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Beau could smell the candles through the fucking wall. They were sage. She recalled she had used to like the smell. It was never her favorite, but a little in a soup or behind someone’s ear? It was nice. But now? The smell was commonplace in the house and it always left an angry, irritated hole burning in the pit of her stomach.
She pushed back from her desk. She had to get out of the house. Beau had been trying to do some work accounting for her “side business” while she knew for a fact her father would be distracted, but at this point, she didn’t care. She just had to get out.
She wanted to throw the door to her bedroom open. Let it slam against the adjacent wall and bang so loud everyone in the house would know how she was feeling. Instead, she cracked the doorway open slowly and quietly slipped down the townhouse’s long, winding staircase, hoping no one would notice. But apparently, every god on every plane was determined to see her suffer.
“Oh, Beau, could you come here a second.”
Busted. Her mother had been sitting in the parlor room, just to the left of the front door, digging through a stack of mail. Beau squeezed her eyes shut and contemplated just ignoring her and walking out. But, no, Beau had already done something like that before and it had not gone over well. More trouble than it was worth really, the last thing she needed was her parents to be more on their guard with her, especially right now.
“Yeah, mom?” Beau turned away from the freedom the front door promised and towards her mother, who was sitting in a velvet chair near the parlor’s doorway. Her dark hair was pulled up into a tight, circular bun, her make-up was flawless, and her long purple evening gown swept across the floor. She looked ready to go out for the night, but Beau knew she had nowhere to be. There weren’t many places in their podunk little town her mother would be caught dead in.
“Could you take this up to your father, dear? It’s the finance report from the brewery, and I think he should see it right away.”
Beau felt her insides seize. She put on her best poker face.
“Why don’t you send one of the servants? You know dad doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s having one of his sessions.”
“That’s exactly why I’m sending you. He can’t fire you.” Beau’s mother stood up and walked over to Beau, cupping one cheek with her hand, kissing her on the forehead, and placing the officially stamped envelope into Beauregard’s hands. She pulled away. “Besides, he can only get so mad had his own daughter.” She said with a small smile.
Beau didn’t know about that. She wondered what her father would say if he knew she was stealing from him. Taking barrels of his ale and selling it for half the price. But when her mother spoke to her softly like that, she had a hard time saying no.
Beau trudged her way back up the stairs. She felt like there was a giant lead ball and chain shackled around her ankle dragging her back down. Not a single part of her wanted to go into her father’s study. But, despite this, she found herself in front of the door. The sage was stronger here, heavy and cloying. Her father’s current reader had told him he needed to burn sage candles to “open up the pathways to the outer planes” to be able to channel his fortunes accurately.
Beau had rolled her eyes at that, but her father had eaten it up.
It had started when on a rare occurrence during Harvest’s Close when her father had been down in the main square of the town. Beau had been with him, but she had already been growing bored. She couldn’t do any of the fun stuff at the festival with her father right there. He had been tense in the days prior. His superiors had blown him off once again. Had not appreciated his hard work, or his time, or suggestions. Beau had heard it a thousand times before. And, by chance, they were stopped by a busker who offered to do a tarot reading. On a whim, Beau’s father said yes.
The fortune-teller had predicted the usual stuff. Success, money. Her father had asked if he could see anything regarding his job and the busker said he would reach a breakthrough in it soon. Beau didn’t think either of them had paid the fortune much mind, until her father did reach a breakthrough. One of his largest distributors had invited him to a party at her villa and even had called her father a “close friend” when introducing him to her associates. So, her father went back and got another fortune. And another. And another. Each time he went the price got steeper. And when her father ran into difficulty or the teller ran out of pretty things to say, her father would fire them and move onto another.
Beau knocked on the door hoping she could just slip the letter to her father then leave, but no one answered. She braced herself and swung open the door. The room had once been a workspace, but now her father’s desk and files had been pushed to the sides of the room. Original residents of the room shoved unceremoniously in a corner to make space for the room’s new purpose. Candles occupied every flat surface. Different wards and lucky charms that vendors had promised her father would bring prosperity, were scattered across the room, on tables, hanging off hooks, on the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Her father sat on the floor in a bathrobe, hair unkempt, looking sleepless. Across from him was an old balding halfling man, her father’s latest soothsayer. He had been working for him for about three months. Beau grudgingly thought that was rather impressive, usually, they didn’t last that long. Beau’s father’s head whipped up, eyes flashing like heated metal, ready to snap at the person disturbing him. When he saw it was only his daughter and not some poor maid his eyes cooled off to a dull cold steel.
“Beauregard. What do you need?”
Beau breathed and let her eyes cool to the same dull disinterest as her fathers.
“Finance report.”
Her father grumbled but stood and took the letter from her. He cracked open the black wax seal and slid the parchment out, eyes flicking across it, expressionless. Finally, he motioned for his fortune teller to stand.
“We’ll end early today. I have some business to attend to.” He walked over to the desk shoved into the corner, placing the papers on it and opening the drawer to take out a jingling coin bag. He placed it in the reader's hands.
“Fifteen is enough this time. The session was cut short.”
Beau scoffed internally at the amount. She wondered what the stable maid, or the cook’s assistant, or the brewers her father had just laid off would say to fifteen gold, an amount that could have easily kept them employed for another year.
The reader opened the bag. Beau could hear the ting ting ting of the coins rattling together. He looked inside, and seemingly satisfied, he nodded once and left.
Beau should have followed him out. But, standing in that room, sage coming in through her eye sockets, watching her father, surrounded by his trinkets, she couldn’t help herself.
“You know he’s bullshitting you right?” Beau waited for a reaction from her father. But he just kept staring at the papers on his desk, his back turned.
Beau pressed on. She wanted him to turn around and face her. To give her anything but steely eyes. “I can’t believe you gave him fifteen gold! Fifteen! Do you know how much money that is?”
She watched him. No reaction.
“Don’t think I’m blind. I know you’re spending our money faster than we can pull it in. Just because you want to rub elbows with some aristocrats. Cause you want them to like you?”
That had done something. Beau could see her father’s hands had tightened around the paper he was holding.
“I’ll tell you the truth. What nobody you hire will ever tell you cause all they’ll tell you is what will get them into your coin purse. Those people that you’re licking the boots of will never see you as anything more than a fly buzzing around them trying to get their attention, and no good fortune or lucky charm is going to change that. You’re just the guy that gets them their booze.”
Beau finished up breathing hard. She waited for her father to get up. To yell at her. Instead, he sat in his chair with his back to her. Slowly he loosened his grip on the now creased paper and took a long slow breath. He spoke softly:
“Beauregard. You could not imagine the things I had to do to get our family to the position we’re in now. You wish I was not your father? I wish you were not my daughter, so I could throw you out this instant. But we’re stuck with how things are. Still, I will not be disrespected like this in my own house. Leave, and come back when you’ve learned to hold your tongue.”
Beau clenched her fists and fought to keep her face from becoming a grimace of anger. She turned around and kicked the door open as she stormed down the stairs. As she passed the parlor her mother raised her head, alarmed, and called after her. Beau ignored her and slammed the front door behind her. The world seemed to tilt she was so angry. She kicked again, this time at the townhouse’s wrought iron fence as she passed it. It made a tinny twanging sound.
She couldn’t wait to get out of that house. That would make both of them happy. She would make enough money skimming barrels of ale to strike out on her own. Beau felt a tear slide down her cheek. Gods, she couldn’t believe she was crying over this. She flicked the tear angrily off her face. Let’s see if his fortune-tellers could predict that his daughter was stealing right out from under him. She thrust her hands into her pockets and began to walk her way to town. She needed a drink.
“Wanna Gamble?”
Beau remembers what she thought when she first met him. The moment she saw the cards, they had left a bitter taste in her mouth. The bitterness had not faded even after the fun and the danger of the first night. She had picked a fight with him to protect herself. To signal to him she would not be a victim in any con he was running. But sitting here, across from him now, she was having trouble pulling up those feelings.
She still thought he was a pompous asshole that had an inflated image of himself, and she still hated his cards, but at least he was a pompous asshole with good intentions.
He was still holding the tarot card he had pulled from the deck, animatedly telling her about the time he had pretended to be royalty for an entire three weeks. It was a good story and a very Molly lie to tell.
She was tempted for a second, to tell him everything. To come clean and have someone to confide in about how she robbed her own family. Her father disowning her, having her kidnapped and taken all the way to Zadash. She knew Molly wouldn’t pity her. Molly really didn’t do pity. And she for sure knew that Mollymauk “Live in the present” Tealeaf wouldn’t judge her either. She opened her mouth and instead told him about the politician whose marriage she had destroyed. She could tell Molly was impressed and they toasted over the lie, but Beau couldn’t help but feel a twinge of regret. Oh well. She laid Molly’s tarot card back down on the deck. She had to admit, she felt a little less animosity towards them now, a good experience with them having paved over some of the bad ones in her head. Beau sighed. Not telling Molly now had been the right call. She didn’t want to ruin the night by getting too heavy. The evening had been nice so far. There was always tomorrow.