Chapter Thirteen #2
Her expression softens. Besides Silas and Nurse Carolina, she’s the only other person who knows the truth about my mom. “Self-pity looks as terrible on you as those clogs.”
“Ouch,” Lazlo says.
“Ignore the town, ignore the gossip. You came to me. Trust your gut.”
She’s right. As always. If the Warlock can ask for help at… whatever age he is, I can do it at thirty-one. Lord, I’ve missed her. “Thank you. For taking care of the Apothakery.”
“Because? Say it out loud.”
I take a deep breath. “Because I can’t do it alone and I need help.”
“Gold star. Look at you, breaking one bad generational habit at a time. For the record, I would’ve said yes no matter what. My travel funds are dry. And we make too good a team.”
The tight grip of anxiety inside my chest eases. “Because you’re also a shamefully chronic workaholic?”
“Because I can’t resist a challenge.” She winks.
“Warlock Knight is…” As inflexible as cooling caramelized sugar. “… a challenge, all right,” I mutter.
Arna Jean tilts her head. “Who?” she asks. Like in the span of thirty seconds, she completely forgot why I’m asking her to manage the shop in the first place.
“The Warlock,” I repeat, words slow like the unease creeping across my neck.
“Right.” Arna Jean shakes her head, like nothing’s amiss. “Oh, your kid is gone. We should probably find him.”
Lazlo is not, thank Jesus, gone.
He’s just gotten bored and run back into the market.
We easily catch up and stay a healthy distance behind him so he can explore.
This kid could marathon the Dollar General a few or fifty times and still have energy.
So far, no one’s broken anything, glass or limb, and no one has food poisoning. A triumph, in my book.
Arna Jean lets her gaze wander across the stalls as we walk, no doubt keeping a lookout for the best ROI in produce. “Did you ask Mr. Knight if it was okay to bring the kid?”
“Of course,” I huff.
“Did he agree?”
“Of course not.” In fact, he expressly forbid it. But I brought Lazlo anyway. Maybe because the Warlock forbid it. Ms. Zeen white-knuckled the kettle at hearing my idea but agreed to keep my plan secret. Even she knows the boy needs some long-overdue social interaction. “If you can’t be good—”
A wicked gleam appears in her eyes. “Be good at it.”
“I’ll make sure the kid doesn’t witness any R-rated situations.”
For Witches, May 1 is also Beltane, a celebration of the oncoming sunshine of longer days and the warm results: sun-ripened fruits and vegetables all summer long. Beltane is flavor forged in heat, and thus an especially good holiday for Farewitches.
This year, though, Beltane just reminds me I’ve blown through three weeks like a bucket of movie-theater popcorn. The calendar on the wall of my bedroom now counts down toward the solstice, the Warlock’s supposed End of Times. Fifty-one days. Fifty-one chances for the right recipe.
Arna Jean shrugs. “The sexy bonfires don’t happen until the sun sets, anyway.”
Beltane is also a celebration of growth—and fertility.
“That’s exactly what I told his Governess but she didn’t laugh.”
Foxe Holler’s bonfires aren’t very sexy or fertility forward since many of the town’s young Witches move away to put down roots in larger towns and cities.
It’s a miracle Arna Jean came back. These days, our celebrations are often organized by whichever older Witch is craving tradition.
Carolina’s had the last few, though I’m usually too busy with the shop to attend.
“Everyone is mad at us,” says a small voice.
My eyes drop, along with my gut. Lazlo’s reappeared at our side, looking much less excited than before. I follow his gaze.
At their stall, Farmer Kelsey and his missus are scowling at us over their okra and pole beans.
Guess he won’t be throwing his nephew at me anymore.
Praise be. But I did want some of his tomatoes.
It’s fried. Green. Tomato. Season. And old Sam the beekeeper—who always gives me free clover honey like I’m a kitchen fairy in need of an offering—didn’t even wave earlier.
The Widow Witch took his son-in-law a few years back, but everyone in town knows Sam never cared much for the arrogant fellow’s gambling problem.
The flame of my good mood sputters. I can’t show Lazlo the wonderful parts of Foxe Holler and hide him from the whispers and stares that come with the bad parts.
This is a problem. But lately, what isn’t?
Some folks get their gossip at church, but I get mine here at the market. That is, I used to. Now I can’t very well get gossip from a town that’s too busy gossiping about me.
But Lazlo is a clever nine-year-old… I’ve been trying to drag answers out of the Warlock when I should be asking the person who’s had a front-row seat to his guardian’s problems for almost a year. Any details about the man’s past could help clue me in to his illness.
“Lazlo,” I begin carefully, “has Mr. Knight ever—”
“Murdered anyone?” Arna Jean butts in. She shrugs off my glare. “What? The Holler doesn’t know any version of your Warlock beyond”—air quotes—“primeval monster.”
“He’s not my Warlock.”
“What does pri-mee-vul mean?” Lazlo asks.
Arna Jean adjusts her beanie on his head. She gave it to him earlier, saying he looked like an old woman had dressed him (Ms. Zeen had). “Antique. Old. Ancient.”
The boy beams under her fussing. “He’s super old.”
I lean in. “How old, exactly?”
“Forty,” Arna Jean guesses.
I cross my arms. “You’ve never even seen him!”
“Yes, but when I picture your Warlock, I’m getting a strong sense of handsome in a tortured-Austen-hero type of way. So yeah, forty.”
“He’s not my Warlock.” I look back to Lazlo. I try again. “Do you remember what you liked to do before you came to live with Mr. Knight?”
His eyebrows pull together in a flustered line. “I don’t know.”
My stomach sinks like a janky elevator. This is a scab my brain can’t stop picking.
I don’t like to use my memory affinity on kids.
If they’re too young, they don’t fully understand how my magic works in tandem with their memories, and that feels invasive.
But with Lazlo, I might need a glimpse of his memory for any real answers.
He’s already an orphan, so he doesn’t have a rosy past, but what if I find something even scarier?
A big black hole, no evidence of the Warlock at all, just like the rest of the Holler?
“Can you try to remember for me? Even something small?” I urge.
His face scrunches. “I played outside a lot. I was good at hunting for bugs. Went to school. Um…” More scrunching. “Dad read to me a lot. They used to… My mom cooked! She’d make lots of… I can’t remember—oh my goodness.”
Our heads swivel at his shout, geriatric necks cracking.
Pointing to a stand up ahead, he’s full bounce now. “Dog treats!”
My snooping into the Warlock’s past will have to wait. I hand the kid some cash from my overalls. “Go for it.”
He hesitates. “Alone?”
Good point. What if folks start giving him more than just unkind glances? I’m not sure I could be responsible for my actions then.
Arna Jean gives me a reassuring look. He can handle it. “Come get us if you need anything, kid.”
Lazlo throws back his shoulders and sprints ahead. Anything for Beauregard.
I watch him, trying to feed off his bravery. “If we ask him to carry our groceries, is that considered child labor?”
“Nah, builds character.” Arna Jean holds up her tote of our slim produce pickings. “He’s a strange little guy, isn’t he?”
“He and Mr. Knight are on the same family tree, that’s for sure.”
But how did Lazlo’s next of kin just so happen to be a powerful Warlock he’d never met before? Arna Jean’s instinct isn’t wrong, though. I’m chewing on what concrete facts we have, and if the town thinks the Warlock is murderous and merciless, where is the actual proof?
“What do the older folks know that we don’t?” I think aloud. “Everyone’s looking at us like we defaced the Jesus billboard at the town line.”
“Heaven Sent, Repent? Hell Is Real, Are You? That’s my favorite.”
I nibble my bottom lip. “We’re missing something.”
“I’d say you’re missing quite a lot, Miss Frost.”
Reluctantly is an understatement for how we turn around.
Pastor Oris Webb stands behind us. The beige-ness of him, from his washed-out skin to his khaki ensemble, is out of place against the vibrant market produce.
In one hand, he’s carrying a bag full of yellow apples.
In the other, a stack of paper. He never takes an interest in the market, and he picks today of all days to show up, the one time I take Lazlo into town?
Not good.
“Peace be with you,” Webb says in greeting.
I recover fast. “It’s rude to eavesdrop.”
His Windex-blue eyes find my friend. “Good morning, Miss Claywell.”
“Miss is outdated,” Arna Jean says. “Ms. is just fine. And we’re late for a thing.”
Next to Webb, of course, is Gertha Fudge, still in her Sunday finery.
She’s half his height but looking up at us with twice the disapproval.
“Not for church, certainly. I never see you Witches at service.” Her gaze rakes over Arna Jean’s piercings, which run the length of both her ears.
Then the hoodie. Peeved wrinkles crack her sneer.
“I reckon you won’t see us there next week, either,” I say.
Webb grins but the mirth doesn’t spread past his mouth. “Come now. One can’t be too busy for the Lord.”
“Amen,” Ms. Fudge mutters.
“Excuse the interruption,” Webb continues. “Open ears, open heart, yes? I listen for those asking for help.”
“And what, pray tell, do you believe we’re missing?” I don’t not trust the minimal information the Warlock has shared with me, but I also know to compare sources. My mom didn’t raise a blind-faith Witch.
Webb’s head tilts just so. “You’re trying to find fault with one Warlock, one man. That will only get you so far. The true heart of the corruption is magic itself.”
Arna Jean steps closer to me, closing rank. “So says the man without any magic himself.”