Page 27 of Bonded By Tea and Tarot

“What are you doing?” I say, taking a step forward.

“Shhhh!” She flaps her hands at me in some semblance of a ‘be quiet’ but also ‘crouch down’ gesture.

I shake my head at her, bewildered, then look around at the decidedly empty main room.

“There’s no one here,” I say, quieter this time as I crouch down and shuffle over to her. I’m not even behind a shelf yet, just awkward crouch-walking through the open floor-space. I feel like a clumsy crab.

“I know Bea’s lurking somewhere,” Siobhan whispers when I get to her.

“Do you need me to return your books for you? They won’t really be that mad, will they?” I ask, dumbfounded that she would be so scared of her friend.

“What?” she says, glancing at me in confusion. “No, don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m being—You know what?” I say, putting my hands up in surrender again. “Never mind.”

“I need to put these out before they see me.” I notice then that she has something clutched in her fist. She peeks between the shelves, then darts around the corner and crouch-scrambles between the next set of shelves.

Then she stops, looks back at me as though I’m being an idiot, and waves me forward. I truly have no idea what’s going on, but I shake my head in resignation. Because yeah, I’d follow this woman anywhere. Even if that means scrambling through a silent library on my haunches.

She turns and tucks something onto the shelf, sliding books along it, and then peers around the corner to the next section.

“All clear, let’s go,” she whispers, waving me forward with her.

And so we go scrambling again, ducking behind shelves, staying as low to the ground as we can until we get to the study area. It’s an open set of tables, and she looks around wildly, finally letting out a resigned huff and dropping a clear crystal in the middle of one of the tables. She ducks back down, looks around, then pops back up and adjusts it so it’s almost hidden by the desk lamp in the middle.

“What—”

“Shhh!”

“Right,” I mumble. “Sure.”

We’re off again, making our way into the non-fiction section. She tucks more crystals onto shelves, hiding them between and behind books.

“Oooh, wait!” she whisper-yells, then stops suddenly and spins to face me.

“Oy!” I throw my hands out to catch myself before I barrel straight into her. I thought I was light on my feet, but this woman is more nimble than I gave her credit for. “Can you put this on the top shelf for me? They’ll never see it up there!”

She hands me a purple crystal with jagged edges, and I glance between it, her face, and the shelf in question.

“You want me to…” I mime putting it on the shelf, and she nods rapidly, glancing around and ducking down to look between the books for any hint of movement. So far, there’s been no sign of this terrorizing version of Bea. “Right, okay then.” I slip the crystal onto the top shelf, and Siobhan huffs at me and crosses her arms.

“You have to put it back further, so they won’t see it. If I can see it, they can see it!”

I feel like I’m being scolded, but in whispers. I do as she says, nudging it further and further back until she nods in satisfaction.

“Okay,” she says, crouching down again and creeping to the end of the row. Then she looks over her shoulder at me and grins. “Only one more.”

My eyes widen and my lips part, but I don’t have time to so much as point before⁠—

“Only one more what?” Bea says, rounding the end of the stack and tilting her head at Siobhan, who is still crouched down at waist height.

Siobhan’s eyes widen comically and she stares at me in horror. Her mouth pops open, forming a perfect O that is most certainly going to haunt my dreams for the next few nights. She leaps to her feet, straightening in an instant and smoothing her pants down.

“One, hmm?” she says, turning to Bea. “I was just⁠—”

“Oh my god,” Bea exclaims. “Your face! Siobhan, you didn’t tell us you were this hurt!”

“Oh,” Siobhan says, suddenly awkward. She ghosts a finger across her bruised jaw, glancing at me. Then she shrugs. “It’s not that bad. Looks worse than it is.”