AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Slowly, Charlotte crept towards the front door. The shop worker mumbled and scraped his shoes across the floorboards. He seemed clearly on the dividing line of wanting to rip her mother to shreds and please her.
Before he could answer, Charlotte stepped out of the fabric store and carefully closed the door behind her, so as not to alert either of them that she’d departed. The moment she clipped down the steps, she lifted her skirts and hustled towards the building where she’d met the mystic. Throughout her walk, her heart lifted into her throat and pounded a beat. What on earth would she demand of the mystic?
How did you know that my cousin would soon die?
What did you see when you told me that?
What am I meant to do with the information about his untimely death?
Can you see who his murderer was?
This last question perplexed and annoyed Charlotte. After all, wasn’t she meant to be far too intelligent for such thoughts? She was eternally pessimistic, an intellectual, a woman who couldn’t give any sort of stock to such things.
Still, despite the ferocity of Charlotte’s intellectualism, Charlotte appeared before the building where she, Margorie, and Louisa had rushed out only days, or perhaps a whole lifetime before. She rushed towards the door, lifted her knuckles, and rapped and rapped. The noise rattled through the building.
Charlotte blinked several times and allowed her hands to fall to her sides. It was then that she realized: each of the windows had thick boards drawn across them. The boards were nailed to the sides. There was an ominous, haunted quality to the place, affirmation that nobody lurked within. Not anymore.
Charlotte swept back and analyzed the building. Was it possible that she’d mistaken where the mystic had been in the first place? But no. Everything was the same, except for the sign in the front that had announced the mystic’s arrival.
Charlotte remembered Louisa’s affirmation that they’d better seek the mystic soon, as the mystic travelled across Europe, ever-moving, going where the wind took her. It was certainly possible that the mystic had moved to the next town, perhaps departing in the night, even.
Charlotte bit her bottom lip. For reasons she couldn’t fully comprehend, she felt terribly frightened—as though this was the final nail in the coffin, putting to rest her previous comprehension of the universe.
“How did you know?” Charlotte whispered to the wind. “I just need to know how.”
Nothing answered back. Charlotte recognized that she was too late. With a heavy sigh, she turned back towards the fabric shop. She lifted her skirts and hustled, trying to orchestrate some sort of alibi for herself, anything that would explain to her mother why she’d departed.
Just before she reached the fabric shop, she felt an ominous shadow behind her. She stopped short and spun around to find a man in a dark top-hat, watching her. His eyes were black as night. She held his gaze for a long moment before forcing herself around and hustling the rest of the way to the shop.
Why had that man filled her with such apprehension? He was only a man on a walk through town. It wasn’t as though it was outside of the bounds of reason for a man to stare at a woman, especially one who walked alone on the street. There were rules in place for such reasons. She was always meant to have a chaperone.
Still, his black eyes remained at the forefront of her mind for many minutes afterwards. They seemed to heed a warning. She couldn’t begin to comprehend why.
As she entered the fabric shop, she again heard her mother’s sharp-edged voice.
“Are you suggesting that I don’t have as much experience buying fabric?” she demanded.
“That’s not at all what I said,” the poor man returned. “In fact, you seem to have incredible knowledge.”
“Perhaps I should be the one to open a fabric shop,” her mother scoffed. “If I had to stoop to such lows, I know that I would be a much better-qualified owner than you.”
“I only suggested that you purchase this other variety, as I believe the style to be better fitting to your …”
“I’ve told you again and again, unsolicited advice has no power over me,” her mother returned. “I’ve chosen the fabric I require for mourning. As I’ve explained, my nephew was murdered, and it’s left to me to mourn appropriately so that I may live out the rest of my days in peace.”
Although the topic of conversation was assuredly dismal, Charlotte had to execute extreme focus to keep from laughing. Couldn’t her mother perceive how outrageous she sounded?
At this moment, her mother flashed around to discover Charlotte. “What do you think of this fabric, Charlotte?” she demanded, as though she thought that Charlotte had been behind her, listening in on the conversation throughout.
Charlotte walked forward and looked at this, a black stretch of fabric, one that seemed rather similar to all the others in the line.
“It’s a splendid choice,” Charlotte affirmed.
Her mother scrunched her nose at this. “You must be joking,” she said.
Charlotte recognized that she’d stepped out of line. She tilted her head and said, “Oh, yes. I thought you meant this other one …” She pointed vaguely towards another in the line.
“Good,” her mother returned. “I thought for a moment that I’d been remiss in your teachings.”
