The door to the post office jingled closed behind Natalie. She frowned, wind caught in her hair, the letter dangling between her fingers. The woman inside had been very rude to her.
"I am sorry, but there is nothing I can do without an address." She scowled behind her enormous glasses and handed the letter back.
Natalie had pressed her hands to the desk. "But I know you must have a list of addresses, in your book keeping, or some place! I really must have this letter sent as soon as possible."
With no luck, she had finally just left.
Then she remembered Peter telling her where he lived. Between Coldton and Stagwood, where she and her parents had lived together at one point, too. That area was not very large. All she would have to do is knock on a few doors, asking for Peter Sheinfeld, and someone would surely point her to the right house. After closing up her office, she ran for the train station to find a cab.
Two days ago, she and Piper had been two of the very few people who stood on the platform the day the train started up again, buttoned in coats and waving as Colette boarded it for Cape Colette. The queen mind weaver had smiled out the window, and deep down, Natalie was glad to be freed of her crystal gaze.
But now, the platform was teeming with people, all milling about, coats pulled tight, either in a rush or looking lost. Merchants shouted until they had sweat swiveling down their faces. It had been a while since they had a crowd this large, and had to compete with each other. Someone fell to their knees in front of Natalie and started scrubbing at her leather shoe with some foul smelling oil. "Best in town, my lady," the man said. "Your shoe will look like you just purchased it from the finest shop in Coldton." He continued rambling on, and Natalie did not have it in her heart to just walk away. Until he held out his hand asking for a large amount of money she refused to give him. "I am pretty sure my shoe is stained now," she said, and ran away when he tried to stop her, shouting names and claiming she had stolen from him.
That was one thing she hated about this area. She had to be careful of scams and pick-pocketing. Merchants here were also known to sell fakes meant to look like the real thing, like resin cameos or leather parasols. They tried to sell real art of well-known starlets, but with fake signatures, and Natalie's least favorite, one she had fallen into once and never again, stale bread and old milk.
She waved down a carriage, and the driver jumped off his seat and rushed to open the door for her. "Where to, miss? he asked in a sing-song accent." She climbed in, a little out of breath, holding up the letter. "I need to get this letter to someone I think I might be in love with."
***
When the carriage rattled over the road between Stagwood and downtown Coldton, Natalie had the driver stop. She asked if he would wait, and after a hesitant look, said he would wait no longer than ten minutes. She climbed out after paying him and ran down the street, leaves scuffling around her feet. She clutched the letter in her hand. The tops of the houses rose over the iron fences. It had all been quite simple. The idea. The drive. But it had not occurred to her until now that she was not ready to come back here, possibly pass the house she and her parents used to live in. The memories would haunt her.
She rounded the corner and stepped over a half-frozen puddle, houses facing each other on either side of the street, each unique and intricate, like wedding cakes. The mailboxes usually had last names engraved on the sides. All she had to do was look for Sheinfeld and slip the letter in.
On her way down the brick road, crevices filled with moss, she looked around. The willow trees shook their sprays in the wind, sunlight breaking in patches between them.
If she wanted to see her old house, she knew where to go, but that would take time and the driver was waiting. She was not even sure how many minutes she had left. Then she heard chatter and turned to her left. A large group of men and women in pearls and silk ties walked out of one of the houses, fanning themselves, talking to each other loudly and with wide eyes. Behind them, bracelets clinking, a woman in a feathered hat and cloak stepped out, black hair stringy like an old mop head.
A middle person.
Natalie stared from across the street, clutching the letter to her chest. Her hair flapped in the sudden breeze, and one of the women lost her hat in it. She hobbled on her high heeled shoes, trying to reach for it, but it caught in the tree branches above. The middle person turned and spoke to someone who was not there, and a moment later, Natalie watched, astonished, as the hat floated down to land in the woman's hands. Then everyone filed out through the front gates, discussing something in hushed, but enthusiastic voices.
Someone walked up beside her. "Yeah, that is Eloise."
She looked over. "Peter?"
He smiled at her, hands in his pockets, and she followed his gaze back across the street to the middle person. She looked at everyone as they left, and met Natalie's eyes for a moment, face wrinkled and focused, and then she turned away, disappearing back inside.
"She doesn't live there, does she?" Natalie asked.
"No. She is hired by the owners of the house to perform a séance every other week for all of the rich folk in town with nothing better to do."
The mind weaver tapped her lips. The middle person had looked almost hateful, and she wondered why. Was it awful to see ghosts everywhere? Did the vengeful ones latch onto her, perhaps leave her heart heavy?
Peter took her hand and then pulled away. "Sorry. I think I owe you an explanation..."
Eloise was making her way through the gate, adjusting a large bag on her shoulder. Gray and wiry though her hair was, her face did not depict her to be much older than perhaps her mid forties. She had almost child-like blue eyes, but they narrowed when they fell on Natalie.
She was led down the sidewalk in the opposite direction, elbow in Peter's firm grip. "Wait!" Natalie wrung out of his grip. "What if I wanted to speak with her?" She was about to say more, but was cut off by the middle person.
Even from across the narrow cobble stone street, the mind weaver could smell thick perfume and some sort of fried meat. "Darkness chases you, child," she said in a low, velvety voice, then shook her head, all without breaking eye contact.
Natalie felt a chill crawl down her neck.
Eloise continued. "Decisions cannot be undone, oh no, they cannot. But there is something broken in you. Your heart has been robbed of its most precious treasure. You are responsible for it, mind weaver." She said the last two words with such a drawl, Natalie had to look away.
Peter stood quietly as Eloise walked down the side walk and rounded the corner at the end of the street. Then Natalie turned on him. "You do not decide when I am ready."
He looked hurt. "Excuse me for trying to keep you safe."
"Maybe I want to know why or how I am responsible for whatever is broken inside of me, even if it was a scary old middle who says so!"
"They do not care about their clients, Natalie. Not like you or Piper do. They are wicked. I should not have forced you to walk away, but felt the need to protect you."
"You do not decide my life!"
"You don't decide mine!" he shouted back.
She looked at him, and he at her, feeling as if he had slapped her. For the first time, Peter's blue eyes turned to fire, and she shrank under them. She asked quietly, "Why haven't you been back?" He did not answer. Natalie waited for what felt like a few painful minutes, and then shoved the letter to his chest. She turned to walk away, and he did not stop her.
***
Days passed, client after client, the nights lonely as Natalie shuffled the coals in the grate with the poker, sleeves folded to her elbows, trying not to look at the door every few minutes. Trying even harder not to think of Peter at all. She was not sure what she had done wrong, leading to Peter's mysterious abandonment. She could not help but think she had scared him off, not only by keeping his memories, but perhaps because he found these feelings toward each other unprofessional, and somehow wrong, because deep down, he still loved the girl he was forgetting. He was having seconds thoughts. But Natalie could not let him walk away. If not for her own sake, for his.
The next day, Natalie scribbled in her planner at a bistro in downtown Coldton. She sat inside, out of the cold, and sipped hot coffee. She had called on piper the night before, asking to meet, but it was already twenty minutes after the date time. Piper did not know Peter had not shown up for almost a week. But today, Natalie planned to tell her. She needed her help. The letter she had given him that last day in his neighborhood had clearly not helped.
Just when Natalie started gathering her journal and pencils, Piper walked through the door, looking tired. She found her in the clutter of tables and edged her way over, plopping in the seat opposite. She smelled of plant extracts and smoke, and her hair was piled hastily on the top of her head.
"Well, hi to you, too," Natalie said.
Piper picked up the coffee menu and scanned their specials. Wrinkling her nose, she said, "Eggnog coffee? That sounds... awful."
Natalie did not mention she had ordered that one. She took a deep breath, and explained everything to Piper. Her friend listened, brow narrowed at first, and then leaned back in her seat, looking uncomfortable. Even when the waitress came by, Natalie had to gesture to her before Piper even looked up.
She ordered her coffee half-heartedly, and when it was placed on the table in front of her, she cupped her hands around it and looked at the mind weaver, sitting straight in her seat as though Piper held all the answers to the universe. "Do I need to show up at his front door, then?"
"No, no." Natalie shook her head. "That is not what I need. My assistant showing up, forcing him to corporate. I want him to come back because he wants to. Because..." Then she explained, after Piper insisted, how she truly felt about Peter.
When she was done, she moved her empty cup out of the way and put her forehead to the table. Her friend cleared her throat. "Alright, you sad little cinnamon roll. Perhaps he has been busy. You may have upset him that day you went stalking his house."
The mind weaver cringed, looking miserable. "Was I stalking him?"
The witch laughed. "Yes. You were." She shook her head, looking amused. "It does not take much to get you going."
Natalie looked up. "My weakness is also my biggest strength." She stuck her tongue out, and then frowned. "Someone once told me that. But I cannot remember who..."
Piper downed her coffee. "Perhaps we could go on a walk?" She waited. "Stop looking like that. I won't let you sit here like this all day. There is always an explanation for everything, is there not?"
Suddenly, Natalie felt a pang of guilt, one so heavy, she felt like a clump of snow had fallen on her, and she was unable to move. She knew something, had knowledge she was sure Piper needed. She would not like it if Piper hid something this enormous from her. Yet she risked everything if the truth got out. A mind weaver's duty was not only to weave memories, but to ensure those memories would remain safe with herself and no one else. It was supposed to be confidential.
Still, she stood up, kicking her chair back. It squeaked across the wooden floor. "Yes, let's go on a walk."
She felt like someone had gripped her stomach while she and Piper headed out into the cold together, arms locked. This time, though she hesitated, she did not let herself stop altogether.
"Piper, I need to tell you something." She bit her bottom lip. "I would not like it if you kept a secret from me like this."
She felt her friend stiffen beside her, but did not say anything.
Natalie continued. "At Coldton Palace... the memory I weaved for the lord, and I suppose lady, as well."
"You must be ready to tell me. Get on with it, then."
"The maid and the sentinel he was talking about, how they ran away and the maid had passed away from heart break?" She took a deep breath. It felt like the hardest thing she would have to do. How did she know which words to use, to deliver such news to Piper? "Of course, I had to weave out what really happened."
But before she could say anything more, Piper guessed it. "They were my parents, weren't they?"
The air grew too heavy, and silent. The girls did not speak for a long time, and it was clear to Piper, Natalie knew, that she was correct. Then she told her exactly what had happened. The true memory.
Rumors flew through Coldton palace like the leaves from their trees, that the very respected sentinel had fallen for one of the maids. They were seen parting from a kiss in the court yard behind the palace, and stumbling out of one of the many rooms, caught in hushed laughter. Not before long, they were less quiet about it. At one of Coldton's many balls, he was seen in a corner, adjusting the ribbon in her hair. She turned, black hair bouncing over her shoulder, with the most radiant smile any one witnessing had ever seen. And then she told him who she really was. What she was capable of. She was a witch.
Unable to understand, or accept it, he fled, but not before the lord and lady found out her secret, that she was a witch, also pregnant out of wed-lock, and sent her away. The life she had, protected behind dust and linens, gilded frames and sparkling ballrooms, had fallen apart in what felt like to her a single moment.
"Filthy," the lord had said while standing by a window on the third floor, observing the witch walking down the driveway toward the gates. She stopped and looked back, as though remembering the good. "All of them, just filthy. To lie, cheat, seduce my best sentinel, and conceive out of wed-lock! The scandal of it all, here in the palace!" He took a sip of his brandy and frowned. "They make their potions or whatever, and sell them to those crazy middles, knowing full well what they use them for. Work for the mind weavers, but think they own them. Own everyone." The lady had listened, nodding at most of his remarks, face pinched, but did not say anything.
Around eight months later, they were entertaining some guests in their dining room with a feast, and the lady was in the middle of a story, waving her arms around, afflicting laughter from everyone, when the butler walked in, hands clasped at his back, and cleared his throat. The lord and lady excused themselves, called to the front door. Fire crackled and whipped in the grate behind them, their silhouettes looming over the basket that sat there. Wrapped in a mix-matched quilt, a small baby with large eyes blinked at them, the firelight reflecting and turning them to loops of fire. A note was folded and tied to the handle of the basket, and all it read was:
Her name is Piper.
The lord and lady had immediately sent one of their maids to take the child away to an orphanage. They knew where she had come from. What she was. There was a flicker of hesitation in the lord's eyes, but he stood by his order. The maid left with Piper, and never came back.
Months later, the next thing that arrived on the doorstep was the daily newspaper, a little damp from Coldton's fog. And in it told the story of the witch who died of heartbreak. The story that would haunt the lord and the lady, until they could not bare it any longer and call on someone like Natalie.
From under the tree they sat at to talk, Natalie looked over at Piper. Her friend did not speak for a long time, just picked at the tassels on her scarf and stared up through the branches toward the gray sky. She did not look angry that Natalie had kept this a secret from her for so long. Nor did she look sad. When the witch did look at the mind weaver at last, she looked simply defeated.
"I searched for them. I asked everyone I knew to help. There were never any answers. Not even a single hint. It makes sense nobody knew of my mother now. She was not even part of the witch family. She hid away in the palace, ashamed of who she was, until she met my father, who was ashamed of himself for falling in love with her." She stared at Natalie with such intensity, the mind weaver inched back a little, thinking she meant to blame her for something. Then she realized Piper was looking straight through her, seeing something she could not, reminding her very much of the middle people and their hard, penetrating stares.
"Thank you for telling me."
"You aren't curious about your father? He may very well be in Willow Haven! That part I did not weave from the lord's memory!"
Piper shook her head and adjusted her scarf tighter around her neck as a bone-prickling breeze rattled their tree. "Addicted to witch meds, talking to her ghost? That is what I imagine, and honestly, I am not interested."
"But aren't you even the slightest bit curious? What if he had regretted leaving her, and that is why? He really, truly loves her!"
Again with the stare. This time there was a frown pulling at the side of her mouth, and it was almost a pitying expression. She reached for Natalie's hands and squeezed them. "Do not worry about my parents. I have other things to think about right now. If they wanted to reach out to me, I would think they would have done so already. I am nineteen-years-old, Natalie, and almost a year older. That was plenty of time." She smiled. "Besides, I raised myself. I do not need to thank them for anything."
Natalie looked down. She had a lot to thank her parents for. And she had the chance to, if only she would take it. Like a box of matches placed only a few feet from a candle. Piper stood from her seat, taking in a deep breath. Despite what she chose to tell Natalie, it was clear she had a lot to deal with. A hole in her heart she had tried to find answers to, finally had one, and it had not healed in these last few moments, no matter the careless charade Piper tried on. As though the mind weaver had only mentioned that the sandwich shop was closed for the day. Natalie followed suit, standing and brushing leaves from her coat. "I need to head back," she lied. "I have clients on the way."
The truth was, Natalie did not have any clients that day, and as day rolled into night, the mind weaver sat alone, feeling more and more deflated every minute Peter Sheinfeld did not walk through the door, but also as light as a paper crane, having gotten all of the secrets of the palace off her shoulders. What Piper did with the truth, she could not be sure, but she knew her assistant too well to assume she would stand by her word, and do nothing.
"Wait, Natalie?"
The mind weaver turned and waited.
"What was in that black box, then?"
"Honestly, I have not looked."