Victoria took a step closer, interrupting Rhiannon’s bitter train of thought, and lifted her hand. Since she didn’t know if her aunt would strike or caress her, Rhiannon braced for whatever was to come. A slap perhaps.
“You get this one free, old woman. But just one.” She gritted out the words and was met with her aunt’s characteristic cackle.
“Still such a child.” The bony, too-bony fingers neither slapped nor caressed. Her chin was clasped a bit too hard, and her face was turned to the light, her aunt’s gaze examining it with a lingering curiosity. “The years might have been kind to you indeed, Rhiannon Elizabeth, but the Fates have not. Your skin is bright, but your eyes are lifeless.”
Rhiannon shook her head, freeing herself from Victoria’s touch, and took a step back and turned, her mind reeling. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stave the chill and the penetrating stare that was causing it.
Her thoughts ran rampant and she bit her lip to avoid voicing them. She came to Dragons out of spite and yet she didn’t belong here anymore. She didn’t miss her Malibu house either. It felt like she swapped one hotel for another, one temporary space for another. Was there a place where she was happy? And if so, why couldn’t she find the damn door into it? Would someone for the love of everything holy just please let her in already?
A lifetime had passed, and her aunt could still read her like an open book. A lifetime and her aunt still saw things that Rhiannon herself chose to ignore.
She heard steps behind her and cringed, wrapping her arms around herself tighter. The movement behind her stopped, a sigh echoing loudly in the empty space around them.
She didn’t need to turn around to see Victoria wringing her hands or dropping the towel. Or giving her more of those long, lingering, deciphering looks. She didn’t need the admonitions. She knew exactly the accusations her aunt could lay at her door. Rhiannon deserved every single one of them. And yet… Why was she so desperate for this one person, with a face so like her mother’s, to not judge her harshly? And perhaps not ask her any questions.
The latter was, of course, too much to demand of a Crowhart.
“You brought that handsome boy, and Christian Astor is helping with whatever it is you are doing here, I heard. You also contracted about a dozen too many builders and are in a hurry to finish the renovations. I assume you’re bringing the Atelier back to its old and dubious glory days, waking up the old ghosts. Are you staying on Dragons, then?”
The gaping hole that held what was left of Rhiannon’s heart pulsed, open, defenseless. She choked on words and then simply resolved to say nothing. Victoria’s second tsk told her what her aunt thought of that tactic.
The steps receded, and then the door to the shop opened to the rain still pouring outside, and Rhiannon exhaled. As she turned to see Victoria exit, she caught the older woman’s eyes. Victoria’s surprisingly held no judgment at all. And neither did her words. In the darkness of the room with the storm raging in the Square, Victoria’s quiet “You always were and will always be my dearest” broke what was left of Rhiannon’s heart.
4
PRUDENCE, POSSUM & AWAKENINGS
BOOKS IN PERIL!
Christian Astor, the esteemed town magistrate and Library Board chairman, has convened the Board members meeting today to review the latest slew of book challenges.
Will more books be removed from the shelves based on accusations of obscenity and distortion of history? And what does Mayor Jedidiah Fowler have to say, given that his reelection campaign is heating up?
—Crow’s Caw
Patches was gone.
The morning had foretold a disaster brewing.
She had a terrible night. One that started innocuously, all things considered. Pru had gotten used to the dreams. She had had them for weeks now.
A woman—Rhiannon’s spitting image—looked terrified and alone, and sought Pru’s hands, leaned into her touch, evenas cold, rusty iron bars prevented them from fully embracing. That was standard for her dreams. But then the usual scenario changed, as if a mirror broken, the shards spilling onto a muddy floor, her fingers covered in blood. Pru was the one trapped, the air around her full of smoke and despair. And a male voice shouting,“For what is yours, for the sin, you shall bleed!”
She woke up in cold sweat. No amount of coffee managed to get the visions out of her head. Then to make things worse, her father had stopped by. Not that he himself made things worse, no. Pru loved her father. She really did. She enjoyed his occasional dropping by. But their time together today was interspersed with his boasting about the upcoming mayoral campaign, and she had neither the interest in it, nor the actual wherewithal to tell him so. Oh, she was very involved in the town’s politics, just not in his.
A child of divorced parents, Pru had grown up juggling their affections and grudges. There were many said grudges, no matter how loudly they claimed their divorce had been an amicable one. Sometimes those claims were true. Other times, not so much.
Pru always felt that her father completely buried himself in the town’s affairs, in his responsibilities as the mayor. While his life changed very little by his wife leaving him, Pru thought he still lost himself a bit, becoming distant, constantly busy. Her mother was a different story. Demonstrative and extroverted, she suffered out loud, and perhaps it was that suffering that made Pru make the difficult choice of leaving Dragons with her. After all, her mother just seemed to need her so much more.
Still, Pru’s relationship with her father was something she cherished. He had been understanding when she moved to Boston with her mother and equally supportive when she chose to return to the island as an adult after graduating college.
Pru had never regretted it. She always viewed it as a sort of homecoming, since the big city had never appealed. And when all was said and done, despite regular weekends together, being closer to her father was an important factor in her decision.
But that closeness never truly came, and Pru blamed herself. Surely, it had to be her, because her father had tried very hard to involve her in his life, in his duties as mayor and deacon of the town’s church. He was even fine with her bisexuality, or as fine as Pru expected him to be. He never said a word against it, nor had he ever asked about her one and only girlfriend. And that had been a blessing in itself, because Jedidiah Fowler could be stubborn and hardheaded, all qualities that Pru respected in a mayor but found difficult in a father.
And speaking of said girlfriend. As soon as she had finally seen her father out the door, Lisa called, and Pru’s already souring mood plummeted entirely. Her girlfriend did not understand the word no. Her ex-girlfriend. They’d been together for seven years, and if Jed Fowler had only recently started showing signs of unwillingness to bend, Lisa’s bullishness had always been there.
Initially Pru ignored it. Lisa was her first girlfriend. She was in love. Head over heels, mushily, starry-eyed in love. Or so she believed. Looking back, Pru thought she might’ve lied to herself a touch about the strength of her affection. She remembered being lonely and falling headlong into the charming quagmire that was Lisa. She had dated a few men in town before, but being with a woman was exhilarating in its own way. A way that Pru tried not to analyze too closely.
