MINT GROWS EVEN IN THE DARK
Claire knew where the people reported in the news as ‘missing under suspicious circumstances’ were going. And, if there’d been any justice in the world at all, she’d have gone to the authorities and reported it.
Sadly, in this instance, said authorities would have investigated her claims and either a) not come out of the little overgrown cave that had opened up at the end of a quiet cut-de-sac in a quiet, overgrown neighbourhood or b) not found anything at all.
Assuming they didn’t c) find a bunch of dead bodies and d) blame her.
No. There was no justice in the world, and so Claire could not let anyone know where the wandering missing people had gone, and this annoyed her—on many levels.
Right now, as she stood in the kitchen furiously plucking creased mint leaves from stems woody and long as her forearm, the level it was annoying her on was the level that reminded her there were things in the world that she could not control. Claire prided herself on control; made a living from it, even, in point of fact. That was the purpose of the tea garden out back, with its neatly ordered rows of tidily clipped herb bushes in all shades of green, in pots black as Hades itself. She’d never be a true Seer like her grandmother, but she was good enough for daily use and what she did see, with aid of her various pots and potions, was enough to gain the upper edge most times over fate. Or Fate, depending.
Not that it did anything about the constant stream of disparagement from bloody Alistair, boyfriend of Kirsty, her roommate, himself practically a roommate these days—and not an entirely unwelcome one, he was generous with his contribution to the daily household minutiae, and to the rent—but the snobbery over her ‘girl-stuff’ i.e. tea leaves and kettles and teacups and brewing (because heaven knew only women drank tea, of bloody course), that she could have lived without.
Claire sighed heavily, the green, sharp scent of the mint twining about her like a cat.
There was no justice in the world, and so she was going to have to do something about the missing people herself. The teas had been crystal clear—metaphorically, of course—on that.
She threw the handful of mint leaves into a large stoneware teapot shaped like a turtle, along with a good helping of lavender and ginkgo and furry grey sage. It only took a couple of minutes for the kettle to boil, then she poured herself a small black cup of the resulting tea and waited impatiently for it to cool. Steam twirled and danced and twined upward, and all the while Claire pressed her lips together and drummed her fingernails on the counter. Against the dark grey tile of the kitchen splashback, the steam was clearly visible, pale and ghostly. Twirl, twist. Twist, twine. Spin. Stretch.
The steam yawned like the mouth of a cave.
Stretched into a shape remarkably like a crack.
Became a tangle of roots and weeds.
Lips pursed even tighter, Claire waved the steam away and took up the handle-less teacup. She already knew she needed to visit the cave if she wanted answers, and she hoped the tea would have something less repetitive to share with her.
She slurped at it, hesitant at first, wincing as it almost burnt the tip of her tongue.
Usually, she wouldn’t dare a slosh of cold water from the tap—too easy to disrupt the workings, alter the flow, change the vision—but despite her wish for news less repetitive, really, she was only here for confirmation.
So Claire let the tap slop in some cold water and gulped down the sweet-savoury, lightly floral, sharp-tasting tea, swirling counter-clockwise after every third mouthful.
With only half an inch of tea left in the black cup, she set it back on its matching saucer, waited for a slow count of seven, then threw the last of the liquid into the sink.
It wasn’t quite the traditional way of doing things, but it was how her grandmother had done it, and if it was good enough for Nana, it was good enough for her.
Droplets coalesced, sparkling on the silver of the sink, over-bright given the cloudy skies outside.
Images formed and shifted as the droplets and small puddles slowly drained. The cave again. A woman’s face, crying. A fruit tree. A man, also crying, though somehow managing to look furious at the same time, a moderately thick beard paradoxically narrowing his chin until it almost looked elfin, childlike.
Claire exhaled heavily and rubbed at her forehead. The man was new, and the sense of fury was strong enough that Claire could feel it grabbing at her chest. Interesting.
Briefly, she toyed with the idea of pouring a second cup. Would it add anything? Shed any further clarity on the man who was—apparently, her sixth sense told her—crying for the woman, or the woman who was crying for reasons yet unknown?
Or was she just looking for a delay now, when she’d known all along where this would lead?
Claire sighed again, ran the tap to clear the sink, and stalked out of the kitchen, tugging absently at a lock of dark hair.
At the front door—a vibrant shade Claire couldn’t decide her feelings on; was it sunshine gold or sulphurous yellow?—she paused as Kirsty called down from upstairs.
“Are you heading to the shops?”
“No,” Claire called back, eyebrows quirking briefly at the muffled thumps from upstairs. Alistair wasn’t home; what the heck was Kirsty doing? “Just going for a walk.”
Thump.
Thud, thud-bump.
Rearranging furniture, or failing at kick-boxing?
“You okay?” Claire called, just in case.
“Yeah I’m good!”
Claire shrugged one shoulder, realised Kirsty couldn’t see her anyway, and let her shoulder drop. “I’m not taking my phone,” she called as she opened the front door with its customary squeak. “If you need something… I don’t know, shout loud.” She glanced up the street, past the five intervening townhouses to the sprawling tangle of green at the end of the cul-de-sac. “I’ll hear you.”
“Have fun!”
Claire pulled the door shut—slammed it shut, actually, the damn thing had leaked like a sieve when they’d moved in and in resealing it, the bloody tradesman had made it so if you didn’t slam it, it wouldn’t latch closed—though to be fair it didn’t leak any more—and headed down the street.