Page 20 of The Witching Moon Manor
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Appear when someone is overwhelmed by their options and struggling to make a choice.
When Beatrix set about the task of writing the next morning, she discovered that her mind wasn’t the only place that had grown cluttered.
Though the Crescent Moon had mastered the art of carving additional space from nothing, over the past year it had needed to trim away at nooks and crannies in forgotten corners to make room for the growing demands of the shop. For houses, like people, need to account for the living parts of themselves as well.
Unfortunately, however, this meant that Beatrix had been welcomed by a lessthanpleasant surprise when she opened the door to what had once been her study.
“Oh dear,” Beatrix had sighed as she attempted to fold herself into the wooden chair. Before, she’d been able to lean back and stretch, but now, the dusty records stacked on the bookcase shelves were practically spilling onto the desk.
Beatrix had only managed to sit in her old spot after climbing atop the chair and tucking her legs to her chest, the space beneath the desk bursting with so many books and boxes that her boots didn’t have a hope of touching the floorboards.
After she’d managed to pull out her notebook and fill her pen with ink, the ache that she felt in her awkwardly bent knees and elbows had seemed to grow beyond reasonable proportion until all she could think about was how to find a more comfortable position. It hadn’t helped matters that the low murmur of their customers’ voices and subtle clinks of teacups being set to rights on saucers kept seeping through the floorboards and into the study, where they managed to echo despite the fact that the walls were pressed so closely together.
Before she’d left home, a steam engine running through the center of the hallway couldn’t have pulled Beatrix away from a story that needed to be threaded together. But now every discomfort festered into a distraction that kept her from choosing a potential plotline and stretching it onto the page.
“It’s no use,” Beatrix sighed as she attempted to shove her chair back, forgetting how close the bookshelf was now and dislodging several of the folders, which poured down on her from above in a puff of dust.
Sensing Beatrix’s distress, the house tried its best to widen the study and give her enough space to free herself from the chair. But the front parlor was packed, and it couldn’t find an extra inch to borrow in time to help Beatrix avoid hitting her shin against the side of the desk as she swatted away the papers.
“It’s not your fault,” Beatrix murmured as she reached forward and placed her palm against the wainscoting, trying to reassure the house that it wasn’t its walls she was worried about crashing in around her but the foundation of her own inner world.
The plaster beneath her hand shook in relief as the house let out a shaky sigh of its own. It so wanted Beatrix to feel at home again, but no amount of freshly laundered sheets and honey buns seemed to be helping her settle in.
Before the house or Beatrix could convey anything more, though, the sound of boots clicking against the floorboards drew their attention away from their worries and toward the hallway.
“Beatrix!” Violet exclaimed as she threw open the door and started to step inside, only to come to a sudden halt when she realized that there wasn’t even enough room to sneeze.
“What did you come running in here for?” Beatrix asked as she hastily covered the blank pages that littered the desk.
A spark of delight flashed across Violet’s face then that nearly overshadowed the deep circles beneath her eyes.
“There’s amanout in the parlor,” she said in the same tone that one might use to announce they’d found an elephant waiting for them on the front stoop.
“I do hear that there are quite a few of those walking out and about,” Beatrix replied.
“Well, this one says that he’s here to talk to you,” Violet said, pointing a playful finger at her sister. “You must tell me who he is this instant!”
“Considering I haven’t had the chance to see him myself, I couldn’t say,” Beatrix murmured.
“He’s rather tall with a headful of hair poking out in all directions,” Violet declared, gesturing upward as she spoke. “But he has the most charming smile, as if he isn’t aware of the effect it has.”
“It can’t be,” Beatrix hissed as she shot upward from her chair, banging her shins yet again against the side of the desk.
“It can’t be who?” Violet asked, her foot tapping so quickly against the floorboards that the ladies sitting closest to the backdoor of the shop wondered if a woodpecker had somehow gotten loose in the house.
“Jennings,” Beatrix whispered, brushing her hand through her hair and down her dress to put herself in some semblance of order. But the ink that she’d spilled was still fresh on her skin, leaving vibrant blue slashes on her temple and across the front of her blouse.
“You can’t meantheJennings,” Violet gasped. “The one you spoke of so often in your letters that I started to wonder if he was real or one of those imaginary friends you were always talking about when we were girls?”
“I did not write about him that often,” Beatrix hissed, moving to wrap her arms defensively around her rib cage and failing when her elbow caught the edge of a stack of outdated calendars, sending them tumbling to the floor.
“Oh yes, you did,” Violet said with a smile. “And now that he’s here, I’m going to figure out exactly what has been going on between you two.”
“My relationship with Jennings is purely professional,” Beatrix insisted, but as soon as the words left her lips, a singed sweetness filled the room, and she knew that Violet could taste the flavor of her lie.
“I’m going to speak with him,” Violet declared as she turned away from Beatrix and started to step toward the door that led to the front parlor.
