Two for Tea: Welcome to Azathé (Cambric Creek #4)

by C.M. Nascosta

But more than anything else, the most significant difference between good grief and bad was that bad grief was as endless as the ocean, with no respite or relief in sight. She was bobbing on the waves with no hope of rescue and nothing but the voice in her head and the gaping hole in her chest for company, and Harper was beginning to wonder if she ought to simply succumb to the undertow.

Maybe everyone is miserable all the time, and you’re just the only one who’s shit at hiding it.

OOTD: Black dress. Black shoes, black bag. Black heart, black soul, like a stain that ought to be washed away.

“Here?” “Yes, right there. On the shelf above it. There’s a red-bound book . . . yes, that’s the one. Good girl. Now, settle in. Page 327. I’ll get your tea started.”

“Well, talk about pedestrian and commonplace. Is that what you think? You have eyeliner and a leather jacket, so you’re some hot shit familiar? That’s pretty fuckin’ cringe. This,“ she gestured to herself, “is an aesthetic. It doesn’t make me anything other than well-dressed. Seems like you’re the only one playing dress up, cat boy. Poorly, if we’re counting backward. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but your shirt and your pants are two completely different colors, and neither of them is the same as your boots. Amateur effort, three out of ten. Mid. At best.”

Depression, she had learned, was a fickle thing. It wrapped around her like a well-worn blanket most of the time, but on the rare occasions she was able to shake it off — like that afternoon in the tea shop — her other impulses flared to life, leaving her ravenous. If there had been a menu option to bend over the table and let that mellifluous, silky voice rail her into next week, she would have ordered two and a third to take home.

“Divination is a very worthy area of study. One of the finest and most difficult. But be aware — heavy is the head that wears the laurel of knowing. With knowledge comes power, and with power comes responsibility.” “Did you just give me a superhero speech?”

“Grief is the wound love leaves on our heart,” he continued, again as if he could audibly hear her thoughts, and at that, she could not hold in the tears for another second.

“When does it stop hurting?” She was barely able to get the words out as her shoulders hitched, and that, too, didn’t seem to bother the familiar. “It doesn’t.”

“The strength of that ache is the tenacity of love, and it never fades.” His voice, so full of vehemence just a short while ago, was now somber, gentled, but no less full of conviction. “What does happen, is that your heart will heal around it. Yes? It’s not something that ever goes away, and like any bruise, to poke it will ache. But your heart will grow around it, protecting it, and it simply becomes a part of you. Don’t ever expect that ache to go away, little one. But stop considering it a negative thing. Grief is a gift. Do you understand?”

Grief is a gift. If nothing else, it made more sense to her than time heals all wounds.

“You must learn what the darkness discovers, Harper Hollingsworth. You walk to the noose with your head held high, because you walk with all of your sisters beside you. That is the power of a witch.”

And now look at you. The whole suit of cups, just yeeting all your trauma onto the table in public. Great. Excellent. That’s not mortifying or anything.

Mark me down as scared AND horny. Like, so SO horny.

“I’m not a double agent, and I’m not rich enough for Scientology. I did meet another familiar, though. He was over here, and he and Ilea got into it in the driveway. It sounds like Ilea is in the wrong with some paperwork and the other cat was going to snitch on them.” Morgan hooted. “That is the pettiest shit I’ve ever heard. It’s giving big The Familiars of Cambric Creek vibes. I love it. 10 out of 10, would recommend to a friend.”

She was walking home from the Food Gryphon when he accosted her. The black car was small and sporty, gleaming beneath the afternoon sunlight, the silver chrome grill nearly blinding her. They slid to the curb, idling beside her on the sidewalk, the window rolling down. Harper slowed but did not stop. She had been catcalled by creeps like this before. “Get in, loser. We’re going shopping.”

“Do you have arachnophobia?” Holt asked suddenly, glancing back at her with his eyebrows pulled together. “I-I don’t think so. Why?” He let out the breath he’d evidently been holding, using the brass knocker to rap on the door before turning to her quickly. “Okay, look. I just need you to be cool, okay? I don’t know what the fuck you kids say today, but no freakouts, all right? Your honor as a witch depends on it.” “Oh my word, what kind of place is this? Who are you taking me to?!”

“I-I’m a what-?” Holt rolled his eyes, hopping lightly to the floor. “You commune with the shadow folk. They do your bidding. Honestly, I’m not even sure how you manage to dress yourself in the morning.” “Holt!” The woman sounded scandalized, but Harper just glared. Fucking cats. “Rude.”

“You were in such despair, little one, when you first began coming here. I was concerned you were considering doing yourself an injury.” Her eyes filled with tears, recalling that endless, glasslike sea. “I think I was.” “What caused you to change your mind, I wonder?” “The shadows started talking to me,” she murmured, tears leaving salty tracks down her cheeks. “And I started answering back.”

“You, my little witch,“ they said in a serpentine curl, “are always enough.”

“You know, little witch, someone very wise recently taught me that the absence of choice is sometimes a gift we bestow on those who mean the most to us. Allowing them to make the choice for us, and trusting them to take care of us. It seems to me that having that trust in another must be the deepest measure of love and affection.” Her heart thrummed in her chest as if it had sprouted wings like a beautiful black butterfly. “It is. I would never give my choices to someone I didn’t trust entirely, and I can only trust someone if I love them.”

The construct of immortality is predicated upon a short span of time, but I assure you, all things have their natural ending. The shadow folk, the fair folk, even the sea. Someday there will be a darkness that swallows us all.

“It never stops hurting, does it?” The other woman’s eyes overflowed as she shook her head. “Never. I miss them so much. Sometimes I can hardly breathe around it. It never goes away. But life goes on. You fill your days with other things, you give your heart to new people and hope they’ll take care of it. They still walk beside us. They still hold us when we fall. And we’ll see them again, eventually.”