Chapter 13
Two Days until Yule
The ten-kopiyok piece must have already been working in her favor, because she woke to no new disasters the next morning, and when she walked into the local salon, HAIRR-O, looking for a first-thing appointment, they’d had a cancellation and were able to get her in right away.
When the stylist asked what they were aiming for, she’d intended to tell him to get as close as possible to the style she’d been getting since she was twelve—platinum blond, straightened, and as long as he could salvage.
But then she hesitated, and what came out instead was, “A short, asymmetrical bob with a side-swept fringe, and let’s make the color as close as we can get to my roots.”
Stephan was in the salon’s waiting area when she was done. When he looked up, he did a double take, eyes locking on her face and widening. Like he could hardly believe what he was seeing, and he scrambled to his feet as if it would have been improper to greet her from a seat.
“You like it?” she asked, surprised by how shy it came out.
His voice was a low rumble as he said, “You’re a knockout, Sunshine.”
She shook her head, luxuriating in how light it felt. She hadn’t realized how much weight she’d been carrying in the style that had been chosen for her.
With a clear of his throat, Stephan thrust a retro flip phone in her direction. “Your phone’s still bricked, but I rustled this up for you. Courtesy of Uncle Drew.”
She turned the phone in her hands. “Did he cast a time spell and pick it up in the year 2005?”
“Believe it or not, they still make this kind of phone.”
“Why?”
“Because apps are a part of the surveillance state, don’tcha know?”
“Well, yes, but you need them for everything.”
“He figured it out, so’ll you. Anyway, it’s fully unlocked—Drew doesn’t fuck with the rot economy—so we can swing by the Bait and Tackle on the way out, get your number transferred.”
“Excuse me—the what?”
“It’s an everything store. Buck’s an authorized retailer for all the carriers—notary too, if you need that.”
Hayleigh sighed, turning the phone in her hands.
It was more than she’d had a few minutes ago, but still, capable of so much less than she needed.
There wasn’t even the possibility of transferring her data over since it couldn’t link to her Apple account.
Until people called or messaged her, she’d have just one name in her contacts—the only person she could depend on right now.
Dork with a Chainsaw—he’d plugged his number in for her already.
It was early enough that Winter Fest was closed to the public, but as they passed by the grounds, it burbled pleasantly with the activity of employees and vendors readying for opening.
The Ferris wheel with its snowflake-shaped cars spun in lazy circles as the festival mechanics did all their daily mechanical checks.
“Every cart rides a little differently,” said Stephan, noticing her watching it. “My grandfather helped carve them and cut down the wood to make them.”
“He was a logger?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
He shrugged. “Everyone around here was for a while. A fair amount of folks still are. Which is why you find busted-up old loggers hanging out in the cafés all day badgering visitors.”
An old woman with white hair dyed with long pink stripes rolled by with a cart full of knitted sundries, presumably to restock a festival booth.
“Hey, handsome,” she called, waving to Stephan.
“Morning, beautiful. Got that cabinet hauled out for you, by the way.”
“I noticed. Thanks, dear.” The old woman checked Hayleigh out. “You cheating on me?”
He put a hand to his chest. “On you, Ms. Bev? Never.”
“I should hope not,” said Ms. Bev, but then she gave Hayleigh a warm smile and a wink.
“Oh, we’re not…” said Hayleigh, gesturing between them with a vague wave of her fingers.
“Well, that’s a shame,” said the old woman, rolling on and mumbling to herself. “If I were fifty years younger…Hell, make it ten.” Hayleigh blinked and glanced at Stephan, who was biting his knuckle to avoid laughing out loud.
It seemed like everywhere they went, there was someone glad to see him.
Someone he’d hauled something for, or helped out of a jam, or who generally seemed to think their day was better for having him there.
He was clearly a warp thread in the fiber of this community, and yet did not give off any sign he felt any kind of pressure from it.
Every conversation he took part in came with the same sense of ease and good humor.
She had never experienced that. In the company she kept, every social situation had carried stakes—some that she understood but many that she didn’t. It was always an effort, always something where rules had to be remembered and observed—never something you could relax and enjoy.
Besides that, she had never felt essential to any of them the way he did here, and that realization stirred up an odd flavor of grief. Not for something lost, but for something never found.
Stephan settled at a spot just to the left of the festival entrance gate and glanced back at her. “I’m gonna do some quick spellwork. If you want to walk on, I won’t be offended.”
“Oh.” She shifted from one foot to the other. “I’ll just stay back here until you’re done.”
He nodded as she retreated a few steps and turned away. A few moments later, there was a tingling in the back of her neck, and then an overwhelming smell. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced.
There was sweetness to it, like the first blooming flowers of spring, but it was cut by something sharp and citrusy.
The second she noticed it, the smell shifted to the petrichor of the first rain after a dry spell, but then the woody smoke grass of vetiver.
Again and again, it changed, layering and unlayering itself—she knew this smell would live in her lungs even after she’d stopped breathing it.
She couldn’t help but glance back to see what Stephan was doing.
He’d moved to the parallel position on the opposite side of the gate.
Though she wanted to look away, curiosity got the better of her, and she watched as he drew a shape on the fence in chalk, whispering to himself.
The smell intensified again as the symbol he’d drawn flared a golden brown before disappearing entirely.
Her eyes widened, and he turned, catching her in the act.
She looked away. “Are you done yet?”
“All done.”
To her relief, he didn’t bring up that he’d caught her spying on him. In fact, she was the one to break the silence when she finally asked, “So, what was that spell you were casting? Some kind of festivity charm?”
“No, though there are a few spells like that around the festival—we cast those as a coven. What I was doing was protection wards.”
“Protection from what?”
His smile slipped away. “They’ll make anyone with harm on the brain stay away.
We’ve got a lot of groups represented here, which could make it a target, especially considering how it’s gotten significantly more dangerous to be a different sort of person in the last couple of years.
I want people who rarely feel like they get to let their guard down to come here and be safe. ”
Her heart floundered as she looked at him, speaking about the spells like they were a solemn duty. Though she hadn’t known him for long, it was clear how much of his energy he put out into the world for the sake of others.
He’d told her about the Rule of Three he lived by, but she couldn’t help but wonder as he poured energy into these wards while preparing to drive her six hours across the mountains—was he actually getting his fair share back?