Page 23 of A Time of Witches

But travel to England?

Could she do that?

She did have a passport—from the trip to Italy she’d planned with her last boyfriend. He’d been her waiter at Local 11 Ten restaurant one night and had offered to walk her home after his shift. They’d taken go-cups of merlot and strolled Forsyth Park, outlasting dog walkers and even the art students out for late night sketches. From there, she’d pictured a life with him, maybe moving in together, getting a cat…and they’d booked the trip to Italy.

He’d been a reprieve from Mama until the pandemic, when the trip to Italy had to be postponed and the roommate he swore was “just a friend” turned into something more.

Forced proximity. Even now, Lilith rolled her eyes at her own stupidity. She knew better. After all, how many books featuring that trope passed from her hands to eager customers at Shelver’s Books on a regular basis?

The thought of Shelver’s brought up another obstacle. She couldn’t go anywhere until they hired their full-time employee.

Her birthmark grew warm, the skin tingling.

There was a certainty in her gut that this was the past the fortune teller had meant, that this Brackenmere Manor could help answer the questions she didn’t even know how to ask.

For all the excuses she found to remain comfortably at home in Savannah, everything in her demanded she hop on the next plane to England.

Lilith picked up her phone, finally replying to Essie: I think I need to go to England.

She replied immediately: If that fortune teller told you to take a trip to Europe, I need to book an appointment stat!

Lilith bit her lip, weighing whether to elaborate on her visit to Enchanted. Mentioning the whole thing felt a little heavy, a lot strange, and way too underexplained to even begin to describe.

Especially when she didn’t even understand exactly what happened herself. But whatever was pulling her toward England, she needed to give in, to find answers.

For Sybil.

For herself.

For that horrible warning hanging in her thoughts like a curse.

You will cease to exist.

Chapter Eleven

Sybil

Sybil didn’t spare a thought for her own safety as she swept onto Brixton’s back and left Brackenmere Manor in search of Jacinda. Her horse required no guidance as he trotted onward with purposeful intent. Like Kat’s little red squirrel and Edith’s woodlark, Brixton was imbued with the same gifts as the daughters of the earth.

He thundered down the path of his own accord, his pace every bit that of a horse once employed at the king’s races. As Sybil feared, they turned toward Bury St. Edmunds. The sky above the town congealed in a dark, angry storm, wind tugging in every direction as they neared.

This was no ordinary squall, but one manipulated by a woman of great power.

One who did not know how to control what roiled inside her in a blend of unfettered strength and unbridled emotion.

Sybil only hoped she could find Jacinda before others took notice.

Even before Sybil crossed the town gates, she caught the angry cries of a mass gathering.

Memories of the pestilence slammed into her. When barley was needed to feed the poor and too many brewers were forced to shutter their doors. A mob gathered, angry, violent, in want of ale, the potent sort from brewhouses that numbed their pain, dimmed the brilliance of their loss.

Homes and shops were ruined that day, and more than a few people injured.

A mob was a dangerous thing indeed.

And now they had gathered once more, the jostling swarm visible as Sybil traveled through the massive arch of Eastgate Street.

People clustered the trail to Angel Hill before the crumbling abbey, torn apart by King Henry’s wrath against the Catholic Church a century before. Where once pilgrims gathered to witness St. Edmund’s relic, now a new crowd formed. One inflamed by a handful of desperate years plagued with pestilence, low harvests and starvation, religious strife, and political upheaval that left their country warring against itself.