The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw

Author:Shea Ernshaw
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf, mobi
Publisher: Simon Pulse

FORETELLING

A woman stepped through the door of the Swan Perfumery early one morning on a Thursday, a week after the sisters’ night at the tavern.

Aurora was sweeping the shop floor, Marguerite was leaning against the counter daydreaming about a boy she had seen working the rigging on a ship in the harbor the day before, and Hazel was scribbling notes on a piece of paper for a new scent she had been imagining: myrrh, tansy, and rose hips. A fragrance to ease sadness and clear away mistrust in others.

When the woman entered, Marguerite straightened and smiled pleasingly as she did whenever a new customer visited the shop. “Good morning,” Marguerite spoke elegantly, as if she were raised by royals, when in fact all three sisters were raised by a woman who’d lewdly dabbed perfume between her thighs to entice her lovers.

The woman did not respond, but walked to a wall of bottled perfumes all containing hues of citrus and other fruit, meant for daytime wear, often cajoling memories of late summer winds and warm evenings. “A perfume shop seems a tad presumptuous in this town,” the woman finally spoke. “Illicit even.”

“Women in any town deserve the allure of a good scent,” Marguerite responded, raising an eyebrow. Marguerite did not show it, but she recognized the woman—she was the wife of a man Marguerite had flirted with outside the Collins & Gray General Store three days earlier.

“Allure,” the woman repeated. “An interesting choice of words. And this allure—” She paused. “It comes from the spells you cast in your scents?”

Marguerite’s mouth quirked sharply upward on one side. “No spells, madam. Just perfectly arranged fragrances, I assure you.”

The woman glared at Marguerite then swiftly moved toward the door. “Your devious work will not go unnoticed for long. We see what you really are.” And in a whir of salty sea air, she opened the door and hurried back out to the street, leaving the three sisters staring after her.

“They really do think we’re witches, don’t they?” Hazel said aloud.

“Let them think it. It gives us power over them,” Marguerite answered.

“Or gives them reason to hang us,” Aurora added.

Marguerite sauntered to the center of the store, winking back at her sisters. “The boys all seem to like it,” she replied with a sway of her hips.

Both Hazel and Aurora laughed. Marguerite had always been unabashed and they admired this quality in her, even if at times it got her into trouble. The three sisters were close, devoted to one another. Their lives interwoven as tightly as a sailor’s knot.

They didn’t yet know the things that would divide them.

For in a place like Sparrow, rumors spread quickly, like small pox or cholera, confusing the mind, rooting itself into the fabric of a town until there’s no telling truth from speculation.

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