Page 3 of A Wolf for Winter

What was she, eight again and not twenty-eight?

He didn’t notice her left eye twitching with irritation as he bustled around the island to the back door. Her eye continued to twitch as he hollered for her adult siblings to come in from outside and help her.

“No,” she protested immediately, packaging frantically. “I’ve got this.”

Boar would notice the heavier crate the second he picked it up, and Rose was nosier than a bloodhound. None of them could know she was smuggling her own products down to the village until it was too late for them to turn back. This was her chance to prove not only to her family, but to the outside world, that she was more than Peony Hawthorne’s pretty daughter. That she was just as clever at potion-making as her mother. That she had worth.

“I can do this, Dad,” she insisted.

“We’ve got to stay on schedule, honey,” her father replied, shaking his head. “Can’t give the villagers any more feed for the rumor mill than we already have.” Then he turned to his other offspring, the two of them laughing like teenagers and traipsing snow into the kitchen. They sobered immediately when he barred them further entry. Rose wiped her red nose on her sleeve and Boar stood up straight. “You two wildlings better wash your hands before you even think of touching anything in this kitchen. Boar, where are those eggs? Rose, I don’t see the goats hitched to the wagon.”

“Like I’m gonna make them wait in the snow?” Rose replied, inching past him to the washroom. Their father let his youngest’s snark pass without comment as he always did.

“Sorry, sir,” Boar said. “It’s December, they don’t lay much—”

“Did you try the Feathered Fertility Spell to encourage those with eggs to lay?”

Her brother’s brown eyebrows winged up into his knit hat. Their mother had always insisted they let certain natural occurrences take their proper courses, such has hens laying and bees’ honey production. Apparently with her gone and their father under a baking deadline, these rules were allowed to bend. “I-I didn’t think of that, sir.”

Dad tsked and turned back to his kitchen with a disappointed huff, letting Boar shuffle off after Rose to wash his hands. Lilac hurried to finish the packaging as Dad removed his brioche braid from the hearth fire. Another wind cooled it completely, then he was hollering for the rest of Lilac’s siblings to come and help her already.

It was always like that—someone help Lilac. Someone get that book down for her. Someone open that peanut butter jar. Someone lift that bag of compost. In a manor where forty-something relatives all lived under one roof, there was always someone to do something for her. As if she didn’t participate in the same rigorous physical training and magical education everyone else did around here.

Not even her own siblings were immune to it. Instead of begrudging her for the preferential treatment she received because she was “the pretty one,” they treated her just like everyone else did. Like she was made of glass.

It was Grandmother’s fault, putting her on a display pedestal like this, using her for her looks instead of her talents, and everyone toed the line where the Hawthorne matriarch led. They had no idea the strain it put on her—how she could never eat until she felt fully sated, how she always had to run the extra mile to remain leaner than her curvier female relatives, how she was expected to behave like a demure Southern belle. When she was younger and naïve, of course she’d enjoyed the pampering and the attention, but as a woman, she found it infuriating.

“I got this, Li,” Rose said, shouldering her out of the way. She shuttled packaged cookies and sweet breads into the wooden crates, the full ones immediately being hauled off by their brother outside to the wagon. “Wouldn’t want you to chip a nail.”

It was said in Rose’s customary jesting way, but with Lilac’s teeth already on edge from fear of discovery, she couldn’t brush the remark aside. Not this time. Yet she couldn’t snap, couldn’t break the serene façade that hid the woman inside just screaming to be seen for what she was instead of what she looked like. She had to stay cool so they wouldn’t suspect.

Lilac plucked the packaged brioche wreath from her father’s stunned hands, plopped it down on the gingham cloth covering her smuggled potions, and said in a forced singsong, “And I’ve got this one!” She hoisted the heavy crate up against her stomach and hustled out of the kitchen before anyone could stop her, nearly colliding into her brother on his way back in. “One side, meathead!”

Boar sputtered and twisted to one side to let his sister pass. Lilac shoved the crate onto the wagon with all the other supplies they were carting in for the Yuletide Gala, hoping no one heard the rattling of little glass vials. She risked a peek—none were broken—then rolled the heavy canvas cover down to protect it all from the snow. With brisk steps, she hurried off to where the pack goats were tethered and grabbed the horn of the nearest one. The manor didn’t keep horses, mainly because they couldn’t be milked, but these wether goats were tough and suited for their task.

“C’mon, sweetie,” she said, enticing him forward with a palmful of grain. The goat eagerly followed after the treat.

“Let me do that,” Boar said.

“Why?” In her frazzled, anxious state, the snappish question had slipped from her before she could tighten her lips down around her tongue.

He didn’t provide a reason, just gave her a scrutinizing frown and curled his hand around the goat’s other horn. Of course, she knew why. He was the strong one, Rose was the wild child, and she was the pretty-pretty princess. They each had their roles.

“Of course,” she relented immediately, lowering her eyes. “How silly of me.”

Releasing the goat, Lilac spun on her heel and hoisted herself onto the box seat, settling her little drawstring purse on her lap and wrapping her wool cloak tightly around her shoulders. All she wanted to do was hunch over and glare out from under her hood like a surly troll, but someone was destined to pester her about her posture and then notice the tic in her left eye and release a barrage of questions until—

Lilac released that train of thought before she could spiral and just sat up straight, drumming hers fingers against her knees. She checked that her satin purse hadn’t moved from its perch on her lap; it had a boundless rune sewn into it, enabling her to carry a dozen spare potions bottles, vials of common ingredients, and her entire life’s savings without the little satin purse appearing larger than a vintage reticule or weighing more than an orange. None of her family was the wiser to the rune and what her little purse held, which was exactly the point. It was her Plan B if the Gala failed.

But it won’t. It mustn’t.

“That’s the last of them,” Rose said, securing the tailgate. “Don’t worry, Li, I didn’t touch your trunk. The Green Mother forbid your clothes get wrinkled.” Rose sprang into the vacant spot beside Lilac, jostling her older sister good-naturedly.

If your job depended on your appearance, you’d care too, were the words she didn’t say. Instead, she replied, “You should put your hood up.” There was a wind coming down from the mountains that would soon pepper icy snowflakes against any exposed skin like throwing stars.

“Why? Don’t need to protect my curls like you do.” Rose laughed easily, and Lilac bunched her hands into fists under her cloak so she wouldn’t shove snow down her sister’s throat.

“And that’s the goats,” Boar announced, taking the last seat on the opposite side of Lilac.