Mrs. Moore #1: Queen of Doubts - a sample

“Shut up, both of you,” Goldberry said. Her voice was not quite strident enough for the occasion. It had a trace of wobbliness to it, a clog of swallowed salty tears. Only the British accent she had opted to retain, when years of being an American had made its removal otherwise likely, gave her the slightest dignity.

“Mom, you’re sad,” said Rowan.

“Well, you’re not helping.”

“Sorry,” said Martin. “We were just playing.”

“I didn’t even kick him that hard.”

She gave them all juice boxes (Rosie sneered at hers but drank it) and drove to a local German beer house that had outdoor dining on a frigid though sunlit patio, where she ordered gravy-soaked pork schnitzel and kids-portion burgers and had a full stein of bock beer. Of course there was ice cream, and the children gorged themselves. It took a while to down the beer. Goldberry did not get drunk easily, having inherited a stout constitution, and this beer, though heavy, could not do the job. She’d have some scotch at home instead after the children went to sleep. Perhaps a lot of scotch. Her father had sent her and Simon a fifty-year-old Fettercairn, worth about forty thousand dollars, from a case of bottles that he had found hidden in the castle cellar. One or two snifters would do for tonight.

Leaving the beer garden, Goldberry drove over the Outerbridge Crossing bound for their home in Edison, NJ. They had just crossed over into the Garden State when Rosie said, “Mom, drive to the airport.”

Goldberry knew that her husband had used to take them there to see the planes take off. She was in a dark mood and had no interest in such a serene frolic, nor in being Simon’s parenting understudy.

“There are no planes taking off,” she told the children. “The airport is shut down because of COVID-19.” She wasn’t sure there were no planes, but dissuading Rosie’s impulse would have been an exceedingly rare triumph for her. Goldberry had herself been an imperious child; her daughter, granted that trait as well as her father’s iron will, was nigh-inexorable.

“You have to go,” said Rosie. “It’s for you. I know it is.”

Rosie had inherited her father’s magical intuition, and was nearly as reliable as Simon was, although she didn’t understand her feelings as well.

“I need a hot bath and a cup of tea,” Goldberry countered. And a fuck, she thought, but there was no hope of that with her husband in long-term care. Of course, a long soak was impossible with three challenging children to manage, and with no one to help watch them. Still, hopelessly she pitted her will against the titanic ten-year-old.

“Check in your head,” said Martin. He knew she could use a divination spell in her thoughts alone. She often did it around the children, and sometimes faked the results to manipulate them.

Just now she was far too upset to cast any spells, but she could pretend she had done the divination and get out of this fool’s errand.

Yet her daughter was not a fool.