While my tea steeped, I continued paging through the book. The author turned out to be the woman Mrs. Moyle had mentioned—the one who ran the school for young ladies in Yorkshire. Mrs. Rochester wrote that no special steps were required for reading tea leaves, but that “simple spells can amplify your efforts, focus your intention, and yield more accurate results.” I was sure Mum hadn’t learned from a book, but without her here, this was the next best thing.
I poured tea into my cup without straining it, and following Mrs. Rochester’s instructions, I took hold of the handle and spun the cup three times, chanting, “Leaves of tea, reveal to me whatever I most need to see.”
Then I drank almost to the bottom before flipping the cup over onto the saucer to drain out the remaining liquid. Holding my breath, I righted the cup.
No shapes jumped out at me this time. The author had mentioned that people should only read their own leaves if they had no one else to do it. It was hard to be clearheaded about your own cup. I desperatelyhoped not to find more wolves, and I figured this was exactly what Mrs. Rochester meant, so I tried to pretend I was reading someone else’s cup.
Turning it this way and that, I picked out two clumps that held promise. One was so clearly a cross that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it right away. The other looked like a candle.
At the back of the book was a list of symbols with their meanings. They came with this advice at the top:Correspondences are malleable. One cup’s death warning is another cup’s promise of a fresh start. Be guided by your intuition.
According to Mrs. Rochester’s list, a candle meant hope, or finding your way in the dark. Finally something encouraging! But then the cross ... there was no happy way to read that. Trouble on its way, or suffering, or even death. Or it might mean a sacrifice would need to be made.
I looked at my farmyard family. Jenny was nosing a half-rotten apple while the hens searched out insects among the fallen leaves. “But it doesn’t tell me what todo,” I complained to them.
The red hen, Rosie, let out a series of clucks that were easy enough to read:If you are going to idle about in the garden, you could at least bring stale breadcrumbs or table scraps.
Aware that it was silly to expect so much from a quick skimming of the text, I sank back and paged to the book’s beginning. The important thing was that, thanks to Mr. Tregarrick, I had a place to start. And I didn’t feel so alone.
Though my seat was both hard and unsteady, I somehow managed to doze off before I’d read more than a page or two. I suppose I hadn’t fully recovered from my ordeal yet. I woke to the sound of anxious clucking, my neck sore and my chin dipping toward my chest. The book had slipped to the ground and Jenny now nibbled at one corner, but she raised her head suddenly and let out a bleat. I followed her gaze beyond the garden.
A patch of fog had risen no more than five or six yards away. Inside it, something wasmoving. I could only make out what looked likeantlers. Or more like tree branches. Long and twiggy, spreading like a fan from the head of a tall shadow. Too tall for beastorman. Too tall for the creature I’d seen yesterday—yet I couldn’t help feeling I was seeing that creature again.
My skin went cold and clammy, and I jumped up. The hens began squawking, down feathers flying loose as their wings beat the air. Rosie fled back toward the coop, the others flapping after her. Jenny, too, gave another fearful bleat and ran around one corner of the cottage.
Then I noticed two small rounds of fiery light.
My courage fled. I snatched up my book and ran inside, bolting the back door.
St. Gomonda
From the cottage window I looked for the creature, holding my breath as my heart pounded in my ears. But the branch-antlers were gone, the fog already thinning.
I remembered the night I’d found Mr. Roscoe, and the movement I’d noticed beyond the wall. Then, too, I thought I’d seen antlers. Might this creature have had something to do with Mr. Roscoe’s death? Mr. Tregarrick thought another vampire had done it, but what if he was wrong?
He needs to know about this.
I would write to him. If Mrs. Moyle came again to check on me, I would put a letter in her hands for Mr. Carew. If she didn’t know him, she might ask around at the tearoom.
This decided, I sat down at the dining table with one of Mrs. Moyle’s notebooks and a stub of pencil, which she’d given me to practice my letters. Yet it wasn’t long before I was sighing in frustration. Reading was one thing, but writing—I could put simple things to paper, but a letter like the one Mr. Tregarrick had written was beyond me. At last I settled for:
I saw a creature on the heath. There is more to tell. Send your man to me and I will tell him.
M
I folded the note, put it in my pocket, and started on supper.
Just as I was pulling bacon-and-egg pie from the oven, the front door rattled. Next someone pounded on the door.
“It’s me, Mina,” called Jack.
I hurried over and opened it, eyeing him as he came inside. Though he smelled of ale, he was steady enough on his feet. I was relieved to see him home earlier than usual. Thus far he’d heeded my plea to come home before dark about as well as I’d heeded his to stay indoors.
“Supper’s ready,” I said in an easy voice. “Still hot, too.”
“All right.” His tone was even, but his brows knit.
I cut two thick wedges of pie and set them on the table. As I took my seat across from him, he said, “They found another one today.”
