Ribbing and Runes

by Nancy Warren

  Not a question I wanted to pose just at the moment, obviously.

  It wasn’t too long before a server arrived, bearing a large tray with our food.

  Few things cheered me up as quickly as English fish and chips when it was well done with nice, crispy batter and thick chips, which I still thought of as french fries but managed to refer to as chips. I was getting so English, you’d hardly know I wasn’t the real deal.

  “See you haven’t lost any of your American accent,” Pete said, immediately bursting my bubble.

  I looked up at him, laughing. “You should talk. You certainly haven’t picked up any Egyptian.”

  “Too right.” He looked very proudly at Meri. “But look at Meri there. Her modern English is getting so good, you can hardly tell she doesn’t have a similar background to the other grad students.”

  Meri looked down and shook her head bashfully. “I do make a dreadful lot of mistakes.”

  Since my parents were talking together, I could say softly, “Meri, you’ve got two thousand years of progress to catch up on. I think you’re doing remarkably well.”

  She looked up then and beamed at me. We made our way happily through our meal, catching up and getting more comfortable with each other by the minute. Mother complimented me on the shepherd’s pie as though I’d made it myself, but I liked to see her in such a good mood. It would make it easier when I had to tell her there was not going to be a bachelorette party. Or a hen party. Or anything where I had to wear embarrassing clothing and get drunk and make a spectacle of myself.

  We’d reached the coffee stage when, to my great relief, I saw a tall, handsome figure striding our way. My heart still did a foolish leap every time I saw him. I wondered if that would ever end and hoped it wouldn’t.

  I had the pleasure of noticing the minute Rafe caught sight of me. His whole face lightened, and he picked up the pace a little. Soon he was by my side, planting a swift kiss on my lips, and then as his face brushed past my ear he whispered, “Don’t worry.” And somehow, now that he was here, I felt that if my worry wasn’t gone, it was at least halved.

  “Lovely to see you all again,” he said and shook each hand around the table. He dragged a chair over from an empty table, and I shifted over, making room for him.

  Dad said, “I’m glad to see you, son.” Then he chuckled in a self-conscious way. “It’s an odd word for me to say. But I look forward to getting used to it.”

  “And so do I,” Rafe said. I was pleased to see he didn’t add “Dad” or “Father” at the end of it. My dad had no way of knowing that Rafe was his senior by almost five hundred years.

  My mother leaned forward eagerly. “You’ll join us for dinner?”

  He shook his head. “Thank you, but I’ve already eaten.”

  My dad got up. “Have a drink then. Or coffee at least.”

  “Thank you. I’ll have a glass of red wine, if I may.”

  Dad happily went off to procure it for him, and he withstood Pete’s teasing and my mom’s impertinent questions with good grace. Better, in fact, than I had.

  My dad returned with his glass of wine and then said, “I’m glad to see you tonight, Rafe. We must talk about your bachelor party. Now I’ve got some ideas—”

  “That’s very kind of you, but my best man will be organizing an event. The details of which, of course, he hasn’t shared with me.” He sent a half-amused, half-horrified glance around as though he might be subjected to strippers and lap dances. I was fairly certain that wasn’t going to happen.

  “Your best man. Excellent.” If Dad was disappointed, he didn’t show it. “Anyone I know?”

  “Lochlan Balfour. He’s coming down from Ireland.”

  As one, everyone turned to stare at him. “Lochlan Balfour?” my dad repeated. Dad was rarely starstruck by anybody who hadn’t dug up something smelly and skeletal that had historical significance, so to see him getting excited by Rafe’s best friend was surprising.

  My mom piped up. “You don’t mean Lochlan Balfour, the technology mogul?”

  “The very one.”

  “But I thought he lived in New York,” my mom said.

  My dad shook his head. “Seattle.”

  Pete argued that they both had it wrong and his headquarters were in Sydney.

  Meri was the only one who didn’t hazard an opinion. Though she clearly knew of him when she said, “He is a very famous man. I have read about him on my computer.”

  Rafe nodded. “He travels to all the places you mentioned for his business. Best if you don’t go spreading around the news that he lives a good part of his year in Ireland. He tries to stay out of the spotlight.” Or the daylight. Lochlan was another vampire, and he was older than Rafe.

  “Good Lord. Imagine you knowing a fancy chap like that,” Dad said.

  I blinked. As fancy chaps went, Rafe wasn’t half bad either.

  “Well, yes, if Lochlan Balfour’s organizing your bachelor do, there’s no more to be said,” my dad said, sounding disappointed.

  Rafe also must have heard the disappointment, for he said, “I’m sure he’d value your input and probably your help since you’re in Oxford. I’ll put you in touch with him.”

  That perked my dad up immeasurably. Whether it was because he could help plan the stag or just because he wanted to talk to a tech billionaire who was a household name, I didn’t know.

  My mom looked at me then. “And I suppose I’ll have to speak to Violet, will I? To help plan your hen party?”

  “Sure,” I said weakly. I’d have to impress upon Violet how very much I did not want a hen party and leave it to her to talk my mom out of it. With any luck, some new mummified pharaoh would be discovered and that would take Mom’s attention away from me, at least until the wedding.

  “And who are your other attendants, dear? I don’t think you said.”

  “Well, there’s Violet, obviously; Alice, who’s married to Charlie, and they have the bookshop across the street; and Jennifer’s coming.”

  At the mention of Jennifer, who was the only person coming from the States, Mom’s mouth turned down. “I do wish you’d let us invite more of our friends and family from Boston. It seems so very peculiar.” Not the first time she’d aired this complaint.

  With as much patience as I could muster, I said, “Mom. My life is here now. I’ve hardly kept in touch with anyone from back home, and you and Dad have been in Egypt a lot more than you’ve been in America for the last five years. Having Uncle Joe and Aunt Bessie at my wedding isn’t going to mean anything to me, and two big, fat plane fares for them. And you know how cheap they are. If they actually came, they’d do nothing but complain about how much it cost until Dad wrote them a check to reimburse them.”

  My father looked horrified at that notion. “I think Lucy’s right, Susan. Nothing wrong with a small wedding. Nothing at all.”

  “But she’s our only daughter. She’ll only get married once.” And then she glanced between the two of us and in a soft voice said, “I hope.”

  Rafe and I both have very good hearing, but even as we chose to ignore her soft-voiced dig, his hand reached over for mine and gave it a squeeze. There would only be one marriage, and we both knew it. At least for me, but I shut that idea out of my head as quickly as it arrived.

  Luckily, my parents were tired from their travels, and so dinner broke up fairly early. Pete and Meri were staying with some of Pete’s Oxford friends, so amazingly my guest room was still free. It wasn’t that I would have minded having a guest, but the vampire knitting club—wedding dress edition—were meeting at ten, and it might have been awkward.

  After Rafe gave my dad Lochlan Balfour’s contact information, we bade the four of them goodbye, and then Rafe and I turned back towards my shop. As we neared the door, he said, “Your grandmother and Sylvia both texted me to see what my plans were tonight.” He looked down at me with a puzzled expression. “Is there some reason they don’t want me here?”

  I bit my lip. I didn’t want
to tell him they were making my wedding dress. I thought that was part of the surprise for the big day. “There’s something that’s a surprise that they don’t want you to see. But if you give me five minutes, I’ll make sure that it’s okay for you to come in.”

  He shook his head at me. “As it turns out, I’m meeting with someone who might know a bit more about that alchemy book. It’s been puzzling me.”

  “The one with the pages that look fresh even though it’s an old book?” I had felt the magic surrounding the book. We’d visited the collector in New Zealand who’d previously owned the book. But oddly, when Rafe asked her about the alchemy text, she claimed the book had never been hers. She was so insistent that he let the matter drop. I’d felt the magic on the book which Rafe had bought for his collection. It was definitely spellbound.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You’re meeting tonight?”

  “Mm. It’s handy to know dons who like to stay up late.”

  I wondered if the don was another vampire but didn’t pry. It was shocking how many Oxford dons were undead.

  I was sorry Rafe wasn’t coming to the knitting club, but the vamps couldn’t work on my dress if he was there, and it was exciting to see the gown taking shape.

  Rafe and I parted ways outside my shop, and I watched him walk away until he headed down Rook Lane and disappeared from view.

  I was a little late for the meeting, so when I got there, they were already hard at work. Everybody had a piece of my wedding dress, and crochet hooks were flying so fast, I grew dizzy watching them.

  Sylvia and Gran were talking quietly as I approached. I heard snatches of their conversation before they knew I was there.

  “She could stay young forever,” Gran said.

  Sylvia nodded. “It would be better for Rafe if she didn’t age.”

  I nearly turned around and ran before stopping myself. This was my beloved grandmother and someone I mostly considered a friend. I moved closer.

  “You two aren’t thinking about turning me into a vampire, are you?” I tried to make a joke of it, but I think the horror seeped through in my voice. I thought I’d been clear that I wasn’t interested.

  They both looked up at me, so genuinely surprised that I figured they didn’t have some devious plan to turn me without my permission.

  “Of course not, dear,” Gran assured me. “We were talking about Karmen, the Wicked Witch of Wallingford. Her youthfulness is entirely unnatural. And she’s definitely not a vampire.”

  My heart settled down to something closer to normal speed. This conversation I could get behind. “It is curious, isn’t it?” I looked at Gran. “What do you think is going on?”

  “It’s strong magic and nothing I’ve ever seen before. Or she’s an alchemist who’s discovered the elixir of life.”

  I nodded. Gran had said the same things earlier. “Speaking of witches,” I said softly, “Mom and Dad are in town.”

  “Are they?” Gran stopped crocheting to stare at me. Obviously, she and Sylvia hadn’t checked their phones in the past couple of hours.

  “Yes. And you know what that means.”

  Gran nodded. “Susan will be vulnerable to being taken over by dark forces. Again. I do wish that stubborn daughter of mine would accept her powers.”

  Yeah, probably not going to happen. “It also means that you have to stay out of sight.” I looked at her sternly. “No sneaking up into the back room to have a chat. No little walks into town.”

  She looked abashed. “You know about those.” She sighed. “All right. I’ll be more careful.”

  “I’m going back to Wallingford,” Sylvia said as though the conversation hadn’t moved on.

  “Why?”

  Sylvia glanced up at me and back to her work. “To persuade the too-young-for-her-years witch to share her secret. I shall go and see her again. It would be so nice for Rafe if he could count on you for longer than your mortal years.”

  I hadn’t liked Karmen, but I didn’t want her being “persuaded” to tell Sylvia her secrets. I’d seen Sylvia at her worst, and it wasn’t anything I wanted to witness again. “You’re not thinking of doing anything bad to her, are you?”

  Sylvia sent me a cold stare. “Not unless giving someone a large sum of money is now considered in bad taste.”

  “Right.” I would sit down and shut up before I got myself into any more trouble saying tactless things in a roomful of vampires.

  I looked around at all the pieces of my wedding dress almost magically appearing. “What can I do to help?” My crochet was about as good as my knitting, but I had a selection of hooks with me. I could learn as I went.

  Sylvia glanced over at me. “It’s all right, dear. We have it all in hand.”

  “But I want to help,” I said, my voice ending on a whine so I sounded like Hester the permanently petulant teenager. Though even Hester had a piece of my wedding dress to work on, and she looked smugly superior when she glanced my way.

  “Couldn’t I at least do some of the ribbing?” I knew what ribbing was. And I was pretty sure I could do it.

  Sylvia gave an artificial-sounding titter. “Don’t you know it’s bad luck for the bride to work on her own dress?”

  I’d never heard of any such thing. I shook my head at her. “No, it’s not. It’s bad luck for the groom to see the wedding dress before the wedding day.” So not the same thing.

  She glanced up at me and said, “Well, if you worked on this dress, it would be bad luck.”

  Twelve vampires made various hastily concealed sounds of amusement. I thought about acting like Hester and throwing a fit, but Sylvia was right. The dress would look a lot better if I didn’t have a hand in it.

  Chapter 5

  When I arrived at the shop the next morning, Violet was there ahead of me looking sulky.

  “Good morning,” I said, wondering what was wrong.

  “Morning. Did you have a nice time yesterday?”

  Was she still irked about me leaving her for the afternoon?

  I told her about the interesting crystal shop and the guy who was going to carve the moonstone buttons for me. She didn’t seem terribly interested in my anecdote. Her face went more sour. We’re talking sucking-lemons sour.

  “You might have called to make sure everything was fine in the shop. But clearly you were too busy with your wedding plans to spare a thought for me stuck here all by myself on a Friday afternoon.”

  That stung. I said, “As a matter of fact, I was thinking about you yesterday. It might interest you to know that I found the witch who sold that hex. You remember, the one that had your hair falling out and your teeth falling out and your skin breaking out all over the place? The one I helped reverse?”

  Okay, maybe I was being as childish as she was, reminding her that I’d all but saved her life, but I had a lot on my mind right now. Including what on earth I was going to do with my parents for the next two weeks until the wedding.

  She slapped the wool she was pricing down on the counter. “Now I’m even more annoyed that you didn’t give me a phone call. You found the witch that sold that hex?” She turned an astonished face my way. “The one that nearly killed me? And you didn’t immediately tell me?”

  “What could you have done about it? You were running the shop, as you keep reminding me. Anyway, if you want to see her so badly, her name is Karmen, and she lives in Wallingford.”

  I was a bit worried about the bridesmaid gift, so I tested Violet to see if she’d freak out when she found out who’d made her gift. “Karmen makes these fabulous skin creams.” I leaned closer to her. “Don’t you think my skin already looks better?” I’d spread some on my face this morning, and my cheeks felt smoother, I was convinced.

  She squinted at me. “Not really. I wouldn’t put anything on my face that witch touched. No doubt, instead of getting a dewy, youthful glow, my skin would turn as leathery and gray as an elephant’s and slide off my face.”

  That was a horrifying image. I touc
hed my own cheeks. “It feels really good. I think she infuses her creams with magic.”

  Violet sniffed. “I’m not sure I like that woman’s magic. It’s altogether too much on the dark end of the spectrum.”

  Maybe I’d have a rethink on the bridesmaid gifts.

  Saturday mornings were always busy in the shop, so there were customers in and out, and I didn’t get a chance to tell Violet about my mother being in town. Mrs. Darlington, one of my most regular customers, came in to buy wool for a lightweight spring sweater. It was so nice to see the spring colors, and I was happy to help her choose something that would be flattering for her daughter, who was about my age.

  She left, and there was a lull. Quickly, before anyone else came in the shop, I told Violet that my mother and father had surprised me and were staying in Oxford until the wedding.

  “That’s nice,” she said.

  Was that sarcasm or not? Sometimes I couldn’t tell with Violet. I decided not to inquire.

  “The thing is, she wants to help you organize my hen party.”

  “But I don’t need help to organize your hen party. I have it all under control.” She tossed her black hair over her shoulder, and the ribbon of dyed pink seemed to shake a neon finger at me.

  “Right. Because there isn’t going to be a hen party,” I reminded her. We’d definitely discussed this.

  “Of course, there isn’t.” Too sincere. Was that more sarcasm?

  “Good. So, when my mother asks to help organize it, you can be the one to tell her I’m not having one.”

  “Of course. Push all your dirty work onto me. As always.”

  This mood of hers was really getting under my skin. I was supposed to be a blushing bride full of orange blossoms and hazy dreams. Instead, I seemed to be dragged down by other people’s bad moods. Sylvia was testy, Violet was being downright unpleasant, and even Nyx was acting up.