Excerpt
“Ianthe, you
could have said goodbye to your friend, you know. I didn’t mean to pull you
away so quickly.”
“Oh, it’s fine,”
Ianthe said, waving her hand in dismissal. “You didn’t.”
“But I did
interrupt something, didn’t I?” Dubheasa smirked, almost amused with Ianthe’s
discomfort.
“Well… sort of,”
Ianthe said, “but believe me. I might owe you a favor for that one.”
Ianthe dropped
her hands into her pockets and suppressed her embarrassment for another time.
They arrived at the tea shop, opting for the outdoor seating on such a
beautiful spring day, and claimed a small table with chipping white paint at
the edge of the patio. The proprietor, Idina, weaved in and out of tables taking
orders, quick as a hurricane wind.
“What’ll you
have, darlings? Oh, Ianthe.” Idina’s tone brightened as she recognized Ianthe
at the table. “Evening, love. How are you?” she asked with a dip of her head. A
deep brown coil fell in front of her eye, and she flipped the curl back into
place.
“Hello, Mrs.
Kent,” Ianthe said with a cordial nod. “Just grand, and you?”
“Fine, perfectly
fine. And I’ve told you to call me Idina, haven’t I?”
“Right. Sorry,
Idina.”
As Ianthe got
older, more and more people in town asked her to call them by their first name,
as though she was one of the adults—a concept much too odd for Ianthe to
accept. Now she was expected to call Ms. O’Malley from down the road Eleanor.
Mr. Wilson, who brought the morning paper, asked her to call him Norman. (Who
knew he’d named his cat after himself?)
And now Mrs. and
Mrs. Kent were Idina and Hazel.
“You’ve just had
a birthday, haven’t you?” Idina said.
“Yes— well, it’s
been a couple of weeks.”
“Seventeen now,
are we?” she asked, adjusting her apron.
“That’s right,”
Ianthe said, and she straightened up in her chair as a proud smile dimpled her
cheeks.
“I’ll have Hazel
bring you some dry herbs and teas to take home then. Now, what’ll you two
have?”
“I think tea and
scones,” Dubheasa said, raising her brow at Ianthe, and Ianthe nodded.
“Two cups, two
scones,” Idina confirmed. “Extra butter, Ianthe?”
“Yes, please,”
Ianthe said with a smile.
A loud shatter
sounded from inside the shop, and Idina jumped out of her skin.
“Oh, Hazel, good
grief. Slippery fingers, slippery fingers,” she continued to mutter as she
hurried inside.
“I hope she
remembers our order,” Dubheasa said, chuckling at the commotion.
“She will,”
Ianthe assured her. “They can be a bit chaotic, but Idina and Hazel are the
best around. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Hazel is magic with her
teas.”
“What makes you
so sure she isn’t?”
Ianthe giggled
at the insinuation, but Dubheasa’s eyes only narrowed.
“You’re not
serious,” Ianthe said. “Tea can’t be magic.”
“Perhaps not,
but people can be.”
“Pft. I was only
having a laugh, Dubheasa. I know Hazel doesn’t make magic tea because magic
isn’t real.”
“Here you are,
darlings,” Idina said, setting the tea and scones on the table. “Enjoy!” And
she rushed off again.
Ianthe slid a
cup and a scone to her side of the small table and slathered butter onto the
bread while Dubheasa eyed her carefully.
“Well then,”
Dubheasa said, thankfully moving on to a new topic, “when did we last see each
other, dear? Do you remember?”
“Um,” Ianthe
paused to take a bite of her scone. “Two summers ago, I think.”
“And has much
changed since then?” Dubheasa asked, stirring cream into her tea.
“Besides growing
a bit taller, nothing at all.”
“Well, I’m glad
to see you’re still here.”
“Why wouldn’t I
be here?”
Dubheasa sipped
her tea and waited for Ianthe to come to some sort of conclusion, but Ianthe
stared back, lost as ever.
“Well, the
Scréch SÃdhe, of course,” Dubheasa finally said.
Ianthe couldn’t
help but subtly roll her eyes, feeling a sliver of annoyance in her gut.
“Oh, right. Of
course,” she said flatly. “How could I forget.”
“You still don’t
believe in the SÃdhe, do you?” Dubheasa asked, though she already knew the
answer.
“No, I must
admit. I don’t.”
“If you don’t
mind me asking, why is that?”
“You told me the
Scréch SÃdhe would come for me after my mother disappeared, but it’s been
eleven years. Do you really believe a magical faerie would need this much time
to find a person?”
Dubheasa
continued to sip her tea with squinted eyes before offering another question.
“Then how do you
think your mother turned to stone?”
“Oh, this
again?” Ianthe said, reminding herself a bit of her dad. “My mother didn’t turn
to stone.”
“I’ve seen her,
Ianthe. I know she stands in the river.”
“I’ve told you,”
Ianthe said, dropping her hands to the table rattling the teacups. “My father
had that statue made in remembrance of her. It’s not actually her.”
“And yet, he
never visits her to remember her.”
“N—no, you’ve
got it wrong, Dubheasa. My mother disappeared.”
“And
disappearing into thin air is a more acceptable explanation for you?” Dubheasa
asked, studying Ianthe’s face.
“Certainly more
acceptable than ‘cursed by a faerie’,” she said in a failed whisper, gripping
the edge of the table and leaning in.
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