Her sister, Amelie, had gone out to purchase some bread and apples for lunch, and Céline wondered how soon she might return. It was late summer now, and for the past several months, the only person with whom Céline felt truly at ease was her sister. But the two of them had gone through a painful ordeal in order to achieve ownership of this shop, and Céline was still trying to put some of it behind her.
However, the thought of the shop made her smile. It was her pride. The exterior was painted warm yellow with dark brown trim, and they had named it the Betony and Beech, due to the abundance of betony growing in the herb garden out back and the young beech tree that leaned over their fence from the outside.
Céline did love the shop.
She simply didn’t care to remember what she and Amelie had had to do in order to get it. Worse, Prince Anton—who was master of Castle Sèone and its surrounding fiefdoms—had planned one of his banquets tonight and insisted that Céline and Amelie attend. Céline was still uneasy inside the castle, but she couldn’t refuse the prince.
Pushing all such thoughts away, she tried once again to focus on preparing the rose petal syrup. When the front door opened, she looked up.
An unfamiliar young woman of perhaps twenty stood nervously in the open doorway.
No matter what her state of mind, Céline believed in being kind and attentive to her customers. Most people who visited an apothecary’s shop were facing some kind of difficulty, and she always kept this in mind.
“Come in,” she said from behind the table where she worked. “I’m out of cough syrup at the moment, but I can save you some from this next batch.”
The young woman said nothing and finally took a few steps inside. She was thin, with unwashed brown hair coming loose from a single braid. Her dress was threadbare.
“No . . . I don’t need syrup,” she said.
Céline was a good enough judge of character to see that her visitor was facing more than a family back home suffering from a summer cough, and that whatever was wrong, she was nearing the end of her rope. Most young women who looked and sounded like this tended to be unmarried and pregnant—with a violent father they feared.
“How can I help?” Céline asked, coming around the table. “Would you like some tea? I have hot water in the kettle.”
Her visitor answered neither question, and instead looked at Céline’s mass of dark blond hair. “You’re the seer? The one who can look into the future?”
Céline’s stomach lurched, and she tried to keep her expression still. “Not at present,” she answered firmly, wondering how fast she could get this woman out of the shop. She had no intention of reading anyone’s future. Though it had been several months since her experiences up at the castle, she wasn’t ready to practice her other profession again. For now, she chose to be only an apothecary.
“I’m Irmina,” the young woman said. “You might have seen my husband, Hugo, out in the village? He’s a thatcher, and he’s often to be seen working on this roof or that.”
“No, I do not think I have—”
“Yesterday morning, he fell off a roof and hit his head,” Irmina interrupted, “and he’s not woken up.”
In spite of her own rising discomfort, Céline couldn’t help but feel a stab of sympathy. “Oh, I am sorry. Do you wish me to come and look at him?”
“No. He’ll either wake or he won’t. The thing is . . . I need to know if he will or he won’t.”
Céline tried to speak but was again cut off.
“We bought ourselves a little house from Evrard, the wine merchant,” Irmina rushed on, “on payments, and we’ve fallen a bit behind. Then Hugo got himself a job putting a new roof on the smithy, for enough of a wage that once he finished and was paid, we could get caught up, but then . . . he fell.”
“You bought a house from Evrard?” Céline repeated. Everyone knew him. He was one of the wealthiest villagers in Sèone, and he’d not become so through any acts of kindness. As a side business, he bought up small dwellings and sold them for a profit—often on payments—and he was merciless to anyone who fell on hard times and could no longer pay.
“Yes.” Irmina nodded. “My parents think that I should just give up on the house, have some of the men carry Hugo to their shack, and move back in with them . . . but I can barely face the thought. He and I worked so hard to get our own little place.” She pulled something from her pocket. It was a silver ring with a small blue stone of some kind.
“This was passed down from Hugo’s grandmother,” Irmina went on. “It’s the only thing of value we own. If I know that he’s going to wake up, I’ll sell this and give the money to Evrard. The ring should fetch enough to buy us a little more time. We can stay in the house, and Hugo can go back to work when he’s healed. But if”—for the first time, her voice broke—“if he isn’t going to wake up, then I’ll be selling his grandmother’s ring for nothing more than a few months at best, and I’ll lose the house anyway.” Reaching out, she touched Céline’s wrist. “Do you see? Do you see why I have to know?”
Céline did see. She saw only too well.
With her hands shaking slightly, she motioned to a chair. “Come and sit down.” She didn’t want to do this, but at the same time, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse.
Without hesitation, Irmina hurried to the chair, and the flash of hope in her eyes made Céline want to wince. This budding power of hers didn’t always work, and even if it did, what if the news was bad?
Reaching out, she grasped Irmina’s hand—as this was necessary. She had to be in physical contact with the person she was reading.
Closing her eyes, Céline focused on Irmina, on the spark of her spirit within, and then Céline moved her focus to Hugo . . . to his and Irmina’s future together. At first nothing happened, but she kept trying, and a jolt hit her.
She clenched her jaw in preparation. As the second jolt hit, she felt as if her body were being swept forward along a tunnel of mist, and she forgot everything but the sensation of speeding through the mist all around her as it swirled in tones of grays and whites.
This journey was not a long one, and almost immediately, the mist vanished and an image flashed before her. She saw a small bedroom with faded walls. For some reason, her sight often led her into bedrooms . . . deathbeds or childbeds or simply scenes playing out in bedrooms. She didn’t know why.
Looking down, she saw Irmina sitting on a stool beside a bed. A young man lay in the bed with his eyes closed. His head was bruised, and he was clearly unconscious, as opposed to sleeping. Irmina was holding a cup of water, and she leaned forward to lift the back of his head and try to pour some of the water into his mouth, probably in the hope that he would swallow it. Most of the liquid ran down the sides of his mouth.
“Please, Hugo,” she said. “Try for me.”
From where Céline stood, she could see the window, and the sun was setting. The sky was filled with orange clouds. She knew that Irmina could not see her. Céline was not truly there. She was only an observer.
Just as her gaze turned back toward the man on the bed, she heard a cough, followed by the sound of Irmina gasping.
Another cough rang out, this time followed by the sound of sputtering.
“Hugo?” Irmina said.
Céline moved closer to the bed. The man’s eyes were open, and he was staring out in confusion while still partially choking on the water. After a moment, his gaze seemed to clear.
“Irmina?”
Sucking in loud breaths, Irmina dropped to her knees beside the bed. “Can you hear me? See me all right? Do you know your name?”
Céline was surprised at the young woman’s presence of mind, to be asking such questions, but . . . they were sensible questions.