Claire Madison's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Claire Madison had owned the shop for eleven days when the winged cat came through her window. She was on a ladder in the back room, shelving jars of dried chamomile and rose hip, counting the last of her savings against the opening she had promised the town. The building was small and green, wrapped in ivy, tucked between a bakery and a shuttered cobbler on the main lane of Inkmoss. She had painted the trim herself. She had come here to make a teahouse where every lonely person in town could sit down and be known, and she had spent almost every coin she owned to do it. The crash came from the front. Claire climbed down and found the big front window standing open on its hinges, a curtain torn loose, and a cat the size of a small dog on her top shelf. It was gray and purple-striped, with green eyes and a pair of leathery wings folded tight against its back. It stared at her. Then it swatted a jar of lavender off the shelf. The glass broke on the floor. "Stop," Claire said. She lunged. The cat leapt to the next shelf and knocked down two more jars. Peppermint. Valerian. Both gone. She did the math while she moved. Each jar was a week of tea service. Six more jars sat in the cat's path, and behind those, the imported blends she had not yet paid off. If she chased the cat, it would run. If she stood still, it would keep swatting. She stopped and sat down on the floor. The cat paused, one paw raised over a jar of hibiscus. Claire opened the box by the counter, the one she had ordered for a stray she had hoped might wander in someday. She pulled out the round blue cushion and set it near the stove where the floor was warm. Then she found the little leaf-and-twine mouse a customer had traded her for a pot of tea, and she placed it in the center of the cushion. The cat watched. Claire did not look at it. She got up slowly, walked to the counter, and began sweeping glass into a dustpan. Behind her she heard the soft thump of a heavy body landing on the floor. Then the crinkle of dry leaves. When she turned, the cat was curled on the cushion with the mouse between its paws, purring loud enough to hear across the room. Claire knelt by the broken jars and counted what she had lost. Three weeks of stock. Enough to push her opening back, maybe further. She looked at the cat, who blinked at her once and closed its eyes. The window still hung open behind them, its frame bent where the wings had forced it. She would need to fix that before nightfall, and she would need to decide, before morning, whether the cat was staying.