PROLOGUE
Private Sitting Room
Halwell Chase - Devon
June 1813
Miss Poppy Elstone wondered,and not for the first time, whether it was wise to encourage this particular madness. Dim candlelight warmed the cozy sitting room and a fire crackled in the nearby hearth. Great-Aunt Alora leaned closer, over the small table between them, her aged fingers shaking slightly as she turned over the first card.
The Devil.
The old woman’s dark eyes lit with something, surprise perhaps, at the same time Poppy’s younger sister sucked in a breath and her honey brown curls bobbed. Poppy shot her sister a look of disdain. Clearly, Laurel had no internal dilemma about whether or not to encourage their old widowed aunt.
Laurel clutched Poppy’s hand. “That’s bad, isn’t it?” the younger girl breathed out.
“Nothing is good nor bad, my dear.” Their great-aunt repeated the words she’d said nearly a thousand different times over the years, whenever she visited The Chase. “Every card can be interpreted in different ways.”
Which, in Poppy’s mind, made the whole thing complete rubbish, a tool to see whatever one wanted and then spun it to fit whatever the circumstances.
The old woman laid the next card down. The Seven of Cups. Then the Page of Swords. She swept her hands over the spread and said, “Together they tell the story, whether it be the past, present or future.” The Ten of Pentacles was laid above the first three, then the Three of Wands below.
She pointed to the cards and looked directly at Poppy. “A stranger will soon arrive and you will find yourself at a crossroads, my dear.”
It was always a stranger, wasn’t it? Never, ‘The vicar will arrive in the morning and profess his undying love for you.’ Not that Poppy wished for the middle-aged local vicar’s attention or devotion. No, no, it was the total lack of specificity in these readings that annoyed her to no end. Nothing concrete. Nothing of certainty. Nonsensical words strung together by mysterious promises that meant nothing when truly scrutinized. Her face must have said as much.
Great-Aunt Alora sat a little straighter and pinned Poppy with her most imperious stare. “I fear your lack of belief will be your undoing, my darling.”
“My undoing?” she echoed and managed, just barely, not to roll her eyes. “Certainly, we’re not dealing with something so dire as all that.”
“When you reach your crossroads, I worry you will be unprepared for what awaits you there if you don’t begin preparing now.”
The situation had become quite dramatic, indeed. “I believe in things I can see with my own eyes, Aunt Alora,” Poppy said reasonably, at least it sounded reasonable to her own ears.
The old woman snorted. “It is not your fault that you’ve been burdened with blinders, but if you could try just a little to see beyond what is right in front of your nose…”
“She’s too serious by half,” Laurel muttered under her breath, but Poppy heard her just the same.
She smacked her sister’s leg beneath the table. “And you’re not serious enough.”
Proving that statement, Laurel stuck out her tongue in Poppy’s direction.
Annoyed, Poppy turned her attention away from her younger sister if for no other reason than to keep herself from flicking Laurel in the middle of her ear. There was, after all, no creature in the world more annoying than a little sister. Somehow, Poppy had been cursed with three of them.
Great-Aunt Alora clucked her tongue in mild disapproval. “The two of you need to find a way to support each other. You are the last of your mother’s line, the last of our family’s line. You will need each other all the days of your lives.”
Poppy resisted the urge to say that she needed her sister like a goose needed a top hat. Laurel, however, giggled slightly. “The last of our family’s line? You make it sound as though we’re part of some mythical Highland clan that has all but died out.”
The old woman speared Laurel with a pointed glare. “The Branwyck witches are and always have been more significant than any clan north of the border. I’ll have you know, we are direct descendants of Merlin himself.”
“The Branwyck witches?” Poppy repeated in disbelief. Wait! Did their great-aunt sayMerlin? The old woman was clearly losing her mind. It must be all the time she spent immersed in her mystical cards. Merlin, indeed. What complete and utter nonsense.
Just saying the wordwitchaloud was foolhardy.
Once upon a time, and not that long ago, anyone accused of witchcraft could be tried for perceived crimes and sentenced to a horrific death. No one with a lick of sense would brand themselves with the wordwitch.
The old woman’s cheeks flushed. She pushed out of her seat, stepped away from the table baring her cards, and turned her back to the girls as though she could not face them. Poppy and Laurel exchanged concerned glances. They had, after all, been witness to their grandmother’s dissent into madness years ago. It was a terrible experience that neither of them ever wanted to see happen again to anyone they loved.
“I should not have said that,” Great-Aunt Alora finally muttered. “Your father will be most angry if he learns that I’ve told you.”
