"Vivi, I found my shop!" Yola shouted, and Viola moved her mobile away from her ear. "It's amazing! Wait, let me see– Lilac and Elm!" Yola's voice rang in excitement. "I'm on Lilac and Elm, and it's right in front of me!"

Viola paused for a second and asked, "The Old Fire Station?"

"An old fire station!" Yola hollered. "It's just like in my dream! I've already looked into the ownership. Are the Oakbies the posh relatives of your Holyoakes?"

"In a way," Viola said with a laugh. "There's a saucy medieval legend. And it's not hard to see when you compare the members of the two families, the bone structure and the colouring is very similar."

"Oh, do tell! Where are you? Let's meet up!"

Yola seemed to be walking briskly, and Viola shook her head with a chuckle. Only Yolanda Roel could start walking before she knew where she was walking.

"Are you in your surgery? I want to see your Doctor Totty!" Yola said. "I had breakfast in a pub, the Oak and something, and the landlady informed me of all the fittest men in the county. I obviously didn't inform her of my Curse with men, but still... wow! What's with this place and matchmaking?!"

"I'm at the Market in the Greville Square," Viola answered. "If you're near the Old Station it's just about seven minute walk from here. I can wait for you."

"Wicked! Don't go anywhere!" Yola crossed a street, judging by the noise and a frantic honk of a car in the background. "I want to hear the saucy legend!"

She hung up. Viola laughed and put her phone into her handbag. Traditionally, the Friday Market was dedicated to local artists and artisans, and Viola saw a stall with watercolours and some sort of colourful toys. She wouldn't normally be interested in this sort of a thing - but she saw Fiona Holyoake stand on a small ladder, trying to lift and hang some sort of a mobile. Viola stopped a few steps away, not wanting to startle the woman, and waited for Fiona to get down on the ground.

"Oh Viola! Hello!" Fiona's face lit up with a wide smile. "You're here!"

"Hi," Viola answered. "It seems I'm not supposed to work during the Festival. So I'm meeting my friend Yolanda here."

"Ah yes, I was introduced to her yesterday," Fiona said. "At the family dinner in the pub."

Viola nodded and looked over Fiona's display.

"These are amazing!" she exclaimed and pointed at the mobile Fiona had just attached to the roof. It had a small flock of bright coloured birds hanging on fishing lines from two crossed wooden sticks. "What are they made of?"

"Paper mâché," Fiona answered. "These are my favourite."

"They are chaffinches," Viola said quietly. "My Father was a bird watcher."

"I have them in my garden," Fiona said with a nod. "I remember when Will and I bought the cottage from Clem, that was the first thing I thought - that I would now have a yard and could watch birds."

"Are they for hanging above a cot?" Viola asked, unable to tear her eyes off the birds.

"No, they are just... for nothing." Fiona gave out a lilting laugh. "Birds don't actually have a purpose, right? They just live and sing and eat worms. They are– for joy."

Viola gave out a disbelieving laugh and met Fiona's eyes.

"You know, I don't think I have a single thing in my flat that is 'for nothing,'" Viola said.

"Oh I suppose you're the opposite of me then." Fiona giggled. "I love trinkets and curiosities. We have these shelves of– things. I reckon, I just never know what might inspire me at any point of time, so there are cups and saucers, and toys, and figurines, and antique utensils, and tools, and– But I suppose, as long as it doesn't bother Will - and he only keeps his desk in that military order of his - it's all good." She picked up a small figurine of a fox from her counter and twirled it in her fingers. "Thank goodness, he's as messy as I am."

Viola smiled at the artist warmly and looked at the watercolours in neat plastic pockets hung on a large cork board. Fiona's paintings were full of fauns and fairies and some sort of goblins. They all had intelligent and mischievous faces - and many of them had quite familiar features. Viola chuckled.

"I see you have a constant model," she said and gave Fiona a cheeky side glance.

"I can't help it," Fiona snorted. "That's how it all started for us, you know? I used Will as a model for my first book illustrations, and I reckon, I just stared at him for too long! I just couldn't give him up after that!"

"I can see how that could happen," Viola said and picked up a small watercolour postcard from a box on the counter.

It featured an elf-like creature sitting on a toadstool. It had almond shaped eyes, and a turn up nose - and seemed rather familiar as well.

"And I see you use your other relatives as models as well."

Vi turned the postcard to Fiona.

"Ah yes, that's Clem." Fiona chuckled. "She asked to be an evil sprite, but I don't think she turned out particularly evil. It's all mythology based, but there is only that much artistic liberty I can take. Clem just doesn't come out evil, no matter what."

"No, I don't think she could." Viola shook her head. "Oh, that reminds me, Fiona, I thought I'd ask you since you're an artist and obviously have a good eye for faces," Viola said, looking at the tiny paper mâché owls lined up on the edge of the counter. "Have you met the Mayor's partner, Ms. Imogen Fox, I believe her name is? I ran into the Mayor and her this morning."

"I've seen her from afar, I think," Fiona said pensively. "But we haven't really crossed paths. Which is rather funny, because she's an artist too. She does nature watercolours. You can buy her prints in the gift shops and post offices all around the next three counties. She's amazing! So talented! She actually has a stall on the other side of the square, but I'm waiting for Will to come and take over, so I can wander. I want to see the ceramics that Mrs. Mercier does. And there are also the scarves and the fabrics that Jasdeep Bajaj is selling. Oh wait– why? Why did you ask about Imogen Fox?"

"You'll see," Viola said. "I'm curious if I'm the only one who noticed." She hid a sly smile. "And you said, you and Will bought the cottage from Clem, right? Did she grow up here? I don't remember her from before."

"No, she didn't." Fiona shook her head and shifted a few prints on her counter. "She bought the cottage a few years ago, she needed a quiet place to write, you see. But after she married John, it was just empty, and I bought it from her. Well, half of it. Will paid the other half. I got a large sum of money in divorce. I had a very good lawyer," Fiona said, her gaze suddenly distant.

"Interesting," Viola said. "Well, let's chat about it after you meet Ms. Fox." Fiona focused her beautiful eyes on Viola, giving her a confused look. "And for now, I'll go see those ceramics you mentioned," Viola said, and couldn't help but throw another look at the mobile with chaffinches.

"Do you want me to wrap it for you?" Fiona asked softly. "I have just the perfect box for it."

"No, no, thank you," Viola muttered, immediately embarrassed that Fiona noticed her staring. "What would I do with it? I don't even have anywhere to hang it. But your art is beautiful, Fiona! I'll bring Yola to you in a few minutes."

A customer approached Fiona's stall, and Viola stepped aside giving them space. Her phone rang again, and she walked between the stalls to meet Yola near what the latter described as the stall Viola just had to see 'because these wool socks are mental!'

After two hours in the Market, their toes frozen and their noses pink, Viola and Yola headed out. Yolanda carried about a dozen paper bags with her purchases, Viola was empty-handed.

"Alright, I'm starving," Yolanda said. "Is there any place here that doesn't serve 'grub?' You know, no bangers and mash!"

Viola remembered Rhys' breakfast - and told herself to take her dreamy facial expression under control.

"No crumpets and clotted cream - and no gravy!" Yolanda announced and scrunched her nose in disgust.

Viola laughed. "I know just the place. You do love Punjabi cuisine, right? There's this family restaurant, belonging to the Chopra family. They are all geniuses in the kitchen. Their daughter is studying in Paris to become a pâtisserie chef, actually. Her Mother is currently the matriarch of the family, and you've never tried a better saag, trust me."

"Oh, lead the way, Vivi!" Yolanda clapped her gloved hands. "Before I lose an extremity or two."

***

"It was during the Second Crusade, and two knights from the County of Fleckney had left their families and journeyed to Jerusalem," Viola started.

Yolanda snorted derisively. "None of this sounds historically credible, so you know," she said and scooped some daal with a piece of roti.

"None of it is," Viola said with a laugh. "It's just a story the Holyoake and Oakby men tell to the birds they're trying to charm. Do you want to hear it or not?"

"I'm moving to this county," Yola said, chewing pensively. "I want to hear anything you can tell me of the two families."

"So, the two knights - a Fitzroy and an Oakby - fought in Damascus, and then, on a sunny Spring afternoon, only one of them returned," Viola sing-songed. "His name was Jonah Oakby, and he brought the sad news of his comrade's demise in the Holy Land to Fitzroy's wife. The widow wept, mourning the death of the father of her two sons - but seemed to have recovered quickly. Which might have something to do with the blue eyes and the coffee coloured locks of Jonah Oakby."

Yolanda snorted and shook her head.

"And so it happened that one warm Summer night," Viola said, and Yolanda wiggled her eyebrows. "Under a large oak tree on the Western Hill," Viola continued in a dramatic tone, and then added in a normal voice, "Right there, behind the All Saints Catholic Church." Yola was by then shaking in quiet laughter. "When the stars were bright in the ink coloured sky, the widow succumbed to the temptation," Viola announced in a solemn tone. Yolanda cheered and saluted Viola with a piece of tandoori chicken. "Repeatedly," Viola said, and Yola burst into giggles. "And during one of the many, many times that she succumbed, she apparently raised her eyes to the skies and hollered, 'Holy... oak!'" Viola gave out a rather convincing moan and made that face. No one could see them in the booth they were occupying - and Yolanda was such an appreciative audience. By now, she was rolling with guffaws. "Alternatively," Viola continued, "the legend allows the possibility that she yelled, 'Holy Oakby!' during her third multiple crisis. And that's how the first Holyoake was conceived. Well, actually, two, because the Fitzroy widow had twins. Since everyone knew that the widow's husband wasn't around, she had to raise Oakby's sons - and they ended up having three, the twins and a younger one who later became a clergyman - as illegitimate. They grew up as farmers, healthy and hard-working. But they say that the way the family was founded - in consensual jolly hanky-panky," Viola said in the same serious manner, "had shaped their DNA."

"And made them all into the shagalicious hench bearmen?" Yola supplied a line.

"Precisely," Viola said with a firm nod - and they both burst into loud laughter.

"Jolly good," Yola said and gave Viola a cheeky look. "And are they just as good and worthy of 'succumbing' as their ancestor?"

"I've only sampled one," Viola said. "And it's been so long that I can hardly remember."

She was lying. She remembered. And more so, the recent events had reminded her of many more details that she thought she'd forgotten.

"Except according to Mrs. Owens, the landlady, and Miss Rosa, the tearooms owner, you are taking a refresher course," Yola said and pinned Viola with a glare.

Oh dear, thought Viola. Aren't you just, Viola?

"You know me, Vivi, I don't beat around the bush. And if you are shagging your ex-husband, I have only one thing to say to you," Yola said. "Are you out of your bloody mind?!"