‘You just—’ Lio paused and looked away. ‘You look so sickly.’
And you look lovely, thought Dot. She dropped her gaze and nodded and, before any further awkwardness could occur, Lio left her there alone.
Dot was back to working in the tea shop a week later, although for only a couple of hours at a time. Ever since Theodora hadgiven Dot the prognosis, the witch was largely unaccounted for, either locked away in her attic bedroom or out of the house entirely. Thistlethwaite and the rest of the tea shop staff treated her quite normally, while those who knew – Lio, Rupert, Belchamber – cast worried looks her way whenever they thought she could not see. They did not stop her, however, as she picked up plates and wiped down tables, her afflicted hand holding the tea towel. She assured them, frequently, that she was fine.
Yet, she would often catch herself paused at odd junctures, staring at nothing in particular, as if the electricity that powered her body had extinguished itself. Often, she caught herself watching the grandfather clocks that Lio had taken to winding: the one in the tea shop, the one in the living room, the one in the hallway beside the third-storey bathroom, the brass pendulums each swinging back and forth, constantly balancing, flowing in and out like the sea.
She spent each day pretending that she was not dying and that everything she had hitherto laboured for had not been for absolutely nothing. In the same way, she had once forced herself to work at the Divers’ Café so that she would not burden her family, and had taken up the Bachelor’s degree to show her mother and father that her life had not been a waste. Dot had a talent for shoving things down, for ignoring and squashing, but now all of the hurts and stuffed-away wants and hours she’d played pretend were bubbling within her, threatening to rise up and drown her.
Later, after the shop was shut and Dot woke up from a nap with a fierce need to do something useful, she climbed downstairs and began to mop the tea shop floor.
‘Want some help?’
Dot looked up. Rupert was already there with a second mop.
‘You don’t need to,’ said Dot. ‘I’m capable.’
‘I know,’ said the boy, ‘I want to.’
He dipped the mop in the bucket and squeezed out the water and started on the other side of the shop. They worked for a long time in silence, the pair having barely spoken since the incident at the markets, although Dot often caught him staring at the new growth upon her arm, the look of guilt plain on his broad face.
‘Have you gone off magic?’ Rupert asked once they were done. He picked up the buckets and, in his clean socks, tiptoed across the drying floor to the sink where he poured out the water. He had set a kettle on the stove; it was beginning to bubble.
Dot was too tired to lie. ‘I think I’m a bit scared of it now.’
‘Why?’ asked Rupert, preparing a tea pot and pouring in the hot water.
‘What if I cast a spell and I drop dead? What if I turn entirely into – what did Theodora say, a few months ago? A sea bass?’
The boy came to where she sat in the far armchair.
‘I don’t know,’ said Rupert. ‘Seems a shame to give up entirely.’
Silence elapsed. After a moment, he rose.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, pouring tea into two mugs.
‘Whatever for?’ asked Dot, watching the steam billow.
‘You’ve that thing on your arm because of me.’
‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’
‘I do.’
‘You don’t,’ said Dot. ‘I don’t know why I wasn’t warmer to you in the first place. I have a little sister who’s exactly your age. I would never treat her with as much disinterest as I treated you.’ Rupert came back around the counter with two tea cups, and he handed one to her. Again, it was chamomile and fennel, and she smiled. Carefully, she asked, ‘Have you spoken to your mother?’
‘I don’t think I have one anymore,’ Rupert said, and he gazed into his cup as if inspecting the quality of the chamomile. ‘She sent a letter. Told me she never wanted to see me again.’
‘Oh,’ Dot said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Rupert.
They fell silent again and Dot blew on her tea and sipped it. A creak sounded and the pair looked up to see Lio crossing the tea shop floor. Dot felt the familiar warmth over her face and hoped to the heavens he would not notice it.
‘I was looking for you all over,’ said Lio to Rupert. ‘Game’s started.’
‘We had some work to finish,’ said Rupert.
