by Ellen Jane
They were both of similar height, so Heather could easily see past Sinéad’s shoulder. She balanced against her arm and pointed.
“Right, measure out half a cup of the icing sugar.”
“What?” Sinéad laughed and tried to twist out of it. “I’m helping, not doing.”
“No, you’re doing and I’m directing. Measure out half a cup.”
Sinéad sighed and reached for the measuring cup. She started to pour it out carefully, but the icing sugar clumped together and stuck in the opening. Before Heather had the chance to warn her, Sinéad squeezed the bag.
With a pop that sounded like a cloud exploding, the contents of the bag burst free, all down Sinéad’s front. Her black satin pyjamas were completely dusted in white powder.
Heather fell against the bench and doubled over in hysterics. “I can see why you don’t bake, now.”
“It’s everywhere!” Sinéad protested, her tone edging into shriek territory. “Christ, what do I do?”
“Give up,” Heather uttered through gasps of laughter. “That’s just icing sugar for you.”
She leaned around Sinéad, keeping her in front, and scooped out the remainder from the bag. It was just enough.
“No harm done,” she said, tipping it into the bowl.
Sinéad looked down at Heather’s arms where they brushed against her. “This is disgustingly sappy.”
Heather smiled at her. The spots of white that dusted Sinéad’s cheeks and forehead soon made Heather’s smile turn into a grin, and from Sinéad’s answering laughter she suspected she looked just as wild.
“Ready for the next step?”
“Sure.”
By the time they finished with the icing and decorations, they were each covered in a mix of icing sugar and cocoa, partially because of the first incident, and partially because Heather hadn’t been able to resist bumping Sinéad when she measured out the cocoa so it happened again.
Sinéad whirled around and held the box of cocoa menacingly above Heather’s blonde curls. “How long do you think it would take to wash this out completely?” She warned. “Two? Three washes?”
Heather laughed, the sound coming out more like a cackle, as she held Sinéad’s arm back. “Don’t! I won’t do it again, I promise!”
“Are you sure? I feel like you need some incentive.”
“I swear!”
She tipped the box so a few sprinkles came out. “Just a little?”
The oven timer buzzed and Heather broke away to fetch the biscuits.
“Lucky,” Sinéad said wryly.
When Heather opened the oven door, the kitchen filled with the scent of rich chocolate. Sinéad breathed in deep, closing her eyes and smiling.
“They’re amazing. What spell did you put in them? I swear they’re making me even hungrier.”
Heather laughed. “That’s just the recipe. You know I can’t do that sort of sorcery. I’m not sure what the spell is, actually. We’ll find out soon.”
Sinéad picked up the piping bag and, once the biscuits had cooled, began to draw the icing onto the tops in complicated swirls. Heather watched, mesmerised, as the icing seemed to glow for a second before growing still.
“It’s your magic as well,” she muttered.
“What was that?” Sinéad asked without looking up, concentrating on the next biscuit.
“It’s both,” Heather said, louder this time. “Your magic is mixing with my magic because you’re painting on the icing.”
Sinéad smiled, still focusing. “I hoped it would.”
Heather followed along behind her, arranging the small decorative leaves they had made out of coloured rice paper, while a second piping bag floated beside her and fixed each leaf in place with a dollop of white frosting. Soon, each biscuit had transformed into an abstract swirl of autumn colour. The last biscuits caught the end of the icing, where they hadn’t mixed the food dye in completely, leaving it to swirl with the white. They came out frosted, like winter.
“Ready to try one?” Sinéad asked, handing one of the winter biscuits to Heather.
Heather took it while Sinéad selected another, and together they bit into the delicious, warm dough.
“Oh my god,” Sinéad mumbled around her mouthful. “It’s delicious.”
Heather closed her eyes and moaned. “So chocolatey.” Her eyes snapped open. “And warm. Your icing is like a warmth spell or something. But it isn’t in the air, like my warming charms; it’s warming me from the inside out.”
Sinéad’s eyes widened, and she stared at Heather’s hair. “And the biscuits…” she trailed off.
Heather tried to pull a lock of her hair in front of her eyes, but it bounced back and coiled against her forehead, too short to see properly. “What? What is it doing?”
Then she saw Sinéad’s hair, and her jaw fell slack. She tried to bite back her laughter, but a snigger escaped, and the incredulous look on Sinéad’s face only made her break further.
“It’s—” she began, gasping.
Sinéad opened her mouth to speak but gave up immediately. Her lips began to twitch, and then she joined in with Heather, the two of them laughing so hard tears leaked out of their eyes.
“I guess I keep thinking about those bees,” Heather said, staring at the elaborate beehive hairdo that adorned Sinéad’s head. “I can’t escape it.”
“It sort of suits you,” Sinéad said, wiping away the tears. “Though the spell looks like it’s added a whole ton of hair to your head. That’ll take some getting used to.”
“Says you. You have at least two other head’s worth of hair now.”
“Maybe I’ll keep it.”
Heather snickered again and then fought back the rest of the laughter. “What were you thinking of?” she asked. “To make the warmth spell.”
Sinéad cast her a sideways glance and cleared her throat. “Oh, you know. Nothing in particular.”
Heather’s cheeks heated pleasantly, and she ducked her head to hide her smile. With their matching beehives and pyjamas covered in icing sugar and cocoa, they began to pack away the ingredients.
“Let’s remember this,” Sinéad murmured. “When we’re stressed and alone and crabby, we need to remember this. I know we’ve been arguing a bit lately, and I want to work through that with you, but I’m also glad you aren’t silencing yourself. And that I’m not. I’m glad we’re open with each other, even if sometimes we’re openly frustrated.” She tidied the last of the ingredients away in the cupboard and shut the door, leaning against the bench while Heather washed her hands. “It’s when nights like this stop making us feel this way, that’s when we have a problem.”
“You’re right.” Heather turned and rested their foreheads together as Sinéad stepped into her arms. This close together, all she could see was Sinéad’s smile. It grew until Heather’s world was overtaken by crinkling crow’s feet and soft, curving lips. “And we definitely don’t have a problem.”
*
Investigations were put on hold the next day, as Cian had errands to run, and they each wanted to review the evidence so they had everything in order before following the jewellery lead. Heather became so entrenched in her notes, she lost track of the morning, and before she knew it, lunchtime had arrived. She stood up just as her phone started buzzing. The dogs wound around her feet as she wandered toward the kitchen door, answering the phone without checking the caller ID.
“Ms Millington,” Roger Branson’s snide voice drifted down the line. “So glad I caught you. Do you have a minute?”
“I guess,” Heather snapped, less in the mood for this man’s idiocy than ever before.
“I trust you’ve received the packet I sent?” he continued smoothly.
“Yes. And I’m pursuing legal action.” She tried to sound assertive, but her tone came out as more frazzled and aggressive. Which, with a man like this, was precisely what she didn’t want. The last thing she needed was to be labelled irrational over a perfectly normal response.
“Pardon me?”
Mr Branson’s voice became faux-concerned. “You did note the due date for your forms? I’m afraid we simply can’t accept anything later than call of business on the eleventh. I do hope all your paperwork is in order, because I would hate to issue a cease and desist to your business. Those fines do add up.”
Heather gaped at the wall in the corridor, unable to come up with a single thing to say. Eventually, she spat out, “You’ll receive the paperwork shortly,” and hung up the phone.
It was that, or curse him long-distance.
Sinéad stuck her head into the corridor, concern written across her features, but Heather couldn’t deal with it right now. She waved an apology and left the room.
They spent the rest of the day in a curious mix of tension and anticipation, stewing on the case and waiting for dinner, when they were due to meet Cian and his family. When it was finally time to leave, Heather suspected both of them would rather curl up on the couch together with a book on each of their laps, although perhaps for different reasons.
The restaurant bubbled with noise, already overflowing with people and conversation by the time they arrived. They thought for a second that it would be difficult to locate Cian’s table without direction, but then their eyes landed on the group by the window and they froze in disbelief.
Most of the restaurant’s patrons were middle aged and dressed in smart clothing. Nothing too fancy, but certainly the best of their casual wardrobe—well-cut trousers, pressed blouses, the sort of thing you could visit your grandmother in without a second thought. Then, there was Cian’s table.
Heather had expected to see a somewhat eclectic wife and two kids, even though Cian had given no indication they existed until yesterday. She now realised when he said family, he hadn’t meant it in the typical sense. Two tables had been pushed together, ready to house the six adults. Two of the six had hair spiked into mohawks, while the remaining four had settled on streaks of bright colour—one of whom was Cian, whose black hair now sported green tips.
Heather had never seen so much leather in one place.
As they approached the table, one of the occupants said something that sent the rest of them into howls of laughter. Heather paused for a moment, overcome with the memory of high school and lunchtimes spent trying to sit at the popular table. Not that she had done that often at all. Largely because it made her feel like this.
“Sinéad!” Cian spotted them and lifted his arm in greeting. “Heather! You made it.” He grinned and sat up straight, revealing two empty chairs he had somehow managed to sprawl across while still sitting relatively upright.
Cian’s guests turned to face them, all of them breaking into open smiles and laughter as they saw the two women. A chorus of “Welcomes” overwhelmed Heather, and it suddenly sounded easier to sit down than to run away if only because her mind had filled with images of the entire table chasing after them.
Cian pointed to each person individually, going around the table. “This is Gemma, Tim, Ollie, Rick, Honey, and Autumn. Tim, Honey, and Autumn are in the band. Rick, Ollie, and Gemma are general moochers off our fame and glory.”
“Lovable moochers,” Gemma corrected, shaking her bright pink curls and giving an exaggerated sigh.
“What fame and glory?” Ollie laughed, shifting in his seat so the leather of his jacket creaked against the wood. “Oh, you mean your entire two fans down at the Royal Lounge, tearing up the dance floor in their loafers and 1960s dinner jackets?”
“Jealousy is not a good look on you, mate,” Cian said with an easy grin.
“I’ll thank you to know I’m a successful lawyer,” Ollie interjected.
Gemma cackled. “Yeah, successfully sleeping on your mam’s couch.”
“Success is a subjective experience.”
“You never told us you were in a band,” Sinéad said, pulling out the chair on Cian’s right for Heather and then sitting down beside her.
“It wasn’t obvious?” Cian asked, eyes wide with genuine bemusement.
“Well, in hindsight,” Sinéad said with a tiny smirk. “How long have you all known each other?”
Honey clucked her tongue against her teeth. “Lord, forever. My mum raised Cian. Took him home from the orphanage same night she went to leave me there.”
Sinéad and Heather frowned in confusion.
“Obviously she didn’t leave me in the end,” Honey explained. “She only went there out of desperation, thinking she weren’t fit to be no mum, and she said when she saw little Cian toddling down the hall all her fears rushed out the door. She took him home with us and never looked back.”
“And left his twin sister behind?” Sinéad asked, unable to keep the hint of frost from her voice.
Heather hadn’t wanted to be the first to ask how the two of them had become separated. Sinéad had moved from the orphanage to foster homes, bouncing from one family to the next for years, which meant that Cian had gotten out well before Sinéad could remember him.
Cian squeezed Sinéad’s shoulder. “She didn’t know, and the orphanage didn’t care to tell her. I told her last week, and she broke down. She’d love to meet you when you’re ready.”
Sinéad softened, shooting her brother a smile and an apologetic glance in Honey’s direction. Honey didn’t seem concerned at all, already moving on to talk to Rick beside her.
Ollie leaned forward, his black mohawk nearly jabbing Gemma in the eye. “Cian says you’re an artist? Paintings or sculptures?”
“Paintings,” Sinéad said, falling immediately into conversation about her work.
“Sick!” Ollie grinned. “Cian paints, but he’s pretty shit. He’s a far better drummer.”
“They’re a colourful bunch, but you won’t find anyone more welcoming,” Cian said to Heather.
She smiled at him, somehow relaxed by the bright green streaks in his hair and the way he always spoke to her instead of around her. “I believe it.”
“So where are you from, Heather?” Cian asked, propping his elbows on the table and giving her his full attention. “We haven’t had much chance to chat, and I want to get to know my sister’s partner.”
Heather blinked, unsure where to start. No one had ever asked her that before, and she only now realised how few people she had spoken to outside of her home town. “I’m from Old Wetchhaven. Have you heard of it?”
“Ah, the place where you solved the murder.”
She grimaced. “Yes, that one.”
“You got family there?”
She froze, the memory of her mother’s voice echoing in her mind. “Not anymore.”
Cian frowned. “What’s wrong? Did I say something?”
“No, it’s—” She took a breath. “I lost my parents when I was young, and I thought I was over it—it’s been years—but last week I lost the only record of their voices I had left.”
She explained about the voicemail. Cian listened intently, his eyes soft with empathy. The conversation on either side of them faded as Tim and Gemma tuned into Heather’s story.
“I should just let it go, really,” she finished.
Gemma and Tim immediately broke into loud protest, talking over one another in their haste.
“You don’t just let go of things like that,” Gemma said.
At the same time, Tim shook his head, orange-tipped mohawk swinging. “You’ve gotta grieve, mate. Gotta grieve.”
“I am grieving,” Heather protested.
“Is it private grief, though?” Gemma leaned forward, the spikes on her denim vest dragging on the table. Her eyes softened. “Or are you sharing it? Because grief is better shared.”
Heather shrugged. “Who can I share it with? I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”
Gemma shook her head. “You don’t need any. I mean, it’s great to have people who are going through the same thing, but that’s not what
sharing your grief is all about.”
Before Heather found the words to ask what it was about then, the food arrived and all conversation disappeared in the face of wine and appetisers.
“Must be nice,” Sinéad muttered after they had left and were back home in the comfort of Sinéad’s living room. “To love a child so instantly and so completely that all your fears disappear.”
She flicked idly through the mail she had collected on the way in.
Heather didn’t know what to say. “She had no idea you were there too,” she tried. “It’s the only reason they didn’t take you.”
“Maybe.” Sinéad fell silent for so long Heather looked over at her. She stared down at one of the letters, but Heather couldn’t see her expression. After the silence had almost grown uncomfortable, Sinéad abruptly turned to her and said, “I think I’ve been looking at this all wrong.”
“Looking at what?”
“Family’s about choice, isn’t it? Just look at Cian. He’s found his family—he chose his family—and he never looked back.”
“He looked back a little. Remember the song he wrote?”
“All right, fine, he looked back a little but then he just kept going.” Her voice grew distant. “It’s about choice.”
Heather blinked, confused. “Are you saying you’re going to walk away? Because they’re in trouble, so, I don’t know, maybe you could choose that after you find them.”
Sinéad frowned at her. “What? No, no. I’m not walking away. It’s just about choice, that’s all.”
The words echoed in Heather’s mind, even after Sinéad had gone up to bed, filling her with a sense of discomfort she couldn’t shake. She felt almost as though her rain cloud had returned to thunder in the corner.
Her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her pocket in time to see a spate of messages coming through from Annie. They were coming in too fast and out of order for Heather to work out the context.
Might solve your money troubles!
You could take the time to set up your business just how you like it.
I’m sure Sinéad would love to have you stay longer, yeah?
Heather frowned down at her phone, heart racing, and unlocked the screen to read them.