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Six a.m.
So Elijah was either an extreme night owl or an early riser. Interesting.
“Lozen,” she said, rocking her friend by the shoulder. “Wake up, we have stuff to do.”
“Like what,” Lozen mumbled.
“Like, we have to go to that herb store downtown.”
“Hrmmm,” Lozen groaned, then sat straight up, remembering everything. “Ok, ok, let me take a shower.”
After they’d showered and dressed, Saber drove them downtown to the coffee shop where they both got croissants and coffee. Then, they headed to the little store in town, called Thistletree, to buy some of the herbs and things they’d read about in their books.
When they stopped at an intersection downtown, they saw a funeral procession leaving an old, white church with a quaint little bell tower, black cars rolling out of the parking lot into the street, followed by a hearse and the police escort.
“Laurel,” Lozen said. “She’s going to be buried at Seabold.”
“How do you know it’s hers?”
“I saw the announcement in the paper.”
“Gives me the creeps,” Saber said, shaking herself. “I don’t want to think about Laurel today. Let’s go get some vampire repellent.”
Thistletree sold crystals, health food, and had a wall of bulk herbs and spices. Saber had wandered in once and had been a little bit intimidated by the huge list of unrecognizable products.
Now, she had a list.
The girl sitting behind the counter was blond, willowy, and wore glasses that amplified her already round blue eyes.She reminded Saber vaguely of Elijah, who had the same big-eyes-behind-glasses look.
“Let me know if I can help you,” she said, her voice a little dreamy and distant.
“Yeah, actually, we’re buying some bulk herbs,” Lozen said, and the girl smiled a passive smile and slid off the stool she’d been perched on.
“What can I get for you?” the girl said, tossing back her densely curly, silvery-blond hair. It seemed to move and float around her.
Saber noticed she was wearing a long, black dress that looked like it was made of silk.
“Blue cohosh,” Lozen said. “Four ounces.”
“You got it,” the girl said. “Excellent herb for soothing period aches.Reallymakes thebloodflow.”
She slipped a large glass jar from the shelf on the wall behind her and, with what Saber noticed was a surprising silence, used a silver scoop to fill a small brown paper bag.
“Horehound, another four ounces,” Lozen said, and the girl nodded again.
“Nice, calming herb,” she said. “Ancient application, great in tea.”
“Yeah, that’s what we’re hoping for,” Saber said, and the girl put it in another paper bag for them, moving in her strange, silent way.
“Hyssop, four ounces,” Lozen said, and the girl looked up at them, pausing.
Saber thought it was odd she didn’t say anything. She moved to get the herb, but a cool hesitation filled the room.
“Ok,” Lozen said, taking the third bag, “now all we need is tansy flower.”
The girl had been turned to the jars, waiting for the next request, but her hand paused in the air. She gradually lowered it, and turned to them so slowly that there was something haunting, unsettling about her. She had changed in some imperceptible way, and the whole room seemed colder. Her body was tense, and her blue eyes, which had been dreamy and distant, were now alive, intense, and focused on them with a steely, vivid seriousness.
“We don’t sell that here,” she said. “But I know where to find it.”
