“Only if it says ‘VILLAGE WHORE’ across the chest,” Jane said. “Good boy, Connor! Eat up.”
“I can’t believe Dora said those things,” Corbin said.
“I can,” I said. “We freaked her out the other day and we never even gave her an explanation.”
“Agreed, but to jump from that to property vandalism and an actual witch-hunt seems a bit extreme. I’ll try to talk to her today, see if I can straighten her out.”
“We should go back to see Sheryl, too,” Jane said. “Maybe she knows of some other unbaptized children in the village.”
“And we need to get Jane a key cut for the castle,” I added. “And Blake, too.”
“Why don’t we all go into the village?” Flynn said. “I could do with a break from that pox-ridden library, and I feel an overwhelming urge to go to the pharmacy and stock up on lube?—”
“Flynn, shutup,” I moaned.
“And maybe we could even take Blake to the pub?—”
“Pub, pub, pub!” Blake pumped his fist in the air.
Corbin sighed. “Fine. You’re right. Getting out of the castle might do us all some good. As long asyoupromise not to mention this dream anymore.” He glared at Flynn. “I don’t want to hear about all the filthy things I didn’t get to do.”
“If you say so, lover boy,” Blake drawled, swiping a scone off Corbin’s plate.
Corbin gave Blake a weird look. I sank down in my chair, my ears glowing and my body tingling from the memory of last night.
I guess at least now I know whose cock was where.
“Here it is.” Corbin stopped in front of a shop calledAstarteand pushed open the door.
We’d been in the village for nearly two hours but hadn’t managed to achieve much. Trying to keep Flynn and Blake on task was like herding cats if the cats were also on LSD. If I wasn’t trying to stop Flynn from loudly proclaiming to everyone in line at the pharmacy exactly why he was buying seventeen tubes of lube, then Corbin was trying to explain to Blake why his human physiology wouldn’t support him eating two beef vindaloos in one sitting. At least their antics had Arthur and Rowan laughing as we raced around the high street trying to keep up with them. Finally, Corbin wrangled them to follow us to the key cutter and bookshop by promising the pub visit would follow.
As soon as I crossed the threshold ofAstartea wall of incense hit me, assailing my nostrils with musk and frankincense. There was barely room inside the cramped store for me and Jane and Connor’s stroller and my five guys with their bulky shoulders and heavy boots. Arthur didn’t even get through the door before he tripped up on a Buddha statue and got his beard tangled in a dreamcatcher.
“I’m waiting outside,” he declared.
It was just as well because there was so muchstuffhe could have broken. Two ornate tables in the centre of the room held stacks of books with covers featuring raven-haired women gazing reverently into cauldrons or pools or crystals. A selection of teacups covered in what I guessed were divination symbols were stacked on the ground in front of the counter, which was crowded with racks of pewter gothic jewellery and crystals. Bookshelves buckled under the weight of Egyptian figurines, pillar candles decorated with odd symbols, crystal pyramids and wands, and astrological charts.
I was about to make some disparaging comment about astrology when my eye caught a display of geodes by thewindow. “Oh, these are beautiful.” I fingered a particularly magnificent geode that glinted in the dim light like Blake’s eyes.
“Is this a first for you, Einstein?” Flynn asked, rearranging two Egyptian god figurines so one looked as though it was shagging the other from behind. “I didn’t expect you to find anything you’d like in a shop like this.”
I nodded. “There was one of these shops in Phoenix, near a diner, my family used to visit when we came into the city for church excursions. I walked past it a couple of times, but my parents would never allow us to go in. Honestly, I never much got the appeal of all this stuff. It’s just a load of New Age nonsense?—”
“That may be so, young lady, but thatnonsensewill give you a world of trouble if your scepticism scares away my customers.”
I whirled around and found myself looking down at a tiny witch. At least, I assumed she was a witch because she was practically the textbook definition. The lines on her face mapped out a life well-lived and much enjoyed, framed with a head of waist-length jet-black hair that could have come straight out of the pages of a fashion magazine. She wore a black dress with flouncy sleeves that flared out in a circle as she walked, and a black-and-gold shawl hugged her narrow shoulders. Her eyes sparkled with intelligence, and though she had her arms folded and one hip stuck out to the side as though she were angry with me, she was smiling.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I didn’t mean?—”
Please don’t turn me into a toad.
The woman waved a hand. “Don’t fret, my dear. If I turned every person who scoffed at my wares into a toad, I wouldn’t have a business. I’m Clara, by the way.”
Wait a second…“How did you know what I was thinking?”
The woman winked. “You’re the scientist, dearie. You figure it out. Now, if you could spare your young man for a moment, Icould use some help in the storage room. The delivery man put his rather heavy books up on the highest shelf.”
“Of course, Clara.” Corbin went off to help the old woman, leaving me pondering what she’d said.
