube into her own cup. “There’s a true match if ever I saw one. No, she simply knows that nothing, no matter how satisfying, can be perfect. There’s always a trouble or two to contend with.”
An icy chill slipped into the room then, as if the wind had managed to creep beneath the pane, though Beatrix knew the house had sealed it shut for the winter. It caused her to tuck up her collar and reach for one of the worn quilts that rested next to the fireplace, the fabric pleasantly warm from sitting so close to the flames.
“Enough about the customers,” Violet said with a wave of her hand as she tucked the corners of her blanket around her skirts. “You’ve done a marvelous job with the shop, Anne, but I want to talk about our birthday visions before you tell us all the news we’ve missed.”
The sisters had agreed to save the details of what Fate had shown them for an evening when they could tell one another facetoface rather than through a letter. There was somethingabout the texture of the story that needed to be expressed through speech instead of pen and ink.
“You go first, Vi,” Anne insisted. “Since you’re the one who asked.”
“Very well,” Violet said. “On our birthday, I drew in a deep breath and smelled rosemary, the kind that’s just been cut from the stalk and makes your temples tingle. It was so potent that I couldn’t taste anything else the rest of the day.”
“Rosemary,” Anne murmured, as if she’d just pieced together a thread of an idea that had refused to be tethered.
“What is it?” Beatrix asked, startled by her sister’s reaction.
Anne parted her lips, but she closed them before any confessions could slip into the conversation.
