Chapter 12

Twelve

"Some secrets are like corpses, better left in the earth to rot." — Sayings of the Blessed Crow.

The following morning, Mara carefully lit the incense at the feet of Saint Anea and arranged fresh blossoms around the statue’s base. The saint still wore the smile she had given Augustus, and for once, Mara didn’t feel like Anea was judging her.

"If I can perform a miracle on a person, I’m sure that I can help a city. You probably did far more ambitious miracles than that," Mara said to her. The saint didn’t weep blood or drop her smile, so Mara took that as consent.

Mara kept the store closed that morning, ignored the pile of books on the kitchen table that Augustus had loaned her, and went to the door of her mother’s bedroom. She hadn’t stepped foot in it since the day Sophia had died in a cloud of curses and crow feathers.

You can’t be afraid of her ghost forever.

Mara took a deep breath and opened the door. The room still smelled like her mother—cigarettes, Turkish delight, rose perfume, hairspray, and patchouli.

The bed was neatly made with her favorite red and gold bedspread, the fringed bedside lamps, a bottle of brandy, and perfume bottles undisturbed except by dust.

When Sophia had died, Mara had stripped off the sweat-stained bedsheets, gathered all the crow feathers that were her mother’s remains, and had burned the lot in a metal barrel in her back garden.

She had drunk a bottle of vodka as she watched the flames until there was nothing left before she spat three times in the ashes. Then she had cleaned the room, changed the sheets, locked the door, and had avoided the room since.

Bending down, Mara lifted back the bed cover and pulled out the long leather and brass steamer trunk.

There were some things Mara had been forbidden to touch when Sophia was alive—her favorite black shawl, her hand-painted tarot cards, her sweets, and the steamer trunk.

Once as a child, the curiosity had overwhelmed her, and Mara had tried to open the trunk without her mother’s permission. As soon as her hands had touched the brass buckles, her hair had fallen out, and she had spent the rest of the summer hiding her shame under her aunt’s colorful scarves.

Mara’s hands hovered over the brass buckles, hesitating. She shut her eyes and focused, feeling out for curses and finding none. Still, she didn’t touch them.

Maybe you should get Augustus to check, just in case.

Mara scowled at the intrusion of the thought. She had never needed a sorcerer before; she certainly didn’t need him now. Besides, he was too clever by half and wouldn’t hesitate to root around in her mother’s secrets to satisfy the insatiable curiosity that always seemed to burn in his eyes.

Mara pushed aside all thoughts of his eyes and opened the buckles on the chest with a snap. The hinges creaked as the lid opened.

Inside smelled of cedar and lavender bundles, bouquets of dried flowers, incense, and paper. Mara carefully lifted out the wooden inserts and looked at the piles of letters and photos.

"You are looking for books," Athanasius said, making Mara jump. The cat leaped up onto the bed and looked down into the chest.

"How would you know?" Mara asked.

"I’ve seen them. Dig around the back. She would’ve hidden them under the fake bottom," he said. "She used to hide all the good stuff in case any of her cousins snooped."

Mara pulled out the rest of the chest contents and, after a few experimental knocks, found the hidden catch. A panel popped open, and she pulled it back to reveal a velvet pouch and two books.

"I wondered what she had done with these," Mara said, opening the bag and pulling out one of the ancient tarot cards. They hummed with age. The cards were hand-painted in medieval miniature illustrations and had soft foxing around the edges from centuries of use.

Mara had never had the talent for them, so she steered clear of Sophia’s precious deck. She looked at the card in her hand, a picture of a woman walking through a forest, a full moon above her weeping black tears.

"The Moon, eh? Bit of an accurate draw for you with that," Athanasius said, his tail flicking impatiently.

"Doesn’t mean anything," Mara said and slipped it back into the pouch.

She picked up the first book. Its black leather cover was cracked, and whatever title had been illuminated with gold lettering had chipped away. The front page was hand-pressed in Italian and identified it as being printed in Venice in 1572.

Mara turned the page to reveal an illustration of a woman in black and gold robes and covered in crows with the title Sayings of the Blessed Crow.

Languages, much like time, didn’t bother Mara overly much, so reading a book in medieval Italian hindered her about as much as reading a glossy magazine would.

"I thought all information on Anea was lost forever," Mara said, her hands shaking a little as she touched the saint’s disgruntled and beautiful expression.

"All except that book and what the family carries by oral tradition," Athanasius answered, scratching at his ear. "Your grandmother used to say that was the only copy ever made. One of the other saints commissioned it, and it’s been passed down. I think it was to go to one of your younger aunts, but Sophia made off with it because she wanted you to have it."

Mara hummed disbelievingly. "If that were true, she would have given it to me earlier."

"Maybe Sophia thought that you would be smart enough to go through her things once she died, not lock them up and sulk for years."

"It’s called grieving," Mara argued.

Athanasius gave her the deathly bored stare that cat owners all over the world were familiar with. "I know how much you grieved for your mother, and that is not at all, cioară."

Mara ignored him and picked up the other book. It wasn’t so carefully treasured as the other one. Its leather was scratched and battered and ink-stained.

Mara flipped it open to reveal a series of notes written in different handwritings. It reminded her of an accounting book, but she knew from experience that such a thing as bookkeeping was seen as a waste of time by her mother and aunts.

Mara flipped to the first page where someone had written in Latin, ’Lives of the Crow Saints’, and underneath that in a messier hand and in French, ’And all their curses and deaths.’

It was a logbook of lives. Mara’s cheeks were wet with tears though she wouldn’t have been able to articulate why she was overcome by emotion.

"Don’t cry, little crow," Athanasius said, jumping to the floor so he could brush his warm body against her.

"Why haven’t I ever seen this before?" Mara sniffed.

"Sophia was complicated even for a Corvo. She saw too far in the future sometimes for her own good, and there was much that haunted her. Maybe she wanted to spare you some of the burdens of it all. She came to Australia so that you both could start again, free of the confines of the old traditions," Athanasius replied.

"But we didn’t! We’ve just hidden away like we would have back in Europe. She wanted to come here, not to start a new life, but to run away from her old one," Mara said viciously, shutting the book with a snap.

"You can’t outrun your blood and your destiny. She tried, and she died in pain, screaming at ghosts, alone and bitter and full of hatred for everyone and everything!"

Mara kicked a pile of letters across the room and snatched up the books off the floor. Athanasius just made it out the door before the rage and magic swirling around Mara slammed the door shut, locking the painful memories of her mother away once more.

If Mara had bothered to calm down and ask him, Athanasius might have told her that it was the loss of love that made Sophia sail to Australia.

And it was because of the remaining love that she tried to keep Mara as safe as she could, even though it would mean Sophia’s own broken heart would eat her away to feathers. But Mara didn’t ask, so he didn’t tell.

* * *

Mara returned to the front of the shop and opened the Sayings of the Blessed Crow. She was still there two hours later when the door opened unexpectedly, and Augustus walked in.

"How did you do that?" Mara demanded.

"Do what? Walk through a door?"

"It was locked."

"Not for me. Why is it locked? Hello, by the way. What’s wrong?" Augustus asked, taking off his coat.

"I—" Mara felt the lie on her tongue, but something about his expression killed it. "I found some books my mother hid from me, and I’m upset about it."

"That could explain why the magic on this side of town has been pulsing strangely all morning." Augustus looked at the books in front of her. "Anything good?"

"Sayings that are apparently attributed to Saint Anea." Mara closed the book. "She didn’t think too much of sorcerers either by the sounds of things."

"There are bad apples in every bunch, I suppose," Augustus said. His frown deepened as he studied her face, his strange eyes taking in every part of her.

"You know what? I am going to make you a cup of tea, and you can tell me why these interesting books have upset you so much." Augustus went behind the counter and pushed the sleeves of his shirt up.

"I don’t think it’s going to help in the same way," Mara said, trying not to smile as he put the water on to boil.

"Trust me, I’m English. I know how to make tea. It will let you know how it feels to be on the other side of the bar for once."

Augustus reached for a pot, settling on one that was bone china and painted with blue flowers. He took off the lid with a flourish and said in a grave voice, "Saint Mara, tell me your heartache."

She burst out laughing. "I do not sound like that."

"This is my most serious face. You aren’t allowed to laugh at it," he complained indignantly, trying to control his own smile.

"You’re a clown, but I’ll indulge you because I could actually do with a cup," Mara replied. "And it’s your fault that I went snooping through my mother’s things in the first place."

"Me? What did I do now?"

"You kept turning up. I went looking for more information on why my family hates sorcerers," Mara said.

Because I like you, and I’m scared I’m not allowed to for a very good reason, and I don’t like wanting things I can’t have or not knowing what this new miracle is doing inside of me.

Augustus started randomly taking sprinkles of tea leaves from jars and adding them to the pot as Mara told him about Sophia’s wooden chest and what she found hidden there.

The frustration towards Sophia returned, and she tried not to notice the understanding in his eyes.

"I started with Anea’s book because I thought it might calm me down," Mara said.

"And did it?" Augustus asked as he poured her a cup of strangely smelling tea.

"Not really. She doesn’t say which sorcerer earned her spite either. There might have been more than one because legend has it that she was over one hundred and fifty years old when she died."

"I have a question," Augustus said, folding his arms. "If you find out all of the gripes that your family has against sorcerers, will you stop helping me with Melbourne’s magic on principal? Do you care what a bunch of old saints thought?"

"Not really. I only want to know what nefarious characteristics I need to watch out for in sorcerer acquaintances," Mara said, refusing to mention her search for potential curses.

She didn’t like the way he was staring at her like he could see she was withholding information, so she took a large mouthful of her tea.

She gagged violently and only just managed to swallow it and not spit it out all over him.

"Oh God, this is terrible."

Augustus started laughing, a big full laugh she had never heard, making him go from surly sorcerer to ridiculously attractive so quickly, Mara didn’t have time to prepare for the intensity of it.

"I honestly didn’t think you would drink it," he said, trying to catch his breath.

"And you wonder why everyone hates sorcerers," Mara said, unable to stop herself from laughing with him.

"I can’t make fancy, heart-healing tea, but I can do the next best thing," Augustus replied in a tone that made her lift her eyebrow. His smile turned devious. "Not that, unless you ask me very nicely. I meant to take you out for a coffee and an errand."

"I suppose I can consider it. Depends on what’s the errand?" Mara said.

"Apparently, there’s a suicidal ghost haunting Flagstaff Train Station that I need to check out. Want to come?" There was something chaotically fun and dangerous in his expression, so Mara hopped off her barstool.

"I’ll get my coat."

When she got back, Augustus was reading a page of Anea’s book. "So you found sorcerers in here, did you? What else?"

"All the reasons why I shouldn’t be going with you," Mara replied.

"But you’re not going to heed the wise saint’s warning?" he asked with a teasing grin.

Mara’s chest heated, and she locked the red door of the store. "Not today."