Chapter I.5
Chapter Five
Twelve Years Before the Wedding
When she used to yearn to be taught more things, Miria would never have believed magic might be among them. But while she’d been thrilled by the possibility, she’d also have never believed that learning magic would involve so many mundane and tedious tasks.
Some of them Miria tolerated better than others.
Every day, Nana sat down with her for several hours to teach her letters and figures.
Yali had explained that knowing how to translate sounds and sums into shapes and to communicate them without speaking was a kind of magic, one that most people never learned and even fewer mastered.
For that reason alone, knowledge was kept in books to keep it secret.
Since Miria wanted every drop of magical knowledge she could inhale, she was determined to master these lessons.
Miria’s other daily tasks involved chores, and those she was less excited by.
She had imagined, erroneously it turned out, that a witch could use magic to accomplish all she needed done—that freshly baked bread might just appear in her oven, and her plants would provide her with fresh fruit all year round.
If Yali could give Miria’s father a spell that provided anything he wished for, why not give herself one that could do all of that?
Her nana had explained that magic was not an endless resource, nor could a witch produce something out of nothing, but to Miria, that was often what it seemed like.
And so it was a cruel set of circumstances to discover that living with Yali meant Miria’s workload had not decreased.
In addition to fetching water and feeding the chickens, Miria was expected to clean and cook and weed the garden.
For a while, Miria did everything she was asked without complaining, certain that any day—once she proved she was useful—Nana would decide it was time to start her real lessons.
When summer had turned to autumn that first year without Miria learning a single spell, however, she began to suspect that her nana had simply wanted a servant, not an apprentice witch.
And when she finally couldn’t hold the thought in any longer and it burst out of her with a childish stamped foot, Nana had laughed.
“I already have a servant,” she’d said, referring to the large clay man whom she called the golem (a very unsatisfactory name, in Miria’s opinion).
“You came here not knowing how to cook an egg or dry an apple. You couldn’t tell a weed from a bean sprout or recognize your own name in letters.
With every chore you do, you learn things you will need to know later.
And the first thing a witch must know is how to take care of herself.
If she can’t take care of herself, she can’t take care of others. ”
Chastised, Miria had dropped her chin to her chest and mumbled an apology. Her nana was right. She had not known how to do any of those things, although how most of them related to magic remained unclear.
Nana sighed, and her wrinkles deepened, softening her face.
“Chin up, child. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked with any so young.
I forget, your patience is proportional to your age.
I’ll teach you a little spell now—how’s that?
The sun is setting earlier these days, so this will be a good one for you to know. ”
And so Miria had learned her first spell—how to conjure a bit of sunlight in her hand. It had taken her many attempts to achieve it, and her light was not nearly as magnificent as her nana’s was, but that day had been the best of Miria’s life.
Three years since, her magical repertoire had grown.
Yali had taught her how to collect her anger in the emotions jar (as promised) and how to call a fog to conceal herself in the forest. Miria could ask the plants to bring her fruit and the stream to send her fish, and she’d never get lost in the woods again because the trees had become friends who would guide the way.
She’d also, after a close call with a hungry boar and a daring rescue by Yali’s golem, begged her nana to teach her the spell for creating her own clay man to protect her.
“You are a witch,” Nana had said. “Witches do the protecting. You must learn to protect yourself so you can protect others.”
“I can protect myself by creating a golem that will protect me and others,” Miria had countered, and her nana had laughed and agreed that Miria had won the argument.
So, over the past winter, Yali had taught her the basics of the golem spell, and Miria had practiced writing the proper words.
But the spell drew a lot of power and required a lot of focus, both of which she struggled with when she also had to concentrate on her writing.
The best Miria had managed so far was to make her figure twitch.
Today, though, her mood was lifted by the thick lilac scent and the buzz of the bees bumbling from flower to flower.
She felt full of vigor and magic. And most importantly, determination.
The red clay was soft in her hands as she molded it into human form, and because she couldn’t help herself, she used a sharpened stick to draw a happy expression on the figure’s face. All of this, though, was mere cosmetics.
All magic demanded a witch’s sacrifice, whether it was a drop of her blood, a strand of her hair, or simply the sweat of her labor.
And magic like this—big, long-lasting magic—required sacrifice of the same order.
Nana had told her that she would need to give up something precious of hers to do it.
That part alone had stumped Miria for a time.
She had little to give besides her blood, but blood was not enough for a working like this, its power consumed too quickly to sustain a spell that would last for years.
The answer had come to her several days later. The hair ribbon she’d worn the day her father had traded her to Yali was all that she had left of her old home. Not even the clothes she’d worn remained; her nana had taken them for scraps when Miria had outgrown them.
Most days, Miria didn’t think much of her old life, and when she did, those feelings were deeply conflicted.
She missed her father and Hans, and she hated them both a little, too, though mostly that emotion was directed at her father.
Their betrayal burned in her heart, but it no longer raged like a wildfire.
Her nana told her stories, sang her to sleep, and taught her amazing things, and that love was soothing water, dousing the flames in her chest. And when on occasion that fire flared, sparked by a memory or a scent or something too ephemeral for Miria to place, she added the fury and pain to her jar like Yali had taught her.
With every passing moon, the flares grew less frequent and less intense.
Despite that, the ribbon felt like a lifeline tying her to the last remnant of Greta and any happy memories that girl once had—a brother’s kindness, a grandmother’s hugs, even games with the other children in town. As much as she wanted to let go completely, it hurt to do it.
Miria retrieved the ribbon from a pocket in her tunic.
This wasn’t her first attempt to use it in the spell, and those previous attempts showed even though she’d carefully washed the ribbon after each one had failed.
Taking a deep breath, she wound the ribbon into a tiny ball, then pricked her thumb on a pin and smeared it with her blood as she said the proper incantation.
Then Miria pressed the balled-up ribbon into the golem’s chest where its heart should be.
Continuing to chant, she molded the clay around it to cover it up.
Next, she picked up the sharpened stick again and carefully wrote out the enchantment on the figure’s body.
She could feel the power flowing through her fingertips as she did, and sense the golem’s bundled ribbon heart beat beneath the clay.
Once. Twice. Grasping for a semblance of life.
Miria closed her eyes and blew on the figure, willing with everything she had for the golem to wake up, for her life’s air to breathe animation into its form.
She opened her eyes only when she felt a tap on her hand. Despite her best attempts, the golem didn’t have proper eyes or a mouth, but its face and its gestures made it clear—it wished to be set down.
Shrieking with surprise and delight, Miria placed the clay man on the ground, and she watched in amazement as he inspected his form.
Unlike Yali’s golem, who towered over Miria, hers was tiny, no more than a foot high.
Miria had never thought to ask Yali about anything as trivial as size, and it was too late now.
The golem was prancing about, flexing his arms, and—to Miria’s eyes—looking quite pleased with himself.
As pleased, in fact, as she was with herself.
Though he was small, he was surely mighty, and she felt a rush of fondness for her lumpy creation who was already stretching his form into a more symmetrical and appealing shape.
Yali had been out back, hanging the linens to dry in the breeze, and at the sound of Miria’s yelling, she hurried around the house. Her own golem trailed behind her, carrying the wash basket.
“Well,” her nana said, placing her hands on her hips. She looked as surprised by this development as Miria felt. “I knew you were powerful, child. Well done.”
Miria thought her grin would never leave her face. “He’s very small. Will he grow?”
Yali considered the question while the little golem approached his much larger brother. The two inspected each other curiously. “Yes, if you will it. But it’s best that it’s small now. Remember, you need to instruct it.”
Miria nodded. They had gone over that during the winter—how to give the golem commands so that he might act of his own accord and how to care for him.