Page 5 of A Spot of Tea and Sorcery: Vol. 6

But Luna shook her head. It was imperative that she vanish without a trace. She hoped Bromley Bay would prove a big enough city for her to disappear into its depths until she could save up enough to venture farther out, to theSouthern Continent. Beyond the reach of all sorcerers and their machinations.

It was a fool’s dream, of course. She knew it, even when she tried to pretend otherwise. Some fates could not be outrun. They could only be delayed. Her time with Mr. Grimm had let her ignore this reality for a while, but the truth remained. Her fate was closing in fast.

Luna closed her eyes. For a moment, she saw herself again as a young teenager, just beginning to learn the fine art of tea-scrying. She’d been scrying small futures for the aunties for a few months now, but Auntie Apolonia had decided she was ready to attempt a glimpse at her own future.

“Generally speaking, it is unwise to peek into one’s fate very often,” Auntie Apolonia had cautioned, even as she pressed the little pink-chintz cup into Luna’s hand. “It can be both distressing and deceiving. Many a scryer has gone mad trying too hard to discern what was not meant for their understanding. But one must learn the knack of it if one is to be a true tea witch.” She’d smiled then at the nervous look Luna had given her. “Don’t worry, child. You’re so young, and the future is still such a wide-open space before you. I doubt you will see anything too very unexpected.”

Luna had nodded, eager to get started. She’d swirled her cup as she’d been taught, concentrated the subtle vibrations of her awareness, and peered into the dregs.

An immediate and powerful vision had burst across her mind’s eye. She saw, as though from a distance, but felt the heart-pounding terror of the moment as though she lived it. There was a woman—a grown-up version of herself, bound to a dark stone. And there were tall figures in black robes, seven, eight, ten. She lost count. What mattered was that there were many, and their arms were upraised, and their voices spoke in a complex chorus, different words falling from each mouth, butweaving together to form a whole of meaning. The language in which they spoke seared the ears with damnation.

As Luna’s young, terrified eyes watched, she saw her woman-self suddenly convulse in her bonds. Darkness began to open wide, right there in the center of her chest. Swirling, twirling fingerlike tendrils, stretching out and through and beyond. Evil was coming. Terrible malevolence, the likes of which she had never imagined, not even in the darkest moments of her life. And she saw that there was no way to stop it, that her adult-self was entirely helpless against such evil, and—

The shock of the vision was so profound, it had knocked Luna clean out of the stool upon which she sat. Auntie Apolonia had stretched out her hand and managed to snatch her teacup before it fell and shattered, exclaiming as she did so, “Gracious, child! What’s come over you?”

Then she’d looked as well. And Luna, from her place on the floor, had watched her auntie’s fierce features sag into an expression of utmost horror. The next moment, Auntie Apolonia had stood up so sharply, the rocking chair in which she had been sitting went over backwards. She dashed the tea dregs into the fireplace, which sputtered and turned green momentarily. Then, to Luna’s shock, she’d thrown the cup itself to the hearth stones, splintering it into a hundred shards.

Before the scream had even died on Luna’s tongue, her auntie gripped her by the upper arms and dragged her upright. “Look at me, Luna!” she’d said with terrible sternness. “I said look at me, child!” Somehow, Luna’s spinning vision had found her auntie’s eyes and locked upon them, old and hard and stubborn beyond all reason. “Remember, girl,” Apolonia had said then, her thin lips curled back from her teeth in a grimace. “Remember what your Extremely Great Aunt Amelia said. Do you remember? On the day she died?”

Panic had stolen Luna’s breath. She’d panted and struggled, tears pouring down her cheeks as she shook her head.

Auntie Apolonia had leaned in then, pressing her forehead against Luna’s. And her old voice had sounded like a growl when she intoned: “Fate’s my bitch.”

Luna shivered back to the present, staring down at Mrs. Goddard’s mushroom teacup, but seeing the shattered remains of pink-chintz porcelain in her mind’s eye.

Auntie Apolonia’s voice echoed in her memory:“Fate’s my bitch . . . fate’s my bitch . . . fate’s my bitch . . .”

But the truth was very different. The truth was, an image such as the one she’d seen wasn’t the sort that could be altered. That’s why it had been so vivid, so strong, even to her adolescent perceptions. Apolonia knew it as well, though Luna had never been able to get her to admit it. She’d simply forbade Luna from looking at her future ever again. A promise Luna hadmostlykept over the years, limiting her scryings to immediate, day-of types of futures. Nothing far-reaching.

It didn’t make any difference. Her fate was coming for her, whether she looked or not. Just because one didn’t see the tiger didn’t mean it wasn’t silently stalking one’s footsteps.

A small sigh escaped Luna’s lips. She realized idly that she’d primed the dregs in her mushroom teacup for a scrying. It was such a reflex action, particularly after these last few months of work at The Arcane Bouquet. What’s more, she’d unthinkingly tilted the cup toward her, and a vision was trying to take shape. Only, it wasn’t a singular vision. Luna winced, a little stab of pain entering through her temple as the sure signs of a Double Jeopardy began to play before her Sight. Two distinct images, overlaying each other in a confused jumble and—

She hastily pushed the cup away. She had no gift for discerning Double Jeopardy visions. They could only confuseher more, and she didn’t need confusion right now. She needed certainty and the resolve to take decisive action. Rising from her seat at the table, she gathered up both her teacup and Mrs. Goddard’s, carried them to the sink, dumped the dregs, and ran water into each cup.

“Luna, dear,” Mrs. Goddard said softly, watching her. “I don’t like to think of you ending up friendless in foreign parts somewhere.”

Luna forced a little smile. “I’ve been friendless in foreign parts many times over these last few years, Mrs. Goddard. Somehow, I always manage to make a new friend or two. There are kind souls to be found everywhere, if you know how to look for them.” Tears filmed her eyes, and she blinked quickly to hold them back. “Kind souls who bake spiced cake for birthdays and slip an extra sausage or piece of toast onto the breakfast platter each morning.”

“Oh, dearie!” Mrs. Goddard sniffled and grabbed for her hanky. “But when I think of—”

Before she could finish, the kitchen door abruptly burst open, and the ragged figure of Tobias staggered in from the alley. His eyes were wide, his expression harrowed, and a faint atmosphere of anti-glitter clung to his person, testimony to the horrors he’d just witnessed and survived. He took one look at his mother and cried out, “Mam!” The next moment he’d thrown himself into her arms like a little boy.

“Ooh, my baby!” Mrs. Goddard cried, leaping up from her seat to wrap him tight in her embrace. He buried his face in her plump shoulder and began to sniffle so loudly, Luna almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“Mam! I never shoulda done it!” he wailed. “I’m a bad boy, Mam, but I swears to you, I’m gonna mend my ways! I’ll go back to Jerry’s and work in his shop, and this time I’ll be good, I’ll listen to whatever he says and learn to do it right!”

“Oh, no you won’t, I won’t hear of it!” Mrs. Goddard answered, her arms tightening. “I ain’t letting my little boy go again! It was never your fault, never your doing! It was that rotten Rodney Rookshanks what caused all the trouble!”

Luna raised an eyebrow, but thought perhaps to keep her opinion on the subject to herself. She couldn’t repress a little snort, however, and this brought Tobias’s attention her way at last. “Miss Talbot!” he gasped, pulling back from his mother and swiping his nose with the back of his hand. “You’re all right!”

Not wanting Mrs. Goddard to get wind of the more dramatic elements of her evening, Luna answered serenely, “Why, of course, Tobias. Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve been with your mother all this time. Since we met on the corner of Mirthmeadow Street.You remember?”

She finished by giving him a stern look, willing him to catch her drift. He blinked a few times, looking quite stupid, and she feared he would give it all away. Just at the last moment, a gleam of something similar to intelligence shone in his eye, however. Tobias nodded slowly. “Aww, right. Outside the bar. Yeah, I remember.”

“I told you that your mother was worried about you. Then I came back here.”

“Yeah.” He nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, I remember. That was, uh, that was very good of you, miss.”