by Lily Webb
Though I tried to think of anything else while I scrubbed clean, my mind kept coming back to Madame Astra like a broken record. She was the last person in Moon Grove I wanted to talk to, but I had no choice because she literally held all the answers. I could take Heath up on his offer to do the deed for me, but I doubted Astra would be as forthcoming with him.
By the time I’d stepped out of the shower and gotten dressed, my courage had rebounded. Madame Astra wasn’t any different from any other witch in Moon Grove, and Lilith knew I’d played hardball with people much more powerful and intimidating than her in my history, so what did I have to worry about?
I carried that resolve close to my chest as I gathered my bag, broom, and wand and headed for the door. Might as well get the worst part of the day out of the way first, so my first stop would be Madame Astra’s pop-up shop near the Town Hall.
As always, Umrea was already on the front porch waiting for me. “Good morning, Councilwoman,” she growled. I still hadn’t figured out how she knew when to be here in the morning, and I wondered if she ever slept, but decided not to ask.
“Good morning. We’re taking a bit of a detour today. Do you know where Madame Astra’s shop is?”
The slits of Umrea’s eyes narrowed. “I do. Why?”
“I need to stop by there and talk to her before I head to Town Hall. Is that okay?”
“You’re the boss. But let the Head Warlock know you’ll be late just so he doesn’t worry.”
“Already on it,” I said as I rummaged in my bag for my phone where I’d accidentally left it overnight. Thankfully, it’d held most of its charge, or at least enough to last until I got to the office to plug it in at my desk.
I tapped Heath’s name in my favorites. After several rings, the line switched over to voicemail. “Hey, Heath, it’s Zoe. Listen, I’m gonna stop by Madame Astra’s shop on my way to Town Hall today so I’ll probably be late. Hope you don’t need me for anything urgent, but I shouldn’t be too long. See you soon.”
I hung up and dropped my phone back into my bag. Umrea didn’t look satisfied, but I shrugged. “Best I could do. Anyway, let’s get moving. I want this over fast,” I said, and slung a leg over my broom to take off without waiting for her objection.
She trailed through the air behind me as I soared toward Madame Astra’s shop at the intersection of Crescent and Luna Streets, the busiest one in town — which I had to admit was a brilliant business decision.
When my feet met the ground again, it surprised me to see her “shop” wasn’t anything more than a table in front of a more private area draped with curtains, presumably where she did her readings, just like at the Business Fair. It probably made it easier to take her show on the road, but it still surprised me.
Judging from the lack of a crystal ball on display, it seemed like I’d gotten there just before Madame Astra opened her shop. I carried my broom over one shoulder and peered around the table to see if she was hiding out in the curtains, and right on time she burst out of them with her crystal ball tucked under one arm and a tablecloth under the other.
She beamed at the sight of me. “Ah, Ms. Clarke. I’ve been expecting you.” I struggled not to roll my eyes. Of course she had. “I suppose you’re here to speak with me about what happened to Ms. Norwood?”
“Why bother asking if you already know?”
She chuckled as she carefully set the crystal ball down on the table and unfolded the fringed cloth. “Even I still have to verify things, you know. The stars aren’t always crystal clear.”
“Is that why you couldn’t tell me or Rowena more about how she would die?”
Madame Astra’s expression stiffened and her eyes flashed. “Please, come inside and we can talk more about it.”
“With or without the ball? I’m not here for another reading.” I shuddered at the thought of whatever other devastating news she might have to share with me.
“Without,” she said, though she scooped the ball back up under her arm anyway and dragged it with her through the curtains.
“Wait here with this, I won’t be long,” I told Umrea and shoved my broom into her hand to follow Madame Astra. The “room” created by the curtains was exactly the same as the one she’d used in the Business Fair.
She snapped her fingers and light flooded the space, revealing another table with two folding chairs. She placed the crystal ball in its holder in the center of the table and gently pushed it aside, then sat down in one chair and gestured to the other. “Have a seat.”
I did, unable to take my eyes off the ball as its sandy purple insides raged.
“Don’t worry. It’s not active, though it might look otherwise.”
Easy for her to say. “I’m sorry to bother you. I think you know I’d much rather not be here right now.”
She smiled and nodded. “Yes, you made it quite clear the last time we spoke you weren’t a fan of my work. You aren’t alone. People are exceedingly afraid of the things they don’t understand — perhaps most so when it concerns their futures.”
“Rowena didn’t seem to be. Why else would she ask you for a reading?”
“For the same reason as you. She wanted to see if my talents and the technology behind my application were real before our negotiations went any further.”
“What exactly did you see when you looked into her future, anyway?”
Madame Astra hesitated, and when I glanced down, I saw goosebumps on her bare forearms. She drummed her fingernails against the table, contemplating. “It’s hard to articulate.”
“Try,” I ordered. Now wasn’t the time for her wishy-washy vagaries.
She smiled. “Very well. The things the stars show me only come in outlines, so to speak. They’re a code, an encrypted message I have to decipher. Sometimes there’s more detail than one could ever want, but other times there’s so little it’s maddening for an interpreter like me.”
“I take it Rowena’s reading was more of the latter?”
“Exactly, and unexpected. Usually, when I meet people for the first time, I get flashes of their fates without ever asking for them, so I have some inkling about what a reading might entail before we begin. With Ms. Norwood, that wasn’t the case.”
“So your prediction of her death wasn’t something you knew until you gave her a reading?”
“Correct. Just like anyone else, I don’t like being surprised.”
“Right. I imagine that isn’t good for business.”
“No, not at all. Anyway, to answer your question, when I looked into the stars for Rowena’s future, past a certain point all I saw was blackness, vast and empty. There wasn’t even a faint twinkling of a star in her chart beyond the day after our meeting.”
“How did you know that meant death?”
“What else could it have meant, Ms. Clarke? An emptiness like that is a universal symbol. Across time, across cultures, everyone knows it.”
“But you didn’t see anything else that might give you a clue about how it would happen or who might’ve been involved?”
Madame Astra frowned and shook her head slowly. “No. Believe me, I wish I had. If there was anything I could give you that might help, I would.”
“Why bother telling her? Don’t you think someone as powerful and influential as Rowena wouldn’t want to know?”
“Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have. You may not know this, but it’s strictly against the Divination Code of Conduct for a Seer to influence what we see in the stars. I could lose my license to practice Divination if the Seers’ Guild found out I’d told Ms. Norwood what I saw.”
I wasn’t aware there was a Code of Conduct or a Guild for practitioners of Divination, but I couldn’t afford to get hung up on those details now. “Okay, then why did you do it?”
Madame Astra’s eyes dropped from mine, and she resumed drumming her nails against the table. “I wanted to warn her. You have to understand, Ms. Clarke… What I saw in Ms. Norwood’s chart was unlike anything I’ve encount
ered in over twenty years in practice. I’ve seen upcoming deaths, sure, but they’re more explicit and easier to understand. I see causes and people or illnesses involved in bringing them about, but with Ms. Norwood it was just empty. Like one second she existed and the next she didn’t.”
I wasn’t sure I believed her, but I couldn’t come up with a good reason for her to lie. As far as I could tell, she had no animus toward Rowena. In fact, killing her would’ve only hurt Madame Astra, given their active business negotiations and the bidding war to acquire Astra’s app — not to mention the risk Astra allegedly ran of losing her ability to practice if she got caught trying to influence the outcome of a reading.
But if it wasn’t Madame Astra who’d killed Rowena, who had and why?
“You’re sure you saw nothing else? Anything at all that might help point me in the right direction?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. But if I were you, Ms. Clarke, I’d start by taking a hard look at those around her who might not have held her in such high regard.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You sound like you have someone in mind.”
“Derwin Moriarty,” she said grimly.
“What? Why?”
She fixed me with a look that said I should’ve already known. “I haven’t been in town long, but I’ve heard through the grapevine that he’s not fond of my presence, nor of Ms. Norwood’s interest in acquiring my business.”
When I spoke to him, Derwin seemed relatively harmless, despite his gruff exterior. He also seemed rather old and immobile, but I’d learned the hard way that looks could deceive — especially in Moon Grove. Still, based on the way I’d seen Derwin glaring at Carter and Holly during the Business Fair, I didn’t find it hard to believe he’d have an ax to grind. After all, he’d outright asked me to interfere with the negotiations between Rowena and Madame Astra, which didn’t seem suspicious to me at the time, but given what later happened to Rowena, it was difficult not to wonder...
“Thanks for the help,” I said as I stood from the chair.
“Anytime. I’ll continue to consult the stars for details and let you know if I find anything of note.”
“Right, sure, thanks,” I said, though I had no expectation of hearing from her. I pushed through the curtains to exit the stuffy makeshift room, never more grateful to breathe in fresh air.
Umrea stared at me quizzically. “Ready to go?”
“Yeah, but it looks like I’ve got another stop to make.”
“I was afraid of that,” she grumbled as she handed me my broom.
“Hey, no one ever said being my personal guard would be easy,” I said and hopped on my broom to rocket toward Derwin’s Divination in the Witches’ Quarter.
Chapter Eight
Derwin’s shop wasn’t hard to find. On Crystal Street, among a nonstop line of flashy boutique stores, Derwin’s dingy, unkempt building stuck out in the crowd almost as much as he did. Still, minus the hand-painted sign that said “Derwin’s Divination” in shaky, uneven splashes of red hanging above the door, it looked inconspicuous enough.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s here,” Umrea said. “We should probably go.”
“Cool it there, Hot Wings. We just got here and we haven’t even gone inside yet.”
Umrea growled. “I don’t think we should.”
“Suit yourself, scaredy cat,” I said, and marched toward the door.
There weren’t any lights on inside the shop, which seemed odd even for the middle of the day. There also wasn’t a sign showing whether Derwin’s Divination was open, but I pushed the door anyway and jumped when the jingle of bells rang through the entrance.
The room itself comprised nothing more than a counter where an old mechanical cash register sat, its dusty, gold-rimmed buttons sparkling in the dim light that filtered in through the windows at the front of the shop. A door beyond it, left cracked open slightly, led to another smaller room. Though I couldn’t make out the words, I heard faint voices drifting from inside.
“Mr. Moriarty? Are you here? It’s me, Zoe Clarke. I was hoping we could talk,” I called, probably louder than necessary just in case, but got no response.
“Ms. Clarke! We shouldn’t be here,” Umrea hissed after me from the open front door, but I waved over my shoulder to shush her. Now wasn’t the time for her overprotectiveness.
Instead of leaving, I moved closer to the cracked door and strained my ears to hear. As faint as the voices were, none of them sounded to me like they belonged to Derwin. Against my better judgment, I pushed the door open further with the tip of my shoe and winced when it let out a great yawn of a creak, filling the room.
When I reopened my eyes, I found Derwin slumped over asleep inside a reclining chair next to an ancient radio that rested on top of a rickety end table. His beard fluttered with each of his soft snores.
One of his hands dangled off the side of the chair, and the other rested on his stomach, his fingers clutching the short, knotted stick that was his wand. I didn’t know anyone who went to sleep holding their wand, but given Derwin’s age, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Welcome back to The Tate Kane show,” the radio squealed, making me jump again. “We’re continuing our discussion about the anti-warlock, anti-male bias present in all of today’s magical media, a bias that’s only increasing thanks to the availability of and our dependence on MagiTech, and what we warlocks can do to push back against it. Joining me to dive deeper is—”
I rolled my eyes and switched the radio off before I could hear the name of the guest, not that I wanted to. I didn’t know who Tate Kane was or what kind of show he hosted, but I could tell from what I’d heard I wouldn’t like it. Based on the conversation I’d had with Derwin at the Business Fair, the show didn’t seem like something he’d be listening to, but maybe he’d just put it on for background noise to help him sleep. Grandma Elle used to do something similar with the TV when I lived with her on her farm.
Derwin jerked awake with a snort at the sudden silence, his eyes fluttering like he’d come out of a coma, and sputtered as he tried to point his wand at me.
“Mr. Moriarty, it’s okay! It’s me, Zoe Clarke,” I said, my hands held out in front of me to prove to him I meant no harm. He blinked several times, each more forceful than the last, until finally my face seemed to crystallize in his vision and recognition dawned on him.
He reached for the handle on the side of the recliner to upright it and cleared his throat. “Ms. Clarke, I wasn’t expecting you. Forgive me.”
“That’s okay. I’m sorry for intruding. I probably should’ve called first, but I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d just stop by.”
“Nay, it’s not an intrusion at all. I’m always happy to see the Head Witch.” After what I’d heard him listening to, I wasn’t so sure I believed that, but I kept the observation to myself as he heaved himself out of the chair which wheezed along with him.
He stumbled to his feet, using the arm of the chair to steady himself, and stood up straight. A series of pops echoed throughout the room as his spine realigned, and it took everything I had not to cringe at the sound. “Aye, that’s better. Now, what can I do for you? Have you come for a real reading now that you’ve seen what a sham that Madame Astra’s all about?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You know about that?”
“I might be an old man, but I see a lot more than people realize — with all three of my eyes,” he said as he waddled toward a sink at the back of the room and nearly tripped on his beard as it dragged along on the ground in front of his feet.
On the counter beside the sink rested a clear glass tea kettle, a large box full of various tea bags, and several chipped, heavily used mugs. “Would you like a cup of tea, Ms. Clarke?”
I hadn’t yet moved on from his comment about having three eyes, but I nodded.
“What’s your poison? Black? Green?”
“Whatever you have open, I’m not picky. No cream or sugar, pleas
e.”
“Aye, nice and simple. Yet more reasons to like you,” he said and tapped his wand against the side of the kettle. Water appeared inside it and began bubbling within seconds. He waved his wand and two of the mugs turned themselves right side up. Two tea bags lifted into the air from the box and dropped into the mugs, and Derwin lifted the kettle to pour boiling water over them.
He pocketed his wand and carried the two mugs over to hand me one. “There we are. It’s not the best quality, but it’ll do.”
I waited for him to sip the tea before I dared drink any myself — I’d been through enough to know better by now — and Derwin must’ve picked up on it because he chuckled. “No need to worry, Ms. Clarke. Contrary to what you might think, I’m not trying to poison you.” To prove it, he took a deep swig. “See?”
“Sorry. Can’t be too careful these days,” I said and joined him in drinking the tea. Despite what he’d said about the quality, it wasn’t bad at all. Not too strong, but not too weak either.
“Aye, I imagine so, what with vampires and warlocks and all coming after you lately,” he said as he lowered himself back down into the recliner and sloshed a bit of tea onto his beard, but he didn’t seem to notice or mind. “Lilith, where are my manners? Here, have a seat,” he said and waved his wand again. A plush chair appeared from thin air behind me, so I sat down and continued sipping my tea.
“So, it’s not a reading you’re here for, is it?”
I shook my head. “Not exactly, no. But I’m glad you brought up Madame Astra. I wanted to talk to you about her and her connection to Rowena Norwood.”
Derwin frowned. “I had a feeling that might be why you came. Is it because of what I said during the Business Fair?”
“Well, that and because Rowena’s dead.”
Derwin’s frown deepened. “So I’ve heard. What an awful loss of talent and personality for Moon Grove.”
“Do you really think so?” I asked, thinking of what I’d heard coming from the radio next to him. Coupled with what he’d said about Rowena and Madame Astra, it didn’t paint him in the best light.