Murder for Tea

by Vered Ehsani

  Lilly had mentioned the formation of the women’s club to me and had the audacity to suggest we might apply for membership together. For my part, I had absolutely no interest and even less motivation to join what was certain to be a gossipy group of female colonialists. I could imagine them gathering together to discuss the most recent scandal and the latest fashion, both of which were useless topics of conversation.

  Despite my disinterest, I was now a business woman and couldn’t very well alienate potential customers. Therefore, I pretended ignorance which is a remarkably useful tool to use in socially awkward situations.

  “No, I haven’t,” I lied.

  “I’ve found the League to be an immense source of support and encouragement,” Mrs. Bent enthused. “You might find it equally so, especially given the strain you must be enduring, what with your husband’s current circumstances.”

  Her glance was both pitying and calculating. By her countenance and her words, I understood the East African Ladies League had discussed Simon’s arrest at great length, confirming my original prejudice against joining the group.

  “It sounds fascinating,” I said. “Remember, one mustn’t overheat the tea leaves. Merely toss them into boiled but not boiling water and remove them after no more than three minutes. Tea leaves must be stored in a cool, dry, dark location with limited exposure to air.”

  Thus distracted, Mrs. Bent didn’t pursue my membership, although I feared it was only a matter of time before the League confronted me and forced my hand.

  A distant rumble of thunder indicated an approaching storm. A light drizzle pattered against the front window and soothed down the dust from a passing wagon. The bell above the entranceway tinkled to announce the arrival of another customer who opened the door wide enough to allow a damp draft to brush my face.

  “We’re closed,” I muttered, marveling I’d ever imagined myself fit to run a store in which I was required to engage with humans on an almost constant basis. My temperament preferred more solitary pursuits such as reading, archery and hunting down rogue paranormals.

  “Good evening,” a silky voice warmed up the air.

  Misgivings tainted my sigh. Shaking away the effect of his Charm-infused words, I turned to face the African vampire. “Yao, what a pleasure.”

  I eyed the Adze. Far too much of his dark skin was visible as he wore a leather skirt and nothing else. His well-muscled and scantily clothed form would have drawn more than one scandalized expression if he had arrived earlier in the day when the shop had been crowded. As it was, Mrs. Bent’s eyes widened at the vision before her.

  Even in the rapidly dimming light, Yao’s smile was bright. “Miss Knight.”

  I sighed again as Mrs. Bent raised her eyebrows at Yao’s use of my former name. It didn’t matter a jot or tittle to him that I was now Mrs. Timmons. For him, titles and last names were nonsensical, as perhaps they were.

  Not so for Mrs. Bent, who glanced at me expectantly. Forcing a wide smile, I handed her parcel to her and wished her well. Miffed at my unwillingness to reprimand Yao, Mrs. Bent commented, “We mustn’t allow them such liberties, Mrs. Timmons. Or else what will happen next?”

  “You’re quite right, Mrs. Bent,” I said, pretending to think on the matter with the seriousness it didn’t deserve. “They might actually believe they are our equals, and then where will the world be?”

  “Indeed,” she replied with a hint of uncertainty, as if she suspected me of flippancy. Abandoning her efforts to educate me, she hastily departed.

  Yao grinned and inclined his head before turning the full force of his attention on my assistant. He breathed out her name in a longing sigh. Wanjiru had the decency to blush and occupied herself with wiping down one of the tables situated in a corner of the shop.

  His gaze remaining fixed upon his beloved, Yao said, “Miss Knight, Yao wishes to walk with Wanjiru to her home.”

  I glanced at Wanjiru who was applying herself to removing invisible stains from the table. She’d been cleaning the same spot of the table ever since Yao had entered. Perhaps sensing our gazes, she glanced up, her closely cut hair framing her sweet face.

  How could I say no to the giggling innocence of untainted admiration which the two clearly shared?

  “If it pleases her, Yao, she may go.”

  As I waved to emphasize my consent, Yao leaped and pirouetted around the shop, an indication he was spending far too much time with Gideon.

  “She’s to be home before sunset,” I admonished the Adze. “Or before the storm arrives, whichever comes first.”

  “Yes, Miss Knight, you are correct. Rain is water, and water is dreadful,” he said with utmost earnestness, pausing in his celebratory dance to bow in my direction. “And Yao would never allow Wanjiru to wander at night. All those nasty mosquitos would try to bite her.”

  The irony of a vampire complaining about mosquitos was lost on him, and I didn’t have the heart to disturb their happy reunion. Shortly after they left, more thunder echoed across the sky, and another smattering of rain flowed over the town.

  Grateful there were no customers in sight, I locked the front door of the shop, preparing to go home and hoping Jonas had lit a fire in the sitting room and set a kettle on the stove. As I reached under the counter for my leather trench coat, my fingers brushed a rectangular shape: Prof. Runal’s gift.

  My features hardened as images from last night’s dream flashed through my mind. Pushing them away, I instead visualized what I would do with the gift. While it was a sorry replacement for the werewolf himself, at least I could vent my ire on something without fear of my vengeance landing me in a prison cell.

  Yanking the gift up, I slapped it onto the counter and glared at it. Not surprisingly, the brown paper wrapping didn’t self-combust.

  “The nerve,” I muttered and tugged on my coat, my gaze fixed upon the gift. I resolved there and then to toss the offensive item into the stove’s fire the moment I arrived home.

  A clap of lightning and a roll of thunder announced the storm. The gentle patter shifted into a deluge, transforming the air into a solid wall of water in front of the store windows. I sniffed in the scents of ozone, rich soil and dampness.

  “Blast it,” I complained and glanced behind me into the small kitchen. While the coals no longer glowed fiercely, the kettle sitting atop of them still had a wisp of steam drifting out of its funnel.

  There was nothing to do but make a fresh pot of tea and wait out the worst of the storm. Tapping my fingers against the counter, I wondered how Wanjiru and Yao were faring. No doubt the quick Adze had whisked her into some form of shelter. He detested being wet. My restless gaze drifted away from the storm and to the gift.

  “I wonder what you are,” a treacherous part of me voiced its curiosity.

  Scowling, I prepared a cup of tea, snatched the parcel and stomped to the small table closest to the counter. I lit a candle as the gloom of dusk entered the shop, shadows pooling in every available space. Only after I’d sunk into the chair did I recall that it was the same chair the dead bride had occupied.

  Repressing an urge to growl at the inconveniences under which I suffered, I ripped off the brown paper wrapping. A slip of paper fell out, its pale surface glowing against the dark pink rose pattern of the tablecloth. Scrawled across the note was a message: This belongs to you. May it serve you well. Prof R.

  “Hm,” I huffed, not impressed at all but wondering how anything from the treacherous werewolf could serve me.

  Resting in my hands was a leather-bound journal, the edges of its thick, cream pages crinkling with age. I flipped open the cover and stared at the name penned neatly in one corner of the first page.

  “That…” I struggled to find a word to convey my disgust without resorting to profanity. As I failed to do so, I allowed myself just this once to utter in the privacy of my empty shop my truest, darkest thoughts regarding Prof. Runal. “That bloody, treacherous dog.”

  My hands shook as I traced the name with one
finger: Penelope Smithton.

  This journal had belonged to my mother before she’d married and become Mrs. Anderson, before she’d turned her back on the paranormal world and renounced her profession. She’d married Mr. Anderson to save me the humiliation of being born fatherless, and then had died trying to protect me, leaving me only an engraved metal teapot and a handful of scattered memories. And the Director of the Society had had her journal all this time.

  I was in such a dither I couldn’t remain seated. Such was my state that I paced the confines of the shop, staring out into the rain without seeing it or the blurry outline of the buildings on the opposite side of the road. A part of my mind registered the puddles which were forming along the road’s surface; in the morning, the plodding hooves of the oxen and the heavy wheels of overloaded wagons would churn the road into a mud pit. For now, there was only the silver sheen from sheets of water that blurred the scene into a dream.

  “Why now,” I demanded the shelves of tea sets. “Why now after all this time? There must be a reason. The sly dog always has one.”

  Perhaps sensing my agitation, Shelby reached up and patted my chin before resuming her nap. Returning to the table, I slurped at the tea, not tasting it. The candle’s flame flickered before my gaze, its circle of light extending only to the edge of the table.

  “Blast it,” I cursed and resumed my seat. I flicked to the next page, momentarily bewildered at the title: Exercises in Meditation.

  A glance at the next few pages revealed detailed descriptions in my mother’s flowing penmanship of the various forms of meditation. This was followed by an explanation of the important uses of various spices in potions and lotions.

  I continued flipping through the pages, glancing at titles that became more outlandish with every chapter. Some pages contained recipes the like of which could never be found in any cookbook known to man or woman. Others were reflections around experiments with one or another of the recipes.

  An entire section devoted to energy reading particularly fascinated me. She had discovered ways in which to deepen her view of a living creature’s energy field. More impressive still, she could view traces of energy after a person had left the area, much the way a hunter could find and study the tracks of an animal.

  While the script was neat and tidy, some pages had comments squeezed around the margins, as if on hindsight she realized she had neglected an important element in her initial description. Toward the end of the journal, entries appeared which read more like a diary than a summary of a lifetime’s accumulation of powerful recipes.

  Unsure if I should read Mother’s private reminiscing, I glanced up. The darkness of the storm had conspired with the dusk to create a preternatural night. Thick columns of water lashed at the earth as a heavy wind gusted to and fro. A wagon crept along the muddy road, the heads of the two oxen bent low as they struggled against the forces buffeting them; the driver’s urgent cry was barely audible, the oil lamp swinging from a pole the only point of light outside, its weak glow illuminating the man’s tired features.

  The ferocity of the storm called to mind Kam, the God of Lightning. His arrival usually portended trouble involving near-death situations. As long as he remained with his fellow storm spirits amongst the clouds, we were safe. As I mulled over my misadventures with Kam, the rain eased up while the earth and air breathed in the momentary pause. Knowing this would be the only opportunity I would have for the next few hours to arrive home only damp instead of drenched, I blew out the candle.

  Slipping the journal into an inner pocket of my trench coat, I pulled the coat tightly around me and exited through the backdoor. An overhang provided shelter against the slackening downpour. Nelly was leaning against the wall asleep and utterly oblivious to the mud forming around her hooves. In the pause between one onslaught of rain and the next, a column of flying ants arose from the ground. The termites twirled up toward the light of the moon, a living vortex of silvery, lacy wings, the fluttering of their movement audible in the wet silence of the night.

  Sheet lightning lit up the horizon, momentarily blinding me. I breathed in the sharp scent of ozone mingled with the perfume of damp grass and night flowers. My fingers stroked Shelby’s head and then tapped over the pocket, the edge of the journal protruding slightly under my touch. Her words were inside, one of my few connections to a woman who died before I could truly know her.

  Nelly snorted, sensing my presence even through her slumber. I swung up into the saddle, my previous hesitation at intruding on another’s privacy dissolving before a new resolve: I would read my mother’s journal.

  Chapter Sixteen

  MY PLAN TO read my mother’s journal from cover to cover was derailed by a rather startling bit of news.

  Simon was pacing before the fire in our sitting room, his indoor shoes slapping against the brown slab stones with the precision of a metronome. His hands were clutched behind him, a slip of yellow paper visible through his fingers.

  At the instant I detected the yellow, my heart stuttered. It was a telegram. No good news ever arrived by that means, or at least that had been my experience. This was to be no exception.

  “Simon,” I whispered, dropping my damp trench coat on the stone floor with a wet splat. I carefully lowered Shelby’s leather sachet onto the sofa and hastened to Simon’s side.

  Without preamble and his fierce gaze fixed rigidly before him, he said, “They’re proceeding with the trial, and it’s being conducted in London. Here is my summons. I’m to board the next ship out.”

  I stood before him and lay my hands on his broad chest. “It can’t be.”

  Wordlessly, he handed me the infernal slip of paper, its thinness belying the heaviness of the words it contained. Simon remained before me, his hands by his sides, his head lowered as if he’d already abandoned hope.

  My lips moved as I read the message.

  “You can’t go, of course,” I said, my breathing labored as I glared at the telegram. “We’ll run away. Koki can help us. She knows the entire continent. They’ll never—”

  His hand stroked my cheek and slipped under my chin to raise my face to his. “I’m going, Beatrice,” he said.

  I could feel my chin tremble against his fingers and I jerked my head away. “How could you?” I demanded, my voice rising as the fire spluttered. Wind whistled over the chimney, and the rain pummeled the clay tiles of the cottage, its ferocity intensifying with my every breath.

  Not intimidated by my yellow glare, Simon pulled me into his embrace. The warm spice of his cologne mingled with the herb-scented soap with which he’d bathed and the sweetness of his wool sweater. The ozone-tinged, fresh green smells of the storm lingered on the edges of my awareness, a reminder of the wildness of the land in which we resided.

  “I won’t live as a fugitive,” he murmured, his voice rumbling along with the thunder. “Nor will I subject you to such a life. And what of the constables’ suspicions? What will they think if we were to disappear? That we’re both guilty.”

  While I wanted nothing more than to protest his irrefutable logic, I couldn’t. Twisting his sweater between my fingers, I willed myself not to snivel. “Then we’d best start packing. The next ship should arrive in a day or two, and—”

  Again he interrupted me. “I’m going alone.”

  Pushing myself away, I stared up at his face, aghast at the serious intent I discerned there. “What do you mean by saying such nonsense?” I demanded.

  His shoulders slumped as he sighed. “I don’t want you to see me—”

  The harsh slap of skin against skin caused both of us to pause in amazement. I pulled back my hand, more astounded than he that I’d performed such an act. The imprint of my hand was clear on his cheek.

  Unfazed, he tilted his head down and slightly to the side, studying me, his lips quirking in something bordering amusement although there was no humor in his eyes.

  “You insufferable man,” I yelled and spun away.

  I’d taken no mo
re than a half-dozen steps from him when the enormity of what was to transpire truly hit me. Gulping back a sob and grimacing at the jagged sensation in my throat, I swiveled about and ran into his arms.

  “Please don’t go alone,” I begged. “Or better yet, don’t go at all. You’re an identity thief, for heaven’s sake. Absorb someone’s energy. Take on his identity. We can travel to Asia, to America, anywhere. No one will know it’s you.”

  Tugging my hair out of its bun and stroking it as it fell down my back, he whispered, “I will know. I swore I wouldn’t do that again, Beatrice. My identity-absorbing power landed me into this mess in the first place. I will live life as myself, not as someone else. And I won’t run away with another person’s face over my own.”

  “A pox on you and your honor,” I said, breathing him in as I tried to put to memory all the subtle details of his scent. “Please let me come with you.”

  Exhaling heavily, he pulled me closer. “No, my love. If you come, you won’t be allowed to see me except through bars, if at all. And then what will you do apart from finding some new trouble? We have no friends or family there, Beatrice. You’ll be vulnerable to the Society if they should decide to take advantage of the situation. And I’ll not know until it’s too late. Here we have people who love you and will care for you. For my sake, stay. Please stay.”

  I didn’t realize I was crying until I lifted my head and noticed a dampness on the wool sweater. I wiped the tears off my cheeks, angry at them, at him, at myself. Grabbing his face in my hands, I said, “Promise me you’ll come home.”

  “I promise.”

  “And if the verdict is not in your favor,” I continued, my voice feverish in pitch, “promise me you’ll use whatever means at your disposal to escape and return here. Even if it means assuming a new identity.”

  When he hesitated, I tightened my grip. “Promise me, or I’ll take matters into my own hands.”

  His smirk didn’t lighten the despondency in his eyes. Kissing my forehead, he spoke against my skin, “Well, we can’t have that, now can we?”