Page 8 of Henhouse
“I’m sorry, I just . . .” Effie stammered. She didn’t know how to explain that she never quite managed to control how her face reacted to the names she tasted.
“You just what?” Theodore demanded, confusion, and what Effie could only guess was embarrassment, furrowing his brow. Effie stayed silent. “I’m so done with people today.” He grabbed his clipboard and turned to leave.
Effie must have looked ashamed because Basil called after him, “She can taste words!” Like that somehow made her reaction any better. But it stopped Theodore from leaving in a huff.
“You’re kidding,” Theodore said, and the disdain and disbelief had Effie stiffening her spine.
“It has more to do with the fact that I don’t know that I can accomplish your little list in the time you’ve given us. Especially when it likely means having to reorganize the entire stock room. You may think you’re helping, but in reality, you just like lording your rules over people and being sour because you can. While I have to be the one to meet your demands.” Sour, salty, sweet, spicy. Flavors crashed over each other, but Effie had the good sense to clamp down on her reaction to it all.
Theodore’s face, however, flashed—a neon sign of irritation. “If you think it’s so impossible, you might want to get started. I’ll be back tolordover you all next week.”
He turned on a dime and strutted out of the store. Effie leaned back on the counter, rubbing her face.
“What the hell was that about?” Basil asked.
“It’s a lot,” Effie whined, and the gears were already turning about how best to accomplish the tasks ahead, how to approach her boss, how to make sure everyone was happy by the end of it.
Her face must have displayed the toils of her mind because Basil said, “It’s not all on you. We’ll get it done. Honestly, I feel like your brain must be an exhausting place to live sometimes.”
“You have no idea.” Effie sighed. She noted the glint in Basil’s eye. He definitely wanted to ask about the other thing. “Go ahead.”
“His name can’t taste that bad, can it? Not when it belongs to that face?”
Effie sighed. Theodore may have been handsome, but he was now solely responsible for her having to work late, worrying about getting in touch with her boss to make the necessary upgrades, and hating her synesthesia for the first time in forever.
“It’s truly that bad,” Effie said. Her disappointment and irritation with Theodore were palpable. She wouldn’t even be able to curse his name while she hauled dusty boxes back and forth across the storeroom. Not without tasting the thick, filmy yuck of soggy cardboard on her tongue.
4
Hope waited until the house quieted to emerge from her room. Everyone else went off to add their bit of magic and expertise to the world. Dorothea settled in the great room with a worn copy ofPride and Prejudicewhile Aunt Bea probably painted in the hobby room.
Hope sidled into the kitchen for a fresh cup of coffee and one of Effie’s croissants. It wasn’t that she wanted to avoid everyone, but it had been a rather abrupt pregnancy announcement, and she felt embarrassed by it. It was an unsettling feeling. Usually, she didn’t like to hide behind shame or feel sorry for how she moved through the world. She frequently took pleasure in being exactly too much for most people.
It was the circumstance of being a solitary bird, an odd duck.
Where others gathered friends, Hope gathered characters. She was prone to living in the fantasies she wove and found little interest in making friends with living, breathing people. However, the thoughtthat nipped at her awareness while she savored the airy, buttery croissant was that it wouldn’t matter if she wanted it. The world was not usually friendly with Hope Thatcher. People found her eccentric and existential and ethereal. All things she was proud to be, but that made barriers between her and the truly living. Except in the case of her readers. They adored her and the world she created with herWeb of Realmsseries. They took her weird and celebrated it.
Brayden did that too.
Hope took a pensive sip, letting the acidity of the coffee melt the decadence of the pastry. She should have gone back upstairs and written. She should have gone to tell Brayden about the baby. Instead, she lifted another croissant from the basket and placed it on the bone china plate bedecked with paintings of wood thrushes and brambles.
The voracity with which she ate the second pastry left Hope with the realization that if she wasn’t careful, she might very well eat the Thatcher women out of house and home. Hope thought Brayden would encourage it. She believed once he knew about the pregnancy, he’d dote on her in more ways than he already did. Their rare moments alone between her writing, his work and renovations, and the crazies that she lived with were filled with dinners out, foot rubs, and tender touches. She could only imagine how he’d pamper her as a mother-to-be.
Hope’s hand drifted to her belly. It was all becoming so real. She’d read recently that she would soon feel the baby kicking. A terrifying and intriguing prospect.
It must have been the terror that appeared on her face because when Aunt Bea shuffled in, white hair piled on top of her head in a bun tied with a magenta bow, she said, “Heavens! Are you alright?”
She scurried to the table and sat beside Hope, taking both of Hope’s hands in the wrinkled leather of her own.
“Yes, I’m sorry to frighten you. I was thinking about the baby starting to kick.” Beatrice let out an exaggerated sigh and squeezed Hope’s hands tightly.
“It hasn’t happened yet?”
“No, but it should soon, and I’m afraid I’ll hate it,” Hope confessed.
“I wish I could tell you what to expect,” Beatrice said, trailing off. Hope offered her a warm smile. She may not have birthed any babies of her own, but Aunt Bea had been just as important to Hope and all the rest as they grew up. “My only advice is to not let those next-generation Thatchers get under your skin.” She winked.
Hope’s smile was slow to rise. Those Thatchers were precisely the ones that she feared proving right. Louisa, Ellen, Pamela, her mother. They all had such lousy experiences in their love lives and projected them onto her and Effie. She feared they’d spoil her happiness with their worry, but it was more than that.
