My phone! Given the poor state of cell service up in these hills, it must’ve finally wrestled up a signal being outside. Sure enough, one tiny bar struggles for life.
Mom.
I silence it.
There is the slight possibility I might have neglected to tell her my plan. Or that I came here at all and specifically ignored her warning. As I brainstorm how to avoid my mother, my phone rings again, like maternal clockwork. This single bar of service is really earning its rent.
This time, I mentally prepare myself for a real dressing-down, worse even than the first and only time younger me used soap to clean the cast iron.
“… Hey there, mother dearest.”
“Little miss, you best not be avoiding your pitiful mother.”
I feel lighter than angel food cake hearing her voice, the fire I know so well flavoring her tone again. But if Mom is having one of her good days, she’ll be fixing to scold the legs right off my chair.
“I hear you’ve accepted the Warlock’s offer.”
Lord, here we go. “You and every other soul in town, apparently.”
But she’s confined to her hospital room, which means… Silas.Rude.
“ThisisFoxe Holler, daughter dearest. When folks think of magic, the Widow Witch always comes to mind. The whisperings lately are even more damning than usual.”
“Whisperings from who?” I’m getting fed up with all this speculation. Just because someone is odd and lives alone doesn’t mean they deserve to be shunned. “The church ladies? Please. Gertha Fudge never met a rumor she didn’t like. She’salwayswanted to leash magic.”
“Even if the Fudges of the town dislike magic,weknow magic isn’t inherently bad. Whatever higher magic the Warlock practices doesn’t bother me,” she continues. “It’smenwith magic you want to be wary of. Are there any women in that house with you?”
“The men include an eccentric gardener who doesn’t believe in phones and a little boy. I’m fine.”
“Even so, I had Carolina place a protection spell on you while you’re up there. Warlock-proof. She’s a good Hearthwitch, but it won’t last forever.”
Proof against what, exactly? He’s grumpy as all get-out, but the Warlock has not raised a single menacing finger toward me, to the point I don’t even know what kind of magic he possesses. What good is this higher magic the Witches bemoan if a Warlock doesn’t ever use it? The most dangerous thing at this Manor thus far is the kitchen.
“Does she have any spells to protect me from the house itself?” I ask dryly.
My eyes roam the skeletal facade of the farmhouse, which must be hiding other forbidden pockets and rooms. I can’t tell how a Warlock’s supposed extensive library of invaluable magical texts would even fit inside this place. So many shadows for secrets…
I pace down the side steps and to the gardens as we talk, letting the bar on my phone decide my direction. Green surrounds me. Bushes and trees and flowers and vegetable beds. Blooming plants and thorny ones, edible and, I’m sure, poisonous. Even a cactus, though this is not the right climate. Magicked to thrive, no doubt. Bees and hummingbirds and dragonflies buzz by. Roses and sunflowers and squash blossoms and strawberries.
Care and attention. Life, not destruction. I’ve never been in a place so active with growth yet so grounded in delicate silence at the same time. Where the inside of Knight Manor is decaying, the gardens are blossoming with life.
“I’ve been thinking—if the Warlock’s health is off, unbalanced, his magic would be, too, right? Magic is strongest when it’s local, so an ill Warlock’s power could—”
“Cause weird occurrences…” my mom says, catching on. Moms are great for brainstorming. “Still, whether his reputation is based on intention or accident, the Widow Witch has more than earned hers. If that man’s caused an imbalance of magic, she’ll hunt it down and you’ll be caught in the cross-spell. She’s a Hedgewitch, after all.”
A seven-course meal of flavorful language runs through my head. I’ve never met one, but Hedgewitches work magic between dimensions of being. Life and death. Present and past. Reality and illusion. If anyone comes close to having the grand—and uncontrollable—higher magic a Warlock does, it’s a Hedgewitch.
Witches live by the creed that all magic is neutral, and thatrottenmagic simply comes from poisonous intention and misuse. But there are some forms of power more unstable than others, more prone to mirror emotion and the darkest parts of ourselves. More prone to terrible debt. No matter what, all magic has a cost, and the universe always hunts for balance.
I wonder if other towns have a Hedgewitch problem like us. Maybe they have their own threats. Maybe the big cities have more than one. Shoot, Foxe Holler could be the safest place of the bunch.
“All the more reason everyone needs to be at full strength,” I counter. “That means you. I’m going to have you healed in no time. I think I’m close to finding the right recipe, and his archive of spell books—”
“Don’t heal the Warlock, Honey.” Her voice dips but it might be the static of the shoddy connection. “You’re my only child. Whatever debt you gather there isn’t worth it.”
That’s like sayingyou’renot worth it.
“Honey, if there were ever a moment to mind your poor mother, this is it. What in heaven compelled you to accept his offer?”
