Chapter 9 Yael
9
Yael
Despite their best intentions, Margot’s house is on fire.
“Fuck fuck fuck…” Yael stamps a boot into the flames beginning to lick across the woven rug, regretting every choice that led them here.
Their plan was simple. The next morning—the day before they were set to leave for the Spring Fair—Yael would rise early (really, inhumanly early) and sneak out to the cottage before Margot woke. When Margot came down the loft ladder, she would find Yael at the bottom with breakfast made (or brought over in a parcel from the tavern, at least) and a freshly poured cup of tea. Her jaw would drop at the sight, and Yael would say, I know there’s much to do today, but sit with me for a moment. They wouldn’t bring up Margot’s parents, no matter how desperately curious they were, or pressure her to talk about real things. The fact that Margot took Yael along to the Care Cottage at all feels like a kind of trust, fragile as blown glass, and they won’t break it by asking questions. The two of them could just sit together, mutually appreciating Yael’s thoughtfulness. Yael would even wash the mugs after.
Alas, things didn’t go to plan.
“Yael, what the devils!” Margot cries, dropping down the ladder behind them.
“Margot, I—” They cough, swatting through the smoke in the little living room as they manage to snuff out the rug. “Surprise?”
She looks down to where the woven scraps of multicolored wool have been scorched brown. “Thank you?”
“I wanted to make you tea,” they explain. “But I couldn’t read the spell on the teapot, so I, um, tried to do it the non-magical way.” Because the little bin beside the fireplace was empty, they’d gone out to the woodpile in the garden, gathered an armful, and set it down as silently as possible. They found a tinderbox on the mantel, then copied what they thought they’d seen Margot do: piled the wood in, scattered scraps of char cloth on top, struck the flint against the fire striker, and let the cloth catch. Then they went for the teakettle in the kitchen. When they came back, smoke was puffing into the cottage, and the rug on the rough wood floor beside the fireplace was ablaze.
“Well, next time you break into my home, put the logs farther back in the hearth so the embers don’t spit out into the room.” Margot frowns at the fireplace.
They nudge a log that’s nearly fallen out of the hearth back with the toe of their sooty boot. “I’d hardly call it breaking in when your door wasn’t locked.”
“It’s never had to be, but perhaps I’ll rethink.”
“I really am sorry. I was trying to…I wanted to do a nice thing for you, because…” They make the mistake of meeting her eyes, as gray as the last ice to melt in spring, and know she must see the scene at the Care Cottage reflected in theirs.
“Well, thank you,” she says again, stiffly, “but I can make my own tea. If you want to be of use, there’s a list of supplies we still need before we set out for Olde Post tomorrow, and I’ve got to head to the greenhouses to pack the wagon, and I’ve yet to begin preparing for the community dinner tonight.” She pulls a list from the pocket of her dressing gown…
And Yael just now realizes that Margot is wearing a dressing gown loosely tied over a whispery thin, white cotton nightshirt that doesn’t quite reach her knees. She rubs one mile-long leg against the other absentmindedly as she reads over her list.
Catching Margot in her nightshirt was never part of their plan, any more than setting the cottage ablaze or proving themself as useless as ever.
Gods.
“Of course I’ll get the supplies.” Yael tears their eyes away, holding a hand out for the list.
“Great. Just tell the shopkeepers to put it on my account. I’ll come around to settle up when we get back from the fair. Ask for help if you don’t recognize an item; you don’t need to guess.” She says this as though they’re a child being given an errand to keep them busy, rather than because they can be trusted to complete a crucial task.
Staring down at the ruined rug, Yael can hardly blame her. “This wasn’t Granny Fern’s, was it?” they dare to ask.
Instead of answering, Margot rests a hand on their shoulder, shaking them lightly. “This was…a nice thing to want to do. Wildly unnecessary, of course. Please don’t do it again. But still, nice.” Her grip on Yael’s shoulder tightens momentarily, fingertips twitching, before her hand slips down their arm (perhaps more slowly than needed) then away. “Come to the greenhouses when you’re done, and we’ll load everything into the cart.”
“Right.” They clear their throat.
Margot climbs back up the ladder rungs, her long legs gone in a blink, leaving Yael alone in the ashes of their good intentions.
First stop is the bakery, run by a tiny sprout of an old woman named Estelle, where Yael acquires a few loaves of crusty brown bread for their travels, then Yvonne’s butchery for a small parcel of dried and cured meat. The nature of the “meat” isn’t defined by either Margot or Yvonne. Whether it’s sheep or badger or blood hawk or giant toad, Yael doesn’t ask. Next, it’s Javril the cobbler’s, where Yael picks up Margot’s only pair of traveling boots, which have needed to be resoled since last spring.
On their way to Marvel’s blacksmithery for a replacement hub band for one of the cart wheels, villagers wave and call out to Yael. How quickly things change. Two months ago, they were a stranger in Bloomfield, met with incredulous stares. Now the librarian/bookshop owner stops them to talk about a romance novel he’s just gotten in. “It’s a story as satisfying as perpetual stew!” Mike raves, promising to bring it to the tavern tonight.
Unbelievably, they’ve settled into a routine here. Six days out of seven, they wake just before sunrise to the pounding of a broomstick handle on their floor from below—an arrangement they made with Clementine that first day and have regretted every morning since. She knocks when the morning’s delivery from the baker arrives, and Yael goes down to have a bite in the tavern—also included in their arrangement, but much preferable to the alarm broom. Then it’s off to the greenhouses, arriving after Margot no matter how hastily they devoured a bowl of current and honey porridge or a cinnamon bun. Once there, they begin their list of daily chores:
Check the trellises to make sure the vining plants are growing in the right direction, delicately untwining any tendrils that have coiled where they shouldn’t and adding ties as necessary. Yael enjoys this job; guiding the tendrils of a sweet pea plant to curl around the correct pole, like helping a toddler to grip and pull themself upright for the first time.
If Margot’s spotted any pests, discolored patches, or fungi in the soil on her own morning walk-through, Yael tends to the simpler, non-magical problems, like replacing soil or plucking ordinary, non-magical, squishable bugs from beneath the leaves. Yael does not so much enjoy the bug plucking.
Take a midday survey of any fruits, herbs, or petals that seem ready to harvest, but do not harvest it themself; they simply make a list for Margot, as Yael is not yet trusted around the plants with a pair of shears.
After that, it’s on to whatever tasks Margot has in mind forthem that day, from hauling soil to fetching lunch to weeding the path. After work, it’s back to the tavern to wash up and then collapse (or collapse and then wash up, depending on the day) until they head downstairs for dinner. Sometimes Margot will already be there, or she’ll join them later, but it’s never planned. Except for community dinners, that is, which include everyone in Bloomfield.
The gods know Yael has been to banquets. During the social season, it seems the Clauneck estate hosts more dinner parties than private meals. Elaborate, hours-long rituals for exclusive guest lists, involving opulent table settings of handwoven tablecloths (not Clauneck hands, of course), golden candelabras, and exotic fruits in glass pedestal dishes, destined to rot in the bins after serving their decorative purpose. There are up to a dozen courses, all strictly ordered—salads, nuts, soups, cheeses, fishes, meats, greens, and always some sort of magical elixir to combat the latest illness embattling the capital. There’s conversation of the most calculated sort, meant to impress and intimidate but never offend. If children are present, they are silent until called upon to recite some practiced speech or song, as Yael and their cousins often were.
Community dinners are another story altogether. Yael has attended a handful so far, one for each of their eight weeks in Bloomfield. To put it generously, these dinners are gentle chaos. Dozens of hands passing dozens of dishes back and forth with no particular order or logic while children dart between their grown-ups’ legs. There in the middle of it is Yael, somehow feeling a part of it all, even if they don’t understand half of the jokes being tossed about. They’ve had their hands in the soil that grew the herbs that flavor the dishes, and that seems to be enough for folk who’ve known one another for a lifetime to treat Yael as one of their own.
Except, perhaps, for Margot.
Clouds gather overhead, and the noontime sun has vanished from the sky by the time Yael completes their errands. They reach the greenhouses just as rain splatters the road around them and duck inside the shopfront. “I’ve returned—with unspecified meat!” they call out.
No answer from the empty shop.
They shake the raindrops from their hair, then move through to the strawberry chamber, where, shockingly, Margot isn’t. Nor is she in the succulent grotto, or butterfly garden, or any of the greenhouses, until the last option left is Margot’s workshop. The painted, peeling yellow door is shut, as ever; they’ve yet to be allowed inside. She claims it’s because the room is a mess and one wrong step might send a dozen pots and delicate cuttings tumbling to the floor.
They hesitate, then rap against it with one knuckle. “Margot?”
No answer.
“Daisy?” they try.
A moment later, the door opens, only for Margot to poke her head out through the narrow gap. “Don’t call me that. Found everything on the list?” she asks, brushing strands of violet hair that’ve slipped loose from her braid out of her face. The nightshirt has been replaced with a sensible pale-green work dress.
Yael peers over her shoulder. “You know, if you wanted help to tidy up your workshop, I did clean every pane of glass in this complex without breaking any.”
“And yet you set my cottage aflame with a teapot.”
“I didn’t!” they protest. “I never even got to the teapot.”
Margot presses her teeth into her bottom lip (whether she’s biting back a smile or an insult, Yael can’t tell), then says, “Let’s just…focus on the work. The cart is out by the shed, but we can’t pack it in this mess, anyway.” She sighs, glancing up at the rain that beats against the glass roof. “Go and mind the shop for now, just in case somebody braves the weather, and I’ll meet you there with tea.”
Yael perks up. “Ginger hibiscus?”
“Naturally.” With a last worried glance, Margot squeezes back inside her workshop, shutting them out once more.
All afternoon, the rain persists, so that Margot and Yael have to dash through it to get to the meeting hall. Community dinners are held on the village green beside the hall, weather permitting, but when it isn’t, the hall is the only building in Bloomfield large enough to hold its modest population. They scrape their boots against the threshold so as not to track mud and grass inside, then carry in their offerings: stoppered ceramic flagons of mint lemonade, juiced from the lemons left over from jam making, and pouches of herbs picked fresh from the greenhouses. They set them on the rough wood table the full length of a tree trunk, already piled with bread from the bakery, bowls of salad greens and asparagus spears and snow peas from the village garden, foraged fiddleheads, pitchers of ale and wine and water, and steaming meat pies prepared in the tavern with the help of the butcher. Most of the villagers are gathered already, soggy with rain but chatting happily. Poppy and Clementine chat in a cluster with neighbors Kate and Eric as they work together to arrange a motley collection of chairs. The handful of young children in the village dash about, chasing one another around the table, scream-laughing as children do.
Yael pauses to watch, thinking of themself and Margot and their pack when they were little. The freedom they didn’t have, and the people they all might’ve become had they lived in Bloomfield. Margot had summers here, at least; perhaps those summers were why she grew up to be the best of all of them.
“There’s Javril,” Margot says at their side, and Yael lets the memory of the children they’d been fade away again. She waves to Bloomfield’s cobbler, who stands across the room. “I’ve arranged for us to borrow Sunny for the trip, and—”
“Wait, not Sunny!” Yael protests. Javril’s stocky, gray-haired cart horse is known for escaping his paddock—really just a mossy, knee-high stone wall—and ranging the length of Bloomfield until somebody leads him back, where he can stand around munching grass until the next jailbreak. “Why don’t we take Sweet Wind instead?”
Her lips pucker, perhaps remembering the circumstances of her one and only ride on Sweet Wind. “I don’t trust it. I’m not a tinkerer, and I’ve no idea the spellwork required to keep it going or how to fix it if it breaks on the way.”
“What if Sunny slips his lead and gallops off a cliffside while grazing? Can you fix that?”
“Maybe I could.” Margot lifts her chin.
Yael wouldn’t put it past her; Margot can do almost anything, it seems. Grow an orchard indoors, mend hearts with jam, find room and board and employment for a runaway heir with no practical skills to speak of, boil water…
“All right,” Yael concedes. “How about we take both? If Sweet Wind throws a shoe halfway to Olde Post—or a bolt—we’ve still got Sunny to get us there. Hopefully.”
“Sunny’s never been a problem before,” Margot insists, bristling, “and we can’t just leave a mechanical steed on the roadside. How will you get back to—” She cuts herself off, but Yael hears the rest of her question anyhow: How will you get back to Ashaway?
Overhead, the rain begins to beat even harder against the roof.
“I don’t intend to go back.” They step closer to be heard over the storm and the surrounding village chatter, close enough to count the faint springtime freckles on the bridge of Margot’s nose.
Margot looks away, glancing around them, perhaps anxious that they’re being watched. “Not today, you don’t. But, Yael, do you really think you can stay away from home forever? I know life here seems easy, but—”
“You think cleaning eight greenhouses in a single day is easy?” They grin. “Not to mention the sheer amount of potting soil that washes off me in the bath each day. I swear it gets everywhere. ”
“Yes, all right, I just…” Margot stammers, flustered, searching for the words. “I mean that you might like your lifehere now, while all of this is still an adventure to you, but eventually—”
“Isn’t it to you? Everything used to be an adventure for Margot Greenwillow.”
Emotions shift across her face like the fluttering pages of a book, moving too quickly for Yael to read. “There has to be something you miss about Ashaway,” she insists, peering at Yael as though she can see the capital city through the dark window glass of their eyes. “You can’t just be perfectly fine with leaving it all behind.”
Does she think Yael fled Ashaway lightly, on a whim (fair enough, they did), and so will flee Bloomfield just as lightly? Is Margot actually worried that they’ll leave? Promising, if true.
“Whatever I left in Ashaway, it comes with a higher price than I’d pay to get it back,” Yael vows over the storm, certain that they mean it. Pretty certain.
Margot blinks down at them, still unreadable.
“We’ll leave Sweet Wind here, all right?” Yael surrenders. “Probably a magnet for highwaymen and marauders, anyhow. I’m sure Sunny will be…great. It’ll be an adventure of a different sort, ey?”
“Yes, right. An adventure.” Margot clears her throat and nods sharply, taking several steps back before crossing to Javril. Of course she doesn’t believe them.
Fine, then. Yael will just have to prove it on the road to Olde Post. Prove that they can be useful; that they can be serious; that they can succeed at this life. Or if not this exact life (because who can promise to remain forever in a place they drunkenly stumbled into two months ago, no matter how lovely the community dinners, and the local wine, and the…Margot?), then at least a life of their choosing. Any life but the one that’s been picked out for them since birth and never tailored to fit them even as they failed to grow into it.
They are almost completely, deathly certain they can do that.