CHAPTER 1
Rosemary
Symbolizes remembrance.
As the bells dangling from the front door chimed on the first day of the new year, the Crescent Moon was busy filling the shop with reminders instead of resolutions.
Though it knew that the customers who crossed the threshold were thinking of changes to come, the shop also understood that now wasn’t the time to turn away from the past. Spring was the season for sweeping aside cobwebs and sorting through what should be packed away, not the height of winter, when the days were dark and the bitter bite of the wind made you want to cling to the things that were worth keeping.
And so, when most people were pulling down their wreaths and shaking their heads at the shadows left behind, the house was doing its best to infuse the tearoom with warm recollections, ones that made you sink deeper into homespun quilts and shift through the afternoon at a slower pace.
Like a man twirling his mustache, it spun fresh garland around all the banisters, tucking sticks of cedar and spoolsof oranges that had dried alongside nutmeg and cardamon among the greenery. Snippets of holly with bright red berries were scattered across the surface of burgundy tablecloths embroidered with miniature rows of shops similar to the ones that rested on either side of the Crescent Moon, their brick fronts covered in tiny snowflake stitches. And the sunlight spilling in from the frosted windows was softened so that the flames flickering atop the candlesticks took on the hue of stars waiting to be wished upon.
This particular mix of cloves and velvet brought the house back to years when little hands had grasped on to its window ledges in the hopes of peering at the street outside, still unconvinced that what awaited them beyond the cold glass was in any way more magical than the world within the shop.
The house had welcomed most of the changes of the last year, especially the ones that involved a bit of redecoration. It had drawn in a deep breath, stretched its beams and rafters, and settled into the enjoyable task of rearranging the front parlor and, if it was being honest, a few other nooks and crannies when its sole remaining occupant turned her head away. But that was long before Chicago’s chill had set into its bones, and now it was determined to sit back and spend a bit of time burrowing into the warm memories that had been tucked to the side during the rush that always consumed the shop toward the end of each year.
If only its keeper could be convinced to feel the same way. . . .
“Don’t worry, I’m going to find you a table,” Anne Quigley insisted as she tried to usher her companions, Katherine and Celeste, through the quickly growing crowd. Long ago, the two women had been friends of Anne’s mother, Clara, but if the way they beamed at their young hostess as she pulled them through the chaotic parlor was any indication, they’d grown equally close with her.
Though most businesses remained closed for the new year, it had seemed cruel to Anne to shut the front door on a day when so many were searching for the barest glimpse of the future. They needed a shred of certainty to steady themselves while flipping through the blank expanse of their calendars and wondering what those days might hold.
But now that the shop was overflowing with skirt trains and thick woolen cloaks, Anne was beginning to question her choice.
“I’m starting to think that adding a second floor wasn’t enough,” she heard Katherine murmur, her voice nearly lost among the sound of tinkling porcelain as she linked her arm through Anne’s to avoid being trampled by a tea cart that seemed to be moving at the pace of a racehorse.
Anne felt the floorboards vibrate under her boots in anticipation and sighed.
“Don’t give it any ideas,” Anne whispered as she grasped Celeste with her other hand and pulled them both toward the spiral staircase tucked in the back of the room. “I caught it trying to build a solarium the other day.”
As the three women twirled up the steps, Anne wished, not for the first time, that the house had chosen a more practical structure to lead up to the new addition. Though their customers seemed enchanted by it, the circular movement always left Anne feeling a bit disoriented whenever she reached the top, which she suspected was a strategic move on the part of the house, though it was going to take more than a dash of dizziness to distract Anne from the sweeping alterations it had made to the front parlor.
Last year, after Celeste lost her powers and Anne took over her place on the Council of Witches, it had been clear as crystal that the shop would need to change. Each of the Council members had different magical abilities and played an important part in keeping the coven safe by ensuring thethreads of destiny remained intact, but Anne’s role carried a special weight. As the city’s Diviner, she looked toward the future, discovering problems and finding solutions before any trouble could snag the delicate fabric of their existence. Her new position would no doubt draw in an even greater crowd of witches eager to ensure they met a fortunate Fate, and that meant the Crescent Moon, like many other parts of Anne’s life, needed to grow.
But even she hadn’t predicted just how quickly the house would take matters into its own hands.
When Anne had sat down in the kitchen to calmly explain that they needed to make some improvements to the shop, she did her best to convince the house that the alterations should be as simple as possible. As soon as the words left her lips, though, all the walls had flashed a bright daisy yellow before the house cracked open the very center of the foundation, where it quickly got to work making so much noise that Anne’s warnings were lost among bits of falling plaster.
The result was an additional floor with vaulted ceilings, towering stainedglass windows depicting the different phases of the moon, and a hearth large enough to hold a boiling copper cauldron that infused the entire room with notes of cloves and cardamon, which always grew richer as morning passed into the afternoon. The grandness of the ceiling was offset somewhat by the soft textures of the velvet armchairs that wrapped around each of the oaken tables and the warm burgundy hues of the rugs. Altogether, the scene made you want to slip away from the worries that waited outside the front door and lose yourself in a second or third pot of tea. The only problem was that the windows within the shop didn’t match the ones you saw from the street, though the customers who wandered up to the second floor always seemed to forget that fact by the time their feet left the bottom step of the spiral staircase.
“Here we are,” Anne said, a note of victory lacing her tone as she led her guests to a table nearest the cauldron, where the fragrance of cinnamon sticks and citrus was the strongest.
“Won’t you join us?” Katherine asked as she settled into her seat and let her knit shawl fall from her shoulder, the movement unveiling some of her hex magic. It looked like dust that had struck the light at just the right angle, casting a shimmering glow against her skin and clothes for the barest instant before being tucked away again beneath the wool cloth. She’d been kept quite busy over the winter social season, when the plethora of balls and holiday events put blessings and curses in high demand. But, judging by the new laugh lines around her eyes, Katherine had enjoyed every moment of it.
“I don’t know that there’s time . . . ,” Anne began, only to be interrupted by the metallic click of a tea cart’s wheels.
“She has a few minutes,” Peggy said with a smile as she placed a pot of steeping tea on the table alongside a tray brimming over with spicy ginger biscuits that begged to be snapped in two.
When Anne opened her mouth to protest, Peggy merely gave her a wink and quickly pushed the cart away.
“I can’t believe this is the first time we’ve visited since the expansion,” Katherine remarked as her eyes continued to wander across the room, stopping here and there when they seemed to be caught by the details of a nightscape painting or the way the light of the flames looked as they danced against curved gas lamps.
“Well, becoming the Diviner kept me occupied in the spring,” Anne replied as she poured them each a cup of tea that smelled of refuge on a cold and snowy night. “Then I had to make the house wait until autumn to unveil the changes so that the customers weren’t wondering how a second floor sprang up overnight. And by the winter, there was the matter of . . .”
Anne fell silent, the words waiting to be shared too heavy to carry into the conversation. Instead, she looked down at the signet ring that wrapped around her thumb and tapped the hourglass etching ever so carefully against the side of her teacup so that the small grains of sand floated from one end to the other.
“Yes,” Celeste said with a sigh. “There was the matter of our Mr. Crowley.”
