Written in the Stars

Chapter Twenty Two

It had taken them only a few months more than it should have, but the cavern was finally repaired well enough that people could safely begin trading in there again. Of course, Astrid was unsure if anyone would want to trade in there considering what her sister and Izabela had been up to. They had managed to commandeer a house. A whole house to run the black market trade out of. Astrid knew that them hiding the market in an underground cavern was a hold over from the old days when the public had thought that vampires and witches were things of myth and fiction. Now they had an agreement with the government and they were able to conduct their business in peace, but it still didn't feel right for them to have their black market so out in the open. There was something about it that made her feel uncomfortable. She felt too exposed just at the thought of anybody being able to walk in. Of course not anyone was able to walk in, she hadn't been let in when she went to scope the place out a couple of weeks ago, but that didn't stop the feeling that there was the possibility of humans getting in there. Bog standard humans who had no idea what they were walking into and if they did then the damage they could do when they were in there.

She hoped that people would come back to her. Sure the cavern wasn't as nice as a big stately home near the Lords Cricket Ground but, it was where they had had the market for centuries. They had been there since the beginning of the 1800's in some form or another. Even if it was just a couple of stalls on some occasions, they had still been there. They had been loyal and stayed by their people's sides even when the going got tough, which it often did, like the time when they had had to open the cavern to humans during world war 2 as a large bomb shelter. Celeste had counselled against it, but Astrid had known she wouldn't have been able to sleep if she had not at least tried to save some people who had no other way of defending themselves against something they had not asked for. It had felt like her moral duty and whilst Celeste's morals were more like a roulette board than set in stone, Astrid knew that there would come a day when she could use not helping helpless humans against herself and to further her self loathing, which Astrid did not want to encourage.

...

The announcement that the cavern was fixed had gone out that morning. Astrid had wanted as many people to know about it before they set up their stalls with Celeste so they had the option of coming back to where they had started out and built their business from.

She visited the cavern at midday hoping that at least half of the stalls would be filled. She was not disappointed. Almost the entire room was busy with the voices of people returning to the market they had known for as long as they had been selling their wares. She had not expected anything close to the amount of people. She knew she would always be able to count on those who had put their faith in her and her family.

Later in the day Astrid swung past the big house Celeste and Izabela were running their market out of and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was empty. Whilst she wasn't a callous person at heart she did believe her and Jean to be the good guys and it was nice for them to get a win sometimes.