Page 25 of Cosy & Chill
Copper, Gold and… Hope
Roisin had used a touch of compulsion to ensure she bagged the window seat in the café on the High Street. She'd been there since the early afternoon, sketchpad, colour swatches, and fabric samples on the table in front of her, pretending to work. If anyone came close, they'd see the outline of a beautiful living room, mostly drawn in pencil but with blobs of colours here and there to indicate the scheme she was designing.
It wasn't why she sat in the café, of course. Roisin had her gaze fixed on the empty storefront across the street and the sudden activity around its entrance.
She’d felt the moment the keys to 13 High Street had changed hands like a trickle of ice water along her spine, and she'd rushed to the café to make sure she didn't miss anything important.
Within half an hour, a van had deposited both young men on the doorstep. They’d carried boxes and bags into the house until the van was empty, before heading off on foot down the street, reappearing an hour later laden with more bags and boxes.
Roisin watched while her heart tried to beat its way out of her chest.
The two men, whom she regarded as the copper and the gold she needed to find her amulet, were moving into the empty building. Not as new owners, but as tenants, giving her the chance to enter and search the place.
The seeking spell was a complicated piece of magic. Like all such spells, it had limitations. She couldn’t search an ownerless dwelling for her amulet. She couldn’t search a house that its owner occupied, whether said owner was home or not. It severely restricted her choices and stretched her patience.
Now 13 High Street had tenants and Roisin couldn’t breathe for fear something might change and bar her from the building after all.
The afternoon meandered towards evening, and the light wind brought clouds and drizzle. Shoppers headed home, streetlights illuminating their path. The café emptied, but Roisin didn’t move from her post, waiting until she saw lights bloom in the first-floor windows.
She packed up her sketchpad and left the café then, desperate for something stronger than tea before she headed back out to explore the house.
For the first time in too many lifetimes, she felt something like hope.
