Dawn was still an hour away, and I stared at the ceiling above my bed. The image of Conri in the woods played through my mind like a looping film reel, and the soundtrack was the endless questioning tangling around everything I knew about him. And the questions kept coming back to one: what dark magic was he was using? The fact that he had been out of town when Kenny had been cursed, I was now sure meant nothing.
The point where Jackfort had pressed his finger into my head burned with the memory of his foul touch. Why had he been waiting for me? Was it really to mess with my mind? Did he know I’d been in the woods? Did he know Conri had been out there too?
I squeezed my eyes shut, burying my face in the pillow, hoping the whole bed would swallow me into some secret oblivion.
Without having slept a minute, I waited for my morning alarm to go off and pulled myself out of bed and into a steaming shower. I moved into the kitchen in a sleep-deprived trance and went to put on the coffee. I was all out of beans. This day hadn’t even properly started, and it was already a disaster.
Right at opening time, I shuffled downstairs, not even bothering to put on makeup. Lila was still nowhere to be seen, and I hoped she was off buying me another box of chocolates. I then remembered it was her day off. I would have to source my own chocolate. I was going to need any help I could find to get through this day, and if it meant eating my bodyweight in caramels and truffles, then so be it. But first, coffee.
I walked up the hill to Jenkins’s place, keeping watch for Jackfort lurking on any corners, waiting to screw with my head with more of his cryptic rubbish. So far as I could see, the street was safe.
There was already a small gathering of customers in for their early-morning breakfast and caffeine fix. Lila was at a table, leaning into Sean sitting opposite, the same table I had sat at with Conri days before. Even with the hell inside me, I couldn’t help but smile at their blossoming romance. At least there was one thing in the world that wasn’t all bad. I took my place in the line, choosing to leave the cute couple to their privacy.
“Belinda!” Lila called out when she saw me. She waved me over. “You know Sean,” she said. There was a hint of pride in her voice.
“Of course. Nice to see you again, Sean,” I said, shaking his offered hand. The pleasant voice and friendly smile I conjured out of my depths took more energy than I had to spare.
“Same to you, Ms. Drake,” he said.
“Call me Belinda.”
“Sure thing, Belinda,” he said. “I actually thought of you this morning. I boxed up a fresh batch of those hazelnut swirls you like so much.”
“Dear Sean,” I said wearily. “You have both won my heart and made my day in that sentence.”
“I’ll do them up special and drop them off to you later.”
“Oh, you don’t need to go to any trouble just for me. And to be honest, the way I’m feeling today, I’d be just tearing open the box and shoveling them straight into my mouth.”
“What’s up?” Lila asked. “You do look awful tired.”
“I’m okay,” I said, waving my hand as if I could wave away everything that was getting me down right then. Lila stared at me. I knew she was doing her fairy trick, and this time I welcomed it. I tried to clear the way into my mind to let her in on what I had seen last night.
She nodded. Even if she hadn’t been able to get the details, she had seen enough to know something big was up.
“I’ll come now,” she said, concern all over her.
“No, it’s your day off. You stay and enjoy yourself. Now, please excuse me. I feel if I don’t imbibe some coffee soon, I might fall away into dust.”
I would fill Lila in on every detail as soon as we were alone together, but for now, I rejoined the now-longer coffee line and left the two young lovebirds to their breakfast date.
Trying not to stare, I noted their hands resting on the table, fingers close but not quite touching. It filled me with a sweet sense tinged with sadness. I wanted to feel the same closeness, but the only man I’d had even the slightest bit of interest for in years was far too complicated and, after what I’d witnessed, far too dangerous to go near.
Neville Norton bustled through the early-morning patrons. “Belinda, I’m glad I’ve run into you.”
This was sure shaping up to be one hell of a day.
“Did you find out about… you know what?” He narrowed his eyes, lowered his voice, and looked sideways in case anyone was listening.
“I did,” I said. “I did a …” I paused, thinking that news of a spell was unlikely to go down well with Neville Norton. “I made some phone calls. It’s fine. The hedge is a yew, but it’s only poisonous if you ingest large quantities of it, or eat the seeds in the berries. You should probably put up a warning sign or something, but otherwise, you should be good to go.”
“Wonderful news,” Neville said, his harrowed look falling. “Now that that’s behind us, it’s time to finalize the proceedings for the big day’s events. Your stall is almost finished, yes? We need to know the table size and anything else we’ll need to order for you.”
“It’s um, great,” I lied. “Almost done.”
Neville cocked his eyes over the top of his glasses, staring at me like a stern headmaster. “You’re the only one we’re still waiting on.”
I bridled at his tone. “Listen, Neville. Since I did spend such a lot of time and energy on putting right a problem that could have meant the end of the entire maze, I’ve been a little busy,” I said. “And I’m also running a business. I’m swamped. You’ll have the booth on time, I promise. But in the meantime, just damn well get off my back, would you?”
The old man’s face hardened into shock. Little patches of red burned on his neck. “Well, I should have expected you would be capable of such rudeness,” he said, tiny flecks of spittle forming at the edge of his lips. “I had heard you were getting about with that churlish vet, so I guess he must be a bad influence on you.”
And there was the Blackthorn Springs rumor mill in action.
“I’m sorry, Neville,” I said. I wasn’t in the least sorry. “I have a lot of personal things going on right now, and I didn’t sleep last night. I’m just snippy. I apologize.”
“Next!” Tom Jenkins called me to the front of the line, and not a second too soon. Neville stormed out of the cafe, probably off to tell Hattie Winthrop all about what a terrible woman I was.
Let him be insulted, I thought. The only thing I needed to do right then was drink a gallon of coffee.
“Triple shot please, Tom. Big cup,” I said. Jenkins raised his eyebrows and smiled. “One torpedo coming right up. You okay, Belinda? You look like something’s really upset you?”
“You know, the usual nothing,” I said. “Town gossip, actually. Just one of the not-so-great things about living in a tiny place.”
“I hear that,” he said, pushing the coffee beans into the grinder. “Everyone’s got their noses in other people’s business, but no one ever directly asks anyone about anything. People don’t want to be rude, I guess. But isn’t it ruder to wag tongues and spread half-truths about people behind their backs? Like with you and the vet dating. Everyone’s talking about it, but I bet no one’s actually asked you to your face what’s going on between you two.”
“Everyone’s talking, huh?” I said.
“Nothing to worry about. Everyone just loves a romance.”
“You have an innocent meal with someone, and the whole town is hearing wedding bells? I assure you, Tom, there’s no romance to talk of between Conri O’Farrell and me. And you can broadcast that as far as you like.”
I paid for the coffee and walked slowly back to the store, not caring that it was nearly an hour after opening time.
By the time I unlocked the door, I was sure of two things. The first was that Tom Jenkins’s torpedo was aptly named, even if it did taste like burnt mud. The second was that he had been right. If I was going to clear my head and have any chance of regaining any sense of the normal, fairly happy existence I had been living just last week, I was going to have to confront Conri O’Farrell directly and find out once and for all what he was up to.