Vera's Story(To Love and To Lie)

Chapter Nineteen

Vera slept dreamlessly, and woke up with bags under her eyes so deep she could feel them. She was extra quiet as she changed into her normal clothes and repacked her suitcase. She had decided as soon as she had woken up to pretend like the major crises she'd had the previous night hadn't happened and instead go and get as many jobs as she could in order to pay for everyone she could find to get out of debt.

Unfortunately for Vera, someone with as few skills as Vera had could only get a few types of jobs, none were steady and none of them paid well, but Vera devoted herself wholeheartedly into every kind of labor she could find. She scrubbed pans for inns and restaurants, hung sheets for every busy woman who had a copper to spare, carried and stacked wood for everyone who needed it, and escorted people from place to place while looking scary and carrying shopping bags. By the time the evening came around, she was exhausted, but had achieved her goal: 'make it to the evening without thinking about how much of a failure you are.'

She walked to the warehouse in her work clothes, carrying her suitcase again. She expected the warehouse to be silent when she opened the door, but instead she found Fowler fighting with a small girl who had pink hair and wielded a two-handed sword of some kind. The pink haired girl was Miriam, Miriam Webster. It was a little hard to forget the name of a girl with pink hair.

"...Hello?" Vera called, wondering what was going on. She knew that Miriam had some kind of magic, so that could explain why she was here, but there were other magic users in the mob.

Neither of them stopped fighting, but Terrence immediately materialized out of nowhere right next to Vera, taking her suitcase. "Fowler requested an apprentice that had a useful kind of magic to train with, so they sent her. Please come to the office, would you like tea and maybe a sandwich? You look exhausted. I'm sure there's time for a nap before you go out if you need one."

"If I go to sleep I won't be waking up until tomorrow morning." Vera said absently, following Terrence automatically while watching the fight. Miriam and Fowler were almost going too fast to follow with normal eyes.

"You look stressed, did something happen yesterday?" Terrence asked, gesturing for Vera to sit down.

Vera squinted at Terrence as she sat down on the sofa. "What are you? My therapist?"

"As far as Fowler and most of the other people I see are concerned, yes. If you want to talk, I've been told it helps. Would you like some lemonade?" Terrence asked, setting her suitcase on a shelf and turning to a glass pitcher decorated with flowers that looked really out of place in the dark atmosphere of the warehouse.

"I guess I'll take a glass,"

Terrence poured Vera a cupful of the lemonade and handed it to her before sitting at the table, facing her.

Taking a sip, Vera sighed. "Well, you know how I'm married?"

"Yes,"

"I came here to find my husband, he left because we were fighting, and when I came after him I was just angry and offended, but now that I haven't been able to find him after being here for a while, I'm just worried, and I feel like a jerk and a failure. Anyway, I had this realization yesterday, and I've worked all day trying not to think about it, and I don't understand why I'm telling you all this now, but there."

"...you came to find your husband, and you joined the mob?"

"Well, I think he might have secretly been working for you," Vera said quickly, saying the first thing that came to her mind, and then she thought about it for a second. *That could explain a lot, if he were secretly working for the mob. I said no way when Tom brought it up, but it's looking a little more likely now. But why would he be working for them? There's no way he could have married me when the mob hates my mother as much as they do... no way. If he was a part of the mob then it was so he could infiltrate and destroy them.*