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ONE
a much needed vacation
Jillian almost screamed in frustration as the bell rang against the opening door of the Flowery Enchantments. Head snapping to the entrance, she mustered her best polite and sweet expression as the old lady came in.
“Hello Mrs. Gibson,” Jillian greeted her carefully, straightening her back to look more composed. “I was going to bring the powder to you later today, there was no need for you to come personally.”
The woman waved her skinny hand in dismissal, as she often did. “Nonsense. I’m an old lady, if I don’t keep active now, I’ll perish sooner than expected.”
Callused fingers tightened around the edge of the counter as Jillian repressed a groan. She was not in the mood to deal with her dramatics at the moment.
“Don’t be like that, you’re still plenty young,” she replied, making her tone as sweet as possible.
Icy blue eyes glared at Jillian with distaste, a small grimace on the old lady’s wrinkled face. “We both know that’s not true, so don’t even try.”
Jillian attempted an innocent smile in reply, but all she actually wanted to do was groan. When she first came to this town, people were strangely curious to have a witch as a visitor, instead of being suspicious or scared. Many of them asked questions about her powers, about the things she could create. And as she fed their curiosity, the idea of opening a magic shop in town had come up in conversation.
“Imagine the things we would all be able to do with your help!”
Funny enough, it had been Mrs. Gibson to “casually” mention it first, and the rest of the town soon agreed, suggesting that Jillian plant roots there. Back then, the witch was flustered and happy that so many people took interest in who she was, so she didn’t think twice before finding a place for herself and opening her shop. Now, after years of activity, Jillian had come to regret coming to the town in the first place.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like helping people. She loved the ability to prepare spells and potions to make human’s lives easier, but the townspeople had begun to see her only as a magic supplier and nothing else.
She was the only witch in both her town and region, so she was plenty busy. Farmers wanted potions for their crops to grow faster, or to keep animals and insects away. Tailors asked for special dyes to make their clothes shine or last longer. Tavern owners asked for calming incenses to make sure their customers fought less. Mothers asked for cosmetics with attraction properties to help their daughters find partners. Bad people asked for spells to curse the people they wanted to sabotage. The list went on, and on, and on. There were so many different requests that Jillian lost count. She was busy all night preparing potions, powders, and spells for all the villagers, and then she was busy all day delivering the orders or welcoming people into her shop. The townspeople obviously paid well for her services, but it didn’t make the workload any less stressful.
“You already have my order ready, don’t you, dear?”
Mrs. Gibson’s voice shook Jillian from her thoughts. Again, she felt the urge to sigh, this time for the use of the pet-name. Despite the fact that she had been Jillian’s very first customer and a regular at her shop, the old lady still didn’t seem to remember her name. Jillian had tried to bait her into saying it more than once, to see if it was just a suspicion or if it was actually true, and unfortunately for her the woman had always found a way not to say it. Jillian, however, wasn’t sure if it truly confirmed her theory, or if it just showed Mrs. Gibson’s stubbornness and uncooperativeness.
But Mrs. Gibson wasn’t the only one who supposedly didn’t know her name. All the townspeople came to Jillian for her services and her services only, and they never bothered to get to know her. They always went on and on about their lives, complaining about their problems as they asked her for a solution, without ever asking Jillian anything about herself. After all, they were never having actual conversations: it was always one-sided. If the people were asked to mention any fact about Jillian, she was sure they’d only remember that she was a witch. Between her and the people who lived around her, there was no familiarity, no closeness.
It pained her more than she would have liked to admit, especially because she actually liked her life there. Balkwill was a relatively peaceful town and the scenery of all the rustic two-story houses in between nature was truly beautiful. Despite the distance between Jillian and the villagers, she still felt an odd familiarity with them, since she had come to know everything about their lives. And even though the work was demanding, she loved being useful to other people, and seeing them happy because of the work she did.
“Of course, I’ll get it for you.”
Jillian rummaged through the mess of baskets under her counter, pushing gems and bottles aside to find the woman’s powder. She held back another sigh, realizing thatthat’sall she’d been able to do for a while. The immense workload, the stress, the loneliness, as well as the boredom of always doing the same thing, had left her with the bad habit of repeatedly sighing over the day. While she picked up the bottle with Mrs. Gibson’s name on it, Jillian wondered if the constant sighing could be a bad sign regarding her health.
“Here it is.” She handled the bottle to the woman, a polite smile tugging at her round cheeks.
The plants, gems, candles and books scattered around the shop were looking at her, judging and mocking her choices. She never actually had time to organize the space, so any time she took something out or acquired a new object, it always ended up in an indefinite place, over piles and piles of things. The fact that she had barely enough space to squeeze her generous hips through the aisles and furniture didn’t help with the chaos.
“Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Gibson said automatically, no actual sign of gratitude in her voice. She left the coins on the counter and quickly put the powder in her purse. “I will be coming back in two days for the next one.”
Jillian held her breath in anticipation as the old lady turned around to leave, but she had to resist another groan when she looked back.
“Oh, I almost forgot! Mr. Fitch said the rats have grown a tolerance to your poison, and now it does nothing to keep them away. I told him to do something about it instead of complaining, but from what I hear, he keeps bashing your services at the pub every night,” Mrs. Gibson explained, shrugging. “That old man is too lazy for his own good, I always say that. I hope it doesn’t cause trouble for your business, dear.”
While one could have thought Mrs. Gibson was concerned, her tone was not caring or sympathetic at all. And from the glint in the old lady’s eyes, Jillian could perfectly imagine what events the woman would have liked to see unfold.
Jillian’s heart dropped. If her poison was not working anymore, she could come up with another one. It would probably take some time to experiment and find one efficient enough on Mr. Fitch’s newly immune rats, but she could do it. She didn’t like the idea of spending more time and energy on this, but she especially didn’t like that Mr. Fitch was trying to hurt her business.
Jillian’s stress level was so high, that this newly acquired information was enough for her eyes to burn with unshed tears. Going on like this was no good for her health—physical and mental. She would snap sooner or later, whether it was crying her eyes out for days or worse, hurting someone.
“Actually, I might be taking a break soon,” Jillian said. She had lied without thinking but as it slipped out of her mouth, a break actually sounded very tempting.
“A break?” Mrs. Gibson’s expression twisted with shock. “You can’t take a break! The town depends on you.”
And maybe the town should start depending on itself like every other city does,she bitterly thought.None of you even care about all the things I do for you.
