Chapter One #3
Sometimes I fantasize about what it would be like to have what these two have. It doesn’t even have to be now. I’m only thirty-one. I could wait five years, ten…
“You know,” he begins, and I feel my stomach drop. “My nephew is single—”
Oh no.
“—and you don’t have to marry him, by any means, but—”
No no no. I know the nephew he means, and… no thank you. Anything but this.
Then to my surprise and to the shock of everyone in the Apothakery that morning, anything happens.
The shop door blows open on another chilly gust of wind, hinges squealing.
Dark mist shrouds the entire Apothakery in a creeping plume and the sunlight disappears.
Everything yellow turns a dull purple in the changing light and it suddenly feels like midnight, not noon.
Folks squirm to the perimeter of the small shop to avoid the mysterious mist. The fog hovers, not quite reaching my patrons or the corners of the room. Finally, it stops spreading.
Ominous, but I’m more concerned the obsidian smoke will change the flavor of any exposed baked goods. I really hope Gertha Fudge isn’t right about troublesome Witches and Warlocks. She’d never let anyone live it down.
As I am a reads the menu ahead of time kind of girl, surprise is not my favorite feeling. Do I have a recipe for shock? Probably involves ashwagandha and some moonlight.
I swing around the counter, grab an empty sheet pan for defense, and face the fog. Is it just me, or does the mass seem… cranky? I hesitate momentarily but Momaw and my mom wouldn’t tolerate a threat like this, so I won’t, either. I’m not going to be the Frost who loses the family shop to a cloud.
But then the mist dissipates with a POP before I can swing at it. Shock dusts every face in my periphery when a black envelope falls to the floor at my feet.
Surely this isn’t for me… And yet, curious, I reach down—
“Don’t touch it, child!” Ms. Buchanan fans herself with an empty cupcake liner. “That’s higher magic there, that is. I’d recognize the foul stuff anywhere.”
My hand pauses. Farmer Kelsey nods. “Warlock magic.”
Everyone leans back, like just whispering Warlock ensures a pox. Beauregard the poodle barks and, I’m pretty sure, pees a little.
“Now you all sound just like Gertha Fudge,” I say, eyebrow raised, trying my best to appear relaxed.
They’re perfectly safe in the Apothakery.
Whether pests or mold or bad weather, nothing dangerous—not even nefarious mail posted by curmudgeonly cumulonimbus—can make it past the warding a Farewitch’s magic bakes into her kitchen over the years.
“What if Gertha’s right?” Farmer Kelsey asks, eyes wide. Folks nod with him. “The Widow Witch is bad enough. Now the Warlock is knocking at our doors?”
By their reaction, you’d think we have an infestation of them. But the Holler only has one, as far as I know. I’d like to point out that no one my age has even seen the man, but I can’t over the escalating sounds of my customers growing frantic.
“The Warlock ruined my tomato crop last summer—”
“My chickens won’t lay eggs because of him!”
“He’s why we don’t have a library, burned it right to the ground…”
“I heard he did it so he could steal the books.”
“People died in that library, you know.”
“It’s not him. This has to be the Widow Witch—”
“Don’t be silly. It’s too early in the season yet.”
I ignore the warnings and reach for the envelope a second time. My fingers tingle with that just-scraped-by feeling that comes with remembering to grab an oven mitt just in time before touching a hot baking sheet.
But the tiny constellations of oven-burn scars on my hands are one of the undeniable things I have in common with my mom and Momaw. Like the blonde hair, I inherited that urge to reach into the heat. Momaw always said there’s no such thing as foul magic, only foul intention.
I snatch up the envelope.
Folks gasp, then seem almost underwhelmed when I don’t immediately burst into flames. A prickling sensation kisses my neck. My fingernails turn blue. The envelope does burn, oddly. Not painfully, though. A good burn. The first bite of something hot yet delicious.
When I open it, I find glittering silver scrawl on thick black paper.
Dear Ms. Frost the Younger,
I am in need of a Farewitch. The situation is advanced and beyond my efforts.
Report to Knight Manor on Monday morning. You will be compensated handsomely.
Regretfully,
Mr. Knight
The Warlock of Foxe Holler
I look up to find everyone’s eyes on me. Waiting. Perhaps for the inevitable kaboom.
This has to be an April Fool’s joke. Folks have seen the Widow Witch more than the infamous Warlock, and she plagues the Holler once a year.
But my stomach growls with fear, not hunger, and I know this isn’t a game. At one point or another, I’ve healed everyone in Foxe Holler of something.
Nearly everyone.
But folks come to me for everyday ailments. Not problems too complicated even for a Warlock’s magic. So why me, now? Why a second-rate, stand-in Farewitch?
A gnarled knot of worry twists in my gut, dampening the fear.
What the Warlock of Foxe Holler doesn’t know is that I can’t heal him.
What everyone else doesn’t know is that I’m a fraud.