Page 63 of Wicche Hunt

There were coffee places everywhere but finding a good tearoom could be quite difficult. One like Mom’s was extremely rare. Not only did she stock difficult to acquire tea leaves, but she also was a master brewer.

She unlocked the broken door and held it open for me. I should have worn thick-soled boots, with all the glass on the floor. A couple of the tables were knocked over, some chairs upended, but it looked more like an afterthought.

“Did you call the cops?” I asked.

“Not until we know it’s safe for humans to be wandering around in here,” she said.

The glass case displaying scones, muffins, and quiche tartlets was smashed, the food strewn about. The glass jars holding her most popular teas had been thrown across the room, adding tea leaves to the glass everywhere.

“Did you already take pictures? I need to slide through the glass and leaves so I don’t cut my foot open.”

“Give me a minute.” She took out her phone and started snapping away.

“Take a panoramic while you’re at it.” While she took pictures, I studied the shop, looking for what to touch, what would hold the story. “Were you robbed or was it all destruction?”

“The till was open. I keep about three hundred in smaller bills for the customers who still pay in cash. I don’t know about the safe in back.”

“This feels like rage to me,” I said. “Each of these jars of tea leaves is worth real money. You have a few in back that are worth, what, about a thousand each?”

Mom nodded.

“This wasn’t about a couple of hundred dollars.” I went back to the glass on the floor by the shattered front door. Crouching, I slipped off a glove and touched a large shard, thinking about the break-in.

“Destroy it all,” she whispers to the dazed man. “But I get to go first.” She swirls a fist, disarming the security system and muffling the coming sounds of destruction. Reaching back, she slams a shiny, new hammer, purchased just for this, into the glass door.

Stalking through the shop, she shatters every piece of glass she can find, enjoying the power. The dazed man follows behind, tipping over furniture. With a wave of her hand, the cash drawer pops open and the man collects the bills.

“Come on. The good stuff is back here.” She walks straight to the most expensive tea leaves, slams the jar with her hammer, and then stomps on the leaves in her combat boots. In a frenzy, sweat beading on her forehead, she smashes every one of the thirty-odd jars and then starts on Mom’s collection of fine bone china tea cups and saucers. Sybil and Sylvia spent decades scouring antiques shops to find each and every one. It’s another connection to her sister that Mom has lost.

Calliope goes to the safe and again tries a spell. It doesn’t work this time. She spins the wheel, trying a combination she knows. It doesn’t work. Frustrated, she kicks it and orders the man to pick it up. He tries, but it doesn’t budge. Screaming, she hammers every framed photo of our family on the wall.

Grinding glass with every step, scarring the polished floors, she heads to the front room. “Keep going. I want it all destroyed. Fucking bitch can’t keep the money from me. It’s half mine.” She throws the hammer, end over end, at the front window. Instead of shattering the entire pane, the hammer bounces off. The window is warded against vandalism.

Eyes blinking, I stood. Mom was waiting for me with her arms crossed. I explained everything I’d seen, including the fact that I hadn’t seen Cal plant any curses. She hadn’t been carefully planning. She’d been in berserker mode.

Mom turned her head and studied her front window before picking up a chair and finding the hammer. “We’d warded the exterior when we bought the business.” She shook her head, arms wrapped around herself again. “Stupid.” She walked around an overturned table. “So sure of myself and my power.”

She started to pick up another chair and then, remembering, put it back down. “I hadn’t thought to ward again when Sylvia bought the new door. So much of this could have been avoided if I’d secured our business properly.”

“This isn’t your fault. It’s that psycho Calliope. She destroyed the place. Her little hissy fit does tell us something, though,” I said.

Mom nodded. “Money again. She’s still trying to get her hands on it, which means no one else in the family is helping her, thank the Goddess.”

We heard a noise in the back room and we both went on alert, prepping spells. Mom got to the door first, one hand reaching for the knob while the other was raised, a spell ready to be lobbed at whoever was still here.

She flung it open and then quickly fisted her hand, catching the spell. “Bracken. You startled us. I hadn’t realized you’d arrived.”

TWENTY-FIVE

Island of Misfit Toys: Population 1 More

In the darkened hall, I got my first glimpse of Bracken around my Mom’s shoulder. He was older than I’d been expecting. When Gran wanted me to find his son and talk him into seeing him, I’d assumed the guy would be Mom’s age. He looked more like Gran’s age.

Shoulders hunched, shuffling through the broken glass and tea leaves covering the floor, he mumbled to himself. “One and a half. Two. Three. Inconsistent. Subpar materials.” He had a shock of white hair that glowed in a beam of light coming from a high window. He wore a brown tweed blazer that was too big for him. The leather patches at his elbows were worn. His tan trousers were creased at the back of his knees, as though he’d been sitting for quite some time. Incongruously, on his feet he wore charcoal Vans, the slip-on sneakers normally favored by skateboarders.

Shuffle, shuffle, eyes trained on the ground, the muttering got louder. “Sybil, I hope you didn’t pay the same price for each of these jars. The thickness of the glass is alarmingly dissimilar. If you did, you’ve been cheated. Some of these jars are only one and a half, perhaps two millimeters thick at most. But these others over here are a much hardier three millimeters.”

His shuffling feet had created meandering lines of uncovered wood floor in the utter chaos. “Of course, the thicker glass has broken into far more dangerous shards, but it’s the workmanship I take issue with. Some of this glass has a slight tint to it as well, which makes no sense at all. You need to be able to see the tea leaves properly to ensure freshness. Which may be why the leaves over in this corner are in bad shape. Perhaps the seals weren’t tight enough because of thickness variations. Moisture got in. The scent should have tipped you off, though. You really need to sniff each and every jar every day to make sure you’re brewing the best teas. None of this was poisoned, by the way. Mary told me you were concerned and that I should come right away to check, so I did. No poison, but there was mold starting in the jar in the corner, bottom shelf. Not that it matters anymore. It’ll all need to be thrown out. When you purchase new containers, though, you have to use a reputable company. The thicknesses should be consistent. Unless you intentionally purchased cheaper glass, in which case, I suppose you got what you asked for. Also, did you know the floor has a four percent incline toward the door? You’ve been walking up and downhill every time you came into this storage room. You need to pull up the wood and have the subfloor leveled. And these shelves—no doubt as a result of the floor not being level—are themselves about four to five degrees off. I’d venture to guess these jars, over time, have begun to slide ever so slightly to the right. I also noticed—” He finally looked up from the floor, his gaze going right past Mom before locking on me. A sigh escaped on an, “Oh.”

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