Chapter 21
The bell rang sweetly as I entered Shauna’s Confectioneries.
Inside, the walls were painted with cotton candy pink stripes.
Generous jars of candies lined the shelves and behind a glass counter sat Shauna herself, the candymaker and proprietress.
Her frizzy ginger hair was twisted back and secured with a peppermint stick.
“Giselle?” Shauna asked, pushing her large spectacles up her nose, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. “Is that you?”
The last time we’d seen each other was when we were both applying for a position in the Witch Committee. She had been rejected right before I’d been accepted.
“Good to see you Shauna,” I said awkwardly.
A few witch children were wandering the shop with their parents, dressed in festive shades of orange, red, and ochre.
Almost every child in the village frequented Shauna’s Confectioneries.
Grandma only allowed us to come on each of our birthdays, claiming that eating too much candy was an early, sugary death.
The visits totaled to about three times a year, once for me, another for Christabella, and the last for Sonny.
“May I ask why you’ve come back?” Shauna asked as I grabbed a small striped paper bag on the counter, bypassing the medium and large sizes. The other customers were filling theirs up with scoops of multi-colored candies. One child, teetering on her small feet, held a bag almost as large as she was.
“For candy, obviously,” I said with a smile.
Shauna laughed. “I meant to the village. How is everything aboveground?”
One of the children's parents shot us a dirty look at the word “aboveground”.
“Fine,” I said in a lower voice. I glanced down at the other two sizes of bags. I traded my small one for a medium. Why not? Ma wasn’t paying for my candy anymore. “I’m here on a Witch Committee assignment.”
Shauna nodded. “Does it have to do with bringing humans down here?”
I raised my brows. “How did you know?”
The parent shot us another dirty look. Shauna rummaged through a drawer and handed me a pair of clean linen gloves. “Here you are. Help yourself.”
I slipped on the gloves and wandered to the far wall. Had news spread about Edmund after all? Beatrice had sworn she wouldn’t say anything, but rumors had a tendency to fly here. With any luck, they weren’t too scathing or sensational.
I surveyed the shelf of colorful sweets before me.
Gumballs? Definitely not. Marshmallows? Yuck. Peppermints? Perhaps those might help with Edmund’s parched throat.
I shoveled a small helping of them in my bag, then added some salted caramels in for good measure. Edmund seemed like he’d enjoy salted caramels.
On the bottom shelf was an assortment of roasted nuts. Honeyed almonds, sugared pine nuts, roasted peanuts in shells. Edmund liked roasted peanuts. And, apparently, so did everyone else in the village. The shelled peanuts were entirely gone.
When the family paid for their candy and exited the shop, I stood up. “Shauna, are there any more peanuts?”
“I’m afraid not,” Shauna said, brushing her hands on her apron as she approached me. She looked oddly nervous. “A human came by and bought all of them from me a few days ago. Did she come with you?”
I blinked. “She?” I wondered if Shauna had mistaken Maddox for a woman. He did have long hair, but it was nearly impossible to mistake him for a woman, even in skirts.
“Yes. A human woman, older than you,” Shauna said. “Bony stature, mousy hair. Not the friendliest, I daresay.”
“Perhaps she’s a guest of some other witch?”
Shauna nodded. “Perhaps.”
I left the shop uneasily, knowing neither of us really believed that possibility. Had Shauna been mistaken, or was there really a human I didn’t know about in Witch Village? Who else would bring a human down here? For all I knew, the witches who were amenable to humans all migrated aboveground.
When I reentered the shack, Maddox, Edmund, and Beatrice were all inside. There was hardly room to take more than two uninterrupted steps without bumping into anyone, so I stayed where I was at the entrance and closed the door behind me.
“Oh good, you’re back,” Beatrice said. “We need to move this man.”
“My name is Edmund,” Edmund said.
“This man,” Beatrice continued, “is fully healed. We must not suffocate him in close quarters lest he falls sick again after all my trouble nursing him back to health.”
Sweat pricked the back of my neck. I thought that I’d at least have a few more days to decide where to take Edmund next.
Wherever Edmund went, I would have to go.
As his tour guide, I couldn’t very well leave him alone.
We couldn’t return to Alexander’s place since he had extended family over, as he’d told Christabella. I tugged on my braid in frustration.
“Beatrice, is there any way you can keep Edmund here for a little longer?” I pleaded. “Just one more week?”
Beatrice frowned. “You heard what I said, Giselle. Plus, I don’t want anyone to know I’ve been harboring a human. We must move him elsewhere.”
I blushed as Edmund blinked from his spot on the bed. I knew him to be a courteous man, but Beatrice’s utter lack of manners might be too much for him to handle.
“Maddox. Where have you been staying?” I asked.
Maddox exchanged a glance with Beatrice, who looked away. “Beatrice’s cottage,” he said.
I shot her an accusing look. “I thought you had an aversion to strange human men.”
“Maddox was a witch at birth,” Beatrice said with a sniff. “Hardly his fault his father decided to remove his magic and raise him aboveground.”
“Well—"
“My cottage is small,” Beatrice interrupted before I could protest. “I can’t possibly take in two additional guests.”
“Then we go back to Alexander’s,” Maddox said.
“Alexander has extended family staying in his house,” I said.
“Then we stay here?”
“I already told you children—”
“Alright!” I dragged a hand over my face as Edmund, Maddox, and Beatrice all looked at me expectantly. “Fine. Let’s go to my place.”
Beatrice, satisfied with this decision, took her leave. I apologized profusely to Edmund. He was barely recovered, stuck in a dusty shack, and there was nowhere hospitable to go.
“You’ll have to forgive Beatrice,” I said.
Edmund shrugged. “There’s nothing to forgive. She healed me. It’s a miracle how fast my ankle recovered, even with my unexpected fever. I only hope I wasn’t too much trouble.”
“Not at all! I understand if you want to cut this trip short and go home. I didn’t mean for this to happen,” I said miserably. It seemed like my bad luck had followed us at every turn.
Edmund shook his head slowly. “I meant what I said last time, Giselle. I won’t go until the two weeks are up and I see the best Witch Village has to offer.”
He was a dutiful man, eager to keep his promises. It was one of his many attractive qualities.
I remembered the candy I purchased and dug into my satchel, the colorful paper bag crinkling as I offered it to him. “Here. I know it’s not much, but candy always cheers me up after a sick spell.”
Edmund took it and smiled. Even sick and unbathed, he was gorgeous. “That’s sweet of you.”
“If you need anything else just let me know,” I said breathlessly.
“Er, yes. There is something. I had quite a bit of water this morning and it’s been a long time since I’ve...” Edmund trailed off, and I caught his meaning.
“Oh! Of course. I’ll take the luggage and we’ll wait outside,” I said, my face hot.
Maddox and I exited the shack, leaving Edmund to take care of his business.
“He’s different around you,” Maddox said in a low voice.
“Is he?”
“He didn’t bother charming my pants off when I was emptying his chamber pot.”
“Good. You should keep your pants on,” I said.
Maddox snorted and we waited another minute in silence, staring idly at the cottage across the path. Then he turned and said, “Are you ever going to tell me why you didn’t want to go home?”
Explaining my relationship with my family was perhaps the most difficult and uncomfortable thing I could do, but I supposed I could try for him.
“Nine months ago when I came aboveground, I didn’t ask permission or tell them beforehand. I wasn’t close with anyone besides my sister, so I just left. Ma is not happy with me,” I said, somewhat ashamed to admit this.
“Ah,” Maddox said. I could glean no judgement from him, which I was grateful for.
“My relationship with her is complicated. Sometimes I don’t think she likes me very much.” My throat tightened, but I willed the feeling away and forced a laugh.
“I’m sorry.”
I shrugged uncomfortably. “Don’t be. Like I said, everyone has at least one awful family member.”
Maddox paused, then nodded slowly, as if finally understanding something. “You’re allowed to be upset about that.”
I should’ve said those words to him the other day, but here he was saying them to me. Back home, I’d learned to hide my emotions; I hadn’t known what to do when Maddox had shown his.
Fighting past my discomfort, I said, “Listen, I’m sorry I insulted you that day; that was rude of me. I didn’t really mean it. I was...caught up in my own problems.”
Maddox dipped his head. “I know.”
There was a moment of tentative awkwardness between us. “How is your book going? You never told me what it’s about,” I said, hoping this was an adequate olive branch.
He shrugged. “I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”
His response stung more than it should have. Was he not ready to talk about it, or just unwilling to talk about it with me? Maybe I had ruined our easy friendship permanently.
Before I could come up with a response, Edmund stepped out from the shed, straightening his waistcoat. He shot me a dazzling smile. “I’m ready to go.”