Page 21 of Justice & Liberty

I’d taken a glance while in the store that afternoon, and it did look like the accounting had been as simple as it ever could be with a business.

“I...well, it’s a ready-made business, so it’s hard to turn my nose up, even if it’s not really what I’d planned for. What is it they call it? Turnkey? It’s...it’s not like I actually planned for anything. I’m mostly qualified to teach, and I’drather eat tree bark and live at the reservoir than become a substitute teacher, which is the easiest option.” I blinked, biting my lip. “Not that I think subs are bad. They just have way more patience than I do.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Just like your mom. No one thinks you look down on substitute teachers just because you don’t want to be one, sweetie. It’s a ridiculously hard job, and most people don’t want to do it.”

“I talked to a friend about maybe Kirkwood.”

September cocked her head one way, then the other. “Fair enough. It’s a good school. And you get more students at community college who know what their education costs than you do at Iowa, so they’re probably more likely to take classes seriously.”

“Didn’tyougo to Iowa?”

She grinned at that, and suddenly she looked like nothing so much as a mischievous teenager. “I did. And my parents paid every dime of it, so I was awful and irresponsible as a nineteen-year-old college student. Besides, that was before a college education cost more than a new house, so different times.” She waved dismissively. “But either way, you should think about the shop. A lot of people in town counted on Maggie and her teas and such. They’d be very disappointed if you came back and didn’t reopen.”

This, then, was an excellent chance to get another perspective on the magic thing. I bit my lip, leaning toward her. “About that. The teas and stuff. You know...I found the family book with the recipes for them, and...”

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how the hell to continue the statement, and tell her what I meant.

Clearly, though, September knew what I was talking about, as her lips quirked up on one side, a smile growing and growing, though she was trying to hide it. Finally, she chuckled, shaking her head. “Do me a favor, will you dear? Ifyou have a daughter, tell her. Tell her everything. Raise her with all this. I will never in my life forget when Maggie’s mother died. We were in college, and she showed up at my apartment with you in one arm and the book in the other, horrified and convinced maybe her mother had been in need of mental help.” She lifted her tone to an approximation of my mother, “Magic, Sep. Mom believed in magic. It’s crazy, right? What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

I slumped back down, pulling my takeout container closer and stuffing my face with food so I wouldn’t let all my questions spill out together. The realization that Mom had still been in college when she adopted me featured in the list of questions at least as heavily in magic. Why would anyone do that?

“I kept telling her to tell you,” she went on, shaking her head sadly. “So you wouldn’t have to deal with this as a surprise with no guidance, the same way she did. But she seemed convinced that there was a reason not to tell you. Convinced that doing it the same way her mother did was right. I suspect it’s more a throwback to a time when women might be murdered for being healers, so keeping the younger generation in the dark for as long as possible was the way to go. Plausible deniability, you know?”

It made perfect sense. Once, women had been murdered, magic or no, just because people wanted to control them. Keeping your daughter in the dark about real magic protected her from attack. Or at least, it tried to.

I rather hoped that was never going to be a concern again, so instead, I focused on the important part. “So you...you believe in magic?”

Her return smile was so warm I could almost feel it. “I do, sweetheart. Oh, I think when you get sick you should go to a doctor, and so did your Mom. Vaccines are good science and everyone should get them. People are responsible for theirown behavior. But also, a little magic couldn’t hurt the world. Your mother’s bedtime tea just has a little edge over taking pills to get to sleep at night. I’ve recommended it to dozens of patients over the years.”

And that, well...it was convincing in a way that none of my internal monologue had managed. September, a woman who’d spent her whole life in school, educating herself, going so far as medical school, believed. And more than that, she didn’t think it conflicted with being a woman of science.

“I don’t know if . . . what if I can’t do it?”

She scoffed. “You’re Maggie’s daughter in every way that matters. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

That, too, was settling.

Maybe...maybe Icoulddo it. I’d never imagined running Mom’s shop, but at least in part, it had been because I’d never imagined a day she wouldn’t be running it herself.

So maybe I would give it a shot. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do while I waited for word from Gabby.

September was a lifesaver in all ways, so as she was leaving, she also offered to have her kids take the moving truck up and drop it off at one of the locations in Iowa City, and I wasn’t going to turn that down. After all, my only plan had been to take it up and then pay for an Uber back to the house, and that was a pain. So instead, I just handed the keys to her and called the store to warn them that the truck would be dropped off the next day.

And that was that, move completed. Sure, there were still boxes in the garage, but I couldn’t just hop back into the truck and leave again. There was something final about going to bed knowing that in the morning, the moving truck would be gone.

12

Come the next morning,I went out to check on Laverne, and it looked like she’d kept her mess relegated to the newspaper. That was nice, and rather unexpected. I’d never imagined myself to be the chicken whisperer.

Was that even a thing?

I let her into the back yard and tossed some chicken feed out, like Ryan’s grandmother had told me to do, and Laverne went right to work pecking it up. Perfect.

At least my brand new chicken wasn’t going to starve to death today.

I went back inside, made myself a cup of coffee, and fed Bee and Hex while I drank it and considered my next steps. There were already cat dishes in the shop, because Mom had been taking Hex there every day for many years, so it wouldn’t be difficult to have them both with me. I went and grabbed the bag of kibble September had brought the day before, figuring I’d take the rest of it to keep at the shop, so everyone could have lunch.

Well, everyone but me.

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