Once Upon a Craft Shop, page 16
part #1 of Craft Shop Mysteries Series
“Hey, Agnes. I thought brownies didn’t like to be seen.”
Maddie’s words of warning flitted through my mind just in time—I barely managed to keep myself from blurting out the obvious question.
Agnes stiffened alarmingly, her expression growing fierce…and then her little brown body deflated like a balloon that some kid had given a slow leak. Her little shoulders hunched as she dropped her eyes to her spindly fingers.
I froze, pressing my lips shut in mild consternation. I shouldn’t have said anything. Didn’t that mean that—
“Lonely,” Agnes muttered, her reedy voice barely audible.
I froze again, this time for a completely different reason? Lonely? Agnes?
Eyes still downcast, Agnes waved a hand. “Apartment’s been empty for a long time. Got used to it, but…” She twitched her shoulders in a semblance of a shrug.
The corners of my world seemed to tilt and then realign themselves in a different configuration. It had never occurred to me that the little brownie might actually be lonely.
“But you didn’t want me here.” I straightened up, completely gobsmacked. “You glared at me when I couldn’t see you, and you moved my things, and I was really starting to think I was losing my mind.” I waved my hands for emphasis.
Agnes nodded slowly. “Didn’t want you. Yes. But you stayed.” She finally looked up at me, her dark, somber gaze meeting mine. “And you like strange music and you cook strange foods, but you like to make things. Useful things. Beautiful things.”
This time, she lifted both hands to finger her necklaces. “Reminded me that—that I used to like to make things too. Before.”
Silence fell over my—no, our—kitchen, broken only by the hum of the refrigerator. I pressed a hand to my heart again, this time for a completely different reason. It was the strangest thing, but this little brownie—this creature of myth and lore and the stuff of fairytales I’d only ever read about—had succeeded cheering me up where Maddie (and even Bianca) had failed.
Tears welled in my eyes, a tangled mix of gratitude and warmth swelling in my chest. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “Thank you, Agnes. I think—I think that’s the sweetest thing anybody’s said to me in a long time.”
The little brownie regarded me with her somber dark eyes. She nodded once and then, in the space between one eyeblink and the next, she vanished. All that remained was the remnants of her pizza crust.
Maddie’s words from this morning floated back through my mind. I believe you’re already having more of an impact than you realize.
Sniffling a little, I wiped the last of my tears away and took a deep breath. Maddie hadn’t exactly specified how large this impact might be, but…I think she was right about part of it.
I went to bed that night feeling a little more encouraged.
Chapter
Thirty-Three
The calico cat showed up at my apartment the next morning. This probably shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. I mean, who seriously expects a cat to follow them home from the woods outside the park all the way to a second-story apartment?
Not me, that’s for sure.
I don’t even know how she got in the apartment building. What I do know is that I was halfway through breakfast when I heard a faint scritching at my front door, followed by several plaintive meows. Startled, I went to the door and opened it to find the little calico cat sitting on my doormat in the hall.
She looked up at me and gave another plaintive meow before she brushed past me and let herself into my apartment. Bemused, I shut the door behind her and watched her take stock of my living room.
“Now, wait a minute,” I told her. “I don’t know that you can be in here. I don’t know what my lease says. And—” I hesitated. “I don’t know what Agnes is going to think about this.”
The cat gave another meow, sat down in the middle of the living room floor, and looked up at me. Her entire posture exuded a vibe of Let me stay. I like it here.
As though my saying her name had summoned Agnes (even though I was pretty sure it didn’t work that way), her thin, reedy voice spoke from behind me.
“What is that cat doing in here?”
I turned to find Agnes standing on one of my bookshelves, her hands propped up on her hips and her little brown face wrinkled in glare directed at the cat.
“She…uh…apparently followed me home from the woods,” I explained, a little helplessly. “I’m not really sure how she managed it.”
The cat purred, looking pleased with herself.
If anything, Agnes’s glare deepened. “Well, it can’t stay here.”
“I didn’t think so,” I assured her.
We both watched as the cat strolled over to sniff my couch before sauntering over to inspect my armchair. She apparently decided that was a good spot because she hopped up onto the chair and stretched out on the back, looking quite at her ease.
“Fluffy fur everywhere,” Agnes muttered.
I looked askance at the brownie. For all of her glaring and her grouchy words, there was something in her tone that was decidedly not grouchy. My forehead creased in a frown. What is going on here?
Glancing from Agnes to the cat and back, I opened my mouth to tell the brownie I would figure out where to take the cat, but Agnes spoke first.
“She looks hungry.”
At those words, the cat started purring. My frown deepened as I considered her. “I don’t think she’s going to eat you, Agnes.”
The brownie directed her glare towards me instead. “That’s what you think.” She tipped her head towards the kitchen. “You have cream in that thing you call a refrigerator, don’t you?”
Bemused, I nodded.
“Well?” Agnes turned on her heel. “What are you waiting for?”
I blinked, but the brownie had already disappeared. I shook my head. “How does she do that?”
Returning to the kitchen, I crossed to the refrigerator and pulled the door open. Yes, I did have cream. Not very much, but enough to give the cat a little dish.
When I closed the refrigerator door, I nearly dropped the pint of cream in shock. Agnes had appeared on my kitchen counter. She did not seem to notice that she had startled me, but eyed the cream with some satisfaction.
“Agnes.” I set the cream on the counter and pulled out a little saucer dish. “Can I even have a cat in this apartment?”
The little brownie shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t know.” She frowned again. “More work. All that fur.”
“I’ll feed her and take her back outside.”
“She’ll just come back.”
Agnes’s tone was so matter-of-fact that I found myself even more confused. I set the saucer of cream down on the floor. “Come here, kitty.”
The cat didn’t have to be called twice. She rushed in on silent paws and settled down in front of the cream as though it had been ages since her last meal.
I looked up at Agnes. “Well, then I’ll find an animal shelter for her.”
Propping her hands on her hips again, Agnes scowled down at the cat. “Stuck with her now, aren’t we?”
This was enough to give me a headache. I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to keep my tone reasonable. “Agnes, it sounds an awful lot like you want to keep the cat.”
“Why would I want that?” The little brownie sounded scandalized. “Although,” she added thoughtfully, “cats are good to keep mice and pixies down.”
A surreal feeling washed over me again. Pressing my lips together, I counted to five before I trusted myself to speak. “I wasn’t aware this building had a mouse problem. Or a—a pixie problem.”
“Not usually.” Agnes continued to stare at the cat. “But sometimes they get a mite uppity, don’t they?”
She wanted to keep the cat. But, for whatever reason, she couldn’t just come out and say that. I pinched the bridge of my nose again. “You’re not afraid the cat is going to try to eat you?”
Agnes blinked and then gave me a withering look. “Why would I be afraid of a fool thing like that?”
I started to point out that the cat was quite larger than she was and fully capable of eating her like a mouse. But I held my tongue. You’re arguing with a brownie, I reminded myself. Nothing about this conversation makes sense.
“Okay, then.” I held up both hands. “She can stay. As long as I’m not going to get in trouble with Mr. Moffat.”
Agnes just muttered something about the carpet needing extra cleaning from now. And then, in the space between one eyeblink and the next, she disappeared again.
The cat raised her head and meowed. It sounded like a question.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “She does that.”
Chapter
Thirty-Four
September slipped past in a slow, day-by-day inexorable succession. Business picked up gradually, but with a steadiness that strengthened my hopes of longevity. I’d had a couple of other women take me up on the offer of classes—a grandmother who wanted to learn how to crochet afghans for her grandchildren, a girl my age who wanted to make pretty scarves to relax from the stress of her job in middle management, and a middle-aged woman who needed a hobby and wanted to knit baby blankets for friends.
I enjoyed teaching those classes, but the highlight of my week was definitely my Wednesday afternoon class with Zel. She had taken to knitting like a duck to the water in the lake on the other side of Starhaven. I’d taught her how to purl and how to increase and decrease, and now we were working on more complex stitches.
Her dishcloths would be the prettiest in Starhaven, that was a fact.
One of the things I loved the most about our weekly class was that it gave me a chance to talk to somebody around my age. (And, okay, I’ll admit it. I loved seeing her twins as well—Maddie couldn’t always watch them for her.) The other young woman had gradually relaxed around me, to the point that I think she considered me a friend.
I set the black folding chairs up in our usual spot, the space between the counter and the aisles and the door that led into the back. Today, Maddie’d had a meeting or something, and Zel had texted to ask if it was all right if she brought her twins.
I told her it was fine. Best case scenario, both children slept and we got to knit as usual. Worst case scenario, we didn’t actually knit and I got to hold a baby. There really wasn’t a downside to that.
When Zel arrived at my shop with the twins in tow, however, they were both asleep in the double stroller. I studied them for a moment, inwardly squeeing over how adorable they were. Especially while they were asleep.
I turned to Zel with a smile. “I still can’t get over how beautiful your children are.”
A soft smile spread over her face. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear again, her fingers still slipping through it like it was shorter than she’d expected. “Thank you.”
“Here.” Zel reached down into the net bag beneath the stroller and emerged with two frappes in a cardboard holder, one caramel and one mocha. She handed me the mocha drink. “For you.”
“Thank you.” I beamed at her, already anticipating how wonderful my frozen coffee would taste.
It probably wasn’t the best business decision in the world, but I’d decided not to charge Zel for knitting classes. I was having too much fun with them, I wasn’t terribly busy, and I’d decided I loved her company.
Zel couldn’t bring herself to accept classes for free, however, so she’d compromised by bringing me coffee once a week.
I think it was a pretty sweet setup for both of us. She learned how to knit, and I had some company and didn’t have to feel guilty about buying fancy coffee.
After taking a sip of her own coffee, Zel pushed the double stroller over to our usual spot. She pulled her rose-patterned knitting bag out of the bottom of the stroller (I was always amazed by how much she could pack in that thing) and settled into her chair.
“How are things this week?” She glanced around the shop before extracting her current half-finished dishcloth from the bag. This one was the pretty shade of rose pink she’d bought.
“Better, so far.” I shrugged as I took a sip from my coffee. “I’ve had a few more customers.” Normal customers, I wanted to add, but didn’t. I’d have to explain, and trying to explain suddenly seemed very awkward inside my head.
“That’s good.” Zel began knitting, and for a moment, the only sounds to be heard inside my shop were the faint click-clack of her needles and the subdued strains of Celtic music I was playing over the Bluetooth speaker I’d set up in corner.
This week, I’d decided to start my own set of dishcloths. I needed a few more, and why buy them when I could de-stress and make some at the same time? I’d chosen a pastel purple and blue variegated yarn that would probably work up into a beautiful design, especially when paired with a small, slightly lacy stitch pattern.
Occasionally glancing at Zel’s sleeping babies, I cast on the requisite number of stitches for the size dishcloth I wanted. Comfortable silence enveloped us, but as the moments ticked past, words crowded their way onto my tongue.
Words that wanted to form nosy questions, actually. I’d known Zel for a few weeks now, but I’d never asked her about her family…and she had never volunteered any information. I knew it was a touchy subject.
But…I really wanted to get to know her better. And at the same time, I didn’t want to hurt her or offend her.
It was quite the dilemma, let me tell you.
Sighing, I took another pull from my frappe and then set it down on the floor beside me before resuming knitting.
“What is on your mind?”
Zel’s quiet words startled me. Guiltily, I glanced up at her. “What?”
Tucking a lock of short golden hair behind her ear, she regarded me with a smile. “You keep sighing. What is troubling you?”
“Oh.” I flushed in embarrassment. If my hands hadn’t been full of knitting needles, I would have rubbed the back of my neck. “It’s nothing.”
Zel just lifted a dubious eyebrow at me, even as she kept knitting.
A swell of pride rose in me at that—she had come so far in just a few weeks. It was pretty amazing.
She was still looking at me, however, so I dragged my attention back to the matter at hand. “I—uh—actually, I don’t know how to say this.” I sighed again.
“Why don’t you just say it?” Zel looked amused now.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to offend you or anything.”
Zel canted her head to one side, eying me curiously. “It can’t be that bad.”
It could be if the subject of her family was painful. I shifted uncomfortably on my chair, my gaze darting to the shop’s front door. For the first time, I wished a customer would come in and interrupt this conversation.
Finally, I shrugged both shoulders awkwardly. “Well, I guess I’d like to think that we’re becoming friends, Zel, and I’d like to know more about you. Like where you’re from, how you ended up here.” I smiled wryly. “I’ve told you my story.”
“Where I’m from.” A flash of something I didn’t understand lit her green eyes. Breathing out something halfway between a laugh and a sigh, Zel finished her row and dropped her needles in her lap to rub her eyes. “I’m afraid it’s not much of a story.”
“Well…” I looked back down at my dishcloth. “I’d love to hear it, if you don’t mind sharing it with me.”
Zel dragged in a deep breath before she shrugged and offered me a wry smile. “I’m from Tennessee. Little town you’ve probably never heard of.” She waved a hand. “Anyway, my husband and I were high school sweethearts. We got married after we graduated and came to Kentucky for school. I got pregnant and then—” Her voice wavered unsteadily.
Apprehension rose inside me. Zel might not have said the words yet, but I had a strong feeling that her husband was not in Starhaven with her and their twins. My stomach twisted itself into a knot. What had happened to him?
“And then he was gone,” Zel finished softly.
My breath caught in my throat. I bit my lip and then asked gently, “Gone, as in—”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged, ducking her head to hide the sheen of tears in her eyes. “I’ve never known. All I know is that he’s gone.”
As though sensing his mother’s grief, Zel’s little boy stirred. We both looked down at the stroller and watched him wave a tiny fist, his eyelids fluttering, before he subsided back into sleep.
Empathetic grief clogged my throat as I nodded in silent understanding. That was awful. To have no idea where your husband was?
“Anyway,” Zel wiped her eyes and tried to smile, though it was a tiny thing that lived more in her eyes than in the corners of her mouth. “We ended up here and Maddie helped me find a place to live and get back on my feet.”
My fingers stilled on my knitting needles. That was interesting. “Maddie and the Starhaven Foundation?”
Zel nodded, reaching down to smooth a light hand over her daughter’s downy head. “I don’t know what I would have done without her.”
“I’m glad she was able to help you.” Mentally, I shook my head. The longer I lived here, the more I began to realize how many different things Maddie was involved in.
“Well, thanks to her, I’ve been able to make a life for us here.” Zel waved a hand to indicate the town at large.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I’m really glad, Zel.”
We sat in silence for a moment, letting the strains of sweet Celtic music wash over us, and then Zel roused herself.
She smiled at me, though her eyes still held lingering sadness. “I told you it wasn’t much of a story.”
That startled a laugh from me. “That’s what you think.” I leaned forward to touch her arm. “Thank you for sharing it with me. I really didn’t mean to pry or make you cry.”
Zel studied me for a moment, and then her smile widened. “I have not had many friends, Celia, but I believe I can count you among their number.”
“You can.” I nodded solemnly, though a broad smile stretched across my face. “You absolutely can.”
