Every Bookshop Needs a Cat (Fleckney Fields Series, Book 2)

Do It For Me

Brace yourselves for the first KA-BOOM, my darlings! Remember you can always trust me to write a happy ending for my characters, but, please, note the trigger warnings for this chapter.

TW: indirect mention of suicide and surrounding concepts, such as the suicide code language, an attempt, etc.

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She was told that under no circumstances was she allowed to show up in the bakery or the bookshop till Monday next week, and only with a doctor's explicit permission. Eddie was more restrained about it and just sent a text. Yola barged into Anya's bedroom, shouting and waving her arms in the air and reading recipes from the screen of her phone, mostly for some bizarre spinach-loaded dishes. Snezha had been right, it seemed that everyone in Fleckney knew that Anya had vitamin deficiency anaemia and needed rest and a better diet. James sent her a giant box of sweets with Yola. A basket of fruit was delivered from Viola. Sam Holyoake sent his regards, and his children drew Anya a get-better card. Her colleagues from the bakery chipped in and sent her flowers and an enormous balloon that said 'Feel better soon. Work is boring without you, you mental muppet.' Anya couldn't stop laughing at it. This was the first time in her adult life when, after missing work, she got sweets and balloons and a jolly bunch of gladiolus blooms - instead of a sack.

She was told to stay in bed for two days. She mostly slept, and only woke up to eat or have tea with Varya. On the evening of the second day, Klaus stopped by for a few minutes, said his - strangely cold and short - goodbyes, and left for London. Anya couldn't calm down afterwards, and had some unsettling, persistent dreams that she couldn't remember in the morning, but felt as if they stayed on her skin like a sheen of feverish sweat. She kept telling herself that she was just catastrophising as usual.

It wasn't until she was finishing her breakfast on Saturday that she realised what was different this time: she wasn't trying to suss out what it was that she'd done wrong that possibly cheesed him off and led to the change in his behaviour. Contrary to her usual thinking, she was simply worried for him - and his detachment and his aloofness, for once, appeared nothing but an expression of his affected state. The man's generosity and his warmth and good will must have made Anya quite full of herself: she was now giving the situation the benefit of the doubt, without interpreting it immediately as something that was absolutely, a hundred percent her fault.

She'd been checking her phone every ten minutes, if not more often, since the previous morning, hoping he'd text. Obviously she had no right to demand updates from him - but his silence was killing her!

She had just dried her hair and was considering whether she wanted to change her sheets, when a knock came to her door. Anya allowed a visitor entrance. It was Alice, one of the maids. The girl was a local and worked in the Hall part-time, while studying to become a hairdresser. It took Anya more than a month in the Hall to get accepted by the staff: they stopped rising when she'd enter a room or one of the kitchens. After a month and a half, she often had tea with them in the 'servants' quarters.'

"There's a visitor from the Town Hall, Ms. Rosenfeld," the maid said.

Anya, so far, had achieved zilch success at getting rid of the ridiculous appellation, though. Still, it was better than 'madam' that she'd had to work with at the beginning.

"A visitor for me?" she asked in surprise.

"It's regarding the fortune teller," the maid explained. "And seeing Sir Niklas and Mr. Bjornsson aren't here, you'd be the mistress of the house. There are papers to sign, you see."

Blood rushed away from Anya's face.

"Who would normally handle this?" she asked, trying to remain - or at least look - confident. "Sir Niklas hasn't left any instructions for me."