Chapter 10 Margot
10
Margot
Despite the storms of yesterday, the morning they set out for Olde Post surprises Margot. The sun shines golden and warm, dappling the forest path that winds through a deep ravine. A soft breeze caresses her cheek, and birdsong surrounds the wagon in a curtain of music. Everything is perfectly lovely—except for the mud. The inches-deep, sticky-as-glue mud that is currently slathered on their cart wheels.
“Oh gods,” Margot says as their progress grinds to a halt yet again. Sunny snorts, stomping his heels, either unable or unwilling to go a step farther in the muck that’s up to his fetlocks.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have taken the shortcut?” Yael offers unhelpfully, peering down from the wagon’s seat. They’ve got a flask of tea in hand and biscuit crumbs on their vest. “Or perhaps we should’ve taken Sweet Wind, after all. Bet it could’ve gotten through this mud.”
“Mechanical horses still get stuck in mud.”
“Sweet Wind is a champion among mechanical steeds. Probably.”
Margot lets out a very slow breath, counting silently to ten. She loosens her death grip on Sunny’s reins and hops down off the wagon’s seat, her boots sinking into the muck. “It wasn’t my best idea. But I swear, this has never happened to me here, not even after such a heavy rain. Normally, the canopy keeps this part of the path relatively dry.” They’d cut southwest through the forest from Bloomfield to Olde Post rather than spending the extra hours riding west to the Queens’ Road, then due south. It really ought to have been quicker, as it’s been many times before.
Yael hops down beside her. “Nothing a little plant magic can’t fix, right?”
“Mud isn’t a plant.”
“But it’s plant-adjacent, like tea, surely?”
Margot wishes that were the case. “Nope. Mud is just mud.” She swipes a hand over one of the wooden cart wheels. The mud clings to her fingers—sticky, dense, and stinking.
Up ahead, the path twists, disappearing behind towering rock faces. Olde Post is only a few miles to the east. Behind them at least a mile back, the Queens’ Road waits with its wide stones and straight paths, but between either of those is a muddy morass.
How are they supposed to get out of this?
“Well, we wanted an adventure,” Yael says, walking around to pet Sunny on the nose. They pull some sugar cubes from their pocket and feed one to the horse.
Had Margot really wanted that? It had sounded nice enough yesterday evening over community dinner, and again thismorning as they set out and the road stretched before them, open and full of possibilities. But now it seems so much less exciting. Like so many other things, it’s just a hassle, requiring time and energy and talent she doesn’t have.
But maybe Yael’s right, and this is a problem that can be solved with magic.
“I have an idea,” Margot says, brushing more mud off the cart wheel. In her mind, she flips through the spellbooks she studied in college. And the tomes piled in her workshop. And Granny Fern’s remedy book, which she was studying yesterday to give the energy elixir another try. There’s something in her notes, something to do with wildflowers…
“Is it spreading out a blanket under that pine over there and having a picnic, then a nap?” Yael yawns. “Because sometimes I find problems can solve themselves while I nap for a bit.”
“We’re not infants,” Margot snaps, more bite behind her words than intended. “Now help me clean off these wheels. I’m not sure, but I think they’ll need to be free of mud for this to work.”
At Margot’s direction, they lay long strips of bark Margot whispered off a tree under each of the wheels. She also manages to get Sunny to take one step forward, just enough so the wheels are resting on the bark. Using sticks, Margot and Yael scrape as much mud off the cart wheels as possible. Then they rinse the wheels with water from the small barrel Margot brought along for the journey, and after that, they dry the wheels with packing linens from the crates.
“We’re just making more mud.” Yael points to the puddle beneath each wedge of bark.
Margot allows herself a small, secret smile. “Trust me on this.”
Once they unharness Sunny and lead her out of the way, Margot looks at the wagon, at the ferns and mushrooms growing alongside the path.
“Are you sure this will work?” Yael feeds Sunny another sugar cube.
“If it doesn’t, then we’re walking the last few miles to Olde Post, carrying the supplies. And possibly Sunny. Now hush, this takes a lot of concentration.”
Yael pops a sugar cube in their own mouth and nods. Margot pulls from her pocket a small packet of wildflower seeds that she was going to sell at the fair, emptying the contents into her hand. She closes her eyes, breathing deeply, letting the magic of the trees, the bracken, the woods, the wildflowers fill her.
Wind through the trees. Water tinkling in a stream somewhere nearby. Air moving all around them in invisible currents. And plants, everywhere, yearning to burst forward into the sunlit spring air.
She takes another deep breath before her exhale sends the wildflower seeds in her hand tumbling forward into the muddy path. Margot breathes in again, reaching into the well inside her where magic waits. At her urging, the magic rises, and she breathes it into the air as well. It spreads, a purple stream drifting from her fingertips. She can feel it coat the muddy path, and she whispers a spell to the seeds and all the growing things around them.
Grow, little ones. Make your way into the world. I need you here now.
The magic flows and flows, and sweat rises on Margot’s brow.
Please make us a path. Please, please, just long enough for us to pass through.
She knows exactly when the spell takes hold. It’s like slipping on ice and then feeling the grip of strong hands catching you and holding you up.
There’s a great rustling sound, then a pop. Yael exhales sharply beside Margot, and her eyes fly open.
Where a muddy stretch of road was moments ago, there’s now a lavish carpet of dense moss, woven with tiny green plants, and millions of small purple flowers, each of them the exact shade of Margot’s hair. The plants and flowers make a living indigo ribbon though the ravine, inviting them forward. Flowers and plants also grow under the bark supporting the wagon wheels, and it now sits on top of the path, steady as if it were resting on the Queens’ Road.
Margot lets out a loud whoop—perhaps she does have potential after all, even if she can’t make remedies as well as Granny Fern. The noise shatters the stillness of the forest and sends Sunny dancing backward.
“You did it!” Yael crows, pulling Margot into a hug. “Holy shit, you amazing witch! That was the most incredible casting I’ve ever seen!”
“It’s not going to last very long, so we better get going.” Margot enjoys the hug for just a second before shrugging out of it and taking Sunny’s reins. But exhaustion makes her stumble. “Oh…”
“Margot? What’s wrong?” Yael reaches out to catch her.
“I’ve never done that much magic all at once,” she says weakly, her voice shaking like her suddenly trembling legs. “Guess I wore myself down.”
The color drains from Yael’s face. They look around, frantic. “I can do something about this! I will…I know…”
“You don’t need to call your patron or whatever you Claunecks do. Just give me a sugar cube and get the energy potion out of my travel bag.” Wearily, Margot points to the green woven bag below the wagon’s seat. “I finally got the formula right last night, and it should restore me.”
Embarrassment flits across Yael’s face, followed by a smile like a sunbreak during a storm. They hand her three sugar cubes. “Of course you have an energy potion. Silly me.”
As the wagon trundles out of the woods an hour or so later, Margot is no longer sure she’s hungry for adventure. Her back aches from sitting atop the wagon’s wooden board seat, and though the energy potion perked her up, she’s still weary. Mostly she’s just hungry, and her stomach rumbles as the smell of roasted meats wafts toward them.
It’s after sunset and torchlight flickers, illuminating the cobbled streets of Olde Post. It’s a middle-sized city—far bigger than Bloomfield with its few dozen households, but nothing compared with Ashaway and its social-climbing upper classes. If Olde Post feels like anything, it’s trying. Trying to be bigger, as its leaning narrow houses multiply with each new addition. Trying to have a good time, with the noise and laughter and twisted-together bodies that tumble out of taverns. Trying to bring in new ideas, with its community magical college and non-magical scholars’ havens. And trying to remain true to its roots as a small rural village that has a steadily growing country fair every spring.
The heart of the Spring Fair is the village square in the middle of town, where the market will take place tomorrow, when vendors from outside of Olde Post will open their booths and carts to sell their wares. The celebration always begins the night before, though, and already people of all ages walk the streets eating golden twirls of pastry or cones of chili that make Margot’s mouth water. Pipe and fiddle music dances through the air from the stage area, and gaming stalls—ax chucking and archery among them—are already set up and full of customers. These gaming booths open a day early to feed and entertain folk. Margot waves to a few people setting up their booths for tomorrow, then steers the wagon to their assigned spot, a selling space not too far off the main avenue. They’ve got room for the wagon, their selling table, and a small canopy, which Margot plans to decorate with flowers.
“This is good,” Yael says, looking around. “We’re going to be absolutely cleaned out by sunset tomorrow, I’d wager.”
“That’s the goal.” Margot clambers off the wagon and helps the horse back it into place. She’ll get Sunny stabled, leaving everything in the wagon packed for tonight, and set up her table first thing Saturday. “Then we can do some supply shopping, rest, and leave when the market closes on Sunday evening.”
“Wait. Daisy—”
“Don’t call me Daisy,” she says—a habit.
“Surely we’re friends by now?”
Margot thinks long and hard before relenting. “Fine, just this once.”
Yael looks inordinately pleased. “And surely, Daisy, we’re not going to leave this place without having some fun?”
Margot blinks at Yael. She isn’t here for fun. She’s here for selling and restocking and perhaps comparing spell notes with a few fellow plant witches, but that’s it.
“You do remember fun?” Yael prods.
“Of course I do.”
“Prove it.” Yael hops off the wagon and stands, arms crossed. “Prove to me you know how to have fun by coming with me to the fair tonight. I’d even wager I’ll be able to beat you at ax chucking.”
Margot really should spend the evening checking on the seedlings and rearranging the cut flowers one more time. It needs to be done. Just as something always needs to be done. But the thought of spending that time with Yael instead, exploring somewhere new, is exhilarating. It feels like an adventure in and of itself.
“Fine,” she agrees as she unhitches Sunny. “First let’s drop our stuff at the inn, and then I’m warning you: I’m a dead shot with an ax, and I’m betting dinner that I’ll beat you.”
“Prove it,” Yael says again as Margot leads the horse away from the wagon and toward the inn.
As it turns out, there’s more than just dinner at stake.
“Why don’t we have two rooms?” Yael asks as they walk out into the crowds once more. “Not that I’m complaining, but…”
Scowling over her shoulder at the Abyssal Chicken, a two-story inn with a wide porch and green-and-white-striped shutters, Margot huffs in annoyance. “I worked out a reservation with them years ago so as not to be crowded out when the fair grew. But this year I forgot…”
“That I’d be coming along?” Yael is so decidedly cheerful, Margot can’t help but smile. Especially as they stop outside a hat shop next to the inn, where there’s an outdoor table set up to take advantage of the extra foot traffic in town, and try on a floppy hat that looks like a giant purple pancake with a feather stuck through it.
“How could I possibly forget that?” Margot makes a face at the hat.
“I am truly unforgettable.” Yael sweeps off the hat with an elaborate bow. “Do I need this hat?”
“Decidedly not.” Margot giggles.
“I’m getting it, and one for you as well.”
Margot starts to protest, but Yael is already handing over money for both the purple hat and a matching green pancake-shaped one for Margot.
“Now,” Yael says as they walk away from the hat vendor, “we have matching hats and a wager. Whoever can sink the most axes into that”—Yael points to an ax-throwing booth near an enormous oak tree with a target painted onto its trunk—“wins both dinner and the only bed for the evening.”
“Agreed, but I’m not wearing this hat.”
Yael frowns. “I insist. I’ll let you have the first ax throw.”
“Done,” Margot says with a laugh as she settles the floppy hat over her braids.
Yael grins back at her as they walk toward an ax-chucking stall.
Three quick rounds of ax flinging fly by—a blur of steel and hefty thwacks as the blades sink into the target fastened to an oak tree. Margot’s axes splay out from the center, while all of Yael’s are settled firmly near the roots of the tree.
Yael groans as Margot’s last ax joins the rest in the middle of the target. “You did warn me you were good at this.”
“I did. Now let’s find dinner. What do you feel like buying me?”
“Giant spider legs?”
Margot shudders. “Never again. What about a chili cone?”
“I’m not sure I understand the logistics of that exact food.”
“Didn’t come up much in your parents’ kitchens?”
“Nor in Auximia’s dining halls, I’m sorry to say.”
“Well, you have truly missed out. Follow me. The best food is back this way, near where the artisan booths will open tomorrow morning.”
They walk through a maze of stalls that smell like metal and lamp oil. The hum of magical machinery fills the air, louder even than the music from taverns and stages set up around the fair.
“Is that Poppy?” Yael asks, pointing to a familiar face in a booth across the grass lane. “The inventor from Bloomfield?”
“It is! I wasn’t sure I’d see her this year.”
Margot waves to Poppy, who stands behind a table at her stall, setting it up for tomorrow. Before they can go over to speak with her, a pair of young women, artisans Margot recognizes from previous fairs, approach her table, one of them clutching a broken clock. Poppy waves back and calls out, “Catch up with you later, hopefully!” and then turns to her colleagues.
“Are there many people from Bloomfield here?” Yael asks after they’ve secured two golden waffle cones full of a fragrant, spicy chili and large tankards of honeyed mead. Yael holds their cone at a distance, as if the chili will jump out to bite them rather than the other way around.
Margot shrugs. “Likely some have come to see friends, but Poppy is the only one I know of who’s here selling things. She’s more…ambitious than many in Bloomfield. She’s lived with her sister, Dara, for as long as I can remember, but Poppy has always wanted to travel to the Inventor’s Guild in Kingfisher. Not sure why she’s not done it yet…”
Her stomach grumbles, and Margot interrupts herself to take a huge bite of the chili cone. A rush of flavor—garlic, paprika, chili, and something just a hint earthy and magical, like mushrooms that have been growing at the roots of a willow tree and picked under a full moon—hits her all at once, and she groans happily.
“Is it really that good?” Yael stares skeptically at the dripping cone.
“Just trust me, please.”
Yael takes a small, tentative bite and then makes an appreciative noise.
“Told you,” Margot says, smirking. “Now let’s walk. I want to show you the night-blooming flowers, and there’s a band playing near the lake that I love.”
“Lead the way,” Yael says through another bite of chili cone.
Happily, Margot does just that.