No harm in an informational interview, right?
With the lush woods and flora, oddly thriving for this early in April, anyone monitoring the gate might not see me coming, and in the Holler, a trespasser flirts with getting shot. No thank you. After throwing the truck into park, I hop out. The 1968 Dodge D100 pickup is avocado green, freshly washed in preparation for Today’s Ill-Advised Adventure. I want to make a good impression. For some reason. Maybe Warlocks are impressed by good vehicular upkeep. Old men like cars…
Approaching the gate with caution, I palm the iron, looking for any intercom system. Then, just like the small black letter, the iron burns a gentle, hot kiss into my hand.
The immense gates swing inward, shrieking. Like someonehasn’t opened them in a lifetime. When was the last time someone visited?
When was the last time someoneleft?
The coffee in my gut churns. That was too easy. Someone’s expecting me.
He’sexpecting me.
No turning back now.That would be rude, girl, comes Momaw’s voice.
Back in my truck, I creep through the gates, only a big toe to the gas pedal. Edging up the gravel drive, I think I spot an old tobacco barn, but the woods and landscaping aren’t just thriving. They’reovergrown. Finally, the meandering drive comes to an end. I park at the steps of Knight Manor’s front entrance, and slide-fall out of the truck. All I can do is stare.
When my mom said the Warlock didn’t spend a single penny onthat decrepit old mansion, I thought she was exaggerating. But Marigold Frost is a baker, and a teaspoon is a teaspoon, not a smidge more. Precision is ingredient number one.
The town rumors gotdecrepitright. But everyone got everything else wrong.
Before me is an old behemoth of a house with a wide porch that disappears around either side of the place. Every surface and support beam seems made of wood, and it must all be original, because it’s now more mushroom than bone colored. The only parts of the house that aren’t wood are the one-two-three-four-manystone chimneys. I can’t tell if the house is supporting them, or if the chimneys are the only thing keeping the whole place upright.
Knight Manor isn’t a mansion. It’s a farmhouse.
A memory takes me so quickly, my sharp laugh sizzles out.
This farmhouse reminds me of Momaw’s. Same screen doors, same decaying carved window eaves, same rocking chairs on the front porch. With Momaw retired and able to babysit while my momran the shop, I spent endless time there as a girl. Even nights. Those sleepovers are my best memories of Momaw. I can almost hear the reruns ofThe Golden Girls. We’d play gin and rummy until Mom picked me up.
I barely catch the sob before it escapes my chest.Breathe. If I’m having this much trouble outside the house, I’ll be doomed inside.
The rumors suggested some haunted hellscape. All I’m seeing is aSouthern Livingcover reject. How much do the folks of the Holler really know about the Warlock they fear? Or do they just listen to Gertha Fudge’s rants?
But as I focus, I notice the abnormalities.
What started as a traditional two-story, probably nineteenth-century farmhouse now has a dozen additions tacked onto the original heart of the structure. Like the first godawful, confused layer cake I ever baked. A house this size is expensive.Big like old money, not new money, Momaw would’ve said. There are no fancy cars in the driveway, or any cars at all. Odd, since the Holler’s public transit system consists of the church van or the bed of someone’s pickup.
The cracked, wavy glass windows were once elegant, but now vines rip at the rotting window frames and shutters, and birds’ nests barnacle for purchase. Ivy crawls between cracks in wood, threatening to pop loose a nail like floss hunting between teeth for a poppy seed.
I would know. Lemon poppy seed is a favorite flavor for the Frosts.
But the Manor banishes any hunger. My gut knots as a crisp April breeze edges under my clothes. It’s cooler up here than it is in town. Wild vegetation infests the sprawling grounds (farmland?), but this grand house is the first infected molecule of the plague. Now, truly realizing how far out here and alone I am, I feel silly, way in over my head. If the house looks this sick on the outside, what is the Warlock like on theinside? If my mom’s right about the suspiciously aggressive isolation, is she right telling me to refuse his offer altogether? By trying to save her life, am I just going to risk mine?
What am Idoinghere?
I could turn back. Tell the nurses to keep trudging along, trying the same solutions, give Mom the same Jell-O, in the hopes she might get better. Keep combing through cookbooks and recipe journals and grimoires for that fateful recipe I know has to exist. We could all simply return to the usual routine.
Screw that.
My mom has until July, if we’re lucky. I know exactly what I’m doing here. If I help this Warlock, he might help my mom in return. Or his archive could. Shoot, at the least, he could pay well enough for me to shuffle more money toward her care.
Behind its screen, I knock on the main front door. When there’s no answer, my nerves make me try the door, just in case.
It swings open without resistance.
Relief quells my panicky stomach. Interesting. But also unnerving. Am I being watched, or is the house always this hospitable? What if Ihadn’tcome? Would the Warlock have stomped into my shop this morning to track me down?
“Hello?” I call into the foyer.
