“Ms. Frost, this is twice in as many weeks you’ve made me engage with the public. I cannot be expected to live this way.”
Despite our tennis match of harsh words last night, he almost makes me smile. “Did it occur to you it might be more of a hazard to my health to drive me here in your condition than let me fight anaphylactic shock?”
“It did,” he muses, completely serious. “But I don’t have a working portal at the house and Ms. Zeen doesn’t have magic, so alas, here we are. We had to take two vehicles since you were horizontal, but we only have two-door pickup trucks apparently, so I followed Ms. Zeen in the Dodge with you—”
“You drove my truck?” You’ve got to be kidding me.
“—then I took a wrong turn at one point—that’s unimportant. Regretfully, we’ll have to drive back.”
“Let me know what I owe for gas.”
“I’ll deduct it from your paycheck.”
Lord does it feel good to be back to our normal… whateverthisis. “Mr. Knight, this is my mom, Mayor Marigold Frost. Mom, this is—”
“Oh, we’ve spent the last twelve hours together in this hospital,” she says. “Believe me, we’ve met.”
I swallow. “Outstanding.”
Given the Frost family’s history with Warlocks, my mom is sitting on years of resentment, yet here she is chatting with one at my bedside. Both cranky and stubborn. Oddly alike. No—sick. Neither feels good, a lot of the time.
“What did you talk about fortwelvehours?” The new question has the benefit of keeping my focus safe from paralysis. The Warlock is here—here!—in town.
My mom looks around the room, anywhere but at me. “You sure you don’t need another Benadryl? Another nap?”
“Mom.” I won’t be distracted.
“All right, all right.”
She looks to the Warlock. “We have a theory. One I’ve been toying with since your Momaw got sick, but Mr. Knight’s knowledge of curse magic has helped me rethink how we’re approaching this. And confirmed some suspicions.”
Thatdoesn’t make me feel any better.
My mom meets my stare head-on, and in her mayor voice, which I’m realizing sounds exactly like Momaw’s voice in my head, she says, “Our magic is killing us.”
Silas blows out a low whistle. I sit up so fast, my head whooshes. “I’m going to need you to elaborate.”
My mom tugs at her unwound hair. “Farewitches turn magic and intention into cures. All for our community. So our profession means we have to know lots of people well, but no one gets to knowus. Your Momaw ignored her own illness as long as she could to keep working, stay moving. My entire relationship with her centered on the Apothakery.”
She falls into a coughing fit, but waves off my concerned look and downs some water Silas hands her.
When her voice returns, she continues. “Me? I’ve got the knees and back of an eighty-year-old, no friends my age, and I’ve missed how many milestones with you? All for what? I’ve never even left the Holler! And you and me, girl? I’m going to die before we ever get the chance to spend time together as grown women. Our magic spreads us thin, isolates us. From romantic partners, friends, neighbors. It’s wearing us down to nothing, slowly but surely.”
I whirl to the Warlock. “You thinklonelinessis killing the Frost women.”
He levels his full severe attention at me; he’s never been one to sugarcoat anything. “Some magic, especially inherited through bloodlines, can cause premature aging, the effects delayed but exponential over time. Like a protein allergy, as it were. Your family’sbrutal hours, no rest, burnout. Isolation. This isn’t a curse, per se. It’s more of a… decay that feeds on stress.”
In other words: Rot. From the inside.
“But… we’re Farewitches,” I say lamely. “It’s what weare.”
Sadness sweeps across my mom’s face. “It’s just what wedo, Honey. Not who we are. I’m not sure when it started, but the Frost Farewitches began keeping their distance from neighbors, friends, any loved ones. To protect them, maybe. To protect ourselves. Now we’re barely keeping the line alive with each new generation.”
I always thought the Widow Witch was the reason Frost women didn’t take husbands, but that only explains romantic partners. Not our scarcity of deep friendships. I have community, customers and neighbors who like me, and Iknowthem—but does anyone really knowme?
The protesting folks outside the hospital right now point to no.
“You’ve been on bed rest for months,” I point out. “Why hasn’t that offset the problem?”
