Blood, Sweat and Tiers

by Nancy Warren

  “Every weekend we get to be back here feels like a dream,” Hamish said, following my gaze.

  I nodded solemnly. A dream I didn’t want to wake from.

  Florence took my arm, and when we’d gotten far enough to be out of earshot, she told us what “a dish” Martin was. “He used to be in the navy,” she said. “Imagine his levels of fitness. Why, I bet he could bench-press three hundred pounds.”

  I laughed. Florence’s enthusiasm was infectious. Not that I thought Martin was “a dish,” as she put it, but I liked how she always found something to compliment people about.

  But the peace was shattered by more gunshots echoing through the air. Florence almost jumped out of her skin, although I suspected that most of that was practice for the stage. Or the cameras, which I couldn’t forget would be trained on us for the next forty-eight hours. I gulped.

  I turned to look in the direction of where the awful sound still crackled in the air and spotted a beautiful bird of prey swoop through the air. I stopped in my tracks and raised a hand to my eyes, shielding against the glare of the sun, and let Hamish and Florence walk on. I squinted. Was that a hawk? The bird came closer, as if he could feel my eyes on him. Maybe I was acting crazy, but I could have sworn that it was the same hawk I’d seen in the tree by the Orangery last week. He was so majestic, and as he soared by my head, I caught sight of his plumage, the scattering of white on his rich brown body, the cinnamon-red of his tail. His beak was curved and sharp.

  Was this a good portent? I couldn’t be sure, but one thing I did know was that I was going to have to bake my witchy socks off this week. And if a sighting of a hawk might rouse the same kind of luck as my winning bake last week, well then, bring it on. I murmured a silent thank-you to the bird, wishing him well like I did my cakes as they went into the oven. I jogged to catch up with Hamish and Florence, who’d wandered on, oblivious to my moment with the hawk—which was probably for the best. What with ghosts and my familiar, Gateau, I had my work cut out for me not looking like I was talking to thin air.

  Chapter 2

  “Lunch, I think,” Florence said and Hamish agreed. As much as I’d have loved to languish all afternoon in the pub with those two, I had to get over to Susan Bentley’s farm. She’d messaged me Wednesday to say a small crop of strawberries in her back garden had come up trumps and would I be interested, which was music to my ears, of course. I was hoping she’d also have a few eggs from her happy hens to give my cake an extra helping hand. I told them to save me some food, and that I’d catch up with them later.

  I collected Gateau, who’d been napping in my room and was less than impressed at me rousing her from her kitten dreams, and we headed down the now familiar path to the farm.

  She trotted along by my side, every so often stopping to rub her little nose against the blooms spilling out from the flowerbeds on either side of the path. Each week I returned to Broomewode Village, it felt like a new type of flower had blossomed. Now that it was June, bright blue geraniums and beetroot-blotched oriental poppies had joined the beds of pink azaleas and yellow freesias. The multi-colored pansies I’d admired a couple of weeks ago were wilting a little now, but more puffy heads of alliums had sprung up around them. The crowd of foxgloves had grown, and their tender, lovely stems aroused mixed feelings in me. I remembered poor Eileen and her troublesome heart, how foxgloves could be used to both help and hinder angina. But I also recalled how my flower sketches for the garden magazine had been so well received. As a freelance graphic designer and illustrator, I hoped to have more jobs like that when my time in the competition came to an end.

  But as soon as I had the thought, I realized it was hard to imagine what life would look like after this competition was over––so much had changed. I knew I was a water witch, I had a coven of sisters, and I was getting closer to the mystery surrounding my birth parents. The words of the lullaby Valerie had sung in my vision by the lake still echoed in my mind. I know where I’m going/ And I know who’s going with me/ I know who I love/ And the dear knows who I’ll marry. Where would I be going? Would I stay in my lovely cottage, continuing my career as a graphic designer? Would the secrets of my past that I was hoping to uncover change the course of my future, too? I’d always felt something missing in my life, not knowing anything about who my parents were. I mean, who left a baby in an apple box outside a bakery? Like I was a delivery of baking supplies. At least I knew I wasn’t headed towards marriage—a husband was the last thing I needed to add to this messy equation.

  But enough ruminating, Pops, I told myself. I had ingredients to collect and cakes to bake, and that deserved all of my attention right now. I pushed on.

  CRAAAAAAAACK. Crack, crack, crack.

  Gunfire shot through the air. Birds scattered, and my ears rang. Gateau mewed, and I picked her up and stroked her soft black fur. “Never mind that nasty earl and his hunting,” I said to Gateau, who meowed back in agreement (or so I assumed). The gunshot was much louder than before; we must have gotten closer to the shooters. Gateau nuzzled into the crook of my arm, squashing her face into the sleeve of my linen shirt.

  “Over here,” a man’s voice boomed from behind a huge bayberry bush.

  “That must be the gamekeeper,” I whispered to Gateau.

  I went closer and peeked over the bush. Sure enough, the earl and the gamekeeper were bent over something on the ground. The body of some poor creature, no doubt. The earl lifted his head with the kind of delighted grin that made me realize I’d never seen a genuine smile from him before. He certainly looked pleased with himself.

  The gamekeeper straightened, and I got my first proper look at his face. Like the earl, he was dressed in weirdly formal-looking hunting tweeds with knee-high brown boots, though his were more worn and beaten than those that belonged to his boss. He was perhaps ten years younger, too, with a tuft of still-brown hair peeking out from beneath a flat cap. His face was stern and set, but there was a softness around his crinkly brown eyes, and his shoulders gently sloped so as to make him look permanently humble. Suddenly, an image of him as a father playing with a young child popped into my brain. The vision surprised me. It wasn’t the kind of thing I would have imagined thinking while looking at a man who was holding a shotgun. I shuddered. I hated guns, no matter what use they were being put to. I couldn’t stomach the violence.

  “Pick that up for me, Arthur,” the earl instructed.

  With a sigh, the gamekeeper picked up the dead bird, put it into a burlap bag, and then cocked his rifle so that it almost folded into two parts. I assumed the maneuver was the safety catch that Hamish had explained earlier so that you couldn’t fire the rifle accidentally while walking.

  “Aha, there’s another one!” Lord Frome called out. He lifted his shotgun, clicked the two pieces back in place and raised the gun. There was a moment’s silence, and I braced myself for the sound of gunfire, but then the earl lowered his weapon. “Little blighter was too fast. Next time.”

  The earl’s words, combined with the sight of the weapon, gave me a cold feeling in my belly, and I decided to give both men a wide berth and find an alternative route to the farm.

  Gateau jumped down from my arms, and we turned back the way we came. I spotted a little path that bordered the fields in the opposite direction I usually took. With any luck, it would bring me round to Susan’s farm from the other side.

  Gateau seemed more than happy to trot along, stopping every so often to poke her nose into the flowerbeds or to clean a paw. She was at home here, that was for sure, perhaps even more so than in my cottage in Norton St. Philip. For the first time, I seriously wondered what it might be like to leave my cottage and move to Broomewode Village. Would I be welcomed here? I’d spent so long making the Olde Bakery my home, painting the walls, filling it with furniture that suited its old beams and flagstone floor—I’d even managed to keep a few houseplants alive in its shady corners. And then there was Margaret, my irritable but adorable kitchen ghost. She’d seen me through da
ys and days of baking, had prompted me in the right direction when I needed a guiding hand. What would become of Margaret if she couldn’t have her daily chats with me? I watched as Gateau bounded ahead of me to chase a butterfly. If only she could talk and I could ask her advice.

  We turned a corner, and a cottage came into view. I hadn’t realized that anyone lived on this side of the grounds, but Broomewode Hall’s grounds were so big, I probably hadn’t explored half of the property. The cottage was adorable. It was wide and squat, the stone painted a pale cream, punctuated with little windows framed in black with lead piping crisscrossing the glass. A matching glossy black trim ran around the bottom of the cottage. I guessed it was a bungalow with rooms reaching farther back than I could see—a railroad structure, like my own cottage. It probably had a beautiful back garden. I closed my eyes for a moment, imagining blooming rose bushes—dusky pink and palest white. A huge deer antler was fixed over the front door, and I wondered whether this was the gamekeeper’s cottage.

  Muffled noises were coming from inside, which was strange considering the gamekeeper was out shooting. Perhaps my vision of him as a dad was true and he had a family. I stepped off the path onto the springy green lawn laid out like a halo around the cottage. I couldn’t see if any lights were on inside, but I definitely heard voices. Gateau came to my side and mewed up at me. “Let’s just take a quick look round the back,” I whispered. She cocked her little head to the side as if to say, Here we go again.

  I walked round the side of the cottage, and as I did, the muffled words became sharper and more distinct. “Sounds like someone’s having an argument,” I said to Gateau. I stopped by a side window. It was an argument all right, a nasty-sounding one, but the voices weren’t the soft Somerset accent I’d come to expect from Broomewode villagers. The voices were American, with the rich round tones of one of the Southern states. Strange as it was, the voices sounded familiar. Was someone inside in trouble? Did they need my help?

  “Now, now, Sue Ellen, just you get ahold of yourself,” a male voice said.

  Sue Ellen? I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle a giggle. Way to go, Pops. You’ve managed to reach new levels of silliness.

  I looked down at Gateau. “I don’t think the cast of Dallas needs my help right now,” I whispered, still laughing at myself. “Of course it was the TV. I’m the only American round here for miles.” Whoever was inside was in the midst of a Dallas rerun.

  But Gateau wasn’t paying attention. Something had caught her canny kitten eye, and she was off—running round the side of the cottage. Great, like I needed a wild cat chase right now.

  I had no choice but to follow her…right into grassland where she was chasing a baby grouse.

  Instead of the beautiful back garden I’d imagined, behind the cottage were acres of green grass and rolling hills. It was a grouse moor, and several young grouse were wandering around. It was the first time I’d ever seen the birds up close, and they were extremely cute. Elegant heads with a small curved beak, gorgeous reddish feathers with brown speckles, a pear-shaped body on top of little webbed feet. How anyone could shoot these sweethearts? Well, they had a colder heart than me.

  “Gateau,” I whispered, “leave that poor thing alone.” Gateau was skipping around a young grouse excitedly. Needless to say, my sweet familiar did not heed my words, but thankfully the mother grouse came and herded her young away from my kitten’s beady eyes.

  “Sorry,” I said to the mother grouse. “She just wants to play.”

  I scooped up my kitty and stood away from the birds so that they’d know we meant them no harm.

  “Let’s get out of here before someone comes out and yells at us for being on their property,” I said to Gateau, who let me know that she didn’t appreciate her fun being ruined by not even raising her head in reply.

  I rolled my eyes. If this is what motherhood was like, then it could definitely wait a few more years.

  Back on the path, I put Gateau down and picked up my pace, looking forward to seeing Susan and catching up on the week’s gossip. The sun emerged from behind a cloud, and the sudden warmth suffused my body. I rolled back the sleeves of my white linen shirt and readjusted the amethyst necklace Elspeth had given me. I touched the cool purple stone and felt thankful for its protection. We continued along the path, and I let my thoughts drift away from cakes and cottages and became absorbed in the nature around me.

  I’d been walking in a half daze for about ten minutes when I realized I wasn’t alone. Up ahead, a small group of people were gathered by the side of the woodland, several of them pointing at a tree. I stopped to take a closer look. The group looked to be an even split of men and women, all in various shades of beige and khaki, clothed in calico trousers and bucket hats. Several were clutching binoculars.

  “Bird-watchers,” I said to Gateau, who looked at me as if to say, Yeah, tell me something I don’t know. I continued toward them and called out, “Hello.” With perfect synchronicity, they all turned towards me, with the exception of one woman who was writing furiously in a notebook. Now that I was closer, they all seemed to be of retirement age, and they regarded me (and Gateau) with suspicion. “Lovely afternoon, isn’t it?” I said cheerfully.

  The woman with the notebook stopped writing and raised her head. “Not if you’re a crow or a raven or even a magpie, it’s not.”

  I stared at her for a moment, grasping for the right kind of response to her remark. She held my gaze, her gray eyes alert and inquiring. Despite the warm weather, she was wearing a fleece vest and a pair of expensive-looking binoculars hung about her neck. She was tall, perhaps almost six feet, with silver hair set in a manageable bob tucked behind her ears. She was still waiting for me to acknowledge her comment.

  “Indeed,” I managed to say, and with that, the group nodded in unison and turned their attention back to the tree.

  I followed their gaze and saw two birds on a branch, seemingly in conversation with one another.

  “It’s a blackcap,” the old woman said, looking at me with a hint of a smile playing about her lips. “Lovely, aren’t they?”

  “I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed one before,” I confessed.

  “You can easily identify them by their distinctive cap. This one on the right is a male. You can tell by his black cap, and he’s talking to a lady—her cap is chestnut brown. Both have the same thin, dark-colored beaks and brownish-gray wings. A similar size to a robin, weighing in at around twenty-one grams.”

  Her tone was soft and kind, completely different from her earlier sharp comment. And hearing the loving way she spoke about the birds brought a smile to my face. There was nothing nicer than listening to someone speak about the things they felt passionate about. I watched the birds as they tweeted at each other.

  “Marlene, we’d better push on,” a man said.

  Marlene. That was a nice name. I said goodbye and took the path away from the woodland towards the farm.

  Before long, I turned off the woodchip path and onto Susan’s long stone driveway, and soon the huge barn with its curved roof and the Somerset stone of the farmhouse came into view. As always, the fragrant, earthy scent of the herb garden filled my nostrils, and as I turned to Gateau to remark on its gorgeousness, I saw that she’d disappeared, which could only mean one thing. And there he was!

  Sly’s red ball rolled towards my feet, and I giggled as his mass of black and white fur bounded over. Always happy to oblige, I picked up the slobbery ball and threw it as far as I could along the path. It soared into the sky. “Wow, I’m getting good at that,” I said to Sly’s fluffy behind as he galloped after the red blur. As I watched its trajectory, I spotted the now-familiar silhouette of a hawk as it glided along the treetops. Could it really be the same one as earlier? And if so, was it trying to tell me something? I should have asked the bird-watchers if they’d seen a hawk, or a flock of hawks, and what drew them to certain areas.

  I probably would have gotten lost in hawkish thoughts, but th
ankfully Sly brought back his ball for another throw. And I obliged, of course.

  “Hello there, Poppy,” Susan called, leaning out of the window of her kitchen.

  I waved and said I’d be inside as soon as I’d sated Sly’s ball obsession. She laughed and said in that case, she’d see me next week.

  I threw the ball a couple more times and then promised we could play more later. Sly seemed to understand and followed as I went round to the side door and into the kitchen.

  Susan stood by the stove, pouring a kettle of boiling water into a teapot. She was wearing a pair of navy-blue jodhpurs and a matching oversize tank top with a few stray stems of green stuck to the hem.

  “Hello, Poppy. I thought I’d treat you to some dandelion tea,” she said, smiling.

  Hmmm, I wasn’t so sure that was a treat, but I accepted a cup and saucer and followed Susan’s command to sit at the kitchen table.

  “It’s an ancient recipe,” she said. “Packed full of iron. Very healing. And it’ll keep your strength up, too. This batch is from the garden, of course. It’s made from the flower petals, so it’s sweet and delicate.”

  I blew across the liquid’s hot surface and took a hesitant sip. But Susan was right. It was sweet and a little earthy with a slight medicinal quality that was actually quite nice. I told her as much, and she laughed that throaty chuckle of hers. She settled in the chair opposite me, and Sly went and sat by her feet. She tickled behind his ear, and he flopped his head onto her feet.

  I asked Susan about her week, and she talked about the pressures of the farm but that she was happy to be busy. Reg had been over in the week, and she’d cooked a new recipe: venison stew with dumplings. “It was lovely with the bottle of Barolo he brought.” She flushed a little at the memory. “He keeps a little cellar, and he exchanges vintages with the earl sometimes.”