71 DAYS UNTIL THE SUMMER SOLSTICE
Honey’s Helpful Hint, from
Honey Frost’s Southern Cookbook for Recipes Gone Wrong:
Don’t leave dishes in the sink or else you’ll invite nightmares, and always hang up a horseshoe in your home for good luck.
The Frost Family Apothakery has officially been closed one week.
Chaos reigns. The dash of panic is now a full-blown, heaping tablespoon.
During hospital visiting hours over the past week, Nurse Carolina saved me from a waiting room of demanding townsfolk. No one has anything better to do than bother a girl dropping off a pan of sorghum-syrup sweet potato casserole. Half the town is furious I’ve closed the shop (“and for a Warlock, no less!”), and the other half is now requesting house calls, like my workload isn’t gastronomically astronomical as is. Because I can’t help myself, I agree to make consistent special deliveries for some of my sweeter regulars.
I’m starting to admire the Warlock’s skill with the wordno.
If only my neighbors knew the unparalleled and beloved Mayor Frost is suffering from whatever illness took Momaw, their previous Farewitch. I’ve never itched to scream out the truth before now. But Mom would never allow it.
Not unlike how the Warlock failed to mention he’s literallydying. Not just gravely ill. No, that would be too easy.
After he yanked that particular dusty rug out from under me with his admission a couple days ago, I saw no sign of him all weekend. All this fuss to get me here and then he doesn’t even bother to show up to try my food,his potential cures.
Governess Zeen also wants nothing to do with me and only appears to make copious amounts of hot tea. No idea how she prefers that dishwater stuff over my sweet tea. The old bat must subsist on terror and dust alone. Occasionally, Lazlo snatches a snack and flees. He’s friendly but also might think me a spook, or a storybook crone fattening him up to eat him.
So when I do find a spare minute to scarf something down, I eat alone.
On top of everything, my mom called me bright and early this Monday morning:No luck with the sorghum sweet potatoes. Still feeling wretched, my joints are screaming with the rain this month… Keep trying, probably just a bad batch of potatoes…
By noon, I’m in a mood so sour, I’m turning milk to buttermilk with a glance. Literally. The house itself must sense my mood, because it doesn’t bother me.
So I decide to bother it.
My quarrel begins with what I’ve ignored so far: the inexcusable seven-layer cake of anonymous grime on every surface. The entire Manor looks like it’s under a musty camera filter. The only place cobwebs don’t hang is between the plants. I can’t cure the Warlock’s bad mood, but the state of this place could very well be partly responsible for his plague-like stuffiness.
A Frost woman is a helligan of a resilient creature. But can I cook, bake, decorate, knead, sprinkle, poach, and sear on countertops and in pans where dust is always the first ingredient? No way in hell.Hoarder that she was, Momaw Frost would somersault in her grave if she saw this place.Cluttered kitchen, cluttered mind, girl.
I leave the knife I was furiously sharpening in the kitchen (for the best, can’t let my kitchen safety escape with my patience), and when I get to the third floor, I’m huffing. I think the house added extra stairs just to delay me. At the opposite end of the hall, far from my own bedroom, the very last closed door is secluded in an alcove, by itself.
I pound on it.
I guessed right. For the first time in three days, the Warlock deigns to honor me with his existence and opens his bedroom door. His mistake.
“You,” I say. Strong start.
His eyebrows go up. “Have I missed an argument we had I wasn’t there for?”
He’s in his usual gardening uniform: Henley, boots, bandana. He never wears a hat, hence the sun spots on his cheeks. And he’s covered in soil, again. I bet he left footprints on as many staircases as possible, just to irk me. His dark hair curls at his temples with sweat from the sun. So hewasin the garden, on the other side of those windows, while I was in the kitchen. Alone.
“How am I supposed to cure you if I never see you? You wanted me here as soon as possible, neglect to mentionyou’re dying, and then you never show up to meals.”
His annoyance morphs into indignation. “Me?You. You took basil from my garden.”
Damn. So he did notice. “Yes, for the sweet tea I made that you never drank. Are you saying I can’t use the herbs growing out here? They’re herbs! That’s what they’re there for.”
He wrings his gloved hands. Agitated? Crafting a spell to wish me out of existence? “You may use them, but only if you ask me first. The garden doesn’t like to be touched by strangers.”
If all the plants around here are as sentient as the house… Fine, I probably should’ve asked. “Only if you promise to eat what I make you.”
He runs a tongue over his front teeth. That one tiny movement steals my focus. “As long as you promise to improve your mood. The plants can feel you’re upset and they’re withering.”
