Under the Harvest Moon

by Robin Hale

  The bags joined the rest of the supplies I’d been amassing in my short jaunts off the property, stacked neatly in the shed against one of the walls, opposite the tools I’d cared for since I was tall enough to see over the workbench at my aunt’s side.

  I let out a breath and pressed my back against the wall of the shed. The tremors in my muscles began to subside, the trilling of my heartbeat began to slow to a more human pace. It was fine. I was back in the workshed and everything was fine.

  I loved it in there. Loved the smell, the neatly ordered space, the way the walls closed in around me. I could see every square inch of that place and it was all full of the smell of home and the work I needed to do.

  I shook off the cloying, nagging thought that the grounds were still too big, the house too oppressive. It was ridiculous.

  I was annoyed about having my errands interrupted by someone with an apparent death wish. That was all. A familiar scowl settled in around my mouth and I pushed off from the wall to head toward the greenhouses. If there was one benefit to the size of the place, it was that there was always more work to do to keep Barleywick running.

  The late morning was turning out to be a hell of a lot better than my early errands. The shade cloths were secured over the greenhouses’ roofs, all of the moisture levels were perfect, and three of the new varieties were starting to show real promise. The headphones tucked in my ears piped a bass-heavy, rhythmic beat through my bloodstream, calming the churning in the center of my chest and keeping every movement, every errant thought focused perfectly on the tasks in front of me.

  Barleywick had a reputation and there was satisfaction to be found in making sure that reputation wasn’t lost.

  I was repotting a seedling into a larger container when I felt it: that shift in the air, that tension that brewed beneath my skin and threatened to lash out — someone was in the greenhouse behind me.

  The pot fell to the worktable with a small thud as I whirled to face the door, trowel in hand. It was a ridiculous weapon and dull from gardening but it was all I had in reach.

  As I stared at the woman who’d interrupted my peace, the trowel nearly fell from my suddenly nerveless fingers. Death Wish Girl. It was fucking Death Wish Girl.

  “Is this the Barleywick…farm?” She asked uncertainly, looking around like the greenhouse might be full of idiotic-pedestrian-eating vines.

  “It’s not the Barleywick anything,” I growled. “It’s just Barleywick. What do you want? Are you following me?” I demanded, taking a step toward her. I couldn’t imagine what she could possibly be doing there. Had she — what, run my plates? Gotten my address somehow and decided to come after me for a lawsuit? So it was my fault that she’d decided to play in the street that morning?

  Her eyes went round and she brought her hands up in front of her in a placating gesture, and my hackles rose even higher. Nothing like being treated like a feral bear to make a woman feel at ease.

  Her eyes were green, maybe. Or brown. Probably hazel or something and they played off the brown in the hair that floated around her shoulders in a cloud. A spray of freckles across her nose was visible even from where I was standing, and I held onto my irritation with both hands, leaving no room for the notion that those freckles might have been cute on someone less infuriating.

  “No! No, I wouldn’t — oh, god. Oh, no.” Those shielding hands flew to Death Wish Girl’s mouth in dawning horror. “You’re the woman who was driving that truck!” The skin around her eyes creased, screwing her eyelids shut. “How is this my life?” She muttered, and I found myself wondering the same thing.

  She obviously didn’t know I would be there, and that meant she was probably a customer. And that meant a certain amount of playing nice.

  Goddess, I hated that.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t usually — I mean, I know you don’t have any reason to believe this, but I don’t usually run out into the street!” An edge of hysteria touched the self-deprecating laugh that accompanied her wince. “I just…” she pulled at the scarf around her neck and held it out to me like it explained anything.

  Now that I’d thought of it, she’d done the same thing while still standing in the street.

  “This belonged to my mother. It’s the only thing I have of hers, is all. I don’t know how I lost hold of it, but I couldn’t let it go.” White teeth pressed into the coral curl of her lower lip, and I forced myself to look at her eyes instead.

  Sympathy spiked in my gut, hot and uncomfortable and I grunted a dismissal. “That’s…it’s fine.” Tension mounted in my shoulders, up my neck and into the base of my skull. If there was one thing I could understand, it was the need to hold onto something from someone you’d lost. I fought to keep my fingers from drifting to the pendant I wore. “But I’m pretty sure she’d rather you lose the scarf than get hit by a truck. Mothers generally do.”

  A soft laugh filled the greenhouse as thoroughly as the heat and humidity that had my tanktop clinging to my back. “You’re probably right. I’m really…I’m sorry. That’s all.”

  “Stop apologizing.” I waved an impatient hand through the air. “It’s fine. Now,” I said, trying to remember how to make my voice pleasant rather than barbed. “Why are you here?”

  “Oh!” Her face was so expressive, so animated that every passing thought and feeling played on her features as clearly as words projected on a screen. “Right. I’m here for Jean’s order?”

  I folded my arms in front of my chest and narrowed my eyes. “Jean sent you?”

  Jean always came to pick up her orders herself. Always. Hell, she’d been coming for the Book Wyrm’s orders since she was in high school and her parents were still running the shop with her grandmother.

  “Yeah, I…I just took a job at — at the shop. The bookstore. Jean didn’t give me an order number or anything. Do you need me to call her? Oh, and I’m supposed to mention that I’m from out of town?” Scarf Girl — never let it be said that I wasn’t flexible — drew her brows together in obvious confusion, and I felt the corner of my mouth twitch at the stumble.

  Out of town. Non-magical, then. Or at least not one of the initiated.

  “Do you not know the name of the shop?” I asked, trying to bury my amusement beneath a stoic facade.

  “It’s been a weird morning,” she said and it sounded like a confession.

  “Okay. Well, follow me and I’ll grab the order and tell you where you work.” I fought back a chuckle and beckoned for her to follow as I exited the greenhouse. I headed once more toward the shed that doubled as my office.

  “The bookstore is the Book Wyrm. Spelled with a ‘y’. Jean’s grandmother, Nana Wyatt thought it made the shop sound like a dragon’s hoard. It stuck.” I kept my eyes on the path ahead. I pretended I needed to do it to keep myself from tripping rather than just keeping my focus somewhere safe. My head jerked up as a thought occurred to me. “Wyatt is Jean’s last name. Did she tell you if —” I came to a stop in front of the shed door and turned back to face the young woman that followed. She was closer than I’d thought she’d be — the sharp stop, the sudden movement sent her stumbling, pressing against my chest as her hands lifted again to catch herself from falling.

  The cloud of her hair brushed forward and painted the air between us with the scent of iris, the sweet smell that had always reminded me of jam bubbling on the stove and that earthy muskiness of the air right before rainfall. I brought my own hands up automatically and caught her shoulders in the cups of my palms, steadying her against my chest with an instinctive shushing noise that isolation should have driven out of me.

  “Laurel,” she whispered, and if I were any closer to her upturned face I could’ve tasted the word.

  “What?” I asked stupidly.

  “My name is Laurel.” A tinge of pink appeared beneath those freckles and there was no part of her face that was safe at that distance. Tendrils of heat slid out from the base of my spine to coil in
my hips and belly. My pulse sped, my lips parted of their own accord and in that moment, that accidental brush, I felt the first taste of desire that I’d had in twelve years.

  I swallowed hard and static sparked between my parting lips like a gunshot in the silence of a tomb.

  Oh, fuck.

  I snapped my teeth back together and sucked in a sharp breath. “Rhea,” I said firmly and pushed on Laurel’s shoulders to settle her back onto her own feet and enforce a safe buffer between our bodies.

  Dread bubbled up from my gut to chase away the rush of warmth. Every prey response wired in the back of my lizard brain went wild, screamed about danger lurking. Impending doom. I cleared my throat to cover my sudden awkwardness.

  The shed’s door opened smoothly beneath my hand and I crossed the full expanse of the floor in heartbeats, finding it too small where it had been cozy only hours ago. I needed more distance, but my bones knew an entire city wouldn’t be enough to put between me and this Laurel who smelled like irises and the promise of rain.

  I pulled open the wooden cabinet at the back of the shed, revealing shelves full of carefully bundled and labeled plants in various states of dryness. The box on the top right was the one that held Jean’s order and I hefted it down into my arms, catching Laurel watch the motion and letting the muscles there flex a little more than was strictly necessary. I was a vain idiot. A vain idiot who needed this woman out of her shed and off her property immediately.

  “Here,” I said and passed the box to Laurel. “This is the order. There’s an invoice slip on top, but it’ll go into her normal accounts.”

  Laurel looked stunned, her hazel eyes wide, lips parted, that flush still painted on her cheeks. “Don’t you need me to, like, sign for it or something?”

  I needed her gone. Already my skin felt tight with the swell of potential power. I could taste ozone in the back of my throat.

  Fuck.

  “No,” I said and it was more bark than Laurel deserved or expected.

  She took a half-step back, a flicker of hurt on her face before she schooled her features and resettled the box in her arms.

  “Well, thanks,” she said in a voice that must’ve passed for brusque with her. “I’ll make sure she gets this.”

  I stood with my back against the far window of the shed until I heard the sound of tires on the gravel out front. Only then did I let out the breath I was holding.

  What was Jean doing? Who the hell had she hired?

  3

  Laurel

  It was a typical afternoon at the Book Wyrm: the soft sound of the bell ringing filled the air as the usual trickle of customers wandered in and out. Bright summer sun streamed through the windows and every time the door opened there came a fresh wave of the scent of the summer-blooming flowers planted in boxes up and down the street. Lots of folks came in to browse, but there were more actual purchases than I would have expected for an independent bookstore.

  Score one for the little guys.

  After I finished ringing up the last customer waiting in line — a pleasantly smiling older gentleman who’d been after a local author’s latest mystery — I leaned over the tall counter at the center of the Wyrm and tapped out a text to my mom.

  ‘Sorry I missed your call this morning - I was on my way TO WORK!!!’

  The phone barely had time to register that the message had sent before mom’s reply lit up the screen: ‘OMG! Congrats, sweetie! Call u soon. I want 2 hear abt it!’

  I smiled down at the message and allowed myself one more response before I would put the phone in my pocket and get back to putting new stock on the shelves.

  ‘I’ll call after work tomorrow. It’s great! Everyone has been super friendly. Love you!’

  Well, almost everyone.

  I fought back a wince as I reflected on the adventure I’d had at Barleywick, ranging from the sheer mortification of meeting Disapproving Hot Driver and seeing her morph into Rhea, the Disapproving Hot Gardener, the platonic ideal of rejection as she’d practically shoved me away.

  I picked up a box of inventory from behind the counter and walked it over to the new display that Jean had asked me to assemble, huffing a self-indulgent sigh as I did it. I’d come to Cincinnati to try and find connection, my community. It just figured that the first woman that interested me would practically chase me off her property with a pitchfork.

  And that was after nearly hitting me with her truck.

  I didn’t have much — any, really — experience with dating, but even I could tell that was not a promising beginning. I felt a twinge of regret, a little bit of longing deep in my chest, but I knew better than to get attached to people who didn’t want me around. I wouldn’t embarrass myself by chasing after Rhea and I’d do my best to keep my own humiliation over it to a minimum.

  I tucked my legs under my body and started unloading the box at my side. This one was full of silver pendants, stars and moons in various phases, to go with the incense burners and crystals that I had placed and priced earlier. ‘Bookstore’ was apparently not quite the term for the Book Wyrm. As Jean had explained it, her parents were sort of new age-y and they’d always made the Wyrm reflect that.

  Well, even if I didn’t necessarily believe that an amethyst could do anything for me besides sit there, it was still pretty and there didn’t seem to be any harm in what Jean was doing. Besides, some of the pieces were truly remarkable. Every so often, if I caught the display out of the corner of my eye it looked like some of the items were glowing.

  “Everything going okay over there? I didn’t think necklaces were anything to sigh over.” Jean’s voice broke through my admiration of the display and the petite blonde crouched down next to me, dust from the back room swept over her brow in a comical arc.

  “Only for vampires, right?” I laughed. “Silver. Or is that werewolves? It might be werewolves.”

  Jean froze for a second, her smile going strangely rigid before she relaxed into a chuckle.

  I cringed and reached for a not-too-awkward way to walk that back — the last thing I needed was for my new boss and potential friend to think I was some sort of hopeless weirdo — but Jean’s smooth change of subject saved me from further embarrassment.

  “Yeah, I guess so. Hey, I just wanted to say thank you for running over to Barleywick for me. I know you haven’t been here very long, but you’ve been a huge help.” The blonde nudged my knee with the back of her knuckle.

  “Not a problem,” I said and slid a group of necklaces into my lap to begin untangling their chains. “At least, not a problem for me. Rhea might disagree with me on that,” I muttered.

  “Yeah? How’s she doing? I haven’t seen her in a while.” Jean sat with her back against the bookshelf and took a swig of her bottled pop. She was the only person I’d ever met who decanted two-liters into glass bottles to carry with her. It struck me as charmingly frugal and harmlessly eccentric. Of course, given that Jean was the only person to take a chance on me since I’d gotten to Cincinnati, I was probably a little biased.

  “Grumpy,” I blurted, heat already rising in my cheeks. “I mean, I get the impression that’s her default state of being. So…prickly, but in a super-hot way?” I heard my own voice useless milliseconds after my stupid mouth had outed me as someone who formed crushes on obviously uninterested women. I wished desperately that I could find a way to sink through the floor. Maybe that’s what amethysts did. Maybe they would help me sink through the floor.

  Was that what I was like when I finally made friends? Did I helplessly blurt out every passing thought? I couldn’t stop myself. In retrospect, maybe loneliness hadn’t been so bad. It was certainly less embarrassing.

  Jean chuckled and tipped her head back against the shelves. “Yeah, she does that. She’s had it kinda rough for a while. I get the impression she’s mostly just lonely.”

  The image of Rhea’s scowling face filtered to the front of my mind. ‘Lonely’ was not how I would have described her. Besides, that house at th
e front of the property was big enough to comfortably fit at least twelve people in it. She probably hid in that shed of hers specifically to be alone.

  If I focused, I could recall the precise way I’d felt when I saw her in that greenhouse. It was the strangest sense of deja vu I’d ever experienced — some part of me would’ve sworn that I’d seen her just like that, just right there a hundred times before. I kept my eyes trained on the snarl of silver chains in my lap even as I heard myself starting to speak again.

  “Have you ever met someone and been sure that you’ve dreamed about them before?” I asked. I stared at those necklaces like I was defusing a bomb. Like not seeing Jean’s face would somehow mean she wasn’t looking at me like I was an idiot. “I know that sounds stupid. But I…I got the weirdest sense of deja vu at Barleywick.”

  Jean let the question sit between us for a moment, and I tried not to cringe. “I don’t think I have, no. But sometimes I get deja vu in new places. Usually places I want to go back to.” There was a sly lilt in Jean’s voice, a teasing edge that was probably the gentlest ribbing I’d ever gotten.

  Ugh, she was probably right. I had an unfortunate crush. That was all. I was tying it to my dreams because I wanted it to be something more than my own pathetic daydreams.

  And that managed to be even more pathetic. Great.

  “You won’t mention that I said that, right? About thinking I’ve had dreams about her?” I asked, chancing a peek at Jean’s face and seeing an inscrutable web of interest and calculation happening behind her pale blue eyes. What could she possibly be thinking? Unfortunately, her tongue didn’t seem as loose as mine always got around her.

  “Not a word,” Jean promised.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and another soft purple shimmer caught my attention from the corner of my eye. “Do these glow?” I asked. “If not, I think I need an eye exam.”

  Jean’s eyes lit up with a spark of triumphant amusement at my change of subject and she tilted her head back down to look at the necklaces in my lap. “Yeah,” she said after a long moment. “It’s a kind of…optical illusion. I can’t usually see it, personally.”