“What about Aiden?” Bryony said.
Sky plucked at the lush purple tablecloth. “He can entertain himself for a while. He doesn’t need me around every minute of the day.”
“Are you sure about that?”
The words were out of Bryony’s mouth before she even realized she’d been thinking them.
Sky’s face drained of all color. She sagged in her seat, looking as fragile and delicate as a kitten. Bryony bit her tongue until she could taste blood. Why did she have to be so destructive?
“Look,” Bryony said, attempting to soothe the pain she’d inadvertently caused. “I’ve got it covered at Posies, okay? You just look after Boiled and Brewed.”
That wasn’t the answer Sky had hoped for. Hazel set her cup down in its saucer with a resounding clank and a sharp look at Bryony.
“But…” Sky said. “I always help with Samhain. It’s our tradition.”
“Well, now you can have time to make some new traditions with Aiden.”
Sky pulled her sleeves down over her hands and looked up at Bryony.
“Are you mad at me, Bryony?” she said quietly.
“What?” Bryony said. “Why would I be mad at you?”
“Because I’m not around as much as I used to be. Because I keep putting off helping out with Samhain. Because I’m…dating Aiden,” she added so softly that Bryony almost missed it.
“I just said I was happy for you—“
“Well you’re not acting like it,” Sky cut in, harsher than Bryony had ever heard Sky speak before. “So don’t say that you’re happy for me when you’re clearly not.”
Bryony huffed. “I have to go.”
“But—“
“Can we talk about this later? I told Mom I’d be back in an hour and I’m already running late. So…I’ll see you later.”
Bryony pushed out the door of The Eye of Newt, leaving Sky and Hazel at the table, watching her go. She couldn’t help the nagging feeling that she had just lost something very precious and she would never get it back.
CHAPTER NINE
Bryony dragged herself up the porch, hooked her broom on the rack by the door. Shouts and the clatter of children racing through the house echoed out to her where she lingered on the steps, not quite composed enough to face the chaos of the household.
She felt raw. Empty. And it was hard to breathe past the guilt crushing her lungs.
She should have turned right around and apologized to Sky for behaving like a spoiled brat. But another part of her, a nasty little voice inside her head, said Sky deserved it. Just because she had a boyfriend didn’t mean she should ignore her friends.
“Is everything okay?”
Bryony whirled around at that voice. Sean stood at the corner of the house that led downhill to the orchards, pumpkin patch, greenhouses, and various other gardens. He wore a flannel button up shirt, the sleeves rolled back to his elbows to reveal a white long-john shirt underneath. He looked…warm. Soft. His hair wasn’t slicked back into the neat undercut like it normally was. Instead, he’d left it to the wind and the dampness of the morning mist, allowing it to flop over his forehead.
She hated how it made her fingers itch to brush it out of his eyes. She hated how huggable he looked. She hated how any of these thoughts were in her head for no reason at all.
“I thought you’d be in the house by now,” Bryony said.
Sean shrugged. “I was. But Basil and I were practicing some levitation outside where it would make less of a mess. He’s getting pretty good at it. He likes to practice much more than I ever did when I was in school though.”
Bryony nodded absently, not really in the mood for small talk. She was still stinging from the exchange with Sky over breakfast.
“So,” Bryony said. “Have you taken the name of Torres yet?”
For a split second, Sean startled. His eyes widened and he blinked. Once. Twice. No comeback. Confusion crossed his face, followed by a flicker of panic.
Then the comeback began to take shape. Bryony could see it play out, the old sarcasm returning in full force as his mouth tipped up at the corner.
“Is that a proposal?” he said. “Do you want a fall wedding with an autumnal dress of red and gold? Plenty of pumpkin spice cake to go around?”
“Very funny.”
Sean stuffed his hands in his pockets, shoulders hitched up toward his ears in a shameless shrug.
“You’ll have to give me more to go on than that,” he said. “I haven’t had any caffeine this morning and it seems your brain has already taken off sprinting down the road. So throw me a bone here. Have a little mercy. I know you’ve got it in you somewhere.”
“Last night,” Bryony said. “At dinner. You replaced me. Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Actually, no, I didn’t. I mean, your family is great and all. But the last thing I wanted to do was boot you out. Besides, don’t pin that on me. It wasn’t my fault.”
“You didn’t exactly look uncomfortable,” Bryony pointed out.
Sean scuffed his boot along the ground. “Yeah, well, I guess I’ve always been able to hide my feelings pretty good. I felt bad about it, okay? I still do. I tried to make room for you. But your mother wasn’t having any of it. Said I was a guest for dinner, not an employee.”
Sean quickly put out a hand in a staying motion.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “Naomi is a wonderful woman. She’s very kind and generous. But I’m here to work and she’s treating me like…like…”
“Royalty?” Bryony offered, one eyebrow arched.
Sean blew out a breath. “Yes. It’s…a little weird.”
She huffed a dry laugh. “Well, would you look at that.”
He frowned. “What?”
“We agree on something.”
A tentative, hopeful smile blossomed lush autumn red across Sean’s face.
Oh, that’s not good, Bryony thought. She did not intend to encourage him or smooth things over with him.
“Anyway,” she said. “Mom is treating you that way because she likes you. A few of the kids do, too.”
“A few?”
“Not all of them,” Bryony said, reveling in how delicious it felt to bring his pride down a notch or two with that brutal revelation.
“Well, I’ll keep winning them over with my charming ways, then,” he said.
Bryony snorted.
“I’m flattered, by the way,” Sean added. “That your mom likes me. And some of your siblings do, too.”
“I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”
“I know,” he replied brightly.
Bryony squinted at him, fully prepared to ask him straight out: what the hell is wrong with you?
Instead, she shook her head and gestured to the gardens.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go. We’ve got work to do. Another full day ahead of us.”
“Right. What’s on the agenda?”
“Mushrooms.”
“Hunting?”
“No,” Bryony said, working her way down the hill, leaves crunching beneath her boots, the grass slippery with morning dew. “I mean, some of the kids do that on Samhain. But we’re not doing that.”
She led him to the mushroom patch that skirted the edge of the woods. There were wild mushrooms deeper into the forest and they were always far more potent for magical use than cultivated varieties were. But it was harder to satisfy a base of customers who might need any species of mushroom at any given time for magical use.
So there were rows of hybrid mushrooms nestled closest to the forest – golden flutes of chantarelles, round pale button mushrooms, dusky brown morels.
“Half of the patch needs harvesting,” Bryony said, indicating the clusters of mushrooms huddled together, overcrowded, fat, and ripe for the picking. “The other half needs growing.”
She gestured to the other side of the patch where measly, wimpy mushrooms remained crouched low to the ground, closed up and small.
“Where do yo
u want me?” Sean said.
“Harvesting,” Bryony said. “Over there.”
She pointed to the far end of the patch.
“And I’ll handle the growing.”
That would put them as far apart as they could possibly get, given the circumstances.
Sean got to work right away, digging up handfuls of mushrooms in rich browns, pale whites, and golden colors. He grabbed a dark brown wicker basket from the stack next to the mushroom patch and began filling it up.
Even though Bryony’s hands weren’t in the dirt – she grew by wand and magic to cover more ground – she could still smell the dirt and the surrounding trees, the decomposing leaves that signaled autumn was in full swing.
It helped a little to ease the tension between her shoulders, to clear her mind from the horrible conversation over breakfast. She always felt at home among the plants, listening to the wind in the trees overhead, catching the faint rustle of a mouse in the leaves nearby.
“Hey,” Sean said after a minute or two. “Can I ask you something?”
Bryony sighed. It seemed her plan for a quiet afternoon apart from each other wouldn’t pan out after all.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” she said.
Sean fell silent. Bryony risked a quick glance over at him but he didn’t seem upset or even mildly put out. He was even…humming a little.
Yeah, well, I guess I’ve always been able to hide my feelings pretty good.
Was he hiding his feelings now? Or was that just another quip he mouthed off?
As the silence progressed, guilt began to chew a hole through Bryony’s chest. She had been too harsh on Sky and now she was being too harsh toward Sean. No wonder people didn’t want her around. She was rude and cold and bitter. Maybe she needed to try and be relatively nice for a chance.
“Fine,” Bryony relented at last. “What is it?”
Sean glanced up. He scrubbed the back of his hand along his cheek, leaving a smudge of dirt behind. Bryony’s fingers twitched to brush it away and she came within a breath of speaking but she bit back the words at the last minute. It was just dirt. He could wash his face later.
“Do you think we could…start over?” Sean said.
Bryony blinked in surprise. Of all the things he could have asked, that wasn’t what she had expected.
“What?” she said. “What do you mean?”
“You know. Clean slate.”
Bryony’s hands went still, wand suspended in midair. Mushrooms trembled, waiting to grow ever taller as soon as she commanded it. Then her magic withered as heat flared in her gut at Sean’s request. The mushrooms crumpled in on themselves, hiding from her wrath, taking refuge in the damp darkness of the earth.
“That would be a waste of time, don’t you think?” Bryony said in a deceptively level and calm voice when her stomach was boiling and churning like a cauldron.
Sean shrugged. “I mean, we never know until we give it a try, right?”
“Sean. Considering how much history we’ve attempted to chuck under the rug in the past, pretending like it never happened might not be the best course of action. As it is, we seem to keep tripping over ourselves.”
“You mean,” Sean said slowly. “That your grudge against me is too strong to let go of. In short, you enjoy hating me.”
“Exactly. Glad we could see eye to eye on the matter.”
Sean huffed a laugh and shook his head. “You’ve always been brutally honest. I admire that about you. It takes guts to just say it like you mean it. Not many people do that.”
Bryony was struck silent. Sean returned his attention to harvesting the mushrooms and seemed to accept her refusal without so much as batting an eye or showing a hint of disappointment that he didn’t get what he wanted.
I admire that about you.
It baffled her that Sean O’Hara had let those words come out of his mouth. He had never admired anything about her before.
In the past, he had mocked her chubby cheeks. He had peered into her face and laughed at the uneven, thick freckles that marched across her nose, unceremoniously dubbing them, “old banana spots”.
No. This was wrong. He couldn’t be telling the truth.
“Are you laughing at me?” Bryony said.
Sean looked up, eyebrows raised. “Why would I be?”
Bryony snorted. “Because it’s like a hobby for you, remember?”
His shoulders drooped and his hands came to rest atop his thighs, smearing dirt on his clean, crisp blue jeans.
“Bryony, I—”
“Can we just work, please?” Bryony said. “That’s what we’re paying you for. Not talking.”
“Sure,” Sean said softly.
For the rest of the afternoon, Bryony and Sean harvested mushrooms in silence and neither of them even looked at each other. By dinner time, Sean didn’t wait for an invitation to stay. He levitated the baskets of harvested mushrooms—thirty-five in all—and set them on the porch.
Seline came careening out of the house, sliding on the slick grass in her bare feet. It was too cold to go without shoes but Seline always refused to wear anything on her feet until the snow began to fly.
“Sean! Sean!” she chirped. She flung her arms around his waist and craned her head back to look up at him with a wide smile. “You’re going to stay for dinner again, right?”
Sean cast a careful glance in Bryony’s direction, looking for approval or denial. Either way, she wouldn’t give him anything. She turned away, her back to him. Let him dig his own grave if that was what he wanted.
Sean peeled Seline’s arms off of him. He kissed the back of her hand and she giggled.
“I’m afraid not today, m’lady Seline,” he said. “Maybe another time. I have to head home.”
Seline’s eyes darkened with disappointment. A pang of guilt thumped in Bryony’s chest like a broken rib. Her family liked Sean, whether she did or not. She should have felt relief that he wouldn’t be at dinner. Instead, the weight of regret was suffocating.
“Are you leaving because you don’t like us?” Seline whispered.
Sean frowned. “What? Why would you say that?”
Seline ducked her head, digging her toes into the dirt in silence. Sean took a deep breath and slowly released it as he crouched down in front of her and tilted her chin up.
“You’re not the reason I’m leaving,” he said. “I would love to have dinner with you and your family again. But…”
He trailed off and Bryony strained her ears to hear what he would say. Would he pin it on her as he rightly should? Would he tell Seline that Bryony didn’t want him around any longer than she had to suffer his presence? Seline would hate Bryony for it. But it was the truth and Bryony would handle it.
“My own mum is waiting for me at home,” Sean said. “To have dinner with her. She doesn’t have a big family like you do. If I’m not there, she’ll eat alone.”
“Oh,” Seline said with an understanding nod. “I wouldn’t like to eat alone. That doesn’t sound very fun.” She held up a little finger. “Wait here.” She darted into the house and returned a moment later with a plate of cookies.
“This is for you and your mom,” she said. “For dessert so you can share together.”
Sean accepted the cookies and placed a hand over his heart.
“Thank you, Seline,” he said. “That is very generous of you. I’ll do my best to make sure the cookies get home and I don’t eat them all on the way back.”
Seline beamed, proud that her efforts had made an impression. She waved as Sean climbed the hill to fetch his broomstick from the porch.
“Why did you do that?” Bryony said.
Seline shrugged. “We have plenty of food to go around.” She cocked her head. “Do you think we could invite Sean’s mom over for dinner sometime so she’s not alone? Then Sean could stay and play after he’s done working with you. He gives the best piggyback rides.”
“I don’t know…” Bryony hedged.
“I’ll
go ask Mom,” Seline said and took off at a dead run for the house.
Bryony knew what the answer would be if Naomi was consulted. It seemed Sean wasn’t going away anytime soon.
CHAPTER TEN
On Wednesday, Bryony got a brief reprieve from working with Sean and she welcomed it readily. Hazel sent a message, saying she needed a substitute teacher for the day at Windywings.
Bryony leaped at the opportunity.
“I know you enjoy substitute teaching at Windywings,” Naomi said, hands folded across her rounded stomach as she sat on Bryony’s bed. “But couldn’t Hazel manage on her own without you this time? We’re so close to Samhain and it’s a crazy time at Pagan Posies.”
“It’s a crazy time for the whole town,” Bryony replied, flinging clothes out of her closet and onto her bed. She didn’t keep her wardrobe up to date and impressive like Hazel did. She always preferred more comfortable clothes, or clothes that complimented her personality. A t-shirt couldn’t simply be a t-shirt. It had to have some punch, a snappy comeback to it, warning anyone who looked at her that she had a wicked mind and a sharp tongue and she wasn’t afraid to use either one if she was displeased about something.
So it was taking a lot longer than she’d planned for to find a decent outfit that didn’t send the wrong message to the kids at school. It was one thing for Torres kids to see her sarcastic shirts, but if she walked into Windywings with HEX BOMB or BITE ME written across the front, Hazel would never ask for her help again.
“Sean can shadow Dad for the day,” Bryony replied from the depths of her closet. She had managed to find a half-way decent pair of dress pants—black silk and loose. Probably an old pair that used to belong to Naomi. It didn’t look like anything she would purposefully wear. But they could work.
“Your dad has plenty of other things on his plate,” Naomi countered. “This close to Samhain, he’ll be delivering apples and pumpkins all over town in preparation for the festival this weekend. You know he can’t possibly handle training Sean, too.”
Bryony poked her head out of the closet. “I thought you said Sean was a quick learner.”
“He is. But he hasn’t been on the job a week yet. He needs more time to adjust.”
Spelled Kiss (Coven Corner Book #2) Page 6
