“Thanks, but I mean, about the house, and Louisa? Won’t she find out Aunt Violet was a witch when she goes through every single item in the place? Or does she already know? Does anyone?”
“No, and she won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Did you know? Or at least guess? No. And you know why? Because people only see what they expect. Also, we’ve used the secretroom. If you listen to my instructions, it’ll be a piece of cake. Speaking of which …” He licked his lips.
I opened a can of tuna. “Don’t forget to use the bathroom before we head out,” I said, before I could stop myself. My only child was 20 years old, and after less than 24 hours with Cosmo, I returned to full mom mode and was treating him like a toddler. I had to nip that in the bud.
A little later, I pulled up on the driveway, with Jimmy and Cosmo in the car. The automatic lights on the porch came to life. They cast their beam over the front yard. I could make out the pink, yellow, and purple of the hellebore Aunt Violet adored. Winter daphne was planted alongside the house. The back yard held more flowers, shrubs, and trees of a dizzyingly wide variety. My aunt had taken great care in deciding what to plant where, so the kids could pick a flower or two after the library visit, without poisoning themselves if they nibbled a leaf.
Poison. What had brought that to my mind again? I lowered my head, intent on not glancing over to Jake’s place.
Jimmy climbed out of my car. He struggled a little to pull himself upright but declined my assistance. “All I need is a little space, and patience.” He shuffled over to the hellebores and inspected them. “You ever done much gardening?”
I shook my head. Our yard had been all lawn, with a few carefully arranged flower baskets hanging from ornamental brackets. A florist had changed them at regular intervals, working in tandem with my ex-husband.
Had I ever put my mark on our family home, apart from my workshop? Not so that anyone would notice.
Never mind, I told myself. That was going to change. Rebecca, the pushover, would fully transform into Bex Merriweather, destined tobe a power for good in Willowmere, and all of Cannon Hill. No more backing-down, no more compromises to keep the peace. I punched the air in triumph.
Jimmy peered at me. “Is it arthritis? It can hit you at any age now, I’ve heard.”
“There’s a reiki practitioner, that can help. I think my receptionist told you about Brad?” Louisa startled me so bad I dropped Cosmo’s carrier. He wailed.
I ignored him. How could I not have noticed her arrival? Was she a witch, too? How many of us were there – here, and further away? I had so many questions I lost track of them all.
Louisa flicked on the main switch. All the lights went on, on the first floor. The switch for the second floor, with the main living quarters, was located at the bottom of the staircase in the middle of the house. Another boxed staircase at the end of the library had been fitted with a stairlift, when Aunt Violet had been diagnosed with heart problems that required constant medication and more rest periods.
The chair lift had been her idea of a compromise, so she wouldn’t have to climb the stairs a dozen times a day, with books. The library only held part of the collection, and she’d restock the shelves with new (or old, however you wanted to look at it) reading material, whenever there were gaps, or she’d decided which novel or picture book was needed.
A tower was added to the side of the building. The top floor of the tower had been my abode.
My aunt had pulled a lot of strings to get the necessary permits to run her private lending library in her own home. Common sense had prevailed.
I closed my eyes and inhaled. Mixed in with the slightly musty smell of old books and touches of orange blossom from the reed diffusers,was the vanilla and cinnamon from the thousands of cookies Aunt Violet had baked in the small kitchen down here. Scented candles stood unlit.
“Bex?” Louisa tapped me on the shoulder. “We’d better get started.”
“Sorry.” I switched on the upstairs lights. Cosmo scrabbled inside the carrier. I hastened to open it. Without so much as a glance towards me, he shot up the stairs. We followed at a more sedate pace.
“Where do you want to begin?” I asked Louisa.
“In the living room.”
Louisa and Jimmy did the inspection. They both took care of different sides of the room and shouted out their finds to me. I typed everything into a laptop Louisa had provided.
“Wouldn’t recording on your phone be easier?” I asked here, after the third entry of “multi-colored teapot, bone china, in the style of Clarice Cliff”.
“I tried that once and lost a whole day’s work when it crashed.” She lifted a cup and inspected the bottom. “Add five teacups, also in the same style, no pottery mark.” We stopped two hours and ten pages full of inventory later.
“A few hours tomorrow should do it,” Louisa remarked, full of confidence.
Jimmy rubbed his back. All that stooping, to clear out cabinets and drawers in the proper kitchen, must have been exhausting. I made a mental note to see if that reiki person offered gift vouchers. But apart from my old room, the attic and storage areas, and the library, we were done. Louisa had declared herself happy without rummaging through my aunt’s wardrobe, and she could testify that I hadn’t pilfered so much as a silver bookmark.
I grinned as I scanned the list. All these teapots (the final tally was six), yet zero cauldrons, crystal balls, wands, or spell-books. We’ddiscovered a broom, but from the looks of it, my aunt had used it for sweeping and not for flying. If witches really did fly. My authority on the subject had spent the stocktaking on the sofa, curled up on a rose-patterned cushion, with another one propped behind his back.
I emailed myself a copy of the list and shut the laptop. Cosmo stretched himself and yawned.
