Sweet & Bitter Magic

by Adrienne Tooley

  A chill ran up the back of Wren’s arm. She shifted her baskets nervously.

  Tor’s eyes were dark and hard. “You weren’t alive for the Year of Darkness, but this is how the sickness started then, too. There’s a new dark witch. I know it.” He ran a hand through his thinning hair. “The Coven claimed they would protect us, but why would witches care about ordinary folk?” He laughed darkly. “Anyway, even Queen Mathilde has denounced the Coven. If our queen is willing to turn her back on witches, well…” He trailed off, pursing his lips. “It must be bad. Watch yourself, will you? And that da of yours.” His eyes lingered on Wren, his pity nearly tangible. “I’ll take five eggs, if you have them.”

  He offered her three needles, six mismatched buttons, and a spool of black thread. Wren accepted his barter gratefully, passing over her eggs one by one as Tor nestled them carefully into his sack. She bid him farewell and continued on, grateful for the silent, solid ground beneath her feet.

  Wren continued to circle the market, trading her speckled eggs for a purple-leafed head of cabbage, the bones of a turkey, and a loaf of dense brown bread. She exchanged pleasantries with the other vendors, but despite the usual niceties of market day, the air in the square was stilted and strange.

  Wren stopped to browse a small cart of polished pink apples, her fingers lingering longingly on their waxy skin. It had been close to a year since she’d tasted the crisp, sweet fruit. A woman in the South had tasked a wood nymph with poisoning a single golden apple to kill her stepdaughter. But the spell had gone rogue. The southern orchards had withered away, and an entire year’s harvest had burned. The ghastly green flames had been seen all the way in the West.

  That woman had been a fool. Even Wren, who was the first to find any excuse to avoid an encounter with a witch, who nursed her father back to health with herbs and broths made from the jelly marrow of bones rather than seek out spells and enchantments, knew better than to trust a nymph with poison.

  “She didn’t even come to the meeting,” a woman whispered, pulling Wren’s attention from the apple’s smooth skin. “I bet she already knew.”

  “I bet she caused the entire thing,” a second woman replied, her face pinched.

  Wren shifted her baskets and made a show of polishing the apple on her skirt, listening closely.

  “I wouldn’t put it past her. I always thought there was something wrong there. I mean, her prices,” the first woman said. “It’s not natural.”

  “Nothing about that witch is natural,” said the other. “She’s so young. Too young, if you ask me.”

  A shiver of magic crept down Wren’s neck. It felt like the insistent eyes of a stranger, but stronger. Magic danced around her body, wrapping her in an embrace. She tried to shake it, but in her haste, the apple tumbled from her hand and rolled all the way across the market, landing at the feet of a tinker displaying a lush purple cloak with seemingly endless pockets. The apple’s once-bright skin was left broken and bruised.

  The women stopped talking and stared at Wren, scandalized. The merchant started yelling, his voice low and gruff, his long brown beard trembling as he glowered down at her.

  Wren tried to slow her hammering heart. The price of apples was twice what it had been before the poisoning. The fruit was a delicacy she could not afford.

  Wren tried to stammer out an apology, but the words caught in her throat. The slithering feeling of eyes on the back of her neck returned, but this time it wasn’t magic. People had started to stare. Wren’s face was on fire, the merchant’s loud voice ringing in her ears. She offered him the buttons and thread from Tor as well as her loaf of bread. The man scowled but accepted her payment. Wren tried not to cry as she picked up the bruised, brown apple, repositioned her much lighter baskets, and turned away.

  Only two eggs remained, their speckled brown shells delicate and smooth. Two was hardly enough to barter for dry crusts of bread. Still, she had to try. Wren swallowed the lump in her throat and called out to the crowd.

  “Did you say eggs?” The voice behind her was lush as velvet, dark as midnight.

  Wren wheeled around, her eyes widening as she took in the face of the girl who had spoken.

  Tamsin, the witch of Ladaugh, stood before her, buried beneath a sweeping cloak of forest green. Wren took a step back. She’d been so desperate to trade that she’d forgotten to look for the source of the magic that had sent the apple tumbling to the cobblestones. She had failed to watch for the streaks of earthy red magic, ruddy like wet clay, that radiated from Tamsin. Had forgotten to turn and run, unsold eggs be damned. Had broken the one and only rule upon which her life depended: Never come face-to-face with a witch.

  “Well, do you have eggs or not?” Tamsin snapped. She brushed back her hair, dark as a raven’s wing, a thick eyebrow arching up with scorn.

  Wren was having difficulty finding her voice. She rummaged quickly through her basket, nearly shattering the shells as she scooped the eggs into her hand and held them out to the witch.

  Tamsin took them, eyes narrowed. “How much?”

  Wren shrugged, waving her other hand in the air in an uncertain gesture, all the while fighting the urge to bolt. She was acting a fool, but she had never been so close to a witch in her life, and certainly not one as powerful as Tamsin. She squirmed beneath the witch’s stare. The green flecks in Tamsin’s brown eyes were the same color as her cloak.

  Tamsin clucked her tongue impatiently and dropped a handful of coins into Wren’s basket before turning on her heel, her cloak flaring out behind her like a cape. Wren gaped after her, catching a hint of fresh sage on the morning breeze.

  She scrambled to collect the coins, nearly ten times what the eggs were worth, the heat of them sparking excitement in her chest. Perhaps she had been wrong to steer clear of witches. Wren had always assumed they were just as awful as her father said. But it was clear to her now that Tamsin’s sour expression did not accurately reflect the fullness of her heart.

  Wren breezed through the market, handing over a copper coin for a loaf of coarse, dark bread five times finer than the one she had parted with. She purchased fresh herbs and a cut of venison, little luxuries she normally wouldn’t dare dream of. And still, despite the weight of her replenished baskets, one solid silver coin remained.

  Wren made quick time of the walk back home. She sauntered through the front gate, a smile playing about her lips. It slipped as she heard a noise from the back room. Wren settled her baskets on the table and scooped a ladleful of water, which she carried carefully to her father.

  She inched the door open slowly, drops of water falling on her boots. “Papa?”

  He made a soft sound, his lips curling into a weak smile. Wren helped him sit up, tipped the ladle gently toward his parched lips. Several drops dribbled down his chin.

  “There’s my little bird,” he said, his voice a thick whisper. His skin was slick with sweat, his hair grayer even than it had been that morning, fading into shocks of white near his temples. He looked a fright. But he recognized her. His mind was still his own. Wren exhaled a soft sigh of relief.

  Her father put a hand on her cheek, his skin flaky and paper-thin. “You know I’d be lost without you. Dead, even.” He tried to grin, but it was more like a grimace.

  “Don’t say that,” she whispered, her tongue stale. “You always say that. You’re going to be fine.” She removed his hand and settled it back at his side under the heavy pile of rough wool blankets. “I’ll make you a broth.”

  “Damn the broth,” he said, his grimace widening. Wren faked a laugh, though they both knew he could stomach little else.

  “Sleep,” she commanded, and it was testament to her father’s frailty that he didn’t even try to fight her.

  She slipped back into the main room and put water, turkey bones, and herbs in a pot to boil. She hung the empty baskets on their hooks near the door, then folded the tea towels and tucked them safely back into their cupboard.

  Once everything was in its plac
e, Wren pulled a chair in front of the fireplace, using it to reach the brown jug on the top of the mantel. The jug was innocuous and plain, like Wren herself. The most unlikely place to hide something valuable.

  Wren glanced warily at the door to her father’s room. He knew nothing about the meager savings she had scraped together, the meals she’d skipped in order to hear the satisfying clink of coins. The hens were old. They couldn’t lay eggs forever. Wren needed a backup plan.

  She uncorked the jug and let the coins spill out onto the worn wooden table. She sorted them into piles—several copper, two brass, and one precious gold, already reserved for the tax collectors come autumn.

  Still, there was so much she could do with this money. She could pocket it and run off to a new life. There was enough to serve her until she got on her feet, found a job and a room with a proper bed. Perhaps she could even go to the Witchlands and finally learn everything about magic. About who she was.

  Wren turned Tamsin’s coin over in her hand, soothed by the warmth of it. She had sacrificed everything for her father—her heart, her future, her magic. Surely she was owed something too.

  There was a splutter and a hiss from the hearth. Guiltily, she swept the coins and her daydreams back into their respective hiding places. Her father was all she had left. She couldn’t turn away from him now. Wren sighed as she replaced the jug on the mantel and peeked into the pot. She was back to the bleak reality of her life. The water had begun to boil.

  THREE TAMSIN

  No one had called on Tamsin in four days.

  Her mornings bled into afternoons that melted into evenings like fire turned to embers turned to dust. Her fingers itched to work. Panic flared in her chest, rising higher each day her door went without a knock. Her store of love continued to wane.

  Thanks to the rapid spread of the plague, she feared it might never be refilled.

  Tamsin tried to distract herself. She stared at the walls, searching for shapes in the discolored stones: a cloud above the hearth, an ear of corn by the crack near the window, and a tiny dog next to the door that was visible only when she turned her head and squinted so hard she could feel it in her brain.

  Tamsin took a needle to several hole-ridden pairs of thick woolen socks. She told herself that she wore through socks so quickly it wasn’t worth using magic to mend them. She didn’t need to battle hiccups every time her big toe forced its way through the worn wool.

  But of course that wasn’t the whole truth.

  After her banishment, Tamsin’s relationship with her power had changed. Gone were the days of fulfilling every whim with the flick of her wrist. No longer did she flaunt her prowess or push her abilities to their limits. This Tamsin no longer trusted her instincts. This Tamsin no longer deserved the convenience her talent provided. Not when she was living and Marlena was dead.

  The needle plunged itself into the thin skin beneath her fingernail as though in confirmation.

  Putting her darning aside, Tamsin used a long iron poker to stoke the fading flames in the fireplace. She was nearly out of firewood, running low on supplies and sustenance. She glanced at the basket she had taken to market five days earlier. There was nothing left inside save a head of pale green cabbage and a single brown-speckled egg.

  It was hardly enough to feed a child, yet Tamsin could not be bothered to venture back to the town’s square to fill her pantry. Not when the townspeople’s opinion of witches had shifted so dramatically. She had gone from being tentatively trusted to fully vilified. Hated, even.

  Their whispers had trailed Tamsin home from the market, pushing against her throat like a cloak tied too tight. In the days that followed, their accusations began to root themselves into the walls of her cottage, carving out spaces between the loose stones, swirling beneath the boiling kettle, nestling themselves atop her worn gray rug until Tamsin felt she had always lived with their words.

  Her fault, this dark magic. She’s dangerous. Evil. Steer clear of the witch.

  Tamsin had heard similar sentiments before. Only then she had actually deserved them.

  Now she was alone, trapped within the confines of her hut. Each day that she went without a visitor, the walls seemed a little bit closer, the roof a little bit lower. Her house was closing in around her, inch by inch. Soon she would no longer be able to move. Soon she might actually be as useless as she felt.

  A light rain began to fall, tapping a steady beat against the roof of the hut, pattering softly against the wooden shutters barring the window. Tamsin sat, stoic and silent. Once, the sound of rain had been comforting, had given her a clear mind and a sense of peace. But now it was just water, falling from the sky, hitting her house. A sound and nothing more.

  Tamsin reached for the shawl draped across the back of her chair and wrapped it tightly around her shoulders. She cleared her throat, the sound sticking. She wished she had someone to talk to.

  She’d had someone, once. Leya, with her big eyes, was a source: a girl made of pure magic. But Tamsin could not remember her best friend’s laugh or the heat of her hand in Tamsin’s as they snuck out of the dorms to lie in the long grass and stare up at the stars. She could, however, recall the way her heart had broken as Leya shouted at her retreating back: “You’re going to regret this.”

  As usual, Leya had been right.

  Her throat grew tight with the memory. Tamsin reached for her jug of water, hoping to rinse the sour taste from her mouth. Instead her fingers grazed something soft. Her hand closed around a black leather-bound book.

  One that had definitely not been there moments before.

  Tamsin flung it across the room as though it were on fire. The book skittered and stopped, landing open to a creamy white page covered with loopy handwriting. Heart hammering, she grabbed the iron poker from the hearth and approached the book like it was a feral creature she was trying to tame. She kept her eyes carefully averted from the words scrawled across the pages.

  Tamsin nudged the book with the sharp end of the poker. It did not jump to life, did not leap forward to attack. For all intents and purposes, it appeared to be nothing more than a book.

  But it was more.

  This diary had lived buried at the bottom of Tamsin’s cupboard for nearly five years. It had taken the journey from Within to Ladaugh tucked into the waistband of Tamsin’s travel skirt, the only relic from her old life. Never once had she peered at its pages. Never once had she taken it from its hiding place.

  Yet here it was before her, laid out like a curse.

  Tamsin backed away from the diary slowly, reaching for a tea towel. Once she had it in hand, she sucked in a shaking breath, then lunged for the book, using the cloth to fling it into the cupboard. She slammed the doors shut and leaned back against the wood, trying to catch her breath.

  The sour taste of grief had been replaced by a dry-tongued sense of discomfort. Tamsin’s cottage had an order; everything had a place. Then again, she had gone four days without human contact. She was starting to feel suffocated. Maybe she had taken out the diary and merely… forgotten.

  Tamsin rubbed the back of her neck nervously. That couldn’t be the case—she hadn’t touched the diary in years. Whatever was happening, Tamsin was not the one instigating it.

  It was raining harder now, the water falling with a hiss, then a crackle. Tamsin glanced idly at her fireplace, expecting a shower of sparks as a flame devoured the log. But the fire had faded to embers. The hearth sat dark and empty.

  That was when she noticed the glow. The sky had gone a sickly brownish green, and a thick, sharp scent pooled in Tamsin’s nostrils, all putrid ash and burning spice.

  She was tempted to close the shutters, brew herself a sleeping draught, and go to bed. She was fairly certain she was having delusions. Perhaps she hadn’t had enough to eat.

  Then she saw the smoke coming from her herb garden. Flames devoured her carefully cultivated plants—tiny leaves of basil, frail fronds of rosemary, thin tendrils of dill. Tamsin rubbed her eyes qu
ickly, but the scene didn’t change. She stared, bewildered, wondering if this misunderstanding was part of her delusion too.

  It was raining. Nothing was supposed to be on fire.

  Tamsin, who had been gripping the sill so tightly that the tips of her fingers had gone a ghostly white, pried herself away from the window and ran to the door. Fury flooded her, filling the empty cavern in her chest.

  She had invested so much time in her garden, had nursed the tiny seedlings into full-fledged plants, had watched them take root and explode across the once-barren soil. While she couldn’t enjoy their scents or notice the subtle flavor they imparted in her food, she had made them, had tended to the little plants the way she wasn’t allowed to tend to her own heart, to her memories, to the people she had once loved and then lost.

  They were only plants, but the garden was all she had.

  Tamsin’s fingers fumbled unsteadily with the lock, the metal bar sticking unhelpfully, before she finally managed to pry it open with a grimace-inducing scrape.

  Giant droplets of rain plummeted to the ground, turning the long summer grass a singed brown that reeked of death. The sky was darker now, inky and ominous.

  There was a creak, then a terrible groan as Tamsin’s fence shattered. One of the wooden fence posts toppled onto her patch of chamomile. She rushed out into her garden only for the rain to turn its violence on her—burning holes into the hem of her skirt, sizzling the ends of her hair, and leaving droplet-size blisters on her skin. She tried to cover her face with her arm, but the pain soon grew too much to bear. Reluctantly, she retreated to the safety of her cottage and its slate-shingled roof, while the heavy rain continued to eat away at the earth.

  She settled herself shakily on her too-firm bedroll, rubbing camphor on the angry red welts. She had scoffed when she overheard the tailor tell the butcher how the ground in Farn had opened up, swallowing its citizens whole. But now it was undeniably clear: The plague had been cast using dark magic.