“You’re really getting the hang of this. By spring, we could probably double the pies I sell at the farmers market with your help.” Mirabelle smirked.
“Am I going to get a cut of that?” She joked.
“How about I will continue letting you live rent free and flirt with the neighbor boy whenever you like? And maybe by spring look the other way while you have crazy, passionate premarital sex with him?” Anona retorted, brushing the flour off her hands.
“Sounds like a deal.”
October was cooler than September, windier than September, and eerier than September. Picturesque clouds were stuck in the sky, large gray-white puffs, whipping around in place with a gorgeous backdrop of a cobalt sky. The maples and wild trees that made up the woods were a mix of bright reds, vibrant yellows, and pulsing oranges. Mirabelle picked the last of the apples of the season on cool, clear sky days with Matthew and Michael. Michael was at school most of the time, but Matthew still came everyday. There wasn’t as much work to be done, but he helped Anona prepare for her syrup harvest in the late winter. He spent hours cleaning out old glass bottles that she could fill. He helped with the sheep, getting brambles out of their thickening wool, and even chased the dogs around to make sure they were tired out by nightfall. Matthew fixed everything that needed fixing, the door on the barn, the side view mirror on the truck, and little by little, Mirabelle’s trust in those of the male sex.
“You’re here a lot.” Mirabelle said when she and Matthew were on the porch. Matthew was fixing the swing that squeaked and Mirabelle was peeling butternut squash for the soup she was going to make for dinner.
“I work here.” Matthew answered, keeping his eyes on the swing.
“Yeah, but you know, like you stay for dinner and stuff. And your mom and Michael come over, too.” Matthew stopped.
“Are you questioning or commenting?” Mirabelle shook her head.
“I guess I am just surprised that when Anona asks you to stay, you never have an excuse like, oh I’ve got plans with some friends, or I am taking a girl out to dinner.”
“Well, I don’t usually take girls out to dinner. If you have not noticed, it is pretty secluded here and I don’t get the chance to meet a lot of new girls here. There are two other girls within five years of my age. One is Anona, my employer, the other is this girl Sarah, who I did take out on a date and it did not go well.” He smiled. “As for the friends, my friends, along with all the girls I knew, went off to school two years ago. I see them sometimes on breaks or over the summer, but our lives are pretty different.” Mirabelle put down the squash and leaned back.
“How so?” She asked.
“I don’t have a lot to contribute when they start talking about how smashed they got over the past weekend or how many girls they’ve hooked up with who remain nameless to them. What do I say? Well, I work my fingers to the bone between Anona’s farm and ours helping my mom pay the mortgage so we don’t lose our house or our land ‘cause its something we have left of my dad that he really loved.” Matthew paused. “Though, I guess now I could say Anona’s younger sister moved to town and she is cool to hang out with. But has a terrible singing voice when picking apples.” Mirabelle rolled her eyes. She had joined in the singing perhaps twice, and very quietly.
“Well that is the pot calling the kettle black if I ever heard it!” Matthew smiled big.
“You love it when I sing. I sound like Frank Sinatra.”
“Ha,” Mirabelle snorted. “You sound like someone who thinks they sound like Frank Sinatra when they are drunk.” That made Matthew laugh, loudly. The wind whipped quickly past them, twisting across the porch. Mirabelle’s hair flew across her face as the presence of fall settled over the two of them.
“Here it comes.” Matthew said quietly. Mirabelle turned.
“Here comes what?”
“Autumn.” Matthew paused.
Like September, October had some very bustling Fridays preparing for the Saturday farmers’ markets. Anona explained to Mirabelle that the last few outdoor markets are the craziest; people suddenly realize that it will soon be too cold to wander among the produce stalls and want to buy up all the freshness they can. Once November hit and the outdoor markets closed, Anona switched to the less frequent indoor markets and a few special festivals.
“You are going to be making pumpkin pie around the clock.” Anona announced after returning from the first October market. “I ran out at 10 am, three hours before the market closed. We need to make a lot more for next week.”
“I made 15 pumpkin pies last week.” Mirabelle bemoaned. “How many am I supposed to make this week?”
“At least thirty,” Anona was emptying her grocery bag. They grew most things on this farm, but sugar, milk, and many exotic spices were purchased. She also pulled out about seventy-five pie tins.
“Tell me those are for more than one week.” Mirabelle commented.
“Nope. Time to go get every ripe pumpkin out of the patch. We are going to need to bake and puree everything tonight and tomorrow so we can make pies the rest of the week.” Ah, Saturday nights with Anona: baking and gutting pumpkins with a prompt bedtime of ten pm.
“Do you ever relax?” Mirabelle asked as she noticed she was sweating carrying the pumpkins in, even though it was a cool 47 degrees out once the sun went down.
“I relax pretty much all of December and January. Two months of very little doing are enough for the whole year for me.” Anona cut the pumpkins in half with her huge cleaver, setting them flesh down on baking sheets. “I was thinking, we should go home December twenty-second until January tenth.”
“You don’t want to go a little earlier?” Mirie had planned to get some Christmas shopping done back at home. There was hardly a nearby mall to pick up gifts for her siblings and parents.
“December 21st is the Winter Solstice. It’s another one of my off the beaten path holidays.”
“Will I be awoken by a bunch of children in the middle of the night again?” Mirie said, pausing her work. She would like to be prepared if that were to happen again.
“No, no. It will just be us this year. Usually I am by myself.” Anona smiled.
Anona had a date. It was a Saturday night after the Farmer’s Market. She and Sam planned to see a movie after they closed up their stalls, and then have dinner at an Italian restaurant. She would be home around 10 pm. This would be the longest Mirie had ever been alone on the farm. If she were at home, she would have planned to watch an entire season of a show in a day or slept until 4 pm. Alas, her body was too attached to her schedule to sleep past 10 and Anona did not own a tv. There was a laptop they shared, but the Internet access was incredibly unreliable, so Mirabelle became accustomed to a media-free world.
Instead, she decided to tackle Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. It was hardly fun reading, but Mirabelle knew that if she let her mind fall out of the pattern of reading difficult books, next year at college would be extremely trying. She cozied up with her morning tea, and began the process.
By noon, she was tired of James Joyce’s dizzying intellect. His writing was beautiful, but there was also no sight of a coherent plot. Mirabelle resigned herself to waiting until a professor could guide her through the muddled writing, and decided to go for a walk.
The blue October days had been overtaken by a gray sky and cold rainfall. Mirabelle pulled on her ugly sleep away camp raincoat and her adorable blue polka-dotted rain boots, and traipsed out into the weather.
Even in the rain, the farm looked lovely. Autumn had exploded across the farm in the form of colorful leaves, fallen acorns, and decorative pumpkins. The grass managed to look greener than ever despite being a few short weeks away from dormancy. Mirabelle decided to check on the animals. She very rarely visited them; she wasn’t terribly good with animals, but today she thought they might be lonely with Anona gone for so long.
Selkie and Brownie, Anona’s two dogs, slept in the barn with the sheep and goat. They were fr
iendly, outdoor dogs, who Anona claimed much preferred sleeping in the barn than the house. Selkie was a black labrador retriever and Brownie a chocolate lab. Their main purpose was to watch over the farm at night, but they seemed to like napping in soft hay just as much. Because Anona only had three sheep (and never planned to have more the a handful), she didn’t need a herding breed, and these two dogs had been born a few miles away in the same litter.
Today Selkie was out and about, but Brownie greeted Mirabelle at the door. She had been smart enough to grab a few treats for the dogs, as well as some dried fruit for the sheep and goat. Brownie happily accepted his treat, then returned to his nap. The sheep, Lemon, Lime, and Clementine, shifted uncomfortably as Mirabelle entered, knowing she wasn’t Anona, and she wasn’t very comfortable herself. She pulled out some dried apple slices and was immediately confirmed as friend. Elsie, the goat stayed away. Anona had informed her that Elsie was similar to a crotchety old lady. She did not like strangers. She had been specifically annoyed when two years earlier; Anona had tried to breed her. The poor billie got kicked in the face so many times, he finally gave up. The other farmer had politely told Anona Elsie might be an old maid for life.
Once the sheep had relaxed, Mirabelle ran her hands over their thickening coats. Lemon and Lime both had white wool while Clementine had a light brown. Every spring and early fall, Anona sheared off the wool and sent it to be carded and spun, returned back to her perfect for knitting. One day, she hoped to have enough yarn to sell it, but for now, she used it to make birthday and Christmas presents for the neighborhood kids. She promised Mirabelle that by March she would be an expert knitter; Mirabelle was less than convinced.
After an hour or so milling around with the animals, Brownie went from sleeping, to fully awake, alert, and worried. He skittered nervously around the doorway of the barn, giving off half-barks in Mirabelle’s direction.
“What’s wrong?” Mirabelle asked Brownie, trying to peak out of the barn without completely opening the door. “Is it an animal?” Foxes were rare, but skunks did wander on the property on occasion. They were nocturnal, though, so it would be very bad if one were wandering at this time. Mirabelle did not want to get sprayed with a skunk, or deal with a pet that had been sprayed.
Just then, Selkie’s loud barking was heard outside. She was circling the barn, trying to warn the other animals. Suddenly, her barks turned to yelps, and then silent. Now, Mirabelle was terrified. She couldn’t stay trapped in the barn; she didn’t have a cell phone to call Matthew, or the police. Oh god, could a bear wander this far away from the mountains? She looked at Brownie, pacing and clearly distraught by Selkie’s calls.
“We’ll go out together, Brownie. But you have to promise me you will stay by me. I will get us all into the house. Then I can call for help.” She glanced at Lemon, Lime, Clementine, and Elsie, all visibly spooked. “Okay, listen. We’ve got to go together, all of us. Do not run away from me because I will not chase after you. Whatever is out there will get you if we don’t stick together.” She hoped the Hedgie, the cat, had found her way back to the house on her own. She looked back at Brownie. “Protect us, please.” Mirabelle took a deep breath and opened the door. As if they understood every word, Brownie went out in front and the others fell behind in a clump. Mirabelle whipped her head around quickly, looking for something or someone. She saw nothing except Selkie, lying with her paws tucked under her chin, whimpering.
“Come here, Selkie!” Mirabelle called and thankfully she bounded over. With two dogs, three sheep, and one goat, Mirabelle slowly walked towards the house. So far, nothing came out to meet them. She hoped it had been a fox that was now clearly outnumbered and too scared to attack.
“Hey, Mirabelle.” She turned around. It was a man she had never seen before. He had piercing blue eyes and corn silk hair. His clothes were odd; they seemed from a different era that she couldn’t quite place her finger on.
“What are you doing on our property?” She said as sternly as she could muster. How did he know her name? Who was this?
“So many things; enjoying the sights for one.” He walked closer to her, causing both dogs to growl loudly. Mirabelle was fixated on his eyes; they were so blue, but beyond that, they seemed to shimmer.
“Stay away from me, I will sic the dogs on you.” She stated.
“Just introducing myself. I imagine we will be seeing each other quite often now that you are a regular fixture here. Tell your sister I say hello.” He turned and walked towards the woods, disappearing in the tree line. Mirabelle walked backwards all the way to the house, animals in tow. She quickly got everyone into the house, hoping Anona would not be furious, and raced to the landline. She dialed Matthew’s house, the only number she knew.
“Hello?” Matthew answered, thankfully.
“Matthew, it’s Mirie. There is a weird man wandering around the farm. Anona isn’t home, I don’t know how long it would take for the police to get here-”
“I’ll be right there.” The phone disconnected. Mirie stood by the front door, the dogs by her side. The sheep and goat had made themselves comfortable next to the oven. Hedgie eventually made her way back to the house, hardly noticing anything was amiss and had to be bribed inside with treats.
When Matthew drove the pick-up truck straight up to the front porch and ran to the door, she felt a wave of relief. She wasn’t alone anymore. Everything was fine.
“Matthew!” She opened the door.
“Are you all right?” He asked, and then paused as Lime peaked her head around Mirie. “You brought the animals in the house?”
“I couldn’t leave them alone!” She gasped. “I was afraid they would get hurt. Do you think Anona will be mad?”
“No,” he smiled. “But she will probably make you wash the floor.” He petted the sheep, who all loved Matthew. “Let me take them back to the barn. I’ll put Selkie and Brownie with them so they’ll be well-taken care of.”
“Don’t leave me!” Mirabelle exclaimed then felt a little foolish for doing so.
“Come with us. Between you, me, and this pack of animals, I think we are safe.” They took the animals back to the barn. Selkie and Brownie seemed to have lost all their skittish behavior, so Mirabelle felt better about leaving them outside. Then, she and Matthew walked back to the house.
“Do you want to call the police?” Matthew asked, making tea for the pair of them. Mirabelle loved watching him walk around the kitchen, knowing where every thing was kept. There was something very calming about Matthew taking out the tea tins, sugar, and mugs.
“I don’t know. He said, ‘say hi to your sister,’ like he knew Anona.” She thought for a moment, “Anona have any creepy ex-boyfriends?”
“Not that she ever introduced to us. What time is Anona getting back?” Mirabelle looked at the clock. It was only 3 PM. Anona had just gotten out of the Farmer’s Market and was probably about to embark on a very fun date with Sam.
“Late. I don’t want to call her. Can you stay with me?”
“Well, yeah, but she’ll probably want to know that someone was wandering around her property threatening her sister.”
“She’s on a date,” Mirie confessed. “She’s had no social life since I moved here, I don’t want to ruin her first night off.” Matthew smiled.
“All right, I’ll stay. What do you want to do? I’ve never seen a TV here, and though I do enjoy a good book, sitting beside one another reading sounds a little dull.”
Matthew had never played Gin before. Mirabelle had a blast teaching him and then with each hand they played, watching him get better and better.
“So do you like other Greek works?” She asked between hands as Matthew shuffled the cards.
“I do. From age 9 to, well, the present, D’Aurlaire’s Book of Greek Myths has been my constant companion.”
“I love that book!” Mirabelle exclaimed. “I got it for my eleventh birthday. The illustrations are amazing.”
“Yes! That’s really the book
that did it for me, made me fall in love with Greek mythology. One look at the family tree on the first page and I was a goner.” Matthew confessed.
“For me it was the page on Selene. I had already read a few Greek mythology books, but I had never heard of her. The beautiful sprawling black-and-white drawing of her moonlight spilling over the love of her life…” Mirabelle smiled. “This eleven year old was in love.” Matthew was just across the table. She could walk around to his side, work her way into his lap, and see where it went. But she remembered what Anona had said about Matthew and decided instead to hope for a kiss goodnight.
They made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, and had crusty bread dipped in olive oil like at a restaurant. Mirabelle was a little brave and got out a bottle of wine for them to share.
“How old are you?” Matthew asked as she poured it.
“Are you carding me?” She teased. “I’m almost nineteen. How old are you?”
“Twenty.” He replied quickly. “I don’t want Anona to think I tried to get you drunk when she was out.”
“Trust me, she would be more apt to thinking that I had tried to get you drunk while she was out. Plus, I was planning on having one glass with dinner. That’s not enough to get me drunk.” She smirked.
“Me neither,” he answered with his eyebrow raised.
“Now, if I chugged that entire bottle, got hammered, and started running around the farm naked, then Anona would probably be mad at you.” Mirie said, laughing.
“Please don’t do that.” Matthew asked.
“Why not?” She pressed. She had been hoping that the image of her running naked through the farm might spark something in him.
“Because I would probably lose my job, and one of the few friends I have living within twenty miles of here.”
“I guess I can hold myself back to just the one glass of wine.” After dinner, Mirabelle cleaned up while Matthew took out the garbage and went to check on the animals. Hours with another human had quelled her fears of the mysterious man enough to be alone in front of the kitchen sink.
Welcome to Witchhood (Sister Witches Book 1) Page 5
