Beatrix was about to ask her sister what she could possibly mean, but as she reached out to grab Violet’s sleeve, she instantly stopped.
Jennings’ coat was still hanging about her shoulders, so warm and familiar that Beatrix hadn’t even remembered it didn’t belong to her.
CHAPTER 9
A Candle
Foreshadows a revelation.
By the time Beatrix stepped back over the threshold of the shop, Anne was so focused on her task in the divination room that she didn’t even notice the sound of the bells hitting the front door or the rising voices of their customers, who were full of speculations about why such a charming young man had come to call.
It helped that the house had shifted the room slightly so that its entrance now spilled into the hallway rather than the front parlor. Since the expansion, one too many curious customers had tried to pull at the mosscolored curtain to see what rested behind it, and the walls had to resist the urge to snap the fabric back as a washerwoman does when trying to shoo a muddy dog from a fresh line of linen. Though the divination room was now positioned farther from the heart of the shop, the tinkling of porcelain and gentle hum of tea carts rolling across the wooden floors could still be heard if someone was paying attention.
But Anne’s focus was firmly fixed on the shelves, so these everyday rhythms went completely unnoticed.
“Which to choose next . . . ,” Anne muttered to herself as her gaze drifted along jars packed full of dried petals, stacks of tarot cards, bags of dust, and other tools of her craft.
In the light of the evening fire, the Quigleys had decided that Anne should use her magic to determine their next step. Violet and Beatrix seemed certain in their sister’s ability to uncover a sign, their belief in her skill so infectious that Anne found a bit of her confidence returning as she listened to them argue about who would watch over the shop while she got to work the next day.
But the sense of steadiness that she’d felt when tucked away in the family parlor the night before had faded somewhat after sitting alone in the divination room for hours without coming across the barest hint of foresight.
Already, she’d worked her way through several spreads of tarot cards, gazed into the shadows of her grandmother’s crystal ball, and cast so many stone runes across the floor that Tabitha, who’d been hiding beneath the table, darted out to chase them, scattering any hope of piecing together the predictions etched in the stones.
“It seems that Mr. Crowley’s fate is just as difficult to sort out in death as it was in life,” Anne sighed, reaching to knead away the ache in her neck.
She knew, of course, that her friend wasn’t to blame. No, as Anne stepped away from the shelf and saw her own worn expression reflected against the surface of the crystal ball, she realized that the trouble rested with her. She was trying to twist her magic into an unnatural position rather than letting it flow effortlessly from within, guiding her toward the answers that waited in the shadows.
As she’d learned over the past year, power wasn’t so much about control as it was a willingness to let go and listen.
Releasing a shaky breath, Anne decided that now wasn’t the time to slip into old habits. Instead of reaching toward the shelves and pushing herself further, she drifted toward the rocking chair that sat in the corner, just beneath bundles of dried sunflowers that smelled like slumbering sunshine.
Leaning into the curve of the chair, Anne began to rock back and forth, willing her fear for the future to fade away with every creaky swish of the wood. By the time her head began to loll, Tabitha had hopped up to join her, curling into her lap as Anne stroked her inky black coat.
The cat had a habit of slipping away as quickly as she came, but she’d remained close this winter, as she always seemed to do whenever trouble brewed within the walls of the Crescent Moon.
The gentle creak of the rocking chair blended with the sound of Tabitha’s purrs, drawing Anne into a state that felt present and far away all at once. Though her eyes were too heavy to open, she could sense a warmth starting to climb up her toes and knew that the house must have struck a match in the hearth, hoping that the crackling of the flames might help her fade into a muchneeded rest.
As Anne felt herself slip farther away from the Crescent Moon, she began to smell the aroma of peppermint, black tea, and morning dew.
Her magic was up to something.
Content to let it pull her along where it may, Anne sank deeper into what was beginning to feel like the edge of a vision. Her breathing slowed to the languid pace of places beyond the bounds of time, and she gradually lost touch with the smooth wooden arms of the chair.
And then she was no longer in the shop at all, but standing at a window looking down at a snowcovered street just starting to flicker with the light of gas lamps.
Anne was struck at once by the unusual texture of the vision, which possessed the faded quality of a photograph left too long on a southfacing wall. It seemed that she had fallen back into the past rather than toward the future.
Reading someone’s fortune always involved peeking into the past, but since Anne’s powers had taken on a life of their own, she’d found herself slipping back in time more and more. Her visions of what came before were sporadic and beyond her control, though. She couldn’t conjure them by force of will or direct herself to a specific point in time.
Anne wondered if this was because the past was more difficult to interpret than what rested ahead. For while the future was yet untouched, the past was always tethered to emotions that rippled outward into the present.
Though Anne felt an initial impulse to turn around and see where, exactly, her magic had led her, she knew that doing so might disrupt the vision. And so, she kept her gaze locked toward the street, waiting to see what would happen next.
It wasn’t long before she saw the figure of a young boy walking slowly across the road. He was hunched over in a way that suggested his little shoulders were already carrying the weight of too many secrets, and his steps were so slow that it was obvious he was trying to make the short journey as long as possible.
Turning her gaze toward the building on the other side of the street, Anne could understand the boy’s reluctance. He was moving closer to one of the most imposing town houses she’d ever seen, a monstrosity of white marble that looked colder than the icy pavement beneath the child’s feet. Just one glance at it made Anne shiver, her eyes shifting so quickly away from thestriking image that she nearly missed the name carved in the stone just above the front door: Crowley.
Anne’s gaze flashed back to the little boy just as a voice rang out from her side of the street. As soon as he turned and the lamplight hit his face, already so firm and suspicious, Anne knew that she had managed to fall into a moment from her friend’s childhood.
