This is going to be a disaster.
“Well, here we are.” Mum clasped her hands to her chest. “I’m so pleased to finally be meeting Mina’s new friends.”
Morrie stepped forward and held out his hand. “James Moriarty, although my friends call me Morrie. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Wilde. I’ve chosen a wine for the occasion – it’s a sparkling wine, so it will need to be kept chilled at ideally six degrees. Do you have an ice bucket?”
Mum didn’t register the significance of Morrie’s name. She wasn’t exactly a big reader. “Thank you, Morrie. No ice bucket, I’m afraid, but you could stick it in the freezer for a bit? My, you’re tall.”
“Yes, I am. Apart from my dashing wit, it’s one of my finest features.” Morrie went into the kitchen to fuss over the wine situation.
Heathcliff stepped forward and offered his hand. His frame loomed large in our tiny flat, and under the fluorescent light, his black eyes and wild hair gave him a menacing air. “Heathcliff,” he muttered.
Mum hesitated a moment before shaking his hand. “Do you have a last name, there, Heathcliff?”
“Just Heathcliff.”
“It’s Earnshaw,” I shot Heathcliff a withering look. In his world, he’d had only the one name, but ours demanded a surname.
“Heathcliff Earnshaw.” Those words sound so wrong on my mother’s tongue. “That’s a very English sounding name. But you’re not English, are you?”
I glared at her, but she pretended not to notice.
Heathcliff shrugged. “That depends on your definition.”
“Well, Heathcliff, I’d say that a real Englishman would be—”
“I’m Allan Poe,” Quoth stepped around Heathcliff’s bulk and stuck out his hand.
Thank you, my beautiful raven.
As Mum turned from Heathcliff to greet Quoth, she jumped a little, and her eyes glazed over. Whatever horrendous thing she was about to say to Heathcliff slipped from her lips. Quoth’s beauty had that effect on people.
“It’s a pleasure, Allan,” Mum breathed, her eyes flickering over Quoth’s porcelain skin and deep fire-ringed eyes and black hair that fell like a midnight waterfall down his back.
“And I’m Mabel Ellis. I used to teach Mina at school.” Mrs. Ellis wrapped my mother in a warm hug. “It’s so nice of you to have me. Here. I’ve brought a cottage pie.”
“That’s lovely, thank you. Well, let’s not stand around. Please, take a seat. I’ve made spicy chicken starters.” We perched on the threadbare sofas and chipped plastic dining chairs while Mum handed around a plate containing chicken nuggets sprinkled with chili flakes, skewered on toothpicks.
“Sure.” Morrie folded his long body into the sofa and popped two nuggets in his mouth. I stifled a giggle as his eyes bugged out and he fanned his face with his hand. Mum must’ve really gone all out with the chili.
“I’ll pass,” I grinned.
Heathcliff and Quoth passed also. Mrs. Ellis took one, but wiped the chili off down the edge of the sofa while Mum had her back turned. Mum came back with a tray of drinks and passed around plastic cups filled with Morrie’s expensive wine, and we did an awkward toast.
“So, Heathcliff, you’re not local to Argleton?” Mum asked, trying again to corner Heathcliff into a conversation where he would admit to being a gypsy.
“I live in the shop.”
“But you didn’t grow up here, did you?”
“I think Mum’s asking where you come from,” I said, glaring at Mum. She smiled sweetly, chewing on a chicken nugget.
“I was raised at a farmhouse on the Yorkshire Moors,” he said. “Although that is not where I was born. My parents abandoned me on the streets of Liverpool, and I was found and raised by the Earnshaw family. I do not know my true origin, and I don’t care to know.”
“Why, I should think you of the Romani people, judging by your coloring,” Mum said.
“It has been suggested,” Heathcliff said tersely.
“Morrie’s from London,” I announced, eager to change the subject.
Mum made a face. “London is so big and noisy. We must seem like such country bumpkins after living in the big city.”
“Argleton is a slower pace of life, but it’s not without its charms.” Morrie trailed a finger down my thigh, and a shiver ran through my body. “But yes, London has always been my stomping ground. Barring a brief stint at Oxford where I obtained my degree, I’ve always been in the city, and I may yet return.”
“Oxford?” Mum’s ears perked up. “Did you hear that, Mina?”
“Yes, Mum. I heard. I was thinking about going to Oxford myself, if you recall.”
“But you never had a head for that kind of fancy learning. You’re too creative. Morrie here has got the brain smarts. What are you, Morrie? A doctor? A lawyer? A tech entrepreneur?” Her eyes sparkled. I could practically see her spending Morrie’s money on a garish footballer’s mansion and a kidney-shaped pool.
“I have some medical experience, but I am primarily a mathematician.”
“Oh,” Mum’s face froze. “And how much does a mathematician earn?”
“Mum, you shouldn’t ask people what they earn!”
“I don’t mind,” Morrie grinned. “It all depends on the type of mathematics you perform. My line of work is exceptionally lucrative.”
“Oh, well, that’s wonderful.” Mum gave me a pointed look, and I knew she was picturing what my wedding dress would look like when I married Morrie the handsome and rich mathematician. Floor, please swallow me now. “And what about you, Allan? Where were you born?”
“Richmond, in the United States,” Quoth replied.
“Is that where your accent is from? You don’t sound American.”
“Don’t I?” Quoth tilted his head to the side. His hair flowed over his shoulder. I couldn’t resist the urge and reached over to tuck it behind his ear. He jumped as my fingers grazed his skin. He’s worried.
“He certainly sounds exotic with that sexy husky voice,” Mrs. Ellis piped up. Beside her, Heathcliff choked on his wine.
Mum didn’t know how to respond to that. She gulped back her drink, thankfully forgetting to ask Quoth what he did for a living. Instead, she turned back to Heathcliff. “So does anything interesting happen at the shop apart from people being murdered?”
“Mum!”
“What, honey? I’m just asking. Surely Mr. Heathcliff meets interesting customers.”
“No,” Heathcliff muttered into his glass.
“We’ve had an appearance by the Terror of Argleton,” Morrie said, shuddering at the memory of the mouse in his pants.
“The mouse in the paper?” Mum’s ears pricked up. “Did you get a picture?”
“Hardly. The bloody thing is too fast for us. Not even the shop cat Grimalkin has been able to catch him.”
“I know!” Mum rummaged through the stack of books on the table. She pulled one out and thrust it into Heathcliff’s lap. “You need this!”
I glanced at the title. Mouse Language for Humans. “Mum, no—”
“Yes, it’s perfect! You can translate his squeaks, figure out what he wants, and then use that to trap him.”
Heathcliff’s jaw worked up and down. I thought he was pissed, but then I noticed the sparkle in his eye as he struggled to hold back laughter.
Morrie rubbed his chin. “It’s worth a shot. At this stage, I’ll do anything to get rid of that foul creature. How much do I owe you for the book?”
“Keep that one for free. When you capture the mouse, the paper will do a story on you and you can tell them all about how my book helped you. We can work together to improve our PR!”
“An excellent plan.” Morrie patted Heathcliff’s knee. “Heathcliff definitely needs some help with his PR.”
Heathcliff slipped the book into his jacket. “Thank you,” he managed to choke out.
“Mum, there actually is something we want to ask you. Has Sylvia Blume had any recent run-ins with Dorothy Ingram latel
y? Or Ginny Button?”
“Oh, Mina, you’re not meddling in that murder, are you?” Mum frowned. “You’ll make the police suspect you again.”
“I’m not, Mum. I swear.” I thought quickly. “I’m just found this old article in the paper while I was helping Mrs. Ellis write the obituary.”
I whipped out my phone and showed her the article. She skimmed through it, her mouth turning into a smile at Mrs.Scarlett’s barbed words.
“Sylvia’s nasty business with Dorothy Ingram was over many years ago. As far as I know, Dorothy has never set foot in the shop nor said another word about Sylvia being a witch. Ginny Button came in all the time laden in diamonds to have her fortune read. Weirdly, she never seemed to pay for her readings. I didn't like her very much – she said such snide things about my outfits.” Mum smoothed down the front of the mustard-colored cocktail dress she’d scored from the charity shop. “I suppose she won’t be saying anything now.”
“Did you ever see Ginny with Mrs. Scarlett?”
“Oh, all the time! Those two were heavily involved in the historical society, who’ve been working on that big project at the old Argleton hospital, you know, sorting through the records, etc, before it’s torn down. They’d pop back to town for coffee and come in to gossip with Sylvia. Of course,” she frowned, “that hasn’t been happening recently.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, honey. All Sylvia said was that she wasn’t happy with the way Gladys was running the planning committee. But I don’t pay any attention to that political stuff.”
The buzzer went off in the kitchen. Mum stood up. “Oh, that’s dinner. Mina, if you could seat everyone at the table and make sure the glasses are full.”
I pulled out chairs and everyone sat down. Mum bustled back from the kitchen, carrying a large tray of something that looked suspiciously like meatball stack.
It is meatball stack. What is she thinking?
I’d practically been raised on meatball stack. It consisted of layers of hash browns, boiled eggs, and cheap sausages chopped up into pieces and cooked in canned pasta sauce, and all finished off with a layer of cheese.
My cheeks reddened. To Mum, this was her signature dish, but to anyone else, it was a horrifying wobbly, greasy mess. It was almost, almost worth seeing gourmet Morrie’s face twitch as she set the dish down in front of him and started cutting through the cheesy hash brown crust.
“Is this enough for you, Morrie?” she said brightly, serving him a huge dollop. The tomato sauce glowed a lurid red under the fluorescent lights in our kitchen.
“Oh, yes, that will be lovely.” Morrie grabbed his wine and drained it, then reached for the bottle on the counter and filled his glass right to the brim.
“Mina, pass around the salad,” Mum ordered, as she dumped an even bigger slice on Heathcliff’s plate.
Gingerly, I lifted the lids off the two dishes on the table, revealing a Tesco’s potato salad and some sad-looking dinner rolls. Beside my mother’s food, Mrs. Ellis’ golden brown cottage pie looked like Michelin star fare.
Heathcliff dug in as soon as Mum handed him his plate. Mum beamed as if it was a compliment to her culinary skills. It wasn’t – the moors must have addled Heathcliff’s tastebuds because he’d eat anything. I once saw him chew on a licorice rope so old it had fossilized. I picked at my food, too mortified to taste a single mouthful.
“This is delicious, Helen.” Morrie winked at me as he forced down another bite. “Is this what you cook every time Mina brings a boyfriend home?”
“Mina’s never brought home a boy before,” Mum said, beaming at her words. I wondered if she’d already chosen the wedding flowers. “She doesn’t like me to be involved in that part of her life, do you, darling?”
I wonder why that might be, Mother?
“I’m surprised,” Morrie said, building a wall with his hash browns in an attempt to make it look as though he’d eaten more. “Mina’s so beautiful and devastatingly clever. I imagine the only reason she hasn’t had more boyfriends is the fact that dead bodies stack up in her wake.”
Heathcliff snorted. Beside me, Quoth squirmed in his seat. He raised his hand to his cheek as a black feather shot through his skin. Shit, shit.
“Mina is too clever. That’s her big problem. I keep telling her boys don’t like clever girls, unless they’re mathematicians, of course. Is one of you Mina’s boyfriend?” Mum glared around the table, her smile hopeful as she landed on Morrie.
Oh Mum, if only you knew…
“I don’t know if she could pick just one of us,” Morrie said smoothly, sliding his meatball stack onto Heathcliff’s plate.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Quoth breathed.
“Certainly, Allan. It’s right through—” Quoth threw me a desperate look before disappearing into the hall. Mum shot me a look which I pointedly ignored.
“Actually, Mum, I just need to… freshen up my face,” I gasped.
“But Mina, I want to know who you’re dating!”
“Morrie’s right. I couldn’t possibly choose. I’ll be right back.” I dashed into the hall. The bathroom door was still open, but my bedroom door was shut. I rapped on the wood. “Quoth?”
“Croak!”
I pushed the door open. Clothes littered the floor of my room. A raven scrambled against the window, his talons scrabbling for purchase as he tried to maneuver the lever open.
“Oh, no you don’t.” I grabbed the latch and pulled it shut. Quoth hopped angrily on the bed. I knelt down beside him, meeting his frightened stare with one of my own. “If I have to endure this torture, then so do you. I’ve seen you over the last couple of weeks – you’re learning to control your shifts. You just have to want to control it. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me.”
“Croak!” Quoth flapped his wings and hopped from foot to foot.
Mina, I can’t do this. I can’t! Tell your mother I was feeling ill and I had to go home—
I stood up. “No. I’m not making excuses for you. I’ll see you outside. Don’t leave me alone out there with Morrie and Heathcliff and my mother.”
I left the door open a crack and returned to my seat. Morrie and my mother had their heads bent together and were whispering furtively. Mrs. Ellis had finished her wine and had started on mine, while Heathcliff was polishing off Quoth’s food.
“What did I miss?” I said brightly, plastering a fake smile on my face.
“Oh, Mina. Morrie was just telling me all your clever ideas for the shop,” Mum beamed. “Running book clubs and author talks and hanging work by local artists and starting social media. And you’ve also been brightening up that dreary place with lamps and lanterns!”
‘Oh yes, Mina has all sorts of plans for my shop,” Heathcliff muttered.
“You do know what else is a really clever idea?” Mum held up one of her dictionaries. “A display of pet-dictionaries on the counter! There are so many pet owners in Argleton and—”
“Mum, no.”
“You’ve got hundreds of books in that junky old shop no one will buy. I don’t see why adding a few more is any problem.” Mum beamed. “Especially with your business skills, Mina. You could come up with a clever marketing plan and—”
Outside, there was a loud bang in the street as one of the neighbors let off his air rifle. Something thumped against the hallway wall, followed by a faint, “croak?”
I sighed and pushed my chair back. “I’ll go see what that is. Maybe the bathroom door got stuck—”
“Croak!” Quoth crashed into the room, his eyes wide as saucers. He barreled across the table, flinging plates and cutlery across the room. He skidded off the edge and crashed to the floor.
“Quoth?” I reached out to him, but in his panic, he didn’t see me. He scrambled up the couch and launched himself into the air, flying in circles around the room and letting out frightened croaks.
“Argh, what’s that bird doing in here!” Mum grabbed for the broom and swung it at Quo
th. “Shoo, shoo!”
I tried to go out the window! Quoth yelled inside my head. Your neighbors shot a gun at me!
“You’re okay. It’s just an air rifle,” I cried, lunging for him. But adrenaline must’ve been crashing through Quoth’s tiny body, filling him with the instinct to flee. He dived between my arms and sailed back toward the table.
“Hit it with the wine bottle!” Mum cried.
“No, Mum, it’s okay. He’s… um, he’s Quoth, our shop bird.” I tried to coax Quoth out from under the table. “He’s a bit possessive, so he must have followed us all the way here. I think the neighbors scared him.”
“Well, get it out of here.”
I tried to shoo Quoth back into the hallway, but he wasn’t having that. He skidded across the kitchen floor and squeezed his body into the gap between the counter and Mum’s dictionary boxes. The stack of boxes teetered, and the top one slid off and crashed on the floor.
“Oh, Mina,” Mum cried. “Stop him!”
As I scrambled over the furniture after a panicking Quoth, a sharp ringing accompanied his cries. Morrie raised his phone to his ear and made to leave the room. I clamped a hand over his knee. “You cannot leave me here.”
“Sorry, gorgeous, I can’t hear a thing over Quoth’s caterwauling. Besides, you seem to have everything under control.” Morrie winked.
“Tell them to call you back. I need you.”
“I won’t be long.” Morrie slipped away. Heathcliff hadn’t even got up from the table, although his eyes followed me with an intense stare.
“Well, this is fun!” Mrs. Ellis beamed, helping herself to Morrie’s wine as Quoth shot out from behind the boxes and made a beeline for the sofa. I dived across the room and wrapped my arms around him.
“Gotcha!” I held up his quivering body. Poor thing, he was really terrified. I held Quoth against my chest and cooed to him.
Mina, Mina, they shot a gun at me!
I know. Shhh. It’s okay now.
“Is it safe for you to hold that bird like that?” Mum frowned. “What if he carries disease?”
“No, he’s fine. We give him shots.” Quoth nestled his head into my shoulder. I frantically searched for some way to salvage this situation. “I’ll just keep him like this, and he’ll behave, I promise. Did I see some kind of meringue in the kitchen?”
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