Steeped in Deceit
The Copper Kettle creaks open the way it has for forty-seven years: reluctantly, with a thin exhalation of cedar and bergamot, as if the building itself is holding its breath. Tessa Brookhollow sets a tin of moonflower garlands on the counter before the bell above the door finishes its first chime, and the morning of the eve of moonrise settles over the valley like a lid on a pot about to boil. What no one expects is that when the moon rises, the lid comes off. Marjory Wickerton has kept a silence so long it has calcified into something the whole town drinks and forgets. Lily Wickerton remembers what her mother buried. Iris Thornwood and Sage Rowan trade in remedies and recipes that are, more often than not, prescriptions for forgetting. Cornelius Pumple keeps the books. Theophilus Crane keeps the secrets. Hollis Finch and Dovie Finch keep their distance. And Pim, the quiet one who sees everything from behind the kettle, is about to say the single sentence no one wanted spoken aloud. When a body turns up where no body should be, Tessa is forced to choose: pour the truth and watch forty-seven years of carefully steeped loyalties dissolve, or let the tea cool and walk back into the comfortable dark. Verbena Nightshade will press her bitter leaf. Aster Greenmoor will watch from the garden wall. Felix Briar will say nothing, which is the same thing as saying everything. Every cup at The Copper Kettle has been steeped in deceit. The question is whether anyone in the valley can stomach the flavor when the leaves finally separate from the water. Some secrets, like old tea, only get bitter the longer they sit.