In the Land of Tea and Ravens (11 page)

~15~

Greed took the king’s life. As she did every morning, the tea girl brought tea to her betrothed. Unbeknownst to her, the brew was laced with poison. The Messenger King drank deeply, trusting her. Abruptly, he coughed, his hands going to his throat as he struggled for air. “What have you done?” he sputtered, his eyes wide with horror. Terror gripped Mercy. “Nothing, my love!” she cried. “I have done nothing.” His lips turning blue, his gaze glassy, the king murmured, “I loved you.” In death, his hands released the cup that poisoned him. It rolled to the floor and came to rest against the boots of the king’s advisor. Grief overwhelmed
Caelin
, for there was nothing the druid could do against death. In anger,
Caelin
took the cup, his gaze going to the tea girl. “You’ve been tricked,” he said. Mercy felt broken. “My heart hurts,” she sobbed. “Bring him back.”
Caelin’s
tears joined hers. “I cannot,” he said, “but I can punish those who did this.” Lifting the cup, he drew on the spirits of nature. “Forevermore, the women of your family shall be tied to this cup. Should it ever break, all of you shall die. Even in death, the cup will keep you, your spirits returning to it in the guise of a raven.”
Caelin’s
gaze found the tea
girl,
and he took pity on her. “It shall be the tea women in your family who protect the cup.” They were damning words …

~The Tea Girl~

“It seems wrong,” Grayson mumbled when the song was finished. He looked at Lyric. “It’s a fairytale.”

She brought her knees to her chest, her long, tiered skirt dusting the floor. “Like I said, it’s a beautifully sad story. Full of love and betrayal.”

Grayson’s gaze fell once more to the cup, to the small chip on the top. “It’s already broken,” he pointed out.

Lyric froze. “No,” she whispered. “It’s chipped. Not broken.”

Grayson stared at the small area missing the fragment, a sudden understanding dawning on him. He glanced at Lyric, his gaze falling on her face. Her chest was rising and falling swiftly, as if she was fighting back tears.

Grayson swallowed.
“Your mother.”

It was all he said.

One of Lyric’s hands dropped to the floor, her fingers trailing the dust that coated it. She drew in the grime. “I had always been told never to touch the cup. The warnings and reprimands started as soon as I was old enough to walk and to get into trouble.”

A heart appeared below her fingers. “There was always the song, lectures about how the cup should never be played with or broken.” Lyric
inhaled,
the sound shaky. “The cup was so important to her. It was so damned important!” Her gaze slid up to Grayson’s face. “I thought she loved the cup more than me. She coddled the cup, paid it attention, and guarded it. I was tired of getting in trouble if I went near it.”

Her gaze fell back to the floor, to the heart she’d drawn into the dirt. “My grandmother was sick. She was fighting a cold, and I just wanted to help. So, one day, I tried to make tea on my own. My mother found me in the kitchen with the cup. Instead of being proud that I’d wanted to help, she yelled. ‘Get away from the cup,’ she told me. I was so angry. I’d only wanted to help.” Lyric’s finger drew a ragged line down the middle of the heart. “I didn’t know …”

Grayson’s hand reached for hers.

She pulled away. “I didn’t know dropping the cup would kill her.”

Grayson exhaled. “Lyric—”

Her gaze found his. “I understand what it’s like to hurt someone you love,” she said.

Some moments breed words. Other moments breed silence. Grayson said nothing, his gaze searching Lyric’s face. She avoided his eyes, her hand smearing the drawing in the dirt. She’d just confessed to unknowingly killing her mother.

After a moment, Grayson asked, “Why your mother? Why did the piece that broke off kill her and not someone else?”

Lyric sighed, her hands capturing her knees, her drawing forgotten. “I asked my grandmother that once. There are so many things about the cup that have been lost to us. She believes it took my mother because I’m the one who chipped it. Out of a selfish need for attention, I broke it.”

Grayson’s hands found Lyric’s skirt, his fingers closing around the material. “We’re all selfish. It’s an ingrained human behavior. You didn’t know.”

Lyric stared at his hands, at his work roughened skin against her colorful skirt. “Maybe,” she answered, “but I still killed her.”

It was a heavy burden to bear.

The sudden droning sound of a four-wheeler broke their silence. Lyric’s gaze found Grayson’s. “You’ve been missed.”

He released her and stood, his eyes finding the kitchen door.

“Go,” Lyric told him. “You can go through the woods from the back of the house. No need to worry about me. No one dares enter this place.”

Grayson peered down at her bent head and shaking shoulders.
She was suddenly more than just a pretty young woman. She was a wounded old soul, alluring and tempting, her gypsy skirts and wild hair hiding secrets that had driven men insane. It made sense that people went crazy. Her story, her
history
, was so surreal that it blurred the lines between reality and fiction. If people like Merlin really existed, how many legends in history was actually fact?

Lyric glanced up at him, and his lips parted.

“Don’t say it,” she warned.

He smiled. “I’ll be back,” he promised.

“Damn you,” she muttered.

His smile grew. “Have a little faith, Lyric.”

She stared.
“In you?”

His smile slipped. He’d had a brother once who’d trusted him, and he’d failed him. Now, here was a stranger, an unassuming temptress who was doing something no one else had done since he’d been released from prison. She was giving him a second chance. She’d placed a cup in his hands, one that as crazy as it seemed, could destroy her. She’d placed it in his hands and trusted him not to break it.

“I’m not as fragile as I seem,” Lyric said suddenly.

Grayson’s gaze fell to the cup. No, she wasn’t fragile. Even in the short time he’d known her, he’d seen enough resilience in her character to know she was stronger than most. She wasn’t fragile, but her life was.

“There comes a time,” Lyric whispered, her words breaking into his thoughts. “There comes a time when you’ve cried so much, it’s either
sink
in the flood left behind or swim.”

For the first time in a long time, Grayson felt the stir of something he’d thought he’d lost in his gut.
Recovery.

“I’ve heard about what happened to you,” Lyric continued. She swallowed. “You didn’t ask your brother to follow you. He did that on his own. You made a mistake, and he got caught up in it. Mistakes don’t define
us,
” she stared at him, “what we do about them does.”

The sound of the four-wheeler was loud now, the droning insistent.

“Have a little faith,” Grayson repeated, his feet carrying him to the gaping hole at the back of the kitchen, his gaze sliding from the woods beyond to the kitchen and back again. “In me,” he added.

If he’d glanced behind him, he would have seen her stand, her hands clutching the empty, brown mug, her gaze on the tea leaves within. He would have seen her lips twitch. He would have seen her whisper the words, “No,
you
have a little faith in me.”

She’d taken him to a tea party that would never end. A door in the house’s second level slammed closed. It was a tea party of spirits imprisoned by a tea cup, the tea girl their jailer. They were all on death row for eternity, their trust in one person. Women in her family, both still alive and others now embodied by the ravens, depended on her to keep them alive.

She held a lot of lives in her hand, and she’d handed them to him. Because in the end, she’d seen what no one else had: that sometimes having unparalleled responsibility is the first step to starting over.

People were willing to revel in his infamy, to taste danger.

Lyric knew Danger. She held his hand every day. By sharing tea with Grayson, she’d given Danger a purpose.

People need purpose.

~16~

In time, the tea cup changed, the generations following having altered it by adding layers of glass. It went from being a fragile porcelain cup to being a thick mug. It didn’t lessen the danger. No matter how much it was altered,
Caelin’s
words held unending power. It wasn’t a curse that bound the women to the cup, it was a promise. Promises are stronger than curses. Promises strengthen over time. There are many ways to break a curse. There are few ways to break a promise, and promises when broken, always come with consequences.

~The Tea Girl~

He never left her alone at night.

While searching bug-infested hallways and moldy rooms for Old
Ma’am’s
tea book, Lyric often paused to stand at one of the windows of the house, her gaze finding the lit Kramer home across the way. Her kerosene lantern threw shadows everywhere, the constant cawing of the ravens digging itself under her skin. Every day she stayed, she risked herself. She risked her health in a house falling apart around her, and she risked the community’s animosity.

And yet, he never left her alone at night.

While standing at the window, the darkness a blanket over the earth, she watched his silhouette in a second story casement, his frame leaning casually. Watching and waiting.
Keeping her company from a distance.

Three days passed. Three days of searching.
Three nights of standing in windows.

The fourth night was no different. He watched her even now from his room on the second floor.

Taking a sip from a water bottle filled with tea, Lyric lowered her lantern, her gaze searching the contents of an ancient trunk in her mother’s old bedroom. It had been hidden under a pile of rubble she’d leafed through the day before.

You’re foolish to trust him,
a bird said.

Men are nothing but trouble,
another raven added.

“Ye of little faith,” Lyric mumbled.

A raven fluttered down to the trunk. She was a small raven but spunky. Lyric’s Aunt Violet.
I was killed by a man,
the bird retorted.

Lyric snorted.
“Because your insanity rubbed off on him.”

Violet’s feathers shook, and she preened herself in annoyance.
Insanity?
Aren’t we all insane?

Lyric’s brows rose. “We’re connected to the tea cup, not ruled by it. You had a mental illness you should have gotten help for.”

Violet cawed, insulted.
I did not!

“I’ve heard the stories, Aunt Vi.”

She’s right, Violet,
a raven called down.

Lyric believed it would have been different if the cup made the women in her family immortal and powerful, but there was no such thing as immortality. There was only the world and the spirits that made up the world. Those spirits could be manipulated, as with the cup, but not changed. It would have been heady to be immortal with the powers to truly drive men insane. Like modern day sirens. Instead, they were simply mortals who could have mortal illnesses and die mortal deaths but never truly die. They were forever tied to a tea cup. Men weren’t driven insane by their beauty or by some mysterious power. They were driven insane because living with someone who could die at any moment was like living with a terminally ill person.

Dust choked Lyric as she lifted the trunk’s lid, the scrabbling sound of claws causing her to stumble backward.

A raven screamed and dove before rising, a mouse dangling from its claws.

Lyric fought back nausea.

You’ll have to eat them one day,
the raven pointed out.

Revolted,
Lyric
shuddered before approaching the trunk more slowly, her lantern lifting. A yellowed wedding dress and stacks of photo albums stared back at her. Swaddling clothes, cloth diapers, and childhood crafts sat beneath the dress. They were Lyric’s.

A raven cawed, and Lyric glanced up at her, her heart clenching.

“Mine?” Lyric asked.

She knew who the clothes and crafts belonged to, but she wanted so badly to hear the bird speak, so badly to hear the voice she hadn’t heard since she was seven. There was no reply.

I see it,
a bird cried.

Lyric’s
gaze
left the raven and fell back to the trunk. There, beneath an old fractured tea set, sat a bound leather journal, the cover cracked and index cards falling out of the sides.
Old
Ma’am’s
tea book.

It’s been so long,
a bird murmured. This raven seemed older somehow than the rest, even though she was the youngest in death.
I couldn’t remember …

“Ma’am,” Lyric whispered, “
it’s
okay.”

Old Ma’am had passed, as they all had, into the guise of a raven in death. Sometimes in the transition, minor memories were lost. The tea book had been one of those memories.

Lyric lifted it reverently from the trunk, her breath whooshing as she blew at the dust. Like a cloud of ash and death, the dust scattered. There wasn’t anything special about the book, nothing that an ordinary woman would find enthralling, but Lyric wasn’t ordinary.

Pulling open the cover, Lyric let her fingers slide over the tea recipes, the old tea girl story, and the Raven’s Song that lay within. The tea book was their history. It was like a patchwork quilt with tea recipes dating back to the days of the original tea girl. Holding it, Lyric realized something … she wasn’t ashamed of her family’s history. It was a dark history, but it was also filled with good moments, with Southern nights and days sitting at her grandmother’s knee sipping tea.

Every moment counts,
Lyric thought. She glanced up at the silent raven, the one who never spoke to her. It was the one part of her life that had always haunted her, the one bird she was as afraid to hear speak as she was eager.
Because if she was being honest with herself, she was afraid of the raven’s scorn.

Lyric clutched the book to her chest, her heart somehow lighter. Days of searching, and she had them both, the tea book and the cup. Old Ma’am had left them for her. Lyric was their protector now, despite the fact that her mother had been the true tea girl. It has passed to Lyric when her mother vanished. She hadn’t been ready for it then, but she was now. She had to be.

She glanced up at the ravens, her gaze scanning the house. The home had fallen into disrepair long before Old Ma’am was taken to a nursing home. There’d been no money when Lyric was a child for Old Ma’am to keep it up. There’d only been enough money to make the house payments. It seemed wrong that it was the way it was now, a dying house, a dying property, and a dying history. Lyric had made two mistakes in her life. The first had been killing her mother. The second had been running away. She’d chosen to go live with a distant aunt when she was thirteen, completely distancing herself from the house, her grandmother, and her own guilt.

“Why?” Lyric asked suddenly.
“Why me, Ma’am?
I deserve it less than anyone else in this family.”

A raven fluttered downward, its soot-colored wings eerie in the lantern light.
It’s often the people who deserve it less who come to appreciate it the most.

Lyric’s hand reached for the bird, but the raven shied away. That was the thing about the birds. They were her family, but their spirits were as much ravens as they were the women they’d been before. They were wild.

Protect the cup, Lyric
, Old Ma’am said.
You’ll know when to pass it down.

Lyric inhaled. She’d found the tea book, and she had the cup. There was no reason to remain in Hiccup.

Somehow, her feet found the room’s window, her gaze flying to the Kramer house. There, opposite her, was
his
shadow, this hurting man looking for absolution. He’d never find it because life didn’t work that way.

You can’t stay,
a raven called.

It was Aunt Violet. She was an obstinate woman who’d died in the Miller fields with Grayson’s Uncle
Polie
. The gun he’d used to shoot Violet and himself was lying in the trunk tucked within the yellowed wedding dress. Lyric had no doubt both
Polie
and Violet had been a little deranged. The family’s tie to the tea cup had been too much for both of them. They were a legend in Hiccup now, a Southern Romeo and Juliet. Violet’s love had driven
Polie
insane, and he’d taken both of their lives to save them. It was a bunch of crock. True love didn’t end in misery. True love survived it.

Lyric stared at Grayson’s shadow, her gaze rising to a full moon hanging above the wilted corn fields. The light from the moon painted the pastures silver, casting them in an eerie glow that was as beautiful as it was terrifying. It was an analogy to life really. Taking a step forward or making a decision about something was often as scary as it was wonderful. The thrilling part was in the
not
knowing if it was the right choice or the wrong one. Paths should be trampled in laughter and tears. They shouldn’t be stared at it until they were overgrown from disuse.

Lyric’s hand lifted, the lantern rising. Across from her, Grayson’s shadow straightened.

You promised,
Lyric thought.

She turned, her feet carrying her from the dust-covered room to the fields below.

In the window across the way, Grayson’s shadow disappeared.