Looking back, it was truly difficult to pinpoint what her mother had abhorred more: the embarrassment of her only child being left at the altar, or that Saga lacked the decorum to hide it. Probably the latter; Audrey Hudson was the human embodiment of “keep a stiff upper lip.”
Seeing the world through a haze of thin white netting again, her heart sank. The sense memory dropped a sudden flash of recollection, like a deck of cards whooshing past her face in a spring flourish, each image quickly overlapped by the next.
Vows, barely made before broken. The way his throat trembled. The exact shade of peacock green that made up his tie. The deafening sound of the chapel doors as they slammed closed. Her mother tapping her toein exasperation outside the bridal suite while Saga sobbed uncontrollably within.
“You get this from your father,”she’d said.
Stoically casting blame was the closest thing to comfort Audrey had ever managed to utter on the topic. Anytime Saga dared commit a transgression her mother deemed ill-advised, reckless, embarrassing, or decidedly un-British, it was clearly the result of her father’s DNA. Her father, who was a born national of Norway. Her father, who climbed mountains and flew all over the world to save lives. Her father, who had been dead since Saga was six.
It wasn’t very kind, but respecting the dead required the same sort of sentiment that Audrey Hudson found unforgivably stupid and pointless.
“Respect is only worth faking to keep a dinner table civil, and the dead do not sup,”she would say.7
Needless to say, neither ghost nor god was welcome at her dinner table.
Saga, on the other hand, had quite a few homages to both her father and the goddess Brigid in her modest one-bedroom flat. The most notable an oak statue, hand-carved and standing just under half a meter tall. It had been a gift from her grandmother long ago but was recently rescued from dusty attic boxes before she escaped back to London.
It stood on the small altar to the left of her bed, and as Saga let her gaze drop, she met the statue’s eyes. Somehow they were always gentle. Brigid always looked kind. Empathetic.
Even when Saga was feeling merely pathetic. “Does it get easier?” she asked.
The statue, of course, did not answer, but it didn’t need to. These talks, though casual in their nature, were her frequent form of prayer.
“I’m not expecting to just…be better, but I thought at least after three months it… Pain issupposedto dull with time, isn’t it?” She sighed, the air blowing the veil briefly off her face. “I know havingthisaround isn’thelping. Ido. But it’s the nicest thing I’ve ever owned, and after all the money I saved to get it, it just feels…”
Saga’s heart winced, and she slowly sat up, a hand at her chest, then at her head. A resigned sigh. “No, you’re right,” she conceded. “That’s not why I keep it.” She released her grip on the dress and the weight of it dragged it to the floor. “I think I have this hope that if I hold on to it…” She chuffed in self-deprecating amusement. Thinking he might come back was too humiliating to utter aloud. “Pretty dumb, right?”
Yet she found no judgment in those delicately carved eyes. No arching brow or pursed lips. Just understanding. Brigid never thought anything was dumb.
Saga’s lips tugged at a weak, crooked smile, and she fingered the golden amulet around her neck once more. “We need tea, don’t we?”
The main space of the flat was not particularly large, but it was multifunctional. She’d made the most of the kitchen, allowing it to overflow into what would have been a dining room by installing an island in the center for extra counter space and pushing a small table against the wall for dining. Another altar, larger than that in the bedroom, consisted of a cabinet flush against the wall next to the nook of the kitchen. Atop it sat a less ornate cast-iron statue, more simplistic in its design, standing before a large cauldron. She lit a tea candle and placed it within the cauldron as she passed it.
The remainder of the front room was a small sitting area surrounded by bookshelves that had yet to really serve as a place for socializing. Most of the warm wood was from the original construction, which had been restored and maintained over time. Prior to Saga moving in, her aunt and grandmother had installed a deep blue jacquard wallpaper.
Despite her tenancy only beginning a few short months prior, Saga had made the small space home. Vases filled with fresh coppertips were scattered around the room. Photographs were arranged like collages on the walls—the largest group centered around a four-by-six frame of her and her father. It was a brightly lit photo, taken just outside Heathrow. He’d justreturned from one of his trips, and she couldn’t have been older than three. Her grandmother must have taken it—Audrey Hudson never would have been so sentimental, even when she and Saga’s father had been together. Rich jewel tones made up the plush furniture and throw pillows, wrapped in a warm glow of twinkling amber string lights and accompanied by the lingering scent of cinnamon and clove.
Saga paused at the kitchen window. Being on the ground floor, she had covered the windows with a privacy film that allowed the light in but obscured any details to prevent nosy pedestrians. The unfortunate result was that the film also obscured her view to the outside. Still, she could hear the rain quite clearly. She went to check the meter on the sill and the soft green light emitting from the device’s logo, an oak tree with circuitry for branches. She tapped the display screen awake: main power and both auxiliaries were fully charged. The rain had been rather constant in the past few weeks, the kinetic panels collecting more energy than they could store, and so power had been abundant.
Satisfied, she flicked on the electric kettle and began skimming through the small jars of dried herbs. “Hawthorn berries for heartache…”8 Her fingers wiggled before plucking another jar from the collection. “Rose hips for healing.” Both dried ingredients went into a small steeping mesh.
Be honest.The thought crossed her mind so strongly, she could have almost sworn it had been spoken by an unseen guest.
“I miss him.” Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “I know I shouldn’t, but I do.” It was not a novel confession—certainly, one that wouldn’t surprise a goddess, but it did release some of the tension in her chest. “Turns out, I’m not very good at falling out of love.” She folded her arms and leaned against the counter. “I thought if I moved back here, and…steeped myself in thebefore times, if you pardon the pun, it would…change me.” She wished she wasn’t so sensitive. She wished Hugh hadn’t made her look like such an undesirable fool in front of everyone. She wished she had the ability tomove on with the pragmatic efficiency that came so easily to her mother.
A soft melody chimed, signifying that the water had reached its desired temperature.
Saga poured it over the steeper. “Maybe trying to go back to how Iwasis the wrong kind of change. Maybe I can’t get over Hugh by trying to be who I was before I met him. Because for better or worse, Iamthe me that met him. I’m the me that wasbrokenby him… Even put back together, that crack will still be there. So, I’m not really either person I was, I’m something new. Something different. I’m…”
She remembered she needed the honey pot and carefully lifted the dipper, spinning it as she moved it to hover over the mug of tea. She removed the steeper with her free hand and allowed honey to drip down into the liquid. “Honey to bind.”
It didn’t take much. And after a quick stir, she ladled approximately two sips’ worth into a smaller cup. She casually set the small cup on the altar before the cast-iron Brigid, cradling the mug to her chest with her other hand. “I need arealchange, don’t I? Something fit for whomever this new me is, but I haven’t the foggiest what that sort of change would even be.” She took a slow and thoughtful drink as she lowered to sit before the altar. “I guess this is all to say… I need your help.”
The featureless statue remained silent, yet it felt more like the silence of a listening ear than the quiet of being alone.
“Send me a sign? Which way do I go? I feel very lost.” Saga forced a smile and took a deep breath. “Goddess guide me. I invoke your fire of inspiration. Brigid, tend your flame.”
A door closed in the outside hall, and heartache became panic in a single breath. There were two apartments located in the former Georgian living quarters behind Hudson’s Café and Confectionary, and for as long as Saga could remember, the one situated on the top floor had only ever been used for miscellaneous storage.
