"I don't know," Tess said with a sigh, "I lost my mom and she's not the one I spend my energy missing."
"Because your father isn't around?"
Tess nodded then got to another tart. "He's not around. When he is, it's glaring how little he knows me, his daughter," she says with a mournful laugh. "I don't think we're taught to mourn the living ones who abandon or hurt us. I guess in a way we have to grieve them not being what we need, you know?" She looked up at Tilly.
A moment passed between them, shared and honest. Tilly touched her hand and she felt a wave of warmth fill her and Tess looked down at their hands and frowned. Tilly pulled back in apology, knowing Tess wasn't one for intimacy.
"Well, I'm glad you're here. Eloise is a great source for you to learn from and if you ever want to spend a weekend around theinn to learn what little business I have learned you are welcome. And clearly I could use your talent."
Tess smiled widely at her thanking her. But as the door swung closed she caught Tess frowning at the hand that Tilly had touched.
Tilly spent the rest of her day getting the outside ready, decorating, cleaning up, fixing up. Tess's words filled her mind all day. Mourning the family that had emotionally abandoned them was indeed a kind of grieving. Last night, perhaps that was Tilly's first step to a burial.
Then night fell quickly.
Freida still hardly made conversation with her, and after the threat left on the inn window, she didn't blame the woman. If she quit soon, she also wouldn't be surprised, but she would need to find a replacement and with the way the town wasn't warm toward any of The Lost Souls Coven, she doubted she would be able to find a replacement anytime soon.
"There's an envelope for you," Freida murmured without looking up from a new mystery novel in her hands. She held out a green envelope, still without looking at Tilly, and Tilly took it and thanked her, to which Freida merely nodded as she sipped from her water bottle.
She wondered if she would ever get the woman to warm up to her. Probably not.
As she started her walk home, she opened the green envelope and smiled at Portia flying low, keeping just under the treeline in front of her.
As her finger slid under the lip of the envelope, a sense of something cracking filled her, making her pause. She stood still for a moment blinking, then shook her head and pulled out a small note that said,
fortes fortuna adiuvat
She frowned at the Latin words, her mouth moving gently over them.
A chit-chit sound from Portia made her jump. She felt frazzled energy buzzing through her. But then the bird took flight again and she let out a deep, shaky breath as she tucked the odd note into her back pocket.
The rook would land on a branch every few minutes to check that she was close behind, then gracefully take flight again. She'd come to look for the black bird, knowing she wouldn't be far anytime she left the house. Often, she found Portia sitting on one of the flower boxes on the largest greenhouse, nestled amongst the draping ivy and heather.
The bird brought thoughts of a certain roguish chief. Thoughts of him had been haunting her for months now, ever since they first met outside the front of The Lost Souls House. When his dark eyes took her in, it felt like a touch. She'd felt a jolt inside of her, something she had never experienced with a man before. She remembered thinking he was intense and broodish. She still thought that.
But now...
She found she could not go long without thinking of him kissing her. True, she'd kissed him first, a compulsion she swears she could not have stopped had she been ordered to. But the way he'd let her come to him, let her settle into it, and then took over had been perfection.
She didn't want to get too ahead of herself. She didn't want to put too much of herself in this fantasy.
She didn't want to hope.
But, there was a seed blooming inside of her, pushing its light green body against the cracks of solid rock that had formed from past pain. She could feel it there, trying to unfurl itself against all odds and maybe she would find a new way for life.
Maybe she could hope.
Suddenly an image of him holding someone else in his arms flashed into her mind. A faceless figure, but it was startling making her stop in her tracks again.
Anxiety could certainly paint detailed pictures, creating alternate realities to worry about.
Anxiety was an artist. It could take the colors of one's mind and heart and paint pictures and ideas of her deepest fears.
Maybe she feared that this solid, stoic man wouldn't be so different from her ex-husband.
Or too dissimilar from Ronnie's indifference.
It was a natural fear. But this felt, different. Like the fear was planted.
