Crow Heart (The Witch Ways Book 4)

by Helen Slavin

  Charlie saw the plan and a part of her tumbling mind finished its floor routine.

  Call Me Ivan continued. “You’d feel you have more space, and I don’t… Drawbridge doesn’t lose you.”

  Charlie felt all the emotional tumblers start a different and more complex routine across her heart.

  “I understand that you might…” Call Me Ivan was, she saw, stumbling for words. His eyes, Havoc Hazel, were flickering back and forth between her face and the window. “Things have been difficult.” He came to a conclusion.

  Charlie paused for her thoughts and nodded. “That’s a word for it. No one, Mr Herald — not Mr Chance, not you — no one told me the brewery was sold. I found out by accident, and it was a shock.”

  Charlie saw something alter in Call Me Ivan. She wished, at that moment, that she had Emz’s Strength to see real faces. She could not read him.

  “That, piled in on top of my moth…” She could not say the word “mother”. She pinched her lips together to stop the sob. Call Me Ivan did not blink, and his breathing was shallow. “After everything… after that night at Pandemonium…” She fired the cannon and watched Call Me Ivan become stiller, unblinking. “It was too much.” Charlie was not certain she could stop the words. No. Here they were.

  “After Aron. After that whole thing. To be the stake in some testosterone-stoked bet? After that night… how can I face you after that?”

  Her face cracked under the pressure of releasing the thought. Tears fell. Call Me Ivan was unmoving but not, she saw, unmoved. He cleared his throat. She heard the catch in the sound, and she knew she could go on.

  “Tell me. What do you think I am?” She was squeezing the handkerchief in her hand. “What would you do after a night like that? Would you face me? What would you think of me?”

  “I am facing you, and I think very highly of you,” Call Me Ivan said and swallowed hard. “It was a harsh evening. A fateful evening, and I stand by all that I said, Charlotte.” His voice was the slenderest whisper, crackled through with emotion. “I did not do it to humiliate you.” He had to swallow once again, regain his composure. “He brought the wager. I wanted it revealed. To have transparency. Honesty. I wanted… the truth. I meant every word I said.” The words settled between them. It took several moments before Call Me Ivan recovered himself. He drew himself up into the shoulders of his suit, business-like once more. One hand tweaked at a cufflink in nervous energy.

  “Please consider my offer. Be my… Be Drawbridge’s consultant. Brewster in Chief. Come to the office when you’re ready, and we can work out a contract. I’ll write down my number.” He tugged a pen and a folded envelope from his pocket and wrote the number. His eyebrows raised to emphasise his point. “It’s a genuine offer. I cannot lose… I need… I mean, Drawbridge needs its Brewster.”

  Charlie could say nothing so nodded. Call Me Ivan pushed the folded envelope across the worktop to her and took a step towards the door. Charlie wanted to say something, but her thoughts were tongue-tied. Finally practicality prevailed.

  “Mr Herald.” She was hoarse. Call Me Ivan stopped on the threshold of Cob Cottage and looked round. “There’s an emergency wedding at Hartfield on Saturday.”

  An odd look passed across his face and was gone. Charlie could not translate it, and it was quickly masked by his business expression.

  “Emergency wedding?” Again, that nervous tweaking at the cufflink.

  “Dunham Park went into receivership…” Charlie began. He nodded.

  “Yes. I heard.” He looked at her. “So Lady Whyte-Hartfield has picked up the wedding booking?”

  For just an instant, Charlie had to recall who Lady Whyte-Hartfield was. Call Me Ivan’s face twitched with amusement.

  “Viscountess Woodcastle?” He was struggling not to smile. He paused with perfect comic timing. “Winn?” His eyebrow raised, mocking.

  Charlie recovered. “Oh. Winn. Yes.”

  “She should use her titles more often. I’d splash that all over the wedding brochures.” He was more sure of his ground now that it had shifted wholly to business. Charlie was hoping that Call Me Ivan would guess her thought process, but he stood in the doorway and waited. She saw he was going to make her ask. “Yes. Good point. Yes. So, Mr Herald we… the Hartfield team… want to keep supply chains local, and we thought you might be able to help out with wine and champagne?”

  Call Me Ivan nodded wisely.

  “Obviously, we need to talk price…” Charlie threw in her last shred of attempted negotiation. She shouldn’t have led with the emergency bit; now they looked desperate. She was useless at this.

  “Obviously. I assume the couple’s cash is tied up with Dunham Park?” His brow furrowed, but his eyes sparkled.

  “Yes. We’re picking it up as a promotional opportunity.” Charlie thought she sounded like she knew what she was talking about. She ought to have thrown in the word “insurance”, possibly, or “front end”, perhaps.

  Call Me Ivan nodded. “It’s a good strategy. I’m sure we can come to some arrangement… I’ll get back to the office and ring you later. I’ll need your contact details.” His phone appeared in his hand as if by magic, proffered and primed so she could tap in her number. Again that eyebrow tweaked upwards. Why did he keep doing that? Infuriating.

  “Okay. That’s great. Thanks.” Charlie breathed and handed him his phone.

  “I’ll be in touch by close of play today,” he assured her. “Can’t foresee any difficulties.” Call Me Ivan hovered in the doorway. “Although I do have one condition.” He looked very serious. Or not. Was he laughing just a little? There was that definite light in his eyes. That eyebrow was struggling to remain horizontal.

  “What’s that, Mr Herald?” Charlie asked, dreading the demand.

  “You call me Ivan,” he said.

  Charlie was sitting at Hartfield under the freshly dusted gaze of the glittering chandelier. Aurora had taken charge of the meeting, but Winn had stopped her railroading all the practicalities and ideas.

  “Owl Jim?” Aurora looked perplexed and outraged. Her face, anyone had to admit, was vivid with expression.

  “Yes. He lives over by The Greets. You always see him in the marketplace with Min on his fist, and he does some of the close-up-wild sessions with us.”

  “Min? Who’s Min?” Aurora snapped. They were trying to sort out the bride’s request to have an owl fly the ring from a red velvet cushion.

  “Barn owl,” Winn replied.

  “Winn, what are you talking about?” Aurora’s face burst into belligerent arrogance.

  That was the thing about her, Charlie noted, she was always two layers of a thing, perplexed outrage, belligerent arrogance, selfish beauty, thoughtless pride, ruthless… Oh, where did that come from? It was true, though, ruthless was pretty much her go-to stance.

  “Explain, Winn, and I mean without the endless useless detail,” Aurora commanded.

  Yep. There was heartless ruthlessness, for example. Charlie caught the glare shot by Emz at Aurora and reinforced it with her own.

  “Owl Jim will bring the barn owl, Min, to the wedding,” Emz said in a cold tone.

  “Won’t fly with the ring, obviously. Not trained.” Winn made an attempt to be concise and informative. “But Emz and I think we can do some sort of owl fudgery with the cushion and the ring. So she gets the effect of owl, cushion, and ring. As far as possible.” Winn finished.

  Aurora gave them both a haughty and dismissive stare. “You deal with it.” And she brushed the item aside. She turned her gimlet stare upon the oldest Way sister. “Anna. Catering. Update.”

  It was as Anna started to talk them through the menu and crockery supplies that a thought struck Charlie Way. It glittered like the chandelier, winking a blinding light into her mind.

  She had been convinced from the start, from that fateful dinner aboard The Ark, that Ivan Herald was a bad guy. He was rich; he was greedy. He was, quite possibly, a gangster. He might even be ruthless, which is cl
early where the thought had sprung from now. Was he ruthless? Or was she prejudiced? He owned so much property, ran so many businesses, and that rankled with her, made her judge him. He had to be rotten, because he was so rich and successful; he must be, because of that night at Pandemonium. But what had happened that night? If she took away the hurt and betrayal by Aron, what was left? He himself had said it: everything that night rested on the turn of a card. Think it through, what was left over? Once again she saw the Ace of Hearts held in his hand. The thought ceased to glitter and exploded.

  Cob Cottage. She recalled, vividly, the one and only time Aron Thorne had been to the cottage. The place had disliked him, the drawers had nipped his fingers, the doors had knocked into his head. Cob Cottage shut itself to unwanted intruders.

  She saw the cheesy smoke clearing, the door standing open. Cob Cottage had let Ivan Herald in.

  “Charlie. Where are we with the alcohol?” Aurora’s brusque tones jogged her into the here and now. “We’ve got beer, I assume? Wine? Champagne?”

  For just a nanosecond, Charlie glimpsed a map of some kind, strewn with hops, possibly. She could not see where it led.

  “Champagne Charlie? Update me.”

  And at Aurora’s barking tones, Charlie assumed her own business-like face.

  28

  Pop Up

  Anna did not see Roz Woodhill until she came out of The Orangery kitchen for her break. She had a favoured seat at the far end of the glasshouse, and as she emerged with her sandwich and drink, she saw that Roz was occupying the seat exactly opposite. She was almost hidden from view by the vast and ancient vine that towered over that section of the café. The patched and pooled shadows it cast hid Roz. Crooked daylight. The thought whispered to Anna.

  “Hello,” Roz said with a small smile and smaller wave. Anna nodded. “You on a break?” She acknowledged the tray Anna was carrying. “It’s been very busy in here.”

  “Yes. I thought I’d snatch a quick something now,” Anna said.

  Roz smiled. “Before the afternoon tea rush?” She laughed. It was a warm and pleasing sound, and Anna veered away from her usual table towards the one next to Roz. Roz pushed out the chair at her own table.

  “Want to join me?” Anna looked at the two or three cups and the tea pot, the plate finished with.

  “Someone should clear for you.” Anna was trying to catch Casey’s eye.

  Roz spoke up. “No… no. That’s fine. All me. I’ve… been here a while.”

  Anna understood and sat down.

  “How are you?” Roz asked.

  “Busy. Enjoying it.”

  Roz nodded. “All change at the Castle Inn, I hear.”

  “Yes. All very different,” Anna said.

  Roz smiled; the edge of it wavered a little. “Can I talk to you?” She was very serious suddenly.

  Anna nodded. “Always.” She took a sip of her tea to appear calmer than she felt.

  Roz toyed with her own nearly empty teacup. “I think you know I’ve had a bit of a breakdown in the last few months.” Roz was matter of fact. Anna nodded but said nothing. Roz gave her a very direct look. Anna once again lifted her cup to hide her face.

  “I was thinking, you probably remember my Aunt Iz. Do you?”

  Anna did not have to think. Aunt Iz was a tall, elegant woman in a gypsy skirt and heavy black eyeliner. Her hair was pre-Raphaelite flowing and dark as coal, and she had a woollen cape for bad weather. For several years during Anna’s teens, Aunt Iz had been a bit of a bohemian style icon. Anna still envied her the woollen cape.

  “She lived at Penny Crossing Cottage,” Anna said and recalled how much Aunt Iz plagued Grandma Hettie. “We used to see her a lot.”

  Roz laughed. “You mean she used to drive your grandma batty wanting to pick her brains, to learn ‘the craft’.” Roz once again did not look away from Anna. “In the end, she taught herself. Rituals and bits of lore and things, and she always told me about Havoc.” Roz again was serious.

  “Told you what?” Anna tried to be non-committal, but she was engaged in a serious staring competition with Roz. Neither blinked.

  “How dangerous it was. How dark. She called it a Hub.”

  Anna did not look away. Roz looked down, gathered herself.

  “There was something… about Apple Day… I…” She was trying to push forward. Anna saw where she gripped the teacup. “I wasn’t myself for a while. That’s how Matt puts it. I wasn’t myself.” She twirled the tea dregs around and around in the cup, gathering courage.

  Anna was patient and afraid.

  Roz looked up at last. “I was thinking… lately… about what Aunt Iz would have done.” Roz paused.

  “To help?” Anna asked.

  Roz hesitated for a blink of an eye. “She’d have gone to your gran. To ask.” Roz gathered courage. “But your gran isn’t here.” She was struggling.

  Anna did not help, her fingers were cold, clenched on her lap.

  “What happened to me?” Roz spoke at last. With the question asked, Roz took a deep breath.

  Anna considered. There was no point in lying; Roz had experienced first-hand something that could not be denied or covered up, not without hurting Roz further. Anna looked at her serious expression, recognised something in it of Aunt Iz, standing on the porch all those years ago, a scent of patchouli and mugwort about her. The truth was the truth. Anna spoke at last, aware that, of all people, Roz Woodhill would listen.

  As they talked, The Orangery filled and emptied. The chinkle of cups and chatter amplified by the high windows and old stones of the building created a symphony of sound that cloaked their conversation.

  Roz was still and calm for a long time. It struck Anna that she rallied rather than freaked out at the news of Mrs Fyfe’s possession.

  “It’s funny, Aunt Iz would have loved this… situation I’ve been in.” She chose her word very carefully. “She always said I was ‘receptive’.”

  “Receptive?” Anna felt uneasy. Roz gathered herself once again, her knuckles whitening around the teacup. “To Mrs Fyfe?” Anna had lost count of how many times the name had been said aloud, was afraid of conjuring her.

  Roz was nodding her head. “And… others.” She took in a deep, measured breath. “Something happened the other night when Matt was out. The letterbox rattled, like before.” Roz paused, took a second to breathe as the information pushed forward. “You talked about Trespassers. Well, there was a woman in my house. She wanted something from me.” Roz paused.

  Anna could see she was shaking and offered encouragement. “Did she ask for something?” Anna’s heart was a butterfly.

  Roz shook her head. “No. She was pinching at the air.” Roz’s hand rose and made the small aggressive movement. “Whatever it was… she couldn’t take it. She couldn’t get to me. When I heard the letterbox rattling I was in the kitchen straight away, cast a salt circle.”

  Anna was intense, staring. She felt guilty that this was happening to Roz, again.

  Roz continued. “I have this pan trivet that I forged at a blacksmithing workshop last summer. I held onto that, and she couldn’t get near me.” Roz gave a wan smile. “Was it her? Again?”

  Anna did not know which path to take. Her grandmother’s shade strode ahead of her.

  “No. She’s gone.” Anna tried to sound reassuring. “This woman, what did she look like?”

  “She looked different. Not the same at all, so I did wonder. This woman had bright white hair.”

  Anna struggled not to flinch, and panic began a bongo solo in her chest.

  “You think it was someone else? Someone else out of Havoc?” Roz read Anna easily.

  “I know it can’t have been Mrs Fyfe,” Anna said.

  Roz nodded. “She had dark hair, I know, but perhaps… it turned white after all this?” Roz’s brow furrowed with the question.

  “Mrs Fyfe is dead.” Anna was definite, opted for transparency and truth to settle the matter and reassure Roz.

  Roz’s ca
lmness stayed intact. “Oh. Well, whoever she was, she couldn’t touch me.” Roz’s eyes glinted as of old, with some hint of high priestess. “I had salt and iron, the way Aunt Iz taught me.”

  Anna was grateful to Aunt Iz. The white-haired woman was a danger, and the thought of Roz being alone with her was terrifying. How could this have happened? They had been on their guard, watchful and patrolling. She felt sick.

  “Was anyone else hurt?” Roz interrupted Anna’s wheeling train of thought.

  “Anyone else?”

  “That attack at the allotments. I wondered if it was anything to do with the same woman?”

  Thoughts clicked and whirred in Anna’s head. She needed to talk to her sisters.

  “No. No one was hurt. It was some cats from Cordwainer Street.” It sounded feeble.

  Roz gave a short laugh. “Aunt Iz bloody loved those cats. Well, a previous generation of them, obviously.” Roz was at ease. Anna had no wish to upset or unnerve her. “Anyway, she’d be pleased the salt and iron worked.” Roz smiled. “She got me into all this, you know, the Craft Club stuff.” Roz was pensive. “If she was here now, I’d put her straight.” She looked at Anna. “I can’t imagine what it must be like for you.” She gave a sympathetic smile. “Thank you, for telling me the truth.”

  Anna was quick to respond. “Thank you, for sharing your experience. It’s important.” She managed to smile. “Helps out a Gamekeeper.”

  Roz nodded and reached for her teacup once more. She swirled the dregs and tipped it upside down into the saucer. She paused for a moment before turning it right way up. She looked into the leaves inside and shrugged.

  “There you go. Aunt Iz would look in and see a storm in a teacup.” She smiled and reached for her bag. “Thanks again.” She rose to leave.

  Anna rose, too. “Anytime… Look, take my number.” Anna pulled out her phone and they exchanged details.