Scots terms
Da/Ma – Dad/Mum
Freshers – a UK-wide term for first year university students.
a sneaky – quite similar to a cheeky, it just means something you’re not supposed to be doing, that’s low-key bad for you but not harmful.
Pal – friend
Prick – British slang for penis.
Chilly – cold.
Author’s note: The name of Maya’s flatmate in this script is Marion, but in the original audio, and the Scots script below, it’s Rowan. This is because I already used the name Rowan for a completely different character in episode 15 and obviously forgot by the time I wrote episode 23. I’ve changed it here to avoid confusion, but the audio, as of writing this note, is Rowan. In the realms of episode 23 Rowan=Marion.
Script
It’s the start of a new semester, and a new year. My final year. I honestly didn’t think I’d make it this far, especially given my part-time job, but here we are.
Not much happened over the summer, save for that time jump thing, visiting the first Madam Anora back in the bronze age. The town was a lot quieter in general, what with most of the students going home. I spent most of my time here, for the first time in my university career. I spent about half of my time at home with my Da’, and the other half in the flat, also eerily quiet. Instead of four of us, there was only two. At least I know now which flatmates cause the mess.
Summer’s over now, not that there’s ever really much of summer in Scotland. A few days if you’re lucky. The are few differences between Summer and Autumn, as though we only have three seasons here, missing the best one out entirely. The leaves have turned and started falling to the ground, the days grow shorter, and the weather gets chillier. Soon it’ll be scarves and hats across the campus.
It was the week before lectures started, when you begin seeing Freshers start to wander around looking like they escaped their nursery, that this particular story happened. I got a bit of a shock on the day in question. The bell above the door chimed in its usual way, and three of us looked up from what we were doing to eye the door, excluding Chronos who tried to sneakily move one of his Checkers over a square or two. Reid didn’t notice, and even though I did, I didn’t say anything. Seeing Reid lose to a cat is one of the highlights of my days sometimes.
Not on this day, though. I don’t keep the shop a secret from my pals or family. Everyone knows I work in an antique shop. For obvious reasons, I keep the finer details to myself. Given the nature of the shop, no one I know, or would even recognise, had come through the door. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually.
This lassie’s name is Marion. We met during my second year. She was going out with one of my flatmates, they’ve since split up, but I kept in touch with her. We have a few lectures together now and then, but this past summer I’ve taken to seeing her more and more. She’d applied for an internship at a big company, which she’d got. It meant, like me, she was more often than not in the city when none of our other friends were. Since her company is close to the shop, we go for a sneaky lunch once a week.
The day she walked through the door of the shop wasn’t the day we had lunch. It was two days before. Marion looked as surprised to see me as I was her. For her it was a pleasant one. For me, it began to give me that feeling I usually got around customers who were about to buy something I knew would do them harm.
I’ve been working at the shop for nearly a year now, and not one person I know has walked through that door. Why now? Why her? Was it simply a law of probability? Just because I worked in the shop doesn’t mean the people in my life were immune to its siren song or the intrigues of Fate. My stomach lurched when I saw her, and it took me a minute to plaster some kind of friendly greeting on my face as she approached the counter.
Abashedly, she confessed that she’d never known where this shop was, despite trying to find it a few times when I first mentioned I worked there. Not surprising. A few of my pals had said the same thing over the last year. The shop, as ever, is invisible to people who don’t need to be there. Therefore, Marion did. It was the why that had me worried.
There was a brief moment when she reached into her pocket and I thought the business card was coming out. It was just her phone. Now that she’d found the shop, she said, she wanted to look around. I think I’d have preferred her to ask to see my boss.
I itched to go with her, follow her like a wee puppy after its Ma’, talking and distracting her from picking something up; or worse – buying it. Reid, Fionn, and Chronos went back to what they were doing before, but I could feel Reid watching me fidget as my eyes followed Marion around.
She came to the counter after a few minutes, blissfully empty-handed. And I thought it was over. I thought, for a fleeting moment, that she was immune. That there were people, however rare, who came into the shop and left with nothing.
I’ll not be that naïve again.
As she was talking to me across the glass counter, reaffirming our lunch plans for a few days later, her eyes snagged on something beneath the surface. I felt her attention wander to it, eyes glancing down every few seconds, not really listening to what I was saying. Eventually she asked to see something out, and I felt my stomach drop.
She tapped her nail on the glass as she indicated it was a brooch. When I looked down into the bright lights that made horrible things sparkle, I caught what she wanted to see. I could barely remember this brooch; it’d been that long since I’d last seen it.
I mentioned it at the time. It was back when Reid had left, and Fionn was my only familiar. One day when we’d come into the shop, there was this floral brooch lying on the counter. The Madam and Chronos were upstairs, and there were no customers in sight. We’d spent the best part of that morning daring each other to touch it and making bets on what it did. Instinctively, we both knew it was nothing to laugh at.
After that day it vanished. There in the morning and gone by the afternoon. Fionn maintained no one had bought it, and I hadn’t sold it to anyone in the time since. It’d simply sprouted legs and gone for a walk. Except, I began to realise, it hadn’t. It’d simply blended in with all the other shiny nightmares that lived beneath the glass counter.
Marion was eyeing me expectantly, her acrylic nail still resting on the glass surface. I thought she was going to start tapping again. Stiffly, I retrieved the brooch, flinching as my fingers brushed across the pearls set into the centre of each flower. I dropped it onto the glass, winced as the metal bar pin scraped against the surface.
It was a pretty piece, a decade or so old by the discolouration to the silver metal. It wasn’t hallmarked, so probably not real silver. It was a bunch of flowers, tied at their long stems with a fake diamond encrusted ribbon. Each blooming flower had a pearl set into its centre, and was surrounded by thin leaves, also sparkling the same as the ribbon.
Not everything in that cabinet is sinister, or so Chronos has told me, but I felt in my bones that this brooch probably was. I felt vindicated remembering that it’d also made Fionn feel uneasy. He’d refused to touch it the same as me. I dared a quick glance down at the finger that’d touched one of the flowers, expecting to see a burn or that the skin on my fingertips was changing colour, rotting, flaking off. It looked normal, and I let a quiet breath out.
I don’t think I need to spell the next part out. Despite my silent prayers that she’d change her mind, find it no to her liking, Marion bought the brooch, and happily left with her purchase. I thought allowing strangers to leave the shop with something horrible was bad, but it’s much worse when it’s someone you know, someone you’re pals with. And yet again, there was nothing I could do.
It nagged at me constantly for the next two days. Whenever I had a spare minute, I’d be staring at my phone, at the blank text box on my messenger app, typing one lie after the next, something that’d make her return it, before deleting it and trying again a few hours later.
By the time we met for lunch I was half expecting her not to show up. But she did, and from appearances nothing bad had happened to her. She was her usual, friendly, cheerful self. I even caught the brooch pinned to the collar of her suit jacket. I was taken aback. Maybe we’d both been wrong, Fionn and I. Maybe it was some kind of shared delusion. He was my familiar, after all. Maybe I’d spread my own worries about the brooch like a virus, causing him to share in my delusion.
We sat down and ordered, getting past the awkward small talk of when you first meet someone, even if you’re pals with them. Everything was going fine until the drinks came. I started noticing something a wee bit strange. I have less things in common with Marion than most of my pals. To keep the peace, I usually sidestep certain topics in conversation, change the subject, even outright lie if necessary. I started to have trouble doing this early in the conversation. By the time our meals came I was certain it wasn’t just me not being able to hold my tongue.
The topic ae her internship came around, and somewhere during our back and forth I blurted that she wasn’t even getting paid for her time, and they’d told her there was no guarantee of future employment, so what was the point in trying so hard, and getting so upset about office politics? This should all have been internal monologue, but it was definitely external this time.
If looks could kill I don’t think I’d be recording this. Remembering the glare she gave me across my pasta still makes me shudder. Wisely, she changed the topic. Unwisely, she changed it to her boyfriend.
Let’s call a spade a spade here, the man’s a prick. Like many decent women before her, she can’t seem to see it. But it’s not my place to point it out. I always hold my tongue, always. That’s how you loose pals, by bad mouthing their partners – even if you’re right. I observe that rule, usually. I may as well have got up on the table and announced it to the whole bloody restaurant. It was like when I started, I couldn’t stop. Every bad thought I’d had about this boyfriend of hers was out in the open between us. The can was open, and the worms were everywhere.
Saying that the rest of the lunch was chilly would be an understatement. I’ve never wanted to leave somewhere so badly in my entire life. I apologised, barely. Marion told me that I wasn’t the first person to tell her about these things in the last few days. It suddenly felt like everyone was being a lot more truthful.
Well, that wasn’t a coincidence, was it?
Not unless coincidence was the name of that brooch perched on her collar.
I could tell my apology didn’t suffice. She usually hugs me before rushing back to work. All I got this time was a half-hearted wave, and no “I’ll see you next week” promise.
Hearing about what happens to customers allows me to keep a certain distance from the turmoil that these items create. I have an abstract understanding, but no empathy or sympathy. This was different. I was so close to this one that convincing myself it was Fate and that I shouldn’t interfere just wasn’t working.
Just one wee exception. That couldn’t matter. Just one tiny thing out of millions of others. Let the brooch pick another victim instead, just not one of my pals. There was a wee voice in my head, as I concocted my plan, that sounded an awful lot like the Madam. It was a reminder, a warning. We have no right to interfere with Fate. That doesn’t mean we can’t.
That weekend a few of ma pals were having a small gathering at Marion’s, to reunite after a long summer apart. She’d never messaged me rescinding my invitation, so I assumed I was still welcome. I bought the expensive wine for a change, just to make sure she knew I was sorry for what I said, or that fact I said it in the first place, and arrived on her doorstep.
I could tell by her greeting that she hadn’t quite forgiven me for the lunch, but she was thawing. I even got a half-hearted hug as a welcome. I took my space amongst the rest of my pals, on the sofa, and it wasn’t long before I noticed two things. The first was that she was still wearing the brooch. The second was that everyone in the room couldn’t keep their opinions to themselves. Even my quieter pals, the ones drowned out most of the time, were saying things I was sure they were going to regret later. After the first two heated arguments had broken out, I knew it was better to remove that brooch sooner rather than later.
You really can’t knock the classics. It was a shame I had to waste my glass of wine though. Marion had to go and change out of her drenched top, brooch included, and no long after she came back, I visited the wee lassies room, which was instead her room to search. It wasn’t on the wine-stained top, like I’d been hoping, but it was among her other bits of jewellery on a table in the corner. I swiped it quickly and left. There was peace for the rest of the night. No fights, few dirty looks, booze to make everyone forget. All in all, it was a successful night. I didn’t even have a hangover the next day.
I returned the brooch to the shop and was just about to put it back in the glass cabinet, out of sight, when the Madam came down with Chronos. She noticed the brooch and asked if a customer had returned it. Technically, they did. They just didn’t know it yet. I told a white lie to my boss.
Madam Norna explained what it did, unaware I’d already seen it firsthand. It was a brooch that caused the people around the wearer to tell the truth, even if they didn’t want to. Whatever enchantment was cast on it regarded omission as lying, hence why I couldn’t hold my tongue at lunch, the same as my other pals the night before. I wondered, aloud, why anyone would want an object that did that.
My boss replied that people feel strongly about lies and deceit. They want to know the truth, even if it’ll hurt them, because the thought of someone lying hurts them even more. To these people omission is a cousin of lies, not saying anything is just as bad as saying something untruthful. I wouldn’t get on with these people. I was glad my boss didn’t wear a brooch like that one.
The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me. Having a conversation about lying, about how bad it was, right after I’d told yet another lie. What the brooch, or the person who cursed it, doesn’t understand, is that a lot of people have a reason for lying. Whether it’s to keep the peace or keep their heads on their shoulders or to not learn about the consequences of interfering with Fate. Lies aren’t all bad, and the truth isn’t always good. But both are necessary; they must coexist.
Speaking hypothetically, I queried my boss why a customer would be drawn to this brooch. Why it was meant for them. If she was suspicious that I’d never asked before, she didn’t say. The Madam confessed that Madams can’t immediately tell the reasons why Fate has driven the customer to the shop or to that particular item. Just because Madams are guardians of Fate, doesn’t mean they know its plan.
She left me to return the brooch and hide it, along with ma lies, amongst the other items in the shop. Her answer nagged at me, tugged at something in my head. Madams were powerful, respected, even feared by some people, but weren’t they just hammers? Hiding behind Fate, doing as they were told, or using it as an excuse to do nothing at all, to turn their backs on decency?
If that’s the case, then I have a big problem. I’ve never been very good at following instructions.
Script – Scots
It’s the start ae a new semester, and a new year. Ma final year. I honestly didnae ‘hink I’d make it this far, especially given ma part-time job, but here we are.
No much happened over the summer, save fae that time jump ‘hing, visitin’ the first Madam Anora back in the bronze age. The town was a lot quieter in general, what wi’ most ae the students goin’ home. I spent most ae ma time here, fae the first time in ma university career. I spent aboot half ae ma time at home wi ma Da’, and the other half in the flat, also eerily quiet. Instead ae four ae us, there was only two. At least I know noo which flatmates cause the mess.
Summer’s over noo, no’ that there’s ever really much ae summer in Scotland. A few days if you’re lucky. The are few differences between Summer and Autumn, as though we only have three seasons here, missin’ the best one oot entirely. The leaves have turned and started fallin’ tae the ground, the days grow shorter, and the weather gets chillier. Soon it’ll be scarves and hats across the campus.
It was the week before lectures started, when ye begin seein’ freshers start tae wander roond lookin’ like they escaped their nursery, that this particular story happened. I got a bit ae a shock on the day in question. The bell above the door chimed in its usual way, and three ae us looked up frae whit we were doin tae eye the door, excluding Chronos who tried tae sneakily move one ae his checkers over a square or two. Reid didnae notice, and even though I did, I didnae say anythin’. Seein’ Reid lose tae a cat is one ae the highlights ae ma days sometimes.
No on this day, though. I dinnae keep the shop a secret frae ma pals or family. Everyone knows I work in an antique shop. Fae obvious reasons, I keep the finer details tae maself. Given the nature ae the shop, no one I know, or would even recognise, had come through the door. I suppose it was bound tae happen eventually.
This lassie’s name is Rowan. We met durin’ ma second year. She was goin’ oot wi one ae ma flatmates, they’ve since split up, but I kept in touch wi her. We have a few lectures together noo and then, but this past summer I’ve taken tae seein’ her more and more. She’d applied fae an internship at a big company, which she’d got. It meant, like me, she was more often than not in the city, when none ae our other friends were. Since her company is close tae the shop, we go fae a sneaky lunch once a week.
The day she walked through the door ae the shop wasnae the day we had lunch. It was two days before. Rowan looked as surprised tae see me as I was her. Fae her it was a pleasant surprise. Fae me, it began tae gee me that feelin’ I usually got roond customers who were aboot tae buy somethin’ I knew would do them harm.
I’ve been workin’ at the shop fae nearly a year noo, and not one person I know has walked through that door. Why now? Why her? Was it simply a law ae probability? Just because I worked in the shop doesne mean the people in ma life were immune tae its siren song, or the intrigues ae fate. Ma stomach lurched when I saw her, and it took me a minute tae plaster some kind ae friendly greetin’ on ma face as she approached the counter.
Abashedly, she confessed that she’d never known where this shop was, despite tryin’ tae find it a few times when I first mentioned I worked there. No surprisin’. A few ae ma pals had said the same ‘hing over the last year. The shop, as ever, is invisible tae people who dinnae need tae be there. Therefore, Rowan did. It was the why that had me worried.
There was a brief moment when she reached intae her pocket and I thought the business card was comin’ oot. It was just her phone. Noo that she’d found the shop, she said, she wanted tae look roond. I think I’d have preferred her tae ask tae see ma boss.
I itched tae go wi’ her, follow her like a wee puppy after its Ma, talkin’ and distractin her frae pickin somethin’ up, or worse, buyin’ it. Reid, Fionn, and Chronos went back tae whit they were doin’ before, but I could feel Reid watchin’ me fidget as ma eyes followed Rowan aroond.
She came tae the counter after a few minutes, blissfully empty-handed. And I thought it was over. I thought, fae a fleeting moment, that she was immune. That there were people, however rare, who came intae the shop and left wi’ nothin’.
I’ll no be that naïve again.
As she was talkin’ tae me across the glass counter, reaffirmin our lunch plans fae a few days later, her eyes snagged on somethin’ beneath the surface. I felt her attention wander tae it, eyes glancing doon every few seconds, no really listening tae whit I was sayin’. Eventually she asked tae see somethin’ oot, and I felt ma stomach drop.
She tapped her nail on the glass as she indicated it was a brooch. When I looked doon intae the bright lights that made horrible ‘hings sparkle I caught whit she wanted tae see. I could barely remember this brooch, it’d been that long since I’d last seen it.
I mentioned it at the time. It was back when Reid had left, and Fionn was ma only familiar. One day when we’d come intae the shop, there was this floral brooch lyin’ on the counter. The Madam and Chronos were upstairs, and there was no customer in sight. We’d spent the best part ae that mornin’ darin’ each other tae touch it, and makin’ bets on whit it did. Instinctively, we both knew it was nothin’ tae laugh at.
After that day it vanished. There in the mornin’ and gone by the afternoon. Fionn maintained no one had bought it, and I hadnae sold it tae anyone in the time since. It’d simply sprouted legs and gone fae a walk. Except, I began tae realise, it hadnae. It’d simply blended in wi’ all ae the other shiny nightmares that lived beneath the glass counter.
Rowan was eyein’ me expectantly, her acrylic nail still restin’ on the glass surface. I thought she was gonnae start tappin’ again. Stiffly, I retrieved the brooch, flinchin’ as ma fingers brushed across the pearls set intae the centre ae each flower. I dropped it ontae the glass, winced as the metal bar pin scraped against the surface.
It was a pretty piece, a decade or so old by the discolouration tae the silver metal. It wasnae hallmarked, so probably no real silver. It was a bunch ae flowers, tied at their long stems wi’ a fake diamond encrusted ribbon. Each blooming flower had a pearl set intae its centre, and was surrounded by thin leaves, also sparklin’ the same as the ribbon.
No everythin’ in that cabinet is sinister, or so Chronos has told me, but I felt in ma bones that this brooch probably was. I felt vindicated rememberin’ that it’d also made Fionn feel uneasy. He’d refused tae touch it the same as me. I dared a quick glance doon at the finger that’d touched one ae the flowers, expectin’ tae see a burn, or that the skin on ma fingertips was changing colour, rotting, flakin’ aff. It looked normal, and I let a quiet breath oot.
I dinnae ‘hink I need tae spell the next part oot. Despite ma silent prayers that she’d change her mind, find it no tae her likin’, Rowan bought the brooch, and happily left wi’ her purchase. I thought allowin’ strangers tae leave the shop wi’ somethin’ horrible was bad, but it’s much worse when it’s someone ye know, someone you’re pals wi’. And yet again, there was nothin’ I could do.
It nagged at me constantly fae the next two days. Whenever I had a spare minute I’d be starin’ at ma phone, at the blank text box on ma messenger app, typin’ one lie after the next, somethin’ that’d make her return it, before deletin’ it and tryin’ again a few hours later.
By the time we met fae lunch I was half expectin’ her no tae show up. But she did, and frae appearances nothin’ bad had happened tae her. She was her usual, friendly, cheerful self. I even caught the brooch pinned tae the collar of her suit jacket. I was taken aback. Maybe we’d both been wrong, Fionn and I. Maybe it was some kind ae shared delusion. He was ma familiar, after all. Maybe I’d spread ma own worries aboot the brooch like a virus, causin’ him tae share in ma delusion.
We sat doon and ordered, gettin’ past the awkward small talk ae when ye first meet someone, even if you’re pals wi’ them. Everythin’ was goin fine until the drinks came. I started noticin’ somethin’ a wee bit strange. I have less ‘hings in common wi’ Rowan than most ae ma pals. Tae keep the peace I usually sidestep certain topics in conversation, change the subject, even outright lie if necessary. I started tae have trouble doin’ this early on in the conversation. By the time our meals came I was certain’ it wasnae just me no bein’ able tae hold ma tongue.
The topic ae her internship came roond, and somewhere durin our back and forth I blurted that she wasnae even getting’ paid fae her time, and they’d told her there was no guarantee ae future employment, so whit was the point in tryin’ so hard, and gettin’ so upset aboot office politics? This should all ha been internal monologue, but it was definitely external this time.
If looks could kill I dinnae ‘hink I’d be recordin this. Rememberin’ the glare she gee me across ma pasta still makes me shudder. Wisely, she changed the topic. Unwisely, she changed it tae her boyfriend.
Let’s call a spade a spade here, the man’s a prick. Like many decent women before her, she cannae seem tae see it. But it’s no ma place tae point it oot. I always hold ma tongue, always. That’s how ye loose pals, by bad mouthin’ their partners, even if you’re right. I observe that rule, usually. I may as well have got up on the table and announced it tae the whole bloody restaurant. It was like when I started, I couldnae stop. Every bad thought I’d had aboot this boyfriend ae hers was oot in the open between us. The can was open and the worms were everywhere.
Sayin’ that the rest ae the lunch was chilly would be an understatement. I’ve never wanted tae leave somewhere so badly in ma entire life. I apologised, barely. Rowan told me that I wasnae the first person tae tell her these things in the last few days. It suddenly felt like everyone was bein’ a lot more truthful.
Well, that wasnae a coincidence, was it?
Not unless coincidence was the name ae that brooch perched on her collar.
I could tell ma apology didnae suffice. She usually hugs me before rushin’ back tae work. All I got this time was a half-hearted wave, and no “I’ll see you next week” promise.
Hearin’ aboot whit happens tae customers allows me tae keep a certain distance frae the turmoil that these items create. I have an abstract understandin’, but no empathy or sympathy. This was different. I was so close tae this one that convincin’ maself it was fate and that I shouldnae interfere just wasnae workin’.
Just one wee exception. That couldnae matter. Just one tiny thing oot ae millions ae others. Let the brooch pick another victim instead, just no one ae ma pals. There was a wee voice in ma heid, as I concocted ma plan, that sounded an awful lot like the Madam. It was a reminder, a warnin. We have no right tae interfere wi fate. That doeasnae mean we cannae.
That weekend a few ae ma pals were havin’ a small gatherin’ at Rowan’s, tae reunite after a long summer apart. She’d never messaged me rescinding’ ma invitation, so I assumed I was still welcome. I bought the expensive wine fae a change, just tae make sure she knew I was sorry fae whit I said, or that fact I said it in the first place, and arrived on her doorstep.
I could tell by her greetin’ that she hadnae quite forgiven me fae the lunch, but she was thawin. I even got a half-hearted hug as a welcome. I took ma space amongst the rest ae ma pals, on the sofa, and it wasane long before I noticed two ‘hings. The first was that she was still wearin’ the brooch. The second was that everyone in the room couldnae keep their opinions tae themselves. Even ma quieter pals, the ones drowned oot most ae the time, were sayin’ hings I was sure they were gonnae regret later. After the first two heated arguments had broken out, I knew it was better tae remove that brooch sooner rather than later.
You really cannae knock the classics. It was a shame I had tae waste ma glass ae wine though. Rowan had tae go and change oot ae her drenched top, brooch included, and no long after she came back I visited the wee lassies room, which was instead her room tae search. It wasnae on the wine stained top, like I’d been hopin’, but it was among her other bits ae jewellery on a table in the corner. I swiped it quickly, and left. There was peace fae the rest ae the night. No fights, few dirty looks, booze tae make everyone forget. All in all, it was a successful night. I didnae even have a hangover the next day.
I returned the brooch tae the shop and was just aboot tae put it back in the glass cabinet, oot ae sight, when the Madam came doon wi’ Chronos. She noticed the brooch and asked if a customer had returned it. Technically, they did. They just didnae know it yet. I told a white lie tae ma boss.
Madam Norna explained whit it did, unaware I’d already seen it firsthand. It was a brooch that caused the people aroond the wearer tae tell the truth, even if they didnae want tae. Whatever enchantment was cast on it regarded omission as lying, hence why I couldnae hold ma tongue at lunch, the same as ma other pals the night before. I wondered, aloud, why anyone would want an object that did that.
Ma boss replied that people feel strongly aboot lies and deceit. They want tae know the truth, even if it’ll hurt them, because the thought ae someone lying hurts them even more. Tae these people omission is a cousin ae lies, no’ saying anything is just as bad as saying something untruthful. I wouldnae get on wi’ these people. I was glad ma boss didnae wear a brooch like that one.
The irony ae the situation wasnae lost on me. Havin’ a conversation aboot lying, aboot how bad it was, right after I’d told yet another lie. Whit the brooch, or the person who cursed it, doesnae understand, is that a lot ae people have a reason fae lyin’. Whether it’s tae keep the peace, or keep their heids on their shoulders, or tae no learn aboot the consequences ae interferin’ wi fate. Lies aren’t all bad, and the truth isnae always good. But both are necessary, they have tae coexist.
Speakin’ hypothetically, I queried ma boss why a customer would be drawn tae this brooch. Why it was meant fae them. If she was suspicious that I’d never asked before, she didnae say. The Madam confessed that Madams cannae immediately tell the reasons why fate has driven the customer tae the shop, or tae that particular item. Just because Madams are guardians ae fate, doesnae mean they know its plan.
She left me tae return the brooch and hide it, along wi ma lies, amongst the other items in the shop. Her answer nagged at me, tugged at somethin’ in ma heid. Madams were powerful, respected, even feared by some people, but werenae they just hammers? Hiding behind fate, doin’ as they were told, or using it as an excuse tae do nothin’ at all, tae turn their backs on decency?
If that’s the case, then I have a big problem. I’ve never been very good at followin’ instructions.