Page 44 of Bane Bloom

“Please take this,” she said, holding it out to Thomas, who raised an eyebrow as he reached for it. I got a whiff of buttery, sweet pastry. “My grandmother’s curd tart recipe,” she explained. “We always serve it this time of year, and I make the rose water for it myself. Leave out a slice for the fair folk, for luck and protection through May Day.”

Thomas looked a little baffled as he thanked her. I studied them both, wondering if she, too, had seen fairies, or whether this, along with all she’d told me of May Eve, came more from a place of tradition. I wished now that I had asked her about fairies, and I certainly would next time an opportunity presented itself.

“It’s my gift to you,” Annie said, “but I would like you to bring Miss Gray to town for the May Eve festivities. I very much hope that you’ll join us as well, but if you won’t, Bill can drive her home after. All right?”

Kind, devious Annie.

“Mmm,” he said, looking very aware he had been bamboozled. His gaze flickered my direction, and my cheeks flamed.

“That’s settled, then,” said Annie, turning to me with a glint in her eye. “Pick cowslips if you can find them. There should be some on your end of the lake, around the mouth of the beck. They’re good protection as well.”

I smiled. “Thank you, Annie.”

She nodded and said, “I’ll look for you at church tomorrow.”

This posting had been so full of strangeness and shocks, I hadn’t given a single thought to the idea of going to church, or even to the fact that tomorrow was Sunday. But the last thing I intended to do was anything that would disappoint Annie.

“I’ll see you then,” I said. “How much for my lunch?” I glanced down at my empty dish, slipping a hand into my pocket for the coins I’d brought in case I wanted to make a purchase.

“You never ordered that, love,” she replied. “You keep your money.”

She winked and turned for the kitchen before I could argue.

I rose from the table, feeling Thomas’s eyes on me and avoiding his gaze.

“Did you get everything you wanted?” I asked as we left the inn, hoping to smooth things over after Annie’s ambush.

“Just about.”

I cast a glance into the cart as I climbed to the seat. Various odds and ends had accumulated there—a sack of oats, a large ball of twine, a pile of wooden stakes. Thomas handed me the pie tin as he took up the reins; it was still warm from the oven.

As we got underway, I thought again over all Annie had said of May Eve. I thought, too, about her mentioning rose water and cowslips for protection. Was this not a kind of witchery? Or “wortcunning,” as Arthur Bane and his daughter had called it? It struck me that the line between folk belief and witchcraft was not very precise, and that perhaps, like the line between apothecary and witch, it shifted depending on the practitioner’s place in society.

Thinking about how Prudence and her father had come by their witchcraft knowledge, I recalled that the diary had mentioned grimoires. If I understood the term correctly, a grimoire was a kind of spell book. Where were these books now? Had they been hidden, or destroyed?

“Thomas,” I began not very hopefully, “do you know if there are any other books lying about the house, beyond the ones in the reading nook?”

A muscle in his jaw tensed. “What sort of books?”

I gnawed my lip, considering my words. “Anything on plants, really. Especially any more like the one your grandfather wrote.”

He mulled this over, and I held my breath. “My grandfather left papers and diaries when he died,” he said. “But so far as I know, my mother burned them all.”

Prudence had of course written of destroying her father’s writings, and she had said why. But I wanted to hear what he would say.

“Do you know why? I would guess the Society would have wanted them.”

“The house and the plants belong to the Society. We don’t.”

We Banes. “Of course,” I said quietly, and I felt a pang about the diary. It would drive a wedge between us if he knew.

“The apothecaries never actually sent anyone to look into things here until Mr. Carroll,” he continued. “And they never sent anyone to collect his work after he left.”

“Until now.”

He gave a slow nod. “Until now.”

We fell silent, listening to birdsong, the creak of the wheels, and the thump of Daisy’s hooves against the road, until finally we passed the last cottage before the wood.