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She’s not running from her powers any longer.
She’s even practising her magic. Today, she finds me as I arrive at the cemetery for my morning shift.
“Ambrose, hold these flowers.” Bree presses several stalks into my hand.
“I’m the one who’s supposed to giveyouflowers. And these don’t seem very bright.” I touch the petals and find that they’re shrivelled and brittle.
“Just hold them steady, will you?” she says with a smile in her voice. I can’t see what she’s doing, but I sense her hands moving in the air around me. The stalks grow warm between my fingers, and the brittleness in them disappears as the stalks swell with fresh moisture.Life.
A soft fragrance wafts through the air.
“Touch them now,” Bree says.
I run my fingers over the petals, which are now plump and full. The flowers have gone from shrivelled dead stalks to beautiful blooms. I shove my nose right inside and breathe deeply. They smell positivelydivine.
Of course, I think everything Bree does is divine.
“Bree, you made the flowers grow again! That’s amazing.”
“I know, right? I’ve been practising on plants. It makes sense to have control over my magic.” She lowers her voice. “I’ve been trying to give Dad’s giant cucumber a little magic, too, to make up for not watering it. It’s now so large that he might have to cut the door off the greenhouse to get it to the fair.”
“I love that.”
“I’m getting pretty good with flowers and fruit, but their unfinished business is simple. Flowers want to bloom and fruit wants to be eaten. But I can’t bring myself to practise on people. The witches are all well and good, but they know nothing about resurrection magic. I just wish that someone like Vera or Father Maxwell could teach me instead,” she says. “I’m still terrified that I’ll do something wrong and end up hurting one of you. I guess we could look up the other witches buying moldavite from Vera’s list, but with the Order of the Noble Death watching me, I don’t want to lead them to more Lazarii.”
“I think you’re doing pretty well on your own,” I tell her. “Are you ready for our date this afternoon?”
“Of course.” She kisses me on the cheek, leaving a burning fire in my skin that will take hours to fade. “I wish it was a proper date where we could finally, you know,shag. Waiting for the perfect time is driving me crazy.”
Just hearing her be so crass about the fact makes my gentleman’s staff jerk to attention. He couldn’t agree more.
“Me too,” I assure her honestly, because I have been quite flustered that we haven’t been able to be alone together yet. “But I have my whole life ahead of me to enjoy your company. We should not disrespect your parents by doing such things in their home, and Mina’s place is rather crowded. But Edward’s happiness is more important than our…frustrations. I’ll meet you right here by the gates at the end of your shift. I really hope we’ve found the answer.”
“Me too.”
I have made some small progress on my own personal project – Operation Make Edward a Living.
After hearing from Countess de Rothschild that the poet Hugh died by drowning in the Thames, I’ve looked up all the ghosts associated with the river on Mina’s computer, but haven’t come across one yet who resembles him. I will keep searching, but in the meantime, I have another avenue to chase.
Hugh Bancroft’s poetry.
As one of Britain’s foremost Romantic poets, Hugh’s work has been immortalised in many books and even transcribed into Braille volumes that Mina was able to procure for me. And his final poem, the one that he had scribbled in a note in his pocket when his body was found, makes for interesting reading. It is a terrible, grief-soaked apology to someone he has hurt.
It also turns out that there is a museum dedicated to Hugh Bancroft in the village of Crookshollow, where they hold many of his personal papers and letters. And Bree has agreed to accompany me there today.
We’re going to find the answer to Edward’s unfinished business today. I canfeelit.
* * *
Bree is waitingfor me at the gates, as promised. I’m pleased to learn that she’s alone.
“I lied to Edward and told him that we’re visiting a museum of French Art, which he declared ‘thoroughly boring and unrefined’ and refused to join us,” Bree explains as we walk to the train station. Pax also opted not to join us because he and Mike have already planned a bike ride out to the old mill for a picnic, but hedoesinsist that Bree bring along her sword. Luckily, it fits crosswise into her backpack.
We take the train to Crookshollow. Mina has been teaching me about some of the accessible features of public transport, and I’m delighted to find a tactile map of the station, tactile markings on the ground to help guide me to the edge of the platform without falling off (a constant fear of mine when I was last Living), and Braille on the train telling me which button to press to open the doors. This beautiful, imperfect world is starting to feel like it wants me to be part of it, and I must confess that my feet once again itch to explore.
But I don’t want to be a solo traveller, ever again. Not when I can have Bree by my side.
Forty-five minutes later, we alight and walk to the museum, which is actually a small stone manor house on the edge of the village where the poet Hugh Bancroft lived when he wasn’t in London. It is not nearly as grand as Grimwood Manor, but I note the evenness of the cobbles beneath my feet as we ascend the front path, and determine that it has been well cared for.
