“Old enough.Ma’am.”
“Why isn’t your mother still the town Farewitch?”
“She needed to be the mayor.”
“Have you ever heard the sayingDon’t trust a skinny chef?”
The Warlock steps between us. “That’s enough, Ms. Zeen.”
So not too intimidated to stand up to the woman once in a while.Standing up for me?Odd. But I’m not one to let grouchy old women scare me. If I did, I’d be out of business.
I give her a sugary grin. “Ms. Zeen, you should have eaten some of my fried green tomatoes. The oil might help grease your insides so you can pass that stick through your colon.”
Except I don’t say that. I’m a polite Southern lady. Manners.
What I really say is “There’s a batch of my Momaw’s basil and honey sweet tea in the kitchen. Please help yourself.”
“Not my preferred cup of tea.” Ms. Zeen returns to the chalkboard, leaving me alone with the Warlock, which isn’t much of an improvement.
He turns to me. “Follow me. I have something to show you.” Then he leaves the room without warning.
Oh joy.
We traverse the second floor in the opposite direction, across the entire Manor, which physicallycannotbe this wide on the outside. A Barbie-Escher Dreamhouse, for sure. We pass endless closed doors.Locked, probably. What’s he possibly hiding behind all of these? I try to match his pace, but this fellow has some grasshopper legs. Long and lean and—whatever. He never lets me out of his peripheral vision, anyway. He reallydoesn’twant me to wander.
When we reach the top of one of the four staircases I’ve seen on this floor alone, he finally speaks. “I told you the rest of the house is strictly off-limits.”
This hallway looks familiar. We’re on the third floor now, where my room is. I think? “Everyone disappeared on me. Lazlo’s delightful, by the way.” I remember the way he spoke to the boy, without the rough edges of his usual demeanor. “You said you don’t like anyone, but you’re awfully nice to him.” Tread lightly, tread lightly.
He almost looks surprised but quickly throws a mask back in place. But not before I see that bruise of sadness in his gaze. Maybe I’mnotimagining the haunted look. “He’s a child. Despite any rumors you might have heard, I’m not unkind to children.”
“I thought I was also achildFarewitch.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it. No retort, then? Though I’ve played myself, because now I’m extra curious what our age gap actually is… for research.
“Everyone under forty looks the same to me,” he finally says.
We’re going to have to get along for me to have the best chance of healing him, so I try a different tactic. “Can I at least have a tour? A small one.” No one has seen the Manor for a long time. Now that it’s clear he didn’t lure me here to use me as fertilizer for his garden, I’m nosey.
He frowns. “You’ve seen the kitchen. The foyer—a large empty waste of a room. The other rooms on the ground floor are empty common rooms, washrooms. We have a parlor, but it hasn’t been touched in ten years. Ladybug infestation. There’s a reading room—”
“Let me guess: It’s empty and hasn’t been used since dial-up.”
“No, Ms. Zeen does her sewing in there. Keep up. We have adining room, when there used to be gatherings and holidays. Now another waste of space.”
“Where does everyone eat? The kitchen table?”
I kid you not, the man has to process my question to answer. “Our bedrooms.”
For the love of— “Together, I mean. With each other. Communal meals.”
“I don’t understand. I usually eat standing in the garden. When I remember.”
I halt in a random hallway.
He stops when I don’t follow. “You look like you’ve swallowed a cicada, Ms. Frost.”
Breathe, Honey, breathe. Like Momaw Frost said when little me was just learning, and the centers of my cornbread were raw but the tops were burning.Breathe, like my mom repeated to me over and over again at Momaw’s funeral.
