Sweet & Bitter Magic

by Adrienne Tooley

  “That’s none of your concern,” Tamsin said sharply.

  “Of course it is.”

  But the witch had turned away from Wren. Tamsin grabbed a broom and began to sweep the white-petaled flowers from the floor into the hearth.

  “If I don’t love him, no one will.” Wren’s voice was weak with the truth of it.

  “If we fail, I hardly think that will matter much.” The broom bristled against the stone hearth. “The dead can’t love you back.”

  Wren recoiled as though she’d been slapped. Tamsin spoke of death so casually. Wren had been taught to fear it, but it sounded as though Tamsin and death were old friends. It sent a shiver down Wren’s spine.

  “You’re a monster,” she breathed. The witch’s shoulders tensed. But when she turned, she did not speak, just stared at Wren with her endless dark eyes.

  Wren needed a moment away from the cottage, its consequences, and its dizzying array of magic. She wanted to exhale without her breath disrupting the swirling earth-red ribbons that hung about Tamsin. There were puddles of power all around the cottage that felt like sinking into quicksand. Her head was heavy with the impossibility of the witch’s asking price. It was all too much.

  Tamsin clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth but said nothing.

  Wren moved to the door, desperate for a lungful of air that didn’t taste like Tamsin’s particular brand of magic—the bright, bitter bite of fresh herbs. She needed to go back to the safety of her home, to the comfort of knowing that her feelings were her own. Wren had been wrong to come to the witch. To try anything other than what she had always known.

  “Good-bye, then,” she said, manners winning out despite herself.

  Wren thought she saw something like relief flash across Tamsin’s face as she closed the door behind her.

  * * *

  The cat was back, mewling for milk. “Sorry, friend.” Wren moved to pet his silky head. “I’ve nothing to give.” The cat hissed, and the fur on his back stood up straight. His yellow eyes stared at her suspiciously.

  “It’s okay,” Wren said softly, holding her hand in front of her. “It’s only me. It’s all right.” She reached slowly for the stray, but his paw met her hand in midair, slicing sharp red scratches on her palm. He hissed again before backing slowly, guardedly, away. Wren watched in horror as dark magic clung to his retreating figure like a shadow.

  Another victim of the plague. Another of her sacrifices forgotten.

  Wren glanced up at the cloud of magic that clung to the cottage’s roof, the color as dark as tar, the scent nearly as terrible. It was worse than it had been earlier, which meant her father must be worse too. Wren opened the front door, her heart braced for a terrible sight.

  Her father stood at the table, slicing an onion with his pocketknife. He was engrossed in his work, his brow furrowed familiarly with concentration. Wren hadn’t seen him focused in quite some time. She hadn’t seen him standing in even longer.

  The door swung shut with a slam. Her father looked up, a mildly perplexed expression sweeping across his face.

  “Oh, hello.” He offered his daughter a hesitant smile.

  Wren nearly collapsed with relief. Her father looked better than he had in years. He had color in his cheeks. His movements were steady and sure.

  And to think there had been a moment when she had almost said yes to Tamsin. Wren bit back a laugh. She had been overreacting. Again. She didn’t need the witch. Didn’t need her sour expression or her impossible demands. Wren had a handle on the situation. Her father was going to be fine.

  She slumped against the door frame and began to unlace her boots. She had walked the distance of two towns and back. Her feet were killing her.

  “Can I help you?”

  Wren stopped, hand still tangled in her laces. Her father’s smile had slipped into a wary grimace. “It’s me.” She spoke softly, fighting the muscles in her face, forcing a smile that made her cheeks burn with effort.

  Her father’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you are.”

  Wren’s heart skipped a beat. Her whole body silenced for one moment of searing white-hot pain. She had been prepared for her father to call her by her mother’s name. She hadn’t been ready for him to forget them both.

  “I…” But it didn’t matter what she said, so Wren closed her mouth. She stood on the threshold of their small cottage, looking at the little life they had maintained. At the father who had convinced her that family was the ultimate end.

  Without you, I do not think I would survive.

  But now that he no longer carried the memory of his dead wife and his lost son, suddenly he was not bedridden by his grief. Without the memory of Wren, the daughter who attended to his every need, he was finally able to stand on his own two feet.

  Still, Wren knew, he would not be well for long. Dark magic swirled about the small room. It had claimed his memory. It was only a matter of time before her father fell victim to the plague’s physical consequences as well.

  Wren bit back a scream. She tugged sharply at the end of her braid, pulling until her head ached. She needed to think. She had to find a way around this.

  Her eyes landed on her patchwork bedroll in the corner. She could tell her father she was the cleaning girl. She could secure herself a place in her home, could tend to the daily tasks of cleaning and cooking and caretaking without raising his suspicion.

  Wren could continue to carry the weight of the household, of her father’s emotional well-being. She could continue to sacrifice, all while playing the role of a serving girl. Perhaps as time went on, her father would warm to her. Maybe one day even come to think of her like a daughter.

  The thought caught in Wren’s throat. Her father did not know her, which meant he could not love her. He could not lean on his love for a person who did not exist.

  Oh.

  That was it, then, wasn’t it? What the witch had been trying to tell her. It didn’t matter how much she loved her father if the plague claimed his life the way it had already claimed his memory. Wren could hold as tightly as she wanted to her love for him, could claim it was all that she was, but that identity would no longer exist if her father did not survive.

  There was no other way. For her sacrifices to matter, Wren had to give up the one thing she held dearest. Love had driven her every step of her seventeen years, so love would guide her again, until it no longer could.

  Wren sighed, steeling herself. The answer was so clear as to be inevitable. It was hardly a choice at all. If her father no longer knew her, there was no place for her here.

  Which meant she was free to go.

  Free.

  What a strange concept, after dreaming of the word for so many years. It almost meant nothing, so great were the possibilities it encompassed.

  But then her eyes met the furrowed brow of her father, and she feared she might be sick. It was easy to speculate. It was another thing to do.

  “Forgive me.” Wren cleared her throat, pitching her voice down, in hopes she would sound more certain than she felt. “Let me introduce myself.” She took a careful step back to give her father space.

  Her eyes darted around the room. If she was going to travel with Tamsin to the Witchlands, she needed a way to get her things from the cottage without her father thinking her a thief.

  “I am here to collect your taxes.” Her voice came out in a rush, the words crashing into one another. She took a shaky, steadying breath. “Our records show you have been ill. While we were generous enough to let you defer, we are no longer able to extend that courtesy. Your payment is now drastically overdue.”

  Her father’s face paled. He still knew what taxes were, at least, though that knowledge did not make Wren feel better in the slightest.

  “I…” His eyes glanced helplessly around the room. He knew nothing about the stash of savings Wren had scraped together. “I have nothing to offer you. No food in my cupboard save this onion.” His hands were shak
ing. Wren’s heart was breaking. She wasn’t going to be able to do this if she felt, so Wren conjured up the image of the most unfeeling person she knew and tried to emulate Tamsin.

  She sniffed, drawing herself up to her full height. “In that case, I will take some of your belongings, items valued high enough to ease your debt. I trust you will not fight me on this. Queen Mathilde does not look kindly upon those who shirk their duties.”

  Her father ran a hand across the back of his neck. “I, uh, suppose that will be fine.”

  Wren nodded and moved deliberately around the room, trying to look at objects that featured in her earliest memories as though they were brand-new. She hemmed over a chair her father had built and hawed over the rug her mother had made, keeping her father’s worried face always in her line of sight. Once she was certain she knew what she needed, Wren asked him to point her to a burlap sack.

  Wren filled the bag quickly. She had very few things: an extra pair of trousers, two clean shirts, a needle, thread, thick socks, a length of rope, undergarments, rags for her monthlies, and an embroidered tea towel. She saved the jug for last, her eyes scanning the mantel as though arbitrarily. After a moment of staged contemplation, Wren managed to shrug and sigh loftily.

  “I suppose this will do,” she said, plucking it from its place and feigning surprise as its contents jangled. She moved swiftly to the table, where she shook out the coins, letting them clatter heavily onto the table. She began to separate the coins into two piles.

  Her father’s eyes were as wide as saucers. He gaped down at the table as though he had never before seen so much money in one place.

  In that moment, Wren understood that her father had never truly known the lengths she had gone to for him—the sleepless nights, her empty belly, the magic flowing uselessly through her veins. She didn’t know if the lurch in her stomach was from pride or sadness.

  “These”—she pushed the first, larger pile toward the end of the table—“are to be reserved for our next collection.” The true tax collectors were due in less than a season. It pained Wren to realize that she did not know if she would be back by then. When she no longer loved her father, would she feel any duty to return?

  “And these,” Wren said, hurriedly pocketing the smaller pile of coins, “ease the rest of your debt.” She kept her head down as she tied the sack up with a tight knot and hauled it over her shoulder.

  As she moved toward the door, her eyes fell on her father’s boots. They were exactly where she’d left them those few mornings ago, when her greatest fear had been nothing more than a fever. Wren glanced down at her own ragged boots, then over to her father. The cloud above him was growing larger. Soon he would hardly remember how to tie his laces. He wouldn’t need the boots. She did.

  “One last thing.” Wren smiled broadly, apologetically, as she gathered up the boots. “There we are.” Her eyes lingered on her father’s face.

  “Good-bye,” she whispered.

  Her father raised a hand in a halfhearted wave.

  “I love you.”

  Wren knew her words would confuse him, knew they would run right through him, but she needed to say them, needed to speak them one last time while they were still true.

  For one brief moment, their eyes met. The emptiness of her father’s expression broke Wren’s heart into a million pieces.

  She was out the door before he could respond, stopping only at the gate to pull off her sorry excuse for boots and step into her father’s worn yet sturdy pair. Wren laced them as tightly as they would go. They were several sizes too big, but with a bit of padding they would surely suffice.

  She left her own dilapidated pair hanging from the gate, their broken soles the only remaining proof that she had ever been there at all.

  She set off back toward Ladaugh, her load much heavier than before. She moved the sack to the other shoulder, the jangle of coins in her pocket reminding her she still had unfinished business.

  Wren might have been leaving her father behind, but that didn’t mean she was leaving him alone.

  She pushed open the door to the tailor’s shop, grateful to find it empty, save for Tor, who was poring over numbers at a desk in the back. He looked surprised to see her. Wren couldn’t blame him. She had been repairing her own clothes for so long she could hardly remember the last time she’d purchased anything new.

  “I have a favor to ask,” Wren said, in lieu of a greeting.

  The old man peered at her curiously. “Go on, then.”

  Wren dropped her sack with a soft thump. “My father has become afflicted. I have to leave town, but I need to be sure he’s taken care of. Fed, hydrated, kept inside so he doesn’t hurt himself.”

  Anger flashed in Tor’s eyes. “You’re a sweet girl, but surely you can’t be asking me to put myself in that kind of danger.”

  Wren looked desperately at him. “You don’t have to go inside. Just leave some food on the step, knock on the door, and run.”

  She pulled her hand from her pocket and dropped a mess of coins onto his desk. They clattered wildly. A copper farthing rolled to the floor. Wren stopped it with her foot.

  “Please, Tor.” She pressed the rogue coin onto the desk with a sharp clink.

  Tor did not look away.

  “Please.”

  “And where are you going, then?” When the tailor finally spoke, Wren knew it was as close to an agreement as she was likely to get.

  “You wouldn’t believe me,” Wren said quietly. “Please”—she bent down to retie her bag—“take care of him. He needs someone.”

  The tailor let out a long, low sigh. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll do all I can until I’m unable.”

  Wren had half a mind to throw her arms around the man, but she refrained. “Thank you,” she said instead, and hoped it was enough.

  Tor slipped the coins into his pocket and bade her farewell. Wren’s load wasn’t lighter, necessarily, but it felt more manageable.

  * * *

  Wren didn’t bother to knock. She simply barged into the witch’s hut and dumped her sack by the door, startling Tamsin so intensely that she fell from a kitchen chair to the floor with a loud thump.

  “Okay.”

  The witch’s face flashed with surprise. “Okay what?”

  “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll pay you in love.”

  “I thought I was a monster.” Tamsin was back on her feet, one hand on her hip, her eyebrow cocked in challenge.

  Wren’s cheeks burned. She had spoken rashly, let her anger get the better of her. What if the witch had been so insulted that she refused to accept?

  “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to choose her words carefully. “I shouldn’t have… I wasn’t…” Tamsin watched her struggle, eyebrow raised. Wren finally let herself lapse into silence. The room was quiet, save for the crackle of the fire.

  “Fine.” There was a flicker of something frantic behind the witch’s eyes. Excitement and fear fought a battle to claim her expression. It made Wren anxious. Apprehensive. Still, the word offered a welcome relief from the suffocating silence between them.

  “Give me your hand.” Tamsin extended her own, displaying a long palm and thin fingers.

  Wren stepped back, cradling her hands near her heart. “Why?”

  “I don’t work until my payment is received. You pay me with love; I accompany you on your hunt. Get it?” She gave Wren a withering look, as though she thought perhaps she didn’t understand.

  Wren shook her head sharply. “If I give you my love now, I’ll no longer have motivation to end the plague. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Tamsin scowled. “I don’t see how that’s my problem.”

  “If you want my love for my father, it is your problem.” Wren was bluffing. She needed Tamsin much more than the witch needed her.

  “I don’t like problems,” Tamsin said. “No deal.” She turned away, her spine rigid. “I am paid in advance, or not at all.”

  Wren’s heart sank to her toes. Only mom
ents ago, the girl’s eyes had gleamed hungrily. Now she was refusing. Still, there was something desperate lingering in the crack of her voice.

  “What if I gave you a taste?” Wren took an inadvertent step forward. The witch spun on her heel to face her again. “Just a little bit,” she clarified quickly. “So you know I’m good for it. Would that work?”

  Wren had already resigned herself to this fate. So what if it came a bit sooner than she had expected?

  The witch closed the distance between them in one swift stride. Tamsin wrapped her clawlike fingers around Wren’s wrist tightly. “Think of him,” she demanded.

  Wren did. She conjured the image of her father, his smile, his eyes crinkled in the corners, his swoop of tawny hair patched with gray. And as Wren thought, she felt a tug right behind her heart. Just as when the two had first touched, Wren felt something inside her flowing toward the witch, like Wren was a river that opened up to Tamsin’s sea.

  “What are you doing?” Wren tried to pull away, but Tamsin only held on harder. Wren caught a whiff of fresh herbs, felt the tickle of a summer breeze upon the back of her neck, despite the fact that the cottage was quite sealed to the outside world.

  The witch’s features changed. A smile floated gently across her face—a very nice face, Wren had to admit begrudgingly, when it wasn’t tensed in a scowl. Tamsin looked younger. Friendlier. Freer.

  “Focus,” the witch nudged gently, and Wren returned to the image of her father. His smile, his hair mottled with gray. His eyes.

  What color were his eyes?

  “Stop!” she shrieked, wrenching her arm out of the witch’s grasp. If the witch held on any longer, Wren feared she would lose the ability to picture her father’s face entirely.

  The moment she broke contact, Tamsin’s expression changed, her smile slipping into a sneer. The soft, gentle person was gone, as if she had been a ghost. A mirage of a girl. It was as though that version of Tamsin had never existed at all.

  “What now?” The witch’s voice was impatient, the rosy glow fading quickly from her cheeks.