He swallows. Twice. “I knew if I saw you, or even texted you, I’d say too much. And I couldn’t. Not without knowing for sure I could find it.”
My nervous fingers tap the countertop. “What are you talking about? Do you want the biscuits or not?”
Slowly, he slides a folded square of old paper across the counter.
“On the solstice, my mother—or, her memory—gave me an idea, a clue of where to look. Not a precise location, but it was enough. I finally went through all of my parents’ personal belongings, and there it was, just packed away.”
I suck in a breath as my fingers grasp the grimy paper. Stained. Fatty butter splotches. A well-loved thing if I’ve ever seen one.
“Your grandmother, Ambrosia, lent this recipe to my mother ages ago. A simple neighborly kindness.”
I finally unfold the paper, my fingers shaking so badly I’m worried I’ll tear it and the recipe inside. As I read through the ingredients and instructions, in Momaw Frost’s handwriting, my chest flutters with a delicate hope.
Of course of course of course.
A gift from a Frost Farewitch to the young Ms. Knight, shared freely, asking nothing in return. Like a laugh. A seat at the table. A Warlock’s name.
This is it. I know it.
The Warlock holds up a set of car keys. “Tell me what you need. I drive now, you know.”
“With an adult,” Ms. Zeen calls from the side. “You only have a permit.”
He raises an affronted eyebrow, jiggling the keys. “Where are we going?”
Where aren’t we going isthe better question.
The Warlock and I knock on a dozen doors by suppertime.
We visit neighbors across the Holler to borrow flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, butter, eggs, oil, vanilla, walnuts, pecans, bananas, powdered sugar, and cream cheese. I’ve already got these items in my own kitchen, but Momaw Frost’s note makes it clear, theingredients don’t matter as much as where they come from. The trick to curing a wasting disease that develops and worsens with isolation and burnout isn’t about the final product at all, but how the baking comes together. The magic is the process. The process is the magic.
A herald of a Southern summertime, hummingbird cake is not ungodly popular or secretly obscure. Its flavors aren’t out of the ordinary, if a little odd grouped together, like a small town of eccentric personalities.
Foxe Holler, this community, is the key.
This means explaining to my neighbors why I’m visiting them in the first place: Marigold Frost is dying. The Frosts can’t hide anymore. If we never ask for help, no one knows to give it.
By the time the sun sets, there’s only one ingredient missing.
Once again, I find myself on the porch of Gertha Fudge’s immaculate little white house. Except this time, I’m not alone.
“Fudge?” I ask for what’s probably the fourth time. “OurGertha Fudge offered to take you in?”
Next to me, Warlock Knight nods. “Sixteen-year-old me was equally as stunned.”
I swallow my disbelief. “Why?”
A sigh settles deep in his chest. “After the library fire, I didn’t have another guardian, so the Eldercraft wanted to relocate me to live with other young Warlocks. But Gertha offered to take me in so I didn’t have to leave the Holler. It was the only home I’d known. Instead, I hid in the Manor and avoided the Eldercraft until I was eighteen. That was the end of it.”
“What in the world did you say to Gertha?”
He grimaces.
“That’sthe moment in time you wanted to fix, isn’t it? You refused Gertha’s help and everything went downhill. More downhill.”
And he fled uphill, as far to the edge of the Holler as he could get.
“Shunning her kindness was one of my biggest mistakes.”
