Chapter 2 #2
The tune she hummed before came back to her.
That time, it was sharply louder, filled with a sense of growing urgency.
A song took hold of Maggie the longer she hummed, music bursting from every pouncing step she took.
Upon the counter, Sunny danced along, following her curving movements and prancing feet.
It was a spell she mastered very early on, though she wasn’t quite sure where it came from.
Maggie wasn’t the conventional witch, so to speak.
Her ability to capture magic remained elusive to her still.
Nevertheless, the spell came to her, as easy as breathing.
“Let the coursing glow of the summer sky,” Maggie sang, “stretch through me and fill my works of wonder with light!”
A warm glow filled the room, particularly hugging the loaves of unfinished bread.
One by one, the yeasty creations rose in more ways than one, slowly levitating in the air.
Maggie’s hands rose along with them as he dance picked up speed, the spell repeating with a growing intensity.
The loaves hummed with energy as magic coursed into them, giving them a strength no one would realize through a bite or two.
Perhaps it did make a difference in the taste of her products, but Maggie doubted it.
She only looked at it as putting a piece of her into the treats, a piece of her love for baking them in the first place.
Maggie’s musical laugh filled the air as the loaves danced above her head.
“You!”
The bread fell to the ground suddenly and fervently, without a minute of warning.
Almost in the same second, the warm glow that had overtaken the room trickled away, the only proof of it being there in the first place from the lingering heat on Maggie’s cheeks.
Sunny’s sharp yowl filled the room next, and he flew from the island counter, finding a comfortable sanctuary alongside Maggie’s bare feet.
As she slowly turned around, already recognizing the shrillness of the stranger within the room, Maggie wished to turn back time.
Regina stood in the threshold of the kitchen, the opened back door visible over her shoulder. The woman held her trembling hands over her chest, a flaming heat beginning to spread over her crooked nose and cheeks.
“You,” Regina said again, her anger barely containable through words. “I knew it!”
Maggie tried to hold up her hands, but the woman jerked back with such fear that she snapped her limbs against her sides. “Please, Regina,” she whispered. “I-If you calm down, we can talk about this! W-We can -”
“Talk?” Regina’s eyes were wildly wide. “You think I’d talk to you? A magic user? A liar?”
Maggie shook her head rapidly. “I-I can explain! It isn’t what it looks like, please, just lower your voice!”
“Why?” Regina deliberately raised it more and more with every fleeting word.
“So you can try to use your magic on me?” Her laugh was humorless and callous.
“This whole time. I knew that there was no way some…stranger could show up in Dunhollow and make better pastries than me. Then my family recipes! You’re not just a phony, are you? You’re a wicked thing!”
Maggie swallowed her growing tears. “I swear,” she hissed through her emotion, “I’m not wicked! Let me explain!”
“What is there to explain?” Regina thrusted an accusatory finger at her. “You’ve been infecting the entire town with your dirty magic! The only thing left to do is get the town guards!”
Flashes of leaving her previous home tormented Maggie’s brain as Regina’s words echoed all around her.
Suddenly, like a bad case of deja-vu, Maggie felt as though nothing had changed, and she had accomplished nothing since leaving home.
Everything she feared, everything that constantly hung over her head like a darkened storm cloud, refused to shy away.
Or, perhaps none of it had ever left in the first place.
Maggie’s defiance flared. Hart’s Crumbs was something she built with her own hands.
Despite everything that had come to her, she managed to do everything she had dreamed, and do it well.
There was no way she could give it all up without a fight, without daring to stand her ground for a second longer.
“You don’t have to do this, Regina,” Maggie said, her voice stronger than she imagined it to be.
She took a step forward and the woman jerked back again, hitting the wall of the door before shrinking into the empty storefront.
“Can’t we talk this over? Come up with something that works for both of us, something that doesn’t -”
Something passed over Regina’s face, though Maggie couldn’t recognize it quick enough to stop her.
The woman began to scream, the sounds ricocheting through the quiet bakery and slipping out of the front door.
The shrill yells turned into sharpened words as Regina effortlessly called for guards to come to her aid.
Though there wasn’t a response coming just yet, Maggie would be a fool to believe they wouldn’t come.
Someone heard, and they would be there in minutes.
There was only one thing left to do.
Maggie scooped Sunny up with a quick motion, tucking him beneath her arm before pelting towards the back door.
Stairs led up to a second door, one that led straight into the apartment where Maggie lived.
It wasn’t much, but it was cozy, and Maggie was quick to call it home.
Now, as her heart pounded like a hammer against her chest, she ripped through the apartment with an inhuman speed, filling a bag with all the necessities she could manage.
In the end, her final grab was Sunny himself, who fought against her for a quick moment.
Once she had him settled on the top of her bag, he realized there was only clothes beneath him, and began to make himself a bed.
Without a moment to lose, Maggie fled from Hart’s Crumbs, and began to sprint through the quiet evening streets of Dunhollow.
Voices carried behind her for a few moments, but once she reached the outskirts of town, they faded away with ease.
The despair behind them didn’t dare to leave her.
Her steps slowed as she neared the forest that surrounded the town, the shadowy darkness beckoning her forward like an old friend.
It was then that she did not bother to swallow her tears any more. They flowed freely, and coursed down her cheeks as the dreams she still clung to threatened to slip away. But Maggie Hart was not easily brought down. The entire world could stand against her.
The happy ending she craved would not escape her ever again.