“Did you make any progress, Bee?” Anne asked, her gaze shifting to the other end of the settee.
Beatrix grew still then, her grip on the cup’s handle so tight that Anne worried it might crack.
“Everything’s just as it was before,” Beatrix finally murmured, her eyes hardening as they drifted toward the notebook that sat on the end table.
Anne noticed the stiff set of Beatrix’s shoulders ease, though, when Violet touched her arm, a quiet reminder that they already understood what she was struggling to put into words.
“And what of your day, Anne?” Violet asked once Beatrix had taken another sip of her cider.
“Vincent Crowley visited the shop while you two were out,” Anne replied, her brows pinching together at the memory. “He’s agreed to help.”
“But you told us that he was adamant about staying out of the whole affair!” Beatrix cried in surprise.
“It seems that he’s changed his mind,” Anne sighed, the words sounding more clipped than she’d intended.
“You aren’t convinced, though, are you?” Violet murmured, her brow rising slightly at the uncharacteristic hue of annoyance in her sister’s tone.
“No,” Anne replied, setting her cup atop the table with enough force to make the house winch. “I’m certain that Vincent has an entirely different reason for offering his assistance.”
“And what do you think that is?” Beatrix asked.
“I don’t know,” Anne grumbled. “But I’m determined to find out. Tomorrow evening, he’s going to use his magic to see if we can find any answers about the ring.”
“You don’t mean . . . ,” Violet began, the words fading away as if she couldn’t bring herself to say them aloud.
“Yes, we’re going to see if one of the ghosts who’ve taken up residence in the Crowley manor can help us,” Anne said before reaching for her cup again, trying to make her tone as steady and unbothered as possible though she could feel her sisters’ worried gazes boring into her skin.
“But you’ve never tried that before,” Beatrix whispered, concern lacing her voice. “None of us have.”
A shiver of unease crept up Anne’s back as she wondered what it would be like to watch Vincent call upon a spirit.
But then she remembered what she’d heard from other witches who’d reached beyond the veil and discovered a sense of closure that they hadn’t expected to find in the shadows. They’d spoken of the experience in the same soft tones that most use to describe the sensation of running a hand across cashmere where one expected to find coarse wool.
“I know that the kind of magic the Crowleys possess has a certain reputation, even among our kind,” Anne sighed. “But from what I’ve learned in the past year, it’s not as frightening as you might think. Their power is centered on providing comfort to the restless, after all, and peace to those who want so desperately to move forward.”
The sisters thought of their own customers, who came to the Crescent Moon for much more than a sweet treat and a glimpse into their future. Every day, they stepped through the threshold searching for signs of hope nestled somewhere in the remnants of their tea leaves. Was the magic that the Crowleys were gifted with so very different from their own?
“I suppose you’re right,” Beatrix conceded, sighing as she leaned back into the settee. “And with Vincent, we have a much stronger chance of helping Mr. Crowley and Philip remain together as they wished.”
Anne followed suit, letting the stiffness in her back fade into the familiar warmth of the candlelight while she and her sisters drifted into thoughts of their old friend, who’d helped them look past their own fears of the unknown and toward a brighter future.
And as they sank deeper into those memories, the Quigleys wondered if, when all was said and done, they’d be able to do the same for him.
CHAPTER 18
A Plow
Represents struggles and difficult challenges.
Nothing, Beatrix thought as she tapped her pen against the top of the desk, carried the weight of a blank sheet of paper.
Though most might peer over her shoulder and scoff at such a notion, if they turned to glance at Beatrix’s face and saw the worry lines etched there, they would have been able to see that the emptiness of the page was in fact brimming over with hopes and fears.
When words grew on the paper, they pushed these worries to the side, the strength of the story quickly overpowering doubts that could feel as sharp and sudden as the prick of a pin.
But if left to fester, these troubles transformed into something else entirely.
When Beatrix had first stepped over the threshold that morning, the bookshop was just as dusty and disheveled as she’d left it. But as she drew deeper into the front room, Beatrix had detected something beneath the scent of neglect and fadedpages: notes of vanilla that hadn’t been there the day before. The aroma instantly reminded her of what it felt like to pull an old book off the shelf and breathe in the smell of a wellspun story, tempting her to reach toward the sea of tales littered across the floor. She’d nearly done it, too, her eyes dancing eagerly from one title to the next until the weight of her blank notebook snapped her attention back to the task at hand.
