Homegrown Magic

Chapter 32 Margot

32

Margot

Aclattering noise wakes Margot in the early hours of the morning. She sits bolt-upright, nearly bashing her head on the low loft ceiling. Was that outside? Maybe hooves on the flagstones? Is someone from the Clauneck Company here to evict her?

Of course not. Not yet, at least. Despite Menorath’s yearlong extension, Margot knows she’ll have to tell the Claunecks that the Natural Caster Potion is never happening, can never happen. Her anxiety over the consequences of doing so has slipped into her dreams and she’s slept fitfully, tossing and turning as visions of someone coming in the night to force her from her home fill her sleep.

There’s another noise, clearer this time, like a spoon against a teacup. So, not a horse. Adrenaline lights her veins. Looking around her loft, Margot grabs the first thing at hand, a fluffy down pillow. Nerves tingling, she scoots to the edge of the loft.

There’s a thump and the murmur of an almost familiar voice. Another rattle—ceramic against metal—brings a whispered string of swear words.

Yes, that was definitely coming from her kitchen.

Margot’s fairly certain she won’t need her pillow—and a pillow won’t do much good against someone here to evict her, anyway—but she won’t go down without a fight. Even if it’s a pillow fight.

Ridiculous. She isn’t thinking properly. She needs a good cup of tea to clear her head and wake her up.

There’s another soft thump and then, almost as if reading her mind, the smell of hibiscus and ginger tea floats upward to the loft. Margot inhales deeply, letting the delicious, familiar scent wrap around her.

Did someone break into her house to…make her tea?

There is only one person who would do that. But they wouldn’t be here after six weeks of heartbreaking absence. Would they? Still clutching the pillow, Margot steps down the loft ladder and lands softly on the living room floor. There’s a fire dancing in her hearth, and not a log is out of place. A small bundle of freshly picked daisies sit in an empty jam jar in the middle of the kitchen table next to the vase holding the everlasting daisy.

“Yael?” she calls, her voice wobbly with hope.

There’s a long silence.

Then Yael Clauneck walks into the living room from the kitchen, holding a pair of steaming teacups, their jaw-length hair pulled up into a messy half knot. They’re the most beautiful thing Margot has ever seen. She digs her fingers into the pillow, just to keep from running to Yael and embracing them.

“You’re supposed to be asleep still,” they say, frowning. “I got here as early as I could.”

Margot wants to weep at hearing them again.

Instead, she says, “Hard to sleep with you clattering around down here.”

The side of Yael’s mouth kicks up just the smallest bit. “Much easier to make you tea if you didn’t insist on keeping the cups up so high.”

At that, Margot’s smile breaks through any reserve she has. Yes, there is so very much they need to discuss, but at this moment, she’s just so damn delighted to see them here, in her cottage. She releases her grip on the pillow, setting it onto the couch. “Did you break into my house just to make me tea?”

“And bring you strawberry scones.” Yael nods toward the oven. “They’re not terribly fresh after the ride here, since they were in my bag, but they’re from one of my favorite bakeries in Ashaway. I didn’t get a chance to take you, uhm…before we parted. It’s just lucky I had some saved in my bag from teatime this morning. Well, yesterday morning. And I thought they might go so well with tea.”

Yael sets the cups down gently on the table. It’s then that Margot realizes they’re wearing nothing but their underwear and chest bindings. And she’s in even less than that, since she’s naked under her thin shift. As her cheeks heat, she can feel Yael’s gaze on her, which is not unwelcome but also not helping her make sense of their presence in her kitchen.

She snatches up a cardigan from a chair and slips it on, wrapping herself in the soft comfort of it.

“Why aren’t you wearing any clothing?” she manages as Yael straightens one of the daisies in the bunch in the middle of the table.

“Well, I sold my clothes for a horse.”

At least four questions come to mind all at once, but they somehow spill out as a laugh.

“Don’t make fun.” Yael beams at her. “It was a very fast horse. A mechanical one. I could’ve gotten here from Ashaway before midnight, but when the sun began to set, I stopped at a crossroads inn; you should’ve seen the face of the innkeeper. I think she let me sleep in the stables just to keep me out of view of her customers.”

Now that Margot can look Yael up and down without blushing (almost), she sees the bits of hay clinging in their dark hair.

“I’m sure I have something I can wear at Clementine’s,” Yael continues, “but I wanted—no, I needed—to see you first.”

Margot pulls her cardigan tighter, as if that will protect her heart from Yael’s smile. Their words. The way she’s desperate just to hold them again. “There’s nothing at Clementine’s,” she says instead of reaching for them. “All of your things were picked up by someone from the Clauneck Company ages ago.”

Yael swears. “Well then, I’ll have to work something out, I suppose.”

“I still have some of your things. From when you…last slept here.”

Yael meets her eye, and the words hang between them, whispering of the handful of nights they spent in the cottage together, after the show and before the Clauneck carriage came to drag them off to Ashaway. Their laughter, muffled beneath Margot’s quilts, and the strawberry wine that coated their lips as they kissed. The night Yael suggested that they go back to her mother’s private gardens, now emptied of guests and expectations, for a memory of Bloomfield to keep them company on their journey, and Margot happily agreed. Small mushrooms had sprung up under her feet with each step toward the house, the plants enchanted ever so slightly by Margot’s magic, and the many feelings inside of her…

She clears her throat, looking away. “I’ll just get the clothes.”

Turning, she hurries up the ladder and rummages through the bundle of Yael’s clothing that’s neatly folded and placed on their side of the bed. Tucked under their pillow to be more accurate. A pile of clothing that she has most certainly not been snuggling when the nights get too lonely.

Yael can never know about that.

“Here you go,” she calls out roughly, tossing the bundle down the ladder. “I’ll be right there.”

Slipping out of the cardigan, Margot pulls on undergarments and a dress. By the time she’s back down the ladder, Yael’s dressed in their simple greenhouse clothing—a goldenrod-yellow shirt and brown cotton trousers—and there’s a plate of warmed scones on the table. Steam rises from the tea. Margot sits at the table, wrapping her hands around her cup. She inhales, letting the familiar scent of lemon, ginger, and hibiscus fill her nose. Yael sits opposite her, biting their bottom lip, as if they’re not quite sure what to say.

“When did you learn how to do all this?” Margot says to break the ice—and out of genuine curiosity.

“I spent a little time in the manor house kitchens while I was…away.” They stare into the steam rising from their teacup. “I don’t know why I went down. I never had growing up. But I’d watch Zoy—that’s the spit-boy’s name—turn a boar for the evening’s supper. And I’d ask Ilke questions as he cooked. How much kindling to use to light a fire, how much wood it took to keep it going without a continual flame spell. How the scullery maid cleaned the dishes without a scrap of magic. I think they thought I was addled or something, and I couldn’t explain why I wanted to know, but…but I did. And I learned. A bit, anyway.”

“Ah. Well…I’m glad to see you,” Margot admits.

“Me too. You’ve no idea how glad I am to see you.”

Margot has longed to hear from them for weeks, but suddenly, it’s all too much. She stands, going over to the windowsill and picking up the strawberry root Yael had planted in late spring. It’s grown since—Margot carefully tended to it since Yael wasn’t here to do so—and blossomed with little white flowers that subtly perfume her kitchen.

“My strawberries!” Yael gasps, recognizing the pot. “It bloomed, after all.”

“It was well planted,” Margot concedes.

“Honestly, it’s a wonder you didn’t throw them into the pond, after the way I left things. You’re a wonder, Margot.”

Returning to the table, Margot picks up a scone and begins to crumble it over her plate, letting silence stretch between them—the product of too many weeks apart and too many words spoken and unspoken. At last, she manages, “What are you doing in Bloomfield, Yael? I’m grateful for the tea and scones, but I thought…”

Yael sets down their tea. “About what happened at the ball, what I said…”

“I’m not sure any of that matters now.”

“Of course it matters.” Yael’s eyes blaze into hers. “It’s all that matters, Margot. It always has!”

She blows out a breath. “Maybe so, but it isn’t all that matters.” She gets up and starts to pace the room. “Yael, I can’t make the Natural Caster Potion. Meaning I can’t release Bloomfield from your family’s clutches.”

“You—”

“No, please just listen. Your family is going to destroy Bloomfield, Yael! Everything Granny Fern and her friends and I and even you have worked for—they’re going to destroy it.” With every word, Margot’s temper grows hotter. “I care about the people in this town and everything they’ve built here. This is their home. It’s my home. And your parents want to take it all and make it into a shopping center or spa for rich people or some such thing! And I’m not going to let them. Somehow, I don’t know how, I have to stop them, because Bloomfield deserves better, and you may not care about Bloomfield or me anymore, but you once believed so too!” She heaves in a great breath and swipes at the surprising tears of rage that run down her cheeks.

“Margot?” Yael’s voice is painfully gentle. “Daisy?”

“Yes?” she snaps.

“Please, Margot, sit. I know all of this, and I care very much.”

“You do?” Margot falls into a chair.

“I do. Why do you think I rode all the way to Bloomfield in my underwear?”

She picks up her teacup again with a trembling hand. “That’s a comfort, I suppose, though it doesn’t solve the problem.”

“No, but…I believe I may have found our solution, if we play things just right.”

Margot sits bolt-upright. “Really?”

Yael reaches over and twines their fingers with hers. “Really.”

Without thinking, Margot squeezes their hand. “Tell me everything, then.”

Over tea and scones slathered with heartbreak-healing jam, they do.