Lilac Lily filled the stoneware pitcher with fresh cut daffodils to set on the harvest table in the dining hall. She and her sister Lorna had spent all morning shopping the stalls at the Middlemarch Fair and returned with a bevy of spring blooms in their market bags as well as bulbs and seeds to plant the summer garden. Their lovely old rooming house just past the fairgrounds would be packed to the rafters with out of town guests tonight and she had just enough time to set the table before seeing to supper. Lorna had come across a basket of tender early greens in one of the food stalls and Lily had been delighted to discover a flask of wine vinegar among the vendors outside the main tent to dress it. This along with a nicely salted ham and sweet potatoes from the root cellar would make an ample supper for the half dozen guests plus Lorna's family and herself.
Lily pressed her damp hands to her apron and slipped into the overheated kitchen to check the oven. The ham was crisping nicely and it was time to add the sweet potatoes. She plunged them into a bucket of cold water and scrubbed the dirt off with a stiff hog bristle brush before giving each a prick with a fork and settling it around the ham in the oven. Helping her sister run the country inn these past dozen years was a far cry from managing the large and boisterous household of the potluck twelve, but it kept her busy. She liked her simple life, for now she could imagine no other.
That was not quite true. She could imagine her previous life alright but she dared not dwell on it. Even at the fair, she avidly avoided the center aisle of the main tent, afraid to run into Sierra or Esmeralde and she studiously ignored the exotic breed tent for she wanted nothing to do with Wheat whatsoever. Or earthy Indigo Rose or crazy Lavender Mae. The thought of Ratta pushing mute Mamie around in a chair and what she knew about their odd relationship often threatened to send her into a panic attack. For though the potluck broke up years ago, and all said they had forgiven her, she could not help what she still knew: their secrets.
Years ago, when Lily was the Potluck housemother, all had confided in her freely. It was part of her job to keep the peace or stir the pot as she saw fit. Like the fresh flowers Lily so favored, all opened up to her in time, revealing hopes and dreams, plots and schemes. As the warden of the potluck and its secrets, Lily's own power lay in gentle persuasion. She could suggest who to approach for answers or where to find something amiss. Because she knew all alliances and disputes within the house, she could mend or build fences. Confessions she was under oath not to reveal brought on headaches so extreme that even Esmeralde's strongest tinctures and teas could at times not soothe them.
Lily's gift was a blessing and a curse for she knew all but could reveal nothing unasked without tempting fate. The one time she had broken her oath, potluck magic had turned on her and Tasman's plot had gone down twisted. Lily blamed no one but herself. Because of her desperate foolhardiness, the potluck broke up and life had never been the same again for any of them.
