by Agatha Frost
“What does this one do?” asked Dot, with none of her usual derision for Evelyn’s mystic ways as she rolled the stone in the light.
“Thank you for asking.” Evelyn rested her hand on her chest. “Lapis lazuli is the friendship stone. It strengthens old bonds and helps new ones grow with compassion, consciousness, and lack of judgement.”
Dot pulled Evelyn into a hug, and though it was a little stiff and included some patting, it was more than enough to set Evelyn to beaming. Their friendship had hit rock bottom, but they’d found the ladder before the trapdoor opened to claim them.
“Great meeting everyone,” Shilpa announced, already heading for the door. “Same time next week?”
As they readied to leave, Julia pulled out her notepad, already turned to the final question she’d yet to cross out. Her lips parted to ask Evelyn how she’d known to say ‘Ca…’ during the séance . . . but closed again as she decided against it.
Some things should remain a mystery.
Evelyn was one of them.
Peridale’s Ears dispersed through the village, but Julia and Olivia hung back. After Dot and Percy had the coffee table where it belonged, Julia stayed for another cup of tea, and some plain, light, and fluffy Victoria sponge, a welcome change after countless heavy scones with cream and jam.
They hadn’t talked about the day they’d crossed wires, and they hadn’t needed to. Julia had seen the change in her gran’s attitude, and as difficult as the ride had been, they’d reached their destination.
“I’m excited,” Dot whispered, hugging her at the front door as Julia prepared to leave. “I was so sure you’d say no.”
“If you asked me the day after the village hall showdown, I might have,” she admitted. “But I learned something too. I thought about the soup kitchen, and what Father David said. There’s more we could do. We really could help people.”
“And now that we’ve done a neighbourhood watch group wrong, it’s time to do it correctly.”
“For the village?”
“For the village.” Dot nodded. “And maybe to rub Ethel’s nose in it a little. But mostly for the village.”
16
Dot blew the dust from the framed pictures, wondering how they’d ended up in the attic in the first place. She pulled out her old favourite of her father dressed in his army uniform. Unsmiling, but solid, and younger than she’d ever known him.
She polished one of her mother, too. Unsmiling, but her mother’s were all like that. Both went on her bedside table, though Dot quickly turned her mother’s picture-side down. Some faces didn’t need seeing so early in the morning.
“Looks like rain is on the way.” Percy crept in with two cups of tea, the dogs trotting behind. “Had to force them into the garden. They sense the weather better than the man on the telly.”
“Feels like a storm is coming,” she said, accepting a cup. “Why don’t we push the beds together and watch a film on the tablet computer? I’m in the mood for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.”
“My Dorothy, you have the most wonderful ideas.”
While Percy nudged the middle bedside table to the bottom of the beds, Dot pulled back the curtains and peered up at the sky. Velvety dark clouds had consumed the blue and greyed the sun that had been baking them for too many days in a row. Knowing rain was so close was almost a relief; it kept them from wondering when the good weather would turn.
Catching the curtain after letting it drop, she spotted movement near the village hall and craned her neck to see what it might be. Even in the dim light, Ethel’s hair glowed like a radioactive Parma violet.
“Come on, Eyes,” Ethel ordered the stragglers. “Let’s get back for bridge before the rain.”
Passing the cottage, Ethel cast her gaze up to the window. Anyone else might have recoiled at the discovery of being watched, but not Ethel. She tipped her head slightly, barely slowing her stride, and Dot returned it.
Was Ethel the hero of her own story?
Dot couldn’t imagine a reality where the woman wasn’t the villain.
Or the enemy.
A foe.
A rival.
“What are you grinning at?” Percy asked as he nudged the single twins together with his legs. “Something I should see?”
“Just some stray cats trying to beat the rain.” The curtain dropped, and she cleared the smile that had spread high and wide across her face. “You know, Percy, I’m glad everything happened exactly as it did.”
“It’s good to see you in better spirits!”
“Careful what you say about spirits.”
“Penelope is well and truly on her way,” he said as she helped him with the small beds. “You heard Evelyn. We set her free when we uncovered Gus. She can rest now . . . as much as she’s able to rest with her guilty conscience.”
Dot wasn’t sure if she believed a word Evelyn said most of the time, but she’d learned that it didn’t really matter. Evelyn really believed her own show, just as Dot had believed completely in her own when she’d thought she was doing a great job with the investigation.
How foolish she had been.
As drunk on her own power as Penelope.
Never again.
She really was grateful for the lesson. She’d lived in the village her whole life, picking up friends here and there, some for short spells, some for years, but outside of her family, she’d always been a loner.
The navy blue Lupus Liza Minelli Lazarus stone, or whatever Evelyn had called it, took pride of place next to her father’s picture. It’s supposed powers didn’t matter to Dot. It was a pretty lump of rock to admire, and a gift from a kind-hearted friend.
It had taken pushing her actual friends away to realise they’d been there all along. Evelyn, Amy, and Shilpa might not have been the people she expected to have in her corner, but in her corner they’d been.
She didn’t know who she’d expected to answer her calls to join the group. She hadn’t known half the names in her phonebook, but she’d called anyway, and it turned out they hadn’t known her all that well either.
A small village.
But not that small.
That phonebook had gone out with the last bin collection. She’d already started a new, smaller, more select volume. Family and Peridale’s Ears. That didn’t mean she couldn’t fill it as time went on, but only if she had a reason.
Ethel’s number was in there, after all.
Friends close.
Enemies closer.
“You’re smiling again,” he said, looking up from his slow tablet tapping. “Thinking about how much you love me?”
“Always.” She kissed his shiny head. “You know what, the film can wait. Get out the chocolate buttons. It’s time to brush up on our poker skills. You never know when we’ll need them.”
“Right you are, my Dorothy.”
From her bedside drawer, she pulled out her new deck of cards bought from the trinket shop on Mulberry Lane. Gold, engraved, and much prettier than Ethel’s.
Thunder rumbled deep in the countryside, drawing them to the table by the window. While Dot dealt the cards, Percy opened the curtains. Rain started pattering on the glass. Under the table, Lady curled up around Dot’s feet, though Bruce wasn’t moving from his sprawl in the middle of the beds.
“As much fun as it was to have a purpose,” she said, opening the bag of chocolate buttons, “these have become my favourite moments in life.”
“Mine too, my Dorothy.”
17
T hunder echoed around Jessie’s flat, destroying the calm it had taken Julia an hour of playtime and reading to create. As rain thrashed against the windowpane, Julia spent almost as long dabbing tears, easing tantrums, and containing toddlers who were faster and more talkative than she was used to.
When one relaxed, another started up again.
And as the storm raged, the cycle continued.
Sue had warned her.
She’d said Julia wouldn’t be able to cope with
all three at once. Julia had known that and taken them anyway. For Sue, she’d learn to juggle. Always too much of a little sister, Sue was busy trying to prove herself to ask for or accept help. And Julia was enough of a big sister to know when she had to yank the reins from her little sister’s hands.
Even Sue needed a day off.
But eventually, all Julia could hear were the cartoons that captivated the twins and the ringing in her ears. In her play seat, Olivia blinked up at Julia and kicked her feet like she hadn’t been trying to win a screaming contest for an hour.
“Like butter wouldn’t melt,” Julia said fondly, pulling her phone from her pocket. “Shall we give your sister a call?”
Jessie answered almost immediately, clearly at a dinner table in a busy restaurant. Next to her, Alfie made one of his rare cameos and waved.
“Are you in my flat?” Jessie called over the sound of knives and forks scraping against plates to a soundtrack of trendy-sounding chill-out music. “Show me the goods.”
Julia flipped the camera to show Olivia, somehow always at her cutest when Jessie wanted to see her. She was in for a shock when she returned. It wouldn’t be cuddles and cuteness all the time, especially if Julia’s preview of the toddler phase was anything to go by.
“Is this a bad time?”
“Nope.” Jessie pushed away from the table and pulled the camera close to her face as she moved through the restaurant. “Just out for an early birthday thing. Super casual. How are the plants doing?”
“Thriving and surviving,” she said, flipping the camera again to show Jessie the greenery around the room. “I’ll pick up all the toys. You can’t have a clean room with one toddler, let alone two.”
“Suddenly I’m glad not to be there,” Jessie said as she pushed through a door into a glamorous empty bathroom. “How’s the monstera in my bedroom doing?”
Julia nudged open the door with her foot and showed Jessie the vibrant plant with six waxy leaves all pointing up as they should.
“Impressive,” said Jessie, locking herself in a cubicle. “I could have sworn it was on its last legs when I left, but you seem to have green fingers.”
Julia mumbled her agreement as she wiped away the orange shreds of sticker still clinging to the terracotta-coloured plastic pot after she’d spent five minutes trying to peel it off; she’d spent much longer at the garden centre trying to find one that looked exactly like the plant Jessie had left in her care.
She almost wanted to laugh.
Months of mild stress every time she visited, and it had been dying before it came into her guardianship. “Don’t kill my plants,” Jessie had commanded, and it turned out she’d been doing a good enough job of that before she left.
“Everything okay with you and Alfie now?”
“Huh?”
“The fight?”
“Oh.” She laughed, shaking her head. “That was nothing. Just about some guy . . . it doesn’t even matter.”
Julia nodded. She wasn’t going to push it if Jessie didn’t want to talk about it. She’d had a feeling she was only getting half the story of Jessie’s travels from her calls, texts, and postcards over the past five months. On Jessie’s return, she’d sit her down and listen to every tale she was willing to share. They’d have time. She could wait.
“Speaking of your birthday,” Julia said, pulling back the flap of the cardboard box she’d yet to seal. “I still need your address. I have a little something to send you.”
“Hang on.”
While Jessie stared down at her phone and typed, Julia checked over the box. It contained all the dry ingredients to make one of Katie’s chocolate orange scones, along with a jar of jam, and an instruction card detailing what she’d have to pick up from a local shop to complete the experience. It wasn’t quite a scone in the mail like she’d asked for, but it was the closest Julia could come up with.
“Done,” she replied, and the phone beeped at the same time. “We’re heading south soon, so make sure to send it quickly.”
“But I haven’t had my Berlin postcard yet.”
“Patience is a virtue, Mother.” Jessie left the stall and washed her hands. “Give my love to everyone.”
Julia nodded that she would, sensing their conversation was coming to an end. At least Jessie wasn’t rushing off, though as she returned to the dining room, Julia caught another of those smiles over the top of Jessie’s phone.
“Love you, gotta go.”
Somehow, she didn’t think the smile was for Alfie.
The buzzer vibrated downstairs as soon as Julia had settled at the table with a cup of tea to go over the latest issue of The Peridale Post. Olivia awoke from a snooze with a start, her brows dipping in such a way that Julia started shushing and fanning her hands at once.
It might have worked if not for the second, longer buzz.
“Alright, alright,” she whispered to Olivia, carrying her down the stairs. “Let’s see who it is.”
Julia opened the door and Sue hurried in backwards, collapsing the clear umbrella that had barely kept her dry.
“Is that new?” she asked over Olivia’s whining, pointing the brolly at the ‘PRIVATE PARKING’ sign on the wall.
“Installed yesterday morning,” Julia said, pushing the door shut against the wind and rain. “Barker having a connection on the council seems to pay off. Saying that, I’m not sure how I feel about him using his connections to fix a problem raised by someone using their power to distract from something else. Sort of feels like the same problem.”
“When did a little light nepotism ever hurt?”
“Tell that to Callum.”
Bouncing Olivia against her waist, Julia followed her sister up to the flat. While Sue had an excited reunion with the twins, Julia soothed Olivia by moving her next feed forward ten minutes. As soon as peace was once again restored, Sue sank into a chair at the table and leaned against the wall. Closing her eyes, she circled a fingertip around the rim of a Vicky’s Van cup Julia hadn’t noticed her sister was holding.
“Finally got a decent latte from Vicky,” Sue said. “Wasn’t going to risk it again, but Dad swore she was getting better.”
“I gave her a little lesson,” Julia admitted. “Showed her enough to stop her burning the beans.”
“Helping the competition?”
“Public duty.” She sipped her tea. “There’s room enough for us both.”
“We all thought she was insane when she told us what she planned to do,” Sue said, opening her eyes. “Leaving nursing and selling her house to start a coffee van?”
“She was a nurse?”
“She couldn’t handle the pressure anymore,” Sue said, staring at the cup. “She actually seemed happy today. Happy at work. I laugh at work, and we have a good time, but it never stops the actual job being so demanding. I envy Vicky getting to stand in one place.”
“What we talked about at the manor—”
“Julia, I can’t go part time.” Sue dragged her fingers through her hair. “The library situation won’t be a situation for much longer.”
“Are they reverting to the old opening times?”
“Not quite,” she said, biting her lip. “Last week, they pulled Neil in for a meeting to inform him they’d had a purchase offer on the library building, and they were giving it serious thought. He couldn’t get out of bed the next day. I had to force him to call in sick.”
The day Desmond staffed the desk alone.
She’d been meaning to ask if Neil was okay.
“Buy the library?” Julia’s brows scrunched. “Who would want to do that? And why?”
“Apparently, it has great light and space for a restaurant,” she said, gulping as both hands wrapped around her cup. “And that’s why I went to see Dad, to see if he knew this was going to happen.”
“Please tell me Dad’s not been up to something dodgy because—”
“I wanted to see if he knew,” she interrupted, “because it’s the same guy who’s buying
the manor. James Jacobson.”
“What?” Julia jumped up. “No! Barker looked into him. He wouldn’t have missed something like this.”
“Well, he did.” Sue sighed. “Get your books while you can because it looks like Peridale won’t have its own library for much longer. Neil will be out of a job, and the mortgage still needs paying, so I’m stuck where I am. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Isn’t there?”
Leaving Sue with the kids, Julia ran out into the rain. She dashed across the waterlogged green, knuckles already outstretched to knock as she burst through her gran’s gate.
How had Barker missed such a detail?
“Julia!” Dot pulled her into the warm glow of the hallway. “Goodness me! You’re soaked through. Where’s your coat?”
“Did you mean what you said about using Peridale’s Ears for good?”
“Of course.” Dot turned as Percy joined her from the kitchen where something was boiling on the hob. “Has something happened?”
“Not if we can help it,” she said. “Gran, we need to save the library.”
Will Peridale’s Ears hear the sweet sound of success and save the library, or will James Jacobson be booking them a table at Peridale’s newest restaurant?
You don’t have to wait long to find out…
RASPBERRY LEMONADE AND RUIN, the 23rd Peridale book, is coming July 13th 2021. Mark your calendars, and PRE-ORDER now on Amazon!
BUT BEFORE THEN…Don’t forget to RATE/REVIEW this book on Amazon!
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DON’T FORGET TO RATE/REVIEW ON AMAZON
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