Page 32 of The Battle of the Bookshops
It was late. Through the open curtains she could see the nightsky, deep navy and studded with stars. It would be cool tonight, with the air so clear. If it stayed cloudless, the sun would be wonderful for Freya and Finn’s wedding tomorrow, she told herself, wanting, somehow, to ground herself in the present. The disquieting chaos of the manuscript tugged at her consciousness, nagging at her well-being with a malign oppression. She should be going to sleep, but, no, she would never sleep now, not knowing the end. Jules decided to read it all. Maybe that would make it easier to clear her head of it, parking it and her notes to be dealt with after the wedding.
As soon as she resumed reading, it was there again, the creeping sense of unease. It was almost as if she felt haunted by the spirit of this long-dead woman, her relative, whom she felt so close to. Where rudimentary science and charming superstition had been blended in the earlier parts of the book, now it had turned much, much darker. There were strange incantations to quiet the dead; there was a hex to protect her against attempts to poison her, a cursing rant about another woman in the village stealing her thoughts.Stealing her thoughts?Jules paused, staring out the window, unseeing, her brow knitted. This was more than ignorance and superstition, she realized. This was even more than the thoughts of a woman who might well have styled herself as a witch. Through the pages of this diary-cum-recipe-book-cum-memoir, she was witnessing the unraveling of the poor woman’s mind! Was she seeing ghosts? Hearing voices? Could it be that she hadactuallybeen poisoned? Haunted? Could her standing in the community be attracting the evil interventions of some unknown enemy?
Whether it was true or not—and how could it be?—Biddy clearly considered herself to be immersed in the dark arts now. The transcript ended shortly after the statement about being poisoned. The last passage—filled with bracketed confessions from Charlie that the text was “indecipherable”—ended abruptly, halfwaythrough a sentence. Had Biddy simply died at this point? Jules wondered, her eyes unexpectedly glazing with tears. There was something absolutely terrified and bereft about this poor woman who had lived more than three hundred years ago.
Jules put the transcript on the bedside table thoughtfully. She must give it to Aunt Flo tomorrow—perhaps her aunt could share some insight—but there was a bit of her who wanted to spare the older woman, the content was so disturbing. This was Flo’s—and Jules’s—kith and kin, after all.
Turning out the light, with a slightly tremulous sigh, Jules snuggled down to sleep, careful not to disturb Merlin, in the hope he would stay to comfort her.
Jules slept fitfully. She was too hot, then she was too cold. Her head ached. Her throat was parched. Her dreams, weaving a path through her sleep, were disturbing too. In them, she was Bridget Capelthorne—ill, confused, trusting no one, casting wilder and wilder spells and curses, scared of the dark, disappearing into chaos. Time and time again she woke up with a violent jerk, panting in terror, and eventually, when morning came, she got up, exhausted, her head pounding. The day of Freya’s wedding had arrived, and it was the last thing she felt like doing.
“You look terrible,” Flo told her.
“Thanks,” said Jules, beginning to wish her great-aunt was not quite so free with her opinions. “I’ll be fine, but I feel bad, leaving you on your own to run the shop.”
“Don’t be,” said Flo. “It’s not as if I haven’t been doing exactly that for decades. I think I can manage a May Bank Holiday weekend.”
“I’m sorry you’re missing the wedding, though.”
Flo shrugged. “Bless them both, it’s so lovely to see youngsterssetting out on life together. Makes me wonder when...” She looked at Jules pointedly. “Weddings can be great places for hooking up, you know. Lots of single young people, love is in the air... Anything could happen.”
“It won’t,” Jules told her repressively, getting up to clear the breakfast things away.
The yellow dress had not improved, she noted, staring dispassionately at herself in the mirror. The color was tough to pull off at the best of times, but it combined particularly unfavorably with today’s tired eyes and pasty skin. Flo’s suggestion she might attract attention from a man seemed wildly optimistic. And that was if Jules was remotely interested in the idea, which she definitely was not.
She did her best to paint out the circles under her eyes and then swirled livid pink blush onto her cheeks but it just made her look as if she were sickening for something. She wiped it off. Finally, she attempted to open up her eyes—piggy after her disturbed night—with a couple of coats of mascara, which clumped and flaked immediately. It was not going to look great after Jules cried. She always cried at weddings.
She turned to see the dress from the back, craning her neck. Not an improvement, but that was just too bad. Looking at her watch, Jules hurriedly stuffed a tissue, a lipstick, and her debit card in the little clutch bag she had found in her childhood wardrobe, thanking her lucky stars the little gray sparkly one had turned up, or she would have been forced to consider the My Little Pony fanny pack, complete with furry tail. She should really go clothes shopping if she was going to stay in Portneath much longer, although, not drawing a salary from working at the shop, she wasn’t sure her bank balance would stand it.
There was a thin and vicious wind. Jules had to clench her teethagainst it, hurrying up the hill to the florist. The sweet lady who had run the shop for as long as Jules could remember had the large white cardboard box sitting waiting on the counter.
Lifting the lid, she gave Jules a peek at the contents: “Bouquet for the bride, obviously,” she related, “and then corsages for you and the mother of the groom. The rest are the buttonholes for the men. Okay?”
The entire collection was made up of scented narcissi: tiny acid-yellow pied-à-terre contrasting with two types of blowsy, peachy double flowers, alongside the pure white star-shaped blooms of the paperwhites with their tiny, fluted orange centers. They all looked and smelled glorious.
“Give Freya my best wishes for today, won’t you?” said the lady, whose name Jules felt she should be able to recall. Vanessa? Serena? “I remember her as a tiny little thing,” she reminisced dreamily.
“She’s still a tiny little thing,” said Jules. “Fierce, though, when she needs to be.”
It was true: giggly, fluffy, jolly little Freya had demonstrated steely determination, rising to the heights she had achieved in her career, holding her own in tough, bullying kitchens, where hierarchy was everything and men largely ruled the roost. And now Freya, triumphant from her decade in France, was running her own successful restaurant and marrying Finn, with his delightful family that would now, of course, become Freya’s own.
And in that same stretch of time, what had Jules achieved? Nothing, basically.
“She and her mum would come in most weeks, just to buy a bunch of something cheap and cheerful,” the flower lady mused, eyes soft and distant. “Narcissi in the spring, of course, tulips after that, sunflowers later in the summer... Such a lovely woman. It’s all so sad, her dying like that.”
And then Jules felt terrible for her envy of Freya. Not manypeople would describe Maggie as a “lovely woman,” and she struggled to summon a positive childhood memory like the flower buying... but even so. At least she stillhadher mum. She should call her soon, definitely. Maybe next week. Or maybe the week after... It was best not to rush these things.
It was Finn who answered the door looking impossibly handsome in pin-striped trousers and a crisp white shirt, open at the neck. He was holding a pair of shiny black shoes, which he put down to take the flower box from her.
“Is Freya not here?” Jules said, confused.
“She’s upstairs,” Finn told her, amiably enough. It seemed he had either forgiven or forgotten her delivering his wife back from the nightclub in such poor shape. “Wow, these flowers smell amazing,” he went on. “Actually, now that you’re here—hang on a minute...”
He put the box of flowers down on the counter and headed off through the door that connected the delicatessen with the restaurant. In a moment, he reappeared brandishing a pair of champagne flutes in one hand and a bottle of the finest English sparkling wine in the other.
“You’re not supposed to see her before the ceremony,” fretted Jules, divining his intentions. If she had been wearing pearls, she would have clutched them.
“Don’t worry,” he said, and laughed. “I’ve been keeping well out of the way. And now I’ve got you to take these up to her.”
