New moon, new beginning. No more putting it off.
Swinging open the door to the garden, Ladybug took a deep breath, stepping out for the confrontation she’d been avoiding for days. For the first time in more than a week, nothing shot out of the bushes or slinked around the house, attempting to slip in behind her. He was not there on the garden wall, nor was he sitting on the low roof. The cat was nowhere to be found.
Of course. Because why would you ever count on a cat to do what you want.
The rest of the morning passed silently, as did the next day, and the next. He’d left, it seemed, all on his own. Ladybug spent several days emptying a shelf in the work pantry, requisitioning the shelf space for overflow product she’d not managed to move yet. She filled her work cauldron with water, adding two sliced lemons and three of the licorice-scented pods from the plant she’d grown from the seeds Anzan had gifted her all those moons ago, knowing he would smell it when he woke.
They didn’t share a sleeping pattern, and while she’d worried at the beginning that they would forever be missing each other on opposite schedules, Ladybug knew now she needn’t have worried. He slept throughout the day, short naps that didn’t seem especially restful to her, but for him, it was enough. He would sleep deeply in those short bursts, his heartbeat slowing until it nearly stopped, his body in complete stasis, and this late morning hour was the time he slept the longest and deepest, after his morning meeting.
Ladybug had no idea how many of those short, nearly comatose naps he took throughout the day and night, only that he never settled down for bed the way she did and didn’t seem any worse for wear because of it. He would tuck her in with a kiss, and then disappear, and she had no idea what sort of mischief he got up to alone.
She’d almost been embarrassed to learn that Anzan was not the indigent wanderer she’d assumed that day he appeared on the sidewalk before her home to see the attic apartment. Far from it. He was a network security architect for a massive data storage conglomerate, a lucrative career, and one that allowed him to work in a remote capacity, meeting with his team several days a week via video conference.
She did know for certain, but Ladybug was positive no one he worked with knew his true species, seeing him only from the shoulders up, week after week, month after month. Having the means to buy a home had not been his problem, she’d learned, nor did he lack the skill to build one.
“Reliable Wi-fi,” he’d shrugged when she’d asked, sipping his coffee unconcernedly when she’d dissolved in laughter against him. Internet connectivity and a neighborhood willing to allow him to live within its confines had been the challenge, which only served to fuel her determination to see Cambric Creek and her house becomehishome as well, as their home together.We’renot going anywhere.
He started his workday before dawn, took a conference call as she was rousing herself to wakefulness a floor beneath him, settling down for his late morning sleep as she worked in her kitchen or ran errands. They had parallel lunches and then the rest of the day was punctuated by his frequent trips to her work kitchen to refill his coffee cup and kiss her on the shoulder until evening. Alone, together — and entirely happy.
When he gasped from the coffee pot sometime Friday afternoon, Ladybug nearly fell into her cauldron as she spun in panic. It was not the sort of sound she normally heard from her arachnid companion. Anzan was stoic and stolid, and with the cat situation in her garden resolved, her kitchen had been gasp-free that whole week.
“There is nothing left of my sampler,” he said mournfully, revealing the empty shell that had held his Yule present from her, the gourmet coffee sampler having been put to good use over the previous month and half.
“You scared me half to death. I thought you cut yourself! Are you really surprised?” she laughed, shaking her head at his dramatics. “I’m actually surprised it lasted this long!”
He scowled at her, and she giggled anew. This was all brand-new territory, fertile, untilled ground. His humor, the faces he pulled, the way he would chide her gently. All part of their evolution of the past year, proof that hewas, in fact, making himself at home with her.
The following morning, she left the house with purpose. The warm spell had not yet broken, and she wanted to take advantage of the unseasonable weather to go downtown, park in the municipal lot and take a stroll up Main Street. She wanted to surprise Anzan with a new bag of coffee beans from the Black Sheep Beanery, and pop into the shop that sold wool carded from their own flock of sheep.
She’d just left the always-bustling coffee shop with a bag of fragrant beans under her arm, when a shiver moved up her back.
You should go to the Makers’ Mart.
The thought came to her unbidden, popping into her head like an iridescent bubble. Ladybug swayed.
Every Saturday morning, the crafters and artisans of Cambric Creek gathered their wares and set them up at the community center, filling the massive auditorium space and serpentining up and down the parking lot. The market seemed to grow larger every year. It had begun as a summer festival, but the popularity pushed it to start earlier and earlier, and now any week when the weather permitted, the tents would go up, the doors to the community center would be propped open, and the vendors swarmed. The event drew huge crowds and had taken on the atmosphere of a boisterous street faire, growing so popular that food trucks would ring the block.
There was nothing she necessarily needed from the Makers’ Mart, and she wasn’t a particular fan of shopping in the huge throngs of traffic the weekly event attracted. Couples walking arm-in-arm, groups of friends together, neighbors, mothers pushing strollers . . . It all made her feel invisible, and while she occasionally liked that feeling of invisibility, of being able to disappear into a crowd, the Makers’ Mart was too confined for that, leaving her feeling shrunken and small.
She wasn’t sure when she had begun walking, but somehow her feet were moving, carrying her in the direction of the community center. Past the little shop that sold the wool, past the perfumery and the candle shop, past the bakery where she’d planned on stopping, past the corner construction, the wrap-around banners advertising several new businesses opening in the building that was going up the spot that had recently been an empty lot. All a part of the unending progression of Jack’s downtown expansion. It was as if she were a puppet, the idea whispered into her subconscious and invisible hands making her body act on it without her full approval. Two turns around the square and a left, her feet propelling her forward until the Marker’s Mart loomed.
You’re here now. What’s the harm? You should go in, take a look around.Who knows what you might find.
Well, she was already here. May as well have a look around.
The first booth that caught her attention was manned by a young woman with bottle black hair and dark-rimmed eyes, selling an array of goods featuring hand embroidered glyphs & symbolry. She had a collection of hooped samplers hanging from a pegboard on the table, showing off cheerful obscenities, rendered in her excellent needlework, tote bags embroidered with trees and crows and Celtic knots, but it was the tabletop that made Ladybug take a step closer.
Altar cloths, she realized, each laid out to show off the needlework, placed under glass to protect them from looky-loos and sticky-fingered children. Ladybug bit her lip. She wasn’t sure if this was completely ethical. Some of these cloths were designed to be aids in summoning rituals, calling forth dark creatures from beyond the veil and the shadow realm alike. She herself had never taken part in such a ritual, but she had been present at them several times in her life. She could tell by looking at the cloths that each of them was missing some crucial detail that would prevent anyone canny enough from taking a picture to replicate at home.
Well, she’s smart.Ladybug considered that the ethics were less of a concern with potential copycats unable to replicate the design on their own.If nothing else, she’s got a good head for business.
There were trolls selling hand-woven potholders, an orc with a stand full of hand-carved kitchen utensils, weavers and artists, soap makers and purveyors of hand-forged steel. The folks behind their tables were engaged with customers, and the other shoppers were too intent on their purchases to pay her any mind. It wasn’t until she passed the old crone that Ladybug was noticed at all.
“You there! Come here, dearie. I know you, don’t I?”
Ladybug glanced over her shoulder, her breath hitching when she realized she was the target of the woman’s interest.
“Yes, of course I do, you’re Authricia’s girl. The little quiet one. Always there assisting at the meetings, like a little mouse.”
