Chapter 4 Salt in the Sugar
Salt in the Sugar
As Sage passed beneath the street lamp at the corner of her lane, the orange bulb burst with a loud pop, and a shower of sparks toppled down onto the shoulders of her coat with a scorch and a sizzle.
Smoke puffed from the ends of her damp red curls and she batted at them furiously.
With a groan and a strained, patient breath, she carried on through the rain with a scowl etched deeply across her face.
Misbehaving magic was getting on her last nerve today.
Small mercies—at least this time it was dark.
After an evening of making the most finely detailed changes to the information plaques and artefact curation for the new exhibition (while mildly bullying Casimir into helping), Sage had packed up to head home.
The evening had turned rainy, her favourite dreary sort of weather, which called for books and soft clothing, but was distinctly less pleasant to be outside in.
Night folded over the village as though tucking it in to keep warm, eager for sleep and dreams.
Once she’d turned the key in the door, Sage’s arrival into her cluttered hallway was soundtracked by the soggy drip-drip of rainwater from the hem of her anorak. Pointed leather boots flew in opposite directions, one slapping against the wall with a wet spray of mud.
An orange cat perched on top of a precarious accumulation of yellowing paperbacks stacked against the staircase reluctantly stirred at the interruption.
“Oh, don’t you worry, Mal. You stay toasty warm and dry. Your food will miraculously appear in front of you, and I, your humble servant, will battle the elements to make sure of it. Don’t concern yourself with us mere mortals.”
Mal peeked open one green eye and gave a soft mrow in agreement. He stretched out his front paws, each ginger leg wearing a little white boot, before settling back into his perfect circle of fur on top of the books.
“Blasted autumn weather and the way it changes on the flip of a coin,” Sage muttered to him. “No good ever comes from October.”
She didn’t want to—she really, really didn’t want to—but every so often, when the occasion absolutely called for it, Sage did permit herself the odd small-scale domestic spell, to quell the incessant itch at her fingertips more than anything.
Soggy socks surely called for the most desperate of measures.
Without a magical mentor on hand, Sage had never had anyone to encourage a more flourishing magical gesture from her.
So, following her impatient, inelegant, jabbing finger point, a spiral of burgundy sparks wound its way around Sage like a ribbon, and with it went the damp remnants of the outside world.
Sage shook her head to chase away the very last of the droplets that her untrained magic had missed, and the motion immediately tripled the dimensions of her fiery red hair into a large frizzy triangle.
The sensation of instant cosiness after traipsing through the wet and cold was almost worth the guilt that she’d feel for the rest of the evening for using her magic.
She had to admit, it always felt toe-curlingly wonderful to drain it from her system, even for a moment, before the regret took over and something chaotic inevitably occurred in returned karma.
Magic was constantly pent up inside her, unexpressed and unspoken, like a dam that was forever fit to burst. She lived with the never-ending tension, keeping herself rigid and unbending to ensure that her powers remained hidden and controlled, forever in fear of what the single straw to break the witch’s back might be.
The extremely rare, private moments of magical indulgence—one insignificant spell a week, if that—gave her the same sensation as the first sip of a perfectly brewed cup of hot chocolate on a freezing day.
It felt like stroking the softest cat under the chin and receiving a pleased purr in return.
Or the crispest, most delicious bite of a red apple that was perfectly sweetened.
Yet it was poisoned in just the way that same apple might be: endlessly inviting, welcoming, addictive…And that was the problem. There was always the possibility that she might go for more. Then more again. Magic was dangerous and it was never to be trusted. She knew that all too well.
“I’m certain that is not how witches are supposed to feel about the most magical month of the year,” called a voice from the kitchen at the rear.
“Give over, Maggie. Who told you that? October brings nothing but trouble for anyone with so much as a teaspoon of magic running through their veins,” Sage replied, shrugging off her coat and slipping it onto the row of brass hooks by the door.
“If it were up to me, I’d hibernate until Christmas, emerge for the roast dinner and then return to bed until February, just to be safe. ”
“And a good evening to you too,” laughed the voice, wispy as it travelled through the small end-of-terrace house. “Pray tell, where have you been?”
“A rock concert. Followed by a neon rave. And then the debutante ball.” Puffing a wodge of hair out of her face, Sage bent down to give Mal a scruff on the top of his ginger head.
She scooped up a couple of letters that had landed on the doormat and shuffled through them as she walked to the kitchen.
“Oh, I see, Miss Contrary.” Maggie shook her head in good-natured disapproval.
At least, she seemed to be shaking her head.
It wasn’t until one was within a few feet of her that she came properly into view, a watery film of pale grey rippling around her silhouette and changing into focus.
Once she was noticeable against the kitchen cabinets, it was clear that Maggie’s narrow forearms were making light telekinetic work of the bread dough she was beating into submission.
Sage leaned against the doorframe and watched Maggie’s handiwork.
“You know full well that I wasn’t anywhere other than the museum.
I meant to catalogue an unexpected delivery we had today but got distracted by a new train of thought.
I think I may be on the verge of something fairly indisputable regarding cereal milk possessing magical qualities.
Once I’d noticed, I couldn’t tear myself away. ”
“Cereal milk?” Maggie replied absently, evidently much more interested in her bread. With a final, phantasmic slap of the dough, she turned back to Sage. “Now then, if you’d be so kind as to do the honours?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Oh, go on, Treasure.”
The fond nickname earned her a fraction of softness.
“I don’t know why you insist on doing the hard part like a schmuck and then turning to magic to finish the easy bit for you.
But fine, seeing as I’ve only just conjured anyway.
There’s a drop still lingering in my left hand. No more this week, mind.”
It was reasonably rare that the housekeeper ever asked for Sage’s magical assistance with anything, and she worked so hard around the place that Sage could hardly turn her down when she did.
A brume of glittering magic breathed its way across the top of the tin that Maggie had thrown her dough inside, and, within seconds, it had changed into a fresh brown loaf, flooding the small kitchen with a delicious malty scent that made Sage’s stomach rumble.
“Much obliged,” Maggie said, wiping her hands on the apron tied at her waist over her black smock. It left behind an oily smear on the frilly fabric, as translucent a shade of grey as the rest of her. “Here now, let me put the kettle on.”
Sage yelped as the contents of the letter she was opening suddenly burst into a mischievous puff of smoke.
That would be the karma. She sighed a defeated thank-you to Maggie as she slumped down into one of the spindly chairs at the small round table by the back door.
She lifted one thick-socked foot onto her knee, darned at the heel and with a small amount of visible toe stubbornly poking out of a hole, and began to massage it crossly.
Almost everything Sage Hemlock ever did was done crossly.
“I’m dreading the rest of this week, Maggs. Why, on the universe’s greenest plane, does anyone ever decide that a small-town museum would make for a good school-trip destination? I’ll never understand it.”
“I should think they’ll enjoy themselves a great deal, bless ’em,” Maggie said cheerily, busying herself with the old-fashioned copper kettle on the stove that she insisted on using.
Her century-long ghostly affliction meant that Maggie was bound to look after the cottage, as well as whoever resided within it, and was permitted to interact with the physical world only from within the house’s confines.
The unexplained curse that she had found herself under, another quirk of Port Sylvan’s history, included a concentrated amount of spiritual, clairvoyant magic condensed just for Maggie, allowing her translucent form to become slightly corporeal for important tasks like making pies or shuffling Sage’s notes into neat piles when they’d specifically been left in a very particular type of organized chaos.
Sage had tried on several occasions to treat Maggie to the more modern versions of her equipment, feeling it was the very least she could do in return, but Maggie was always too wary of them.
She was largely against electricity in general.
“The young’uns must delight in all of them fine little trinkets you’ve shown me pictures of. ”
“If by ‘delight’ you mean ‘slobber against the glass,’ then sure.”
“A little vinegar and a buffing with newspaper will polish that up a treat.”
Sage mumbled another thanks as she accepted the tea. “Has anyone ever told you you’re old-fashioned, Maggs?”