‘It was, but now it makes a perfect chocolate workshop.’
‘Yes, your friend Poppy told me all about the chocolates, and then, of course, I’d already eaten one at the welcome party. Putting messages inside them is a brilliant idea. I’m not surprised business is booming.’
‘What did your Wish say?’ I hadn’t meant to ask that, it just sort of sneakily slipped out.
‘That I was never alone,’ he said simply.
‘No, you wouldn’t be: your conscience must talk to you all the time, for a start,’ I snapped, and he gave me an unfathomable look.
‘It does, but it also tells me that I can’t undo what I’ve done in the past, I can only change my future actions.’
‘Comforting,’ I said drily, but seeing he wasn’t about to leave any time soon I took him through into the sitting room and made hot chocolate, for my own comfort rather than his. I didn’t even ask him if he liked it, just made it the way I take it, dark and strong and full of flavour – no milk or honey to sweeten the brew.
He was standing at the window when I went back in. As I handed him the mug he said, ‘It’s lovely out there, like a secret garden. I can see you’re keen on geraniums, too.’
Since they lined the windowsill three pots deep, that didn’t take the deductive powers of a Sherlock Holmes. ‘Scented pelargoniums,’ I said, giving them their proper name. ‘I’ve got apple and mint and attar of roses, but I’m looking forward to getting a lot more when I have a bigger greenhouse to over-winter them in and—’ I stopped abruptly, on the brink of forgetting who I was talking to in my enthusiasm. ‘But you haven’t come to talk about gardening, have you? What do you want? And sit down, for goodness’ sake – you’re giving me a crick in the neck!’
He obeyed, perching on the edge of the window seat and taking a cautious sip from his mug. He’d haunted me for so long that it was hard to take in that he was actually there, big and solid, in my sitting room. I could see now that he was wearing a black T-shirt printed with a white dog collar, which gave the effect of the traditional garb, rather than the actual thing, which was a particularly Raffy touch, even though it still looked incongruous to me.
I felt like throwing something at him, possibly the hot chocolate, but instead I sat on the small sofa with my feet tucked under me and both hands wrapped around my mug for warmth, though I hadn’t felt chilly until just then.
‘We need to clear the air, since it’s going to be impossible to avoid each other in a small village like this,’ he said.
‘Especially since you’ve already managed to ingratiate yourself with my best friends, you mean?’
He grinned unexpectedly, if wryly. ‘Same acerbic Chloe, I see!’
‘Not quite the same,’ I said evenly, because I wasn’t a fool for love any more, that was for sure.
‘No, I suppose we’ve both changed in many ways.’ He looked at me levelly under those black, winged brows and said, ‘I had no idea you lived in Sticklepond when I agreed to come here, though strangely enough I thought of you the day I came to look at the vicarage. I suppose it was because you once told me you lived in Merchester, which isn’t far away. And then, when I was in the church trying to make my mind up whether to come here or not, I remembered the way you always read the Tarot cards before doing anything important.’
‘I don’t read the Tarot any more, they never came right for me. Zillah does, though – she’s a relative who lives with us.’
‘I’ve met her. She let me in when I went to see your grandfather and then made me a cup of tea. Everywhere I go, they make me pots and pots of tea,’ he added, slightly despairingly.
‘Not like Zillah’s. Did you drink it?’
‘Yes, because she stood over me until I did, and then snatched it back as though she thought I was going to steal the china. Then your grandfather offered me a glass of some special herbal liqueur after that.’
Like a lamb to the slaughter, I thought. ‘You drank that too?’
‘Not after the tea, and anyway, I don’t actually drink much alcohol any more, apart from the odd pint of beer. But I think I could get addicted to this stuff,’ he said, taking another thoughtful sip of chocolate.
‘Do you feel all right?’ I demanded, and he looked up, surprised.
‘Fine. Why not?’
‘Oh, I just wondered…Grumps managed to upset Mr Merryman quite a bit.’
‘Grumps? Is that what you call him? No, we had a really interesting chat. He’s a very original and surprising man.’
‘He’s all of that,’ I agreed.
‘I’m fascinated by the way the early Christian Church in Britain absorbed the pagan rituals and festivals into their calendar and Mr Lyon told me that there will be quite a lot of information about that on display in the museum and in the guidebook.’
‘Yes, there is – I’ve proof-read it. One of the separate pamphlets he’s writing to sell in the museum deals with it too.’
‘Since he’s basically just exhibiting the history of witchcraft, rather than actively preaching paganism and the joys of Wicca, I can’t really see any problem in having the museum at all. I’ll have to try and persuade Miss Winter to see it that way too, though when I visited her this morning she seemed to be coming round to the idea herself anyway.’
‘Was she?’ I said, surprised. ‘Perhaps she’s now just more worried about the man who has moved into Badger’s Bolt, Digby Mann-Drake.’
‘Yes, she told me all about him, and so did your grandfather. I’d already heard of him in London and known one or two people who’ve fallen for all that black magic posturing and the secret rites stuff at his place in Devon – though actually, it’s just burned down.’
‘Burned down?’
‘That’s what your grandfather told me. According to him, the villagers burned it to the ground because he was corrupting the local youth, but I expect it was really only an electrical fault or something like that.’
‘Oh, so that’s why Mann-Drake told Felix he would be spending a lot more time here than he’d first expected…’ I mused. ‘Badger’s Bolt was supposed to be just a weekend cottage.’
‘He’s still got his house in London, so far as I know,’ Raffy said. ‘But I agree with Miss Winter and your grandfather that his influence is not one that we want in Sticklepond, even if we discount his alleged occult powers.’
He raised an eyebrow quizzically at me, presumably wondering on which side of the magical fence I fell these days, but I wasn’t about to try to explain my ambivalent feelings on the subject.
‘Clearly we will all have to join forces to combat him, not fight among ourselves, Chloe.’
‘I can’t see that happening any time soon,’ I said shortly, ‘and we seem to have strayed an awful long way from the subject of why you wanted to talk to me.’
