“It’s something my mom used to do.”
When that’s about as much explanation as she’s willing to offer, I prod, “I’m still in the dark,pchelka.”
“There was lightning,” she repeats.
“Yes?” Honestly, I didn’t know there’d been a storm.
“You collect the water if it rains and then use it in the house.”
“To do what?”
She hitches a shoulder. “Wash the floor. Clean the doors. If it’s the season, I use it to make syrup for my hummingbird feeder.”
“Wait a minute. Do you mean to tell me you got out of bed last night and put a bowl in the yard and collected the rain and didn’t tell me?”
“Why would I tell you? It’s my business.”
I snort. “Your business is my business. Even if it’s…” I waft a hand. “This.”
Though she scoffs, it doesn’t stop her from pouring the water, laden with bobbing rosemary leaves, into a bucket. Some, she holds back and decants into a bottle instead.
More bewildered than ever, I watch as she spritzes the door and the window behind the sink and then mops the floor.
“I’m honestly surprised you know where you store the cleaning equipment.”
She tsks. “There’s knowing and there’s choosing to ignore.”
“You have a housekeeper,” I point out.
“This is important.”
“Why?”
“If you want big changes to happen, then you do this. At least, that’s what my mom said.”
“Mine told me to go to bed before eight. Spoiler: I don’t always listen.”
“Well, I’m a good girl?—”
“Ha! Since when?”
Her nose scrunches. “I’ll have you know I?—”
“Used to be?”
That earns me a huff. But she finally stops mopping. And spritzing.
“You should leave those things for the housekeeper.”
“I do. Trust me,” she says airily before heading to the stove and refocusing on her earlier task.
“I thought you’d be a disaster in here,” I admit, watching the strange choreography of her movements.
Even the bizarre stuff with the lightning water was like a dance.
She smirks. “Aoife taught me everything I know.”
My brow lifts. “Her brownie recipe?”
