Homegrown Magic

Chapter 5 Yael

5

Yael

It’s not that Yael’s lived a hard life. Quite the opposite. They’ve spent twenty-three years stumbling through doorways that magically opened for the Clauneck heir. In most cases, magic wasn’t even necessary. Wealth and power were a sufficient key, no matter that none of it actually belonged to Yael. But even for them, this is a wild bit of luck. Finding Bloomfield, then finding Margot, and now finding a much better place to sleep than a barstool or a pile of hay in a stable?

Maybe Yael has some secret store of magic in them, after all.

Trotting Sweet Wind back up the lane toward the Greenwillow estate with Margot’s arms wrapped around their waist from behind, they feel on top of the world. The stew was excellent. The warm blur of wine has successfully pushed off what promises to be a vicious hangover tomorrow and eased the painful climb back onto a wooden saddle. Between that and Margot leaning closer to speak into their ear, pressing her curves flush against Yael’s back, the night no longer seems cold.

“Turn off before the main gate,” she tells them. “There’s a service gate on the east side of the property that leads right to the cottage.”

“Are we visiting Granny Fern first, then?” Yael laughs.

“It’s, um, it’s where I live now. Just me.”

Their stomach sinks. Though they never really knew the woman, they remember Margot’s love for her well enough. “Oh. Margot, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t,” she interrupts, arms clenching tighter around their middle—and probably not with desire. “Let’s just…let’s not talk about real things, all right?”

Maybe Yael should feel insulted. But Margot’s just given them permission not to admit that they’ve run away from home on a total whim, with no plans or possessions. So they’re happy to spend the rest of the night pretending that ten years haven’t passed since they last saw each other, and that nothing bad has happened to either of them.

Margot points out the pathway into the dense trees beyond a simple, mossy wooden gate, propped open unlike the main gate, and Yael steers Sweet Wind through. They arrive at a rough wood picket fence, where they leave the steed, and a garden full of moonlit wildflowers up to Yael’s elbows. Even in the dark, Yael can guess why Margot loved this place as a child. Built of the same reddish-brown stone as the manor, the cottage is just one story underneath a steeply pitched thatch roof with a little dormer window—a loft, mayhap. Flowering vines crawl across its facade, smelling better than any expensive perfume bottle on Menorath’s boudoir table. Wind chimes jangle in the still-wintry breeze through the trees.

“This is like a fairy tale,” Yael marvels as they enter the garden, then trip over what turns out to be a stone birdbath.

Margot catches them, hauling them up by the back of their coat. “Careful. There aren’t many healers in Bloomfield. One was in the tavern when we left, if you noticed; that was Astrid by the fire.”

“The one who nodded off and dropped her pipe in her lap?”

“Her wife is on a pilgrimage to re-swear her oath to a fish god. Astrid doesn’t drink, but lately, she’s fallen asleep in the tavern more often than her home. Probably feels too empty.”

Yael could ask whether Margot’s cottage feels empty, and why on earth she lives here instead of her family’s fine manor house, but that would be something real. Instead, they spin and stand on tiptoe to face Margot, who still has a hand fisted in their coat. Which makes it easier to draw her in and find her lips in the moonlight, tasting of wine and ale—and, well, stew, as Yael’s must also. And if Yael wavers a little in their efforts to stand straight, drunk as they seem to have gotten, Margot’s very capable of holding them in place while they kiss. It ought to be surprising; they’ve never kissed Margot Greenwillow before tonight.

In truth, though, it’s only surprising that they never imagined doing so.

“Show me what’s inside?” Yael asks when they pull apart, their voice loose and low.

Margot accepts their challenge.

Pushing through the slightly crooked front door, unlocked like the gate, she lights a lamp.

Yael’s seen the crowded little timber homes of the poorer districts in Ashaway. For a while, it was fashionable for Auximia students to visit one particular alehouse with sawdusted floors, gaming tables too sticky to make use of, and a retired tin soldier for a barkeep. But Granny Fern’s cottage is nothing like what they’d pictured inside those homes. The walls are sturdy, the wood plank ceiling low, the furnishings in the front room clean and cozy. A squashed-looking love seat holds an equally squashed-looking orange cat asleep on the cushion. A stout table is still set with abandoned breakfast dishes, several emptied teacups included. Above the fireplace, with its little pile of wood, there’s a woven clothesline with a few shirts and dresses and (gods) underthings pinned to it. The one doorway they can see leads to a tiny kitchen, where herbs and cooking utensils hang on plaster walls hand-painted with tiny blossoms in every color. “This is—”

“Quaint?” Margot finishes for them, no bitterness in her voice, just amusement. She turns away, stopping by the fireplace to pull a log from the small bin beside the hearth. From a tinderbox on the mantel, she pinches out scraps of black cloth and sprinkles them inside the fireplace. She strikes a flint against a curved piece of steel, holds it over the cloth to let the sparks catch, then slowly piles wood on top.

Yael watches, fascinated. They can’t recall lighting a fireplace in their entire life.

“My, um…the bedroom is up there,” Margot says as she works, jerking her chin toward a ladder in the corner of the L-shaped living area.

“Hmm. Bit of a toss-up, whether I’ll make it to the top in this state,” Yael admits.

“Would you like a ride, then?” Margot asks, apparently back in the spirit of things.

Good.

Yael laughs and shucks off their dress coat. Embarrassingly, it falls to the floorboards in a billow of dust the silk has picked up since Ashaway. They wave a hand through the cloud, grateful that Margot’s back is turned to them, and for more than one reason: The generous curves of her silhouette in the low light are truly miraculous. “Is there a washroom I might use first?” Yael asks, kicking their filthy coat behind a chair cobbled out of a barrel.

If they’d paid proper due to their patron, they might’ve cleaned it with a few muttered words and a flick of the wrist— a simple enough spell that even Yael can manage, with preparation. But of course they’d prepared nothing before galloping off into the sunset.

“There’s an outhouse,” Margot answers, “and a well. There’s only a pitcher and bowl up in the loft.”

Between the late hour and the number of drinks they’ve consumed, Yael doesn’t trust their ability to find the well without falling into it. “Up it is!”

Hand over foot, they drag themself into the loft. Their head is swimming by the time they press their belly over the ledge, so they settle for crawling around a thick feather mattress on a low, wooden bedstead that nearly takes up the whole floor. Short as they are, they probably couldn’t stand in here anyway, considering the steeply pitched ceiling. They find a porcelain bowl on a wooden crate in the corner with a matching pitcher beside it. It seems like too much work to do anything but fill the bowl (cold water sloshes out onto the planks, but that’s fine) and then stick their whole head into it.

Face and hair still dripping, they crawl back over to the mattress and sprawl onto their back. They’ll just rest for a moment while Margot finishes up downstairs, doing whatever people who own cottages must do before bed. There’s a knitted blanket that matches her sweater thrown across the sheets—did she make this herself? Can Margot knit blankets and light fires?

Yael pulls the blanket over themself, lying back. The last thing they realize before plunging into a dead sleep is this: Whatever the state of her life right now, Margot Greenwillow has grown up, while Yael feels no less a child than they were in that tower nearly ten years ago.