Chapter 12
Witch Village, despite not having seasons, still had an autumn harvest. It was the only thing we celebrated—other than birthdays, of course—meant to honor the founding of Witch Village. It was a reminder that we still had plenty despite being contained underground.
The first day began bright and early at the farming fields, where the field witches would have already harvested that month’s produce.
Pumpkins, gourds, squash, potatoes, beets, cabbage, and carrots would lay on tables in a brilliant array of autumnal colors.
Witches came by and took their pick, and by the end of the week, everyone would gather in the village square where a great celebration took place.
Most everyone brought a homemade dish to share.
There was dancing and eating. At the end of the night, everyone would go home at a reasonable hour, and that would be enough community celebrating for the rest of the year.
Witches were notoriously reclusive, after all.
Today was coincidentally the first day of the Harvest. I figured it’d be safe enough to show Edmund around after the crowd thinned.
I gazed out the little square window in my room as the temperature slowly warmed.
The sunrise was just as I remembered. The sky started off a hazy purple, then peach, then a golden yellow as the sun peaked out from the horizon.
Except, there wasn’t really a horizon, and there wasn’t really a sun.
The morning was silent. Aboveground, there would’ve been birds chirping, carriages clattering, and murmurs of morning conversation.
There weren’t any birds here. How had I survived my entire life without birds?
I blew a breath and drew the yellow curtains closed.
I would have to take Edmund out closer to noon.
Ma preferred going at the crack of dawn to get the first pick of the crop.
She always had to be the first. The rest of the village awoke to the sound of her slapping every gourd to determine the ripest.
After braiding back my hair, I rummaged through the clothes in my trunk. Pin tucked cotton shirts. Fine wool skirts. Tailored waistcoats. A short-sleeved muslin dress.
None of them were quite suitable for Harvest day. Ma always wrestled me and Christabella into matching pinafores that were an offensive shade of goldenrod yellow. This was the first Harvest I could wear what I wanted.
With a satisfied smirk, I dressed for the day.
***
“WOW,” MADDOX SAID. The cup of tea he was holding sloshed over the side, and he quickly righted it. “That’s a new look for you.”
I straightened my lapels in the hallway mirror. “Nice, right?” I turned my heel, admiring the gleam of my polished leather shoes and the way the stockings hugged my calves. Breeches were rather handsome on women, I decided.
“Is dressing like a rich gentleman the new fashion for ladies aboveground?” Alexander asked from the kitchen.
“It’s about to be,” I said, taking my seat at the dining table.
He dusted his hands on his apron. “We’re having biscuits for breakfast, by the way. They should be ready in a minute. Then we can head out to the fields.”
Sweat pricked the back of my neck. “So soon?” I asked. “Can’t we go later?”
Alexander shrugged. “Grandfather usually handles the morning work, but since he’s aboveground now, I take over. The hay needs to be cut and the goat needs to be milked.”
“Since when do you have a goat?” I asked. Keeping livestock was not common in Witch Village. Farmers opted to grow produce rather than raise animals, since they required less space and less care.
“Since two months ago,” Alexander said. “Let’s go!”
But Edmund, who evidently was a late sleeper from the snoring that came from his room when we approached, was not quite up for the task. None of us thought it proper to go inside and wake him, so we decided to let him sleep. I secretly celebrated this.
“Stay with him,” I told Maddox as Alexander and I headed out the door.
Maddox sighed. “Do I have to?”
“You’re his guard, so yes,” I said. “Come join us outside when he’s ready.”
Maddox made a face, but turned back into the house.
There were a handful of witches outside already.
I ducked my head and made it a point to hide behind Alexander as he waved at a few fellow field witches setting up stands and harvesting the crops in their designated plots.
As he went to milk the goat, which he apparently kept in a pen behind his house, I scanned the fields once more.
The people speckled in the distance were dressed in browns and greens and beiges. Ma, who preferred to dress in offensively bright colors for Harvest time, was nowhere to be seen.
Feeling a bit more at ease, I helped Alexander haul the buckets of milk inside and we headed to the fields. I hoped his tall stature would conceal me from prying eyes.
We stopped before his designated plot. Green vines curled around gourds of all shapes and sizes. Some of the stems were dry and brown, a sure sign they were ready for picking. Alexander wiped his hands on his trousers and knelt. I followed suit.
“These look promising,” he said, taking out a large pair of shears from his belt. He tossed me a small knife in a leather sheath and gestured to the gourds at the opposite corner of his plot. “You take those.”
I had only actively harvested from the fields a handful of times in my life—back when Grandma was alive and was good friends with Alexander’s grandfather. Ma was less friendly toward the family, for reasons wholly unknown to me. It was likely because she loathed doing anything Grandma did.
“I’ve told you about me,” I said, sawing at a stem. “But what about you? How has the village been? Any juicy gossip?”
Alexander chuckled. “Why is it always gossip with you?”
I tossed my braid behind my back. “It’s fun. Besides, I’ve been gone for nine months. Something interesting must’ve happened. Any news about Lana Barclay returning from her travels?”
“Not at all. I think she and her niece are still in Aquatia.”
Disappointing. “Any news from my family?” I tried again.
He shook his head. “Giselle, it’s your family. You can just go ask them.”
I frowned. “It’s not that simple.” I already knew Alexander wouldn’t understand—his family was as tight knit as a novice knitter’s stitches. “Whatever then. How’s Christabella? Have you seen her lately?”
Alexander cleared his throat. “Oh. Yeah. She came to visit Gio a few times. She’s teaching him the Harvest dance.”
It was very like Christabella to do so. She was good with children, and she loved the Harvest dance. Perhaps the next time she came by, I’d surprise her with my presence.
“Ask her to visit soon,” I said. “At least a few times before two weeks are up. I’d like to see her.”
“Of course,” Alexander said slowly, brushing the dirt off of a yellow gourd. He sounded hesitant. “So, about Christabella...”
“What about her?”
“We’re...sort of engaged.”
I turned around, knife still in hand. “Excuse me?”
“Alright we are engaged.”
I shuffled over to him on my knees, fuming. “She’s only fifteen!”
Alexander backed away, holding up his hands. “Sixteen,” he said weakly. “I proposed on her birthday.”
“Are you insane?” I whispered harshly, knowing we were garnering some looks from a few elders in the cornfield. “Does Ma know?”
Alexander shook his head, his eyes wide. “No. But I think she’s going to look just like you when she finds out,” he squeaked.
I sat back and blew my hair away from my face. Having any resemblance to Ma was discomfiting. “I’m assuming Christabella said yes?” I asked in a calmer tone.
Alexander nodded, unable to keep the grin from his face.
Christabella had never gushed about Alexander before.
Her fancies had always darted around like a butterfly, flitting from one boy to the next.
I had never seen Alexander act in any particular way around her, but his moon-eyed expression indicated that something had clearly changed between the two of them while I’d been gone.
I took a deep breath and narrowed my eyes. “You haven’t done anything to compromise her, have you?”
Alexander shook his head. “I swear upon my gourds I have not.”
“Hm.”
“Does that mean you approve?”
“Christabella can make her own decisions,” I said, hoping I sounded more blasé than I felt. I was a bit hurt that she hadn’t at least written to me about it. But to be fair, I hadn’t written her much either.
After harvesting the ripened gourds, I trudged off to a rest shelter at the edge of the fields for a break as Alexander moved on to the peas.
“Giselle? Is that you?”
I froze.
A witch woman with wrinkled brown skin and a dark brown shawl approached me, a basket of miniature pumpkins slung over her arm.
“Beatrice,” I said with a nervous laugh, recognizing Rowena’s mother.
She had been one of the witches who had fallen ill due to living underground for too many years.
She looked sturdier now, back on her feet.
“You’re looking well. I thought Rowena had you move aboveground,” I said quickly, hoping to divert the attention away from me.
Beatrice shrugged. She joined me under the shelter and sat on the wooden bench. “I didn’t care for it. The air and the sun were wonderful, but I missed being surrounded by witches.”
“What about your health?” I asked. “Don’t you need to spend more time up there?”
“Oh, sure,” Beatrice said, waving her hand as if the issue were trivial. “Rowena makes me go up with her every week. My youngest Elowyn gets far too excited about it.” Her tone grew concerned. “I hope it’s a passing phase. Our life is down here in the village.”
I merely grunted. Beatrice was certainly old-fashioned, very much like Ma in her opinions about humans. I wondered what Beatrice would think of me bringing not one but two humans down here. She’d likely have a heart attack.
Beatrice dug around her pockets and produced a small satchel. “Peanuts?” she offered. “I roasted them yesterday.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking them. “Say, didn’t Lana go aboveground to travel?” I hoped to prod her into the right direction.
Lana Barclay was the most formidable herbwitch in the village and had even helped Beatrice recover, or so I heard Ma say last summer.
The Barclay family had been well respected in the village, known for their superior potions and ointments—that is, up until her sister Seraphina did the unthinkable and eloped with a human man, which in turn sparked the series of events that led to the end of the Non-Magic Age.
“Lana only went because that niece of hers asked her to,” Beatrice said with a sniff.
“There are plenty of other witches finding their fortune aboveground,” I argued. “Rowena. Ferdinand, even. And me.”
The last word was a mistake. Beatrice’s eyes suddenly sharpened. “Indeed. Are you visiting, Giselle?”
There was a note of judgement in her tone, and I felt that I knew why. No doubt Ma had wasted no time bemoaning the fact that her daughter deserted her family for selfish pursuits shortly after I left. My palms grew sweaty.
I dug into the bag and popped a handful of pre-peeled peanuts into my mouth, giving myself some time to formulate a response. They were perfectly roasted, sweet, salty, and nutty. “Yes,” I said after I chewed and swallowed. “I thought I’d pay a visit home since it’s Harvest season.”
This seemed to assuage her. Beatrice beamed. “How lovely. Nasha will be so thrilled.”
“Don’t tell her I’m here,” I said quickly. “It’s er...a surprise. Private family matters.”
I decided not to explain my assignment. Beatrice would probably be horrified.
“Of course,” Beatrice said. “But don’t keep her waiting for too long. You ought to go home and have a good meal! You look so thin.”
“Alexander’s meals are just fine,” I said, tossing back another handful of peanuts. “And I look normal.”
Beatrice raised her brows as she looked over the field. Alexander was helping an elderly witch lift a particularly large, warty gourd, his biceps straining against his linen shirt.
“Is he part of the reason you returned? Do I smell an engagement?”
I cursed myself for bringing up any possible bait for Beatrice to bite. Elderly witch women were just as bad as the matchmaking mamas of high society.
“You smell nothing of the sort,” I said shortly. “Thank you for the snack, Beatrice. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some...crates to organize.”