Breathing hard and whirling on his heel, Briar considered the shop in a different light. His first instinct was to cleanse it with fire. His second was to find some useful spells that required dead spiders.
His third was to look to his left, where he felt eyes on him.
Rowan hadn’t gotten far. He stood in the middle of the street, brows reaching for his hairline.
“Spiders,” Briar said by way of explanation. “Just, so many spiders.”
Rowan tilted his head, stoic and considering. He padded back toward the shop, though, and without explanation, went inside. A moment later, he returned with something cupped in his enormous hands.
To Briar’s horror, he knelt to put the spider in the flowerbed just outside the shop.
“No, no, uh, farther away? Maybe? How about the flowerbed across the street?”
Rowan met his eyes. He didn’t quite smile, but his mouth tilted as he passed Briar to put the spider where instructed.
Then he went back inside, where he caught and gently relocated all the squatters from Briar’s residence one by one.
CHAPTER 4
Once Rowan finished evicting the spiders, Briar set upon his luggage to unpack. Equipped with cleaning essentials and gripping them like weapons, he got to work. From the detritus, he suspected the previous witch had very low standards of hygiene; the least pleasant but most useful discovery was the mousetrap still containing a skeleton of its victim under the kitchen sink. Bones were useful tithes, but Briar still wore gloves while scraping them into a jar. Most peculiar was the salt scattered across the floor, plentiful as the dust. Vatii identified it by taste for him.
Only once every surface was clean enough to eat from did he venture out to search for food. He returned with a bag of bargain bits. Beans on toast for breakfast, cucumber sandwiches for lunch, fish pie for dinner.
Stirring the pie filling together in a pan, he asked Vatii, “How do you think Rowan got that scar?”
“I think it’s none of your business.”
“The whole town has scars like it. Something definitely happened here.”
“I don’t see how that’s going to help you start a business.”
“He could be the man from Niamh’s vision.” Briar cast Vatii a questioning look. “He could be my destiny, Vatii! Niamh said a man with a mask and a heart of stone. He’s a bit mysterious. Quiet. Could be him.”
Vatii said, “Have you thought about what you’re going to make and sell?”
“Since I don’t have any capital for materials, I figured I would offer my services for any old magical tasks the good people of Coill Darragh need doing. Then, with that money, I’ll buy some fabric and make some clothes and—”
“That was a terrible idea when you first told me.”
“Well, I don’t know what you expect me to do!”
“Be more creative.”
Briar returned to his fish-pie filling, which smelled awful, frankly. Or burnt. As he ladled a spoonful into the instant mashed potatoes, something flashed brightly in his periphery at the same time Vatii screamed, “Get down!”
A cleaver slid out of the knife block and hurled toward Briar of its own volition.
He flattened himself to the floor. The air above his head rippled as the knife sliced past and sank into the wooden cabinet with a meaty thunk. He looked up to see two more knives—the paring and carving ones—slide from the wood block like the last.
Vatii abandoned him, hopping under the bed as fast as her skinny legs could carry her. Running out of the kitchenette, Briar did the only thing he could think to and knocked over the small wooden dining table. One knife went skittering across the floor behind him. The second hit the table with less force than the first. It bounced off and clattered to the floor.
Peeking over the table edge, Briar watched the cupboard blow open and a slew of weighty cast-iron pots and pans clang onto the floorboards. They didn’t make it far, scraping along a few inches before stopping. Another cabinet flew open, but nothing streamed out. Then the washing-up tray twitched, and it was over.
“Poltergeist!” Vatii said. “I knew there was a reason for all the salt on the floor.”
“If you knew, why didn’t you say so? And I can’t live in squalor! Rowan didn’t tell me this place is haunted.”
“Probably didn’t know.
