Chapter 5 Old Estate

By Tuesday afternoon, Nora had counted the money in the cash box four times, and the amount refused to change no matter how many times she willed it otherwise. She sat behind the counter with a sheet of parchment spread in front of her, adding the same numbers again even though she already knew what they'd say. The shop had earned more in three days than she'd expected, but between the supplier's old account, the repairs, and the cost of replacing ingredients her grandmother had used for years, there was barely anything left once it was all totaled. The supplier's deadline was tomorrow, and if she couldn't pay at least part of the overdue balance, there would be no more restoration salts, enchanted thread, or cleaning crystals delivered to her door.

"How much are we short?" Milly asked, standing on the other side of the counter with a cup of tea cradled in both hands.

"Enough that I don't want to say it aloud."

"That bad?"

"That bad."

Milly glanced at the parchment. "You could borrow it."

"From whom?"

"You know whom."

"I already refused Ramon, and I'm not changing my mind."

"I wasn't going to suggest that," Milly said, taking a sip of her tea with an expression far too innocent to be believed.

"You were thinking it."

"Something like that."

Before Nora could respond, the bell above the door rang, and an elderly witch entered carrying a large wooden trunk, which she set carefully on the counter before looking around the shop. "Are you Eleanor Carter's granddaughter?"

"Yes," Nora said, straightening.

"I thought so. You have her eyes," the woman said, and though Nora had heard that more than once since arriving in Moonvale, it still caught somewhere in her chest every time. The woman opened the trunk to reveal a collection of old aprons, scarves, gloves, and children's coats. "They're my family's. Some belonged to my children when they were young, some to my husband. They've been sitting in storage for years. I wanted to throw them away, but I couldn't."

"Awnnnn... these are memories," Nora said, understanding immediately.

The woman nodded. "My daughter told me your grandmother could restore things like this without taking away what made them special."

"She could," Nora said, and when the woman asked if she could too, she looked down at the trunk and felt the full weight of her grandmother's reputation settle over her shoulders for the first time since she'd taken over the shop. "I can try."

For the next two hours, she worked through the collection piece by piece. A scarf carried the memory of a winter morning when the woman's children had built a snow creature in the garden. A pair of tiny gloves held the warmth of a child's hand still curled inside them. An old apron carried the scent of cinnamon and the sound of laughter from a kitchen where a cake had once collapsed in the oven. Nora restored each piece carefully, strengthening the memories rather than erasing them, and by the time she finished, the woman stood silently over the trunk and wiped her eyes before asking how much she owed.

"Twenty-five silver," Nora said, hesitant, and the woman looked almost offended at the modesty of it, pressing thirty coins into her hand and telling her to keep the extra. "Thank you," she added at the door, pausing just long enough to mention that her sister had six children of her own, and that Nora would likely be seeing them soon.

"That was more money than you usually make in a week," Milly said once the door closed.

"I know."

"And she's going to tell her sister and then her sister will tell someone else."

Nora looked at the coins still warm in her palm. "Maybe," she said, just as the bell rang again and a young goblin appeared outside holding a basket, followed by another customer, and then another, until Milly counted four people waiting through the window. The goblin's shirts kept screaming. A witch's curtains had started biting people. A young man's boots refused to come off. Nora laughed despite herself and waved them all inside, and the rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of work until her shoulders ached in a way that felt entirely different from the exhaustion of the past few days. It wasn't the ache of fighting to keep something alive anymore. It was the ache of having too much work to do, which was its own small miracle.

By evening, she had enough in the cash box to cover the supplier's minimum payment, not the full debt, but enough to keep the account open, and she counted the coins twice before tucking them into a small pouch.

"You did it," Milly said, leaning against the counter.

Nora looked around at the shop, still uneven shelves and temperamental machines and a front window that needed replacing, but with full baskets now and customers still trickling through the door and tomorrow's work already waiting for her. "I did," she said softly, just as a knock sounded and she found Ramon standing outside, glancing through the window at the crowded counter with his eyebrows lifted.

"It seems you've been busy."

"Very."

"You look tired."

"I am."

"You should rest."

"When the laundry stops trying to destroy me," she said, and a faint smile touched his mouth before he held up a small envelope and mentioned that he'd seen the supplier's carriage outside earlier. When she confirmed she'd paid part of the debt, he asked how much, and she narrowed her eyes at the question until he simply nodded and let it go. "I won't interfere," he said, lowering the envelope, and the words surprised her more than she expected.

He turned to leave, then stopped. "There's something else. My family owns an old estate outside Moonvale. It's been neglected for years, and I've been trying to convince them to let me restore it." He paused. "The property holds several magical garments that belonged to previous generations."

"Are they growling?"

"Not yet."

She laughed, and he smiled in return, promising he might bring them by tomorrow before stepping away from the door. Nora watched him walk down the street until he disappeared around the corner.

"He could have offered to pay your debt," Milly said quietly, coming up beside her.

"I know."

"And he didn't."

"No."

"That's probably a good thing."

Nora watched the empty street a moment longer, thinking of the envelope still folded in his hand as he vanished into the evening. For once, Ramon hadn't tried to solve her problem for her. He had only given her one more reason to wonder exactly what he was hiding, and how much of it was still waiting, unspoken, inside that old estate he hadn't yet let her see.