Rosemary Thornwick's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Rosemary turned the locket in her palm. The lilac carving was small and precise, and she knew every curve of it. Her mother had worn one just like this. The same weight. The same tiny scratch near the clasp. Her chest tightened. She looked up at the soaked woman, whose eyes would not meet hers. A question pushed at the back of Rosemary's teeth. She had to ask. She had to know how this locket had come to rest in a stranger's hand. "Where did you get this?" Rosemary asked. Her voice came out rough. Outside, rain pattered into the stacked teacups by the door, filling each one in turn. The woman flinched at the sound. She finally lifted her eyes. "She gave it to me," she whispered. "Before the end. She said you would know what to do." Rosemary's hand closed around the locket. The clasp bit into her palm. Her mother had sent this woman here. Her mother had known she would come. The work was no longer something Rosemary was building toward. It was something already owed. Rosemary set the locket on the counter and stepped back. "Sit," she said. "Don't move." She pushed through the side door into the small glass workroom behind the shop. Stained light fell across her drying racks. She grabbed a fresh jar, a clean pot, and a handful of rainwater from the cups outside. Her hands shook, but they knew the shape of the work. She had a name for the tea now. She had a debt. And in the next room, a witness sat waiting to drink whatever Rosemary could brew. She passed the lilac bush her mother had loved, the one she had planted by the workroom door. She broke off three small blooms. Inside, she opened the carved cabinet where she kept her rarest jars. She measured. She poured. The water steamed. She carried the cup back to the counter and set it before the soaked woman. The woman drank. Her shoulders dropped. Her breath slowed. Then her eyes rolled white, and she slumped sideways onto the counter, still as stone.