by R. Cooper
But on that note, as if he had explained himself enough already, Bartleby sighed and headed for the door. The candles snuffed themselves out behind him as he went, just as the fire in the fireplace quieted and died the moment Bartleby opened the front door. The wind was mournful.
“See you later, Elysia,” Bartleby called out, then turned and met Piotr’s eyes. They were standing close, perhaps closer than he’d expected, because Bartleby seemed surprised once again. “You’ll call me?” he whispered, his short, wine-colored nails pressed to his mouth. As if he was nervous, he didn’t wait for an answer or whatever else he might have been expecting from Piotr. “It’s not a problem for me to be here,” he insisted, as soft as the push of his fingertips against his painted bottom lip. Then he spun away to skip across the empty porch and down the steps to the street.
He was in his truck before Piotr closed the door.
Without the fire, a cold draft from the parlor made Piotr shiver. He glared in the general direction of what might have a shadow, where there shouldn’t have been a shadow.
“I’ll call some of the coven tomorrow,” Piotr assured her. “If they’re worried about me, I’ll let them know I’m fine. Then there will be no need to bother him, or to waste time with a bored familiar.”
A scornful “c-r-ruk” came from the kitchen. The curtains over the front parlor windows twitched in disdain. Then the clock resumed its ticking.
~~
Piotr did as he’d promised his great aunt, because, as he’d learned as a child, one did not break promises to one’s rebellious, suffragist great aunt who had died of the influenza she was rumored to have caught from one of her many soldier lovers. For a spirit, she could be vindictive, and she would be strong this time of year.
So he called Mrs. Proctor and Alison Pruitt, and emailed Dr. Jamieson, who was probably at work at the junior college in Trinity Creek, the next town over. Trinity Creek was also the location of the organic grocery store and seller of local fine wines that the Dorchesters owned. Piotr had debated for an hour while cleaning up the garden from the wind damage the night before, then called the store to assure Mr. Dorchester that everything was on schedule, that he didn’t need anything, and in fact had taken a day off to go buy the pumpkins he would use.
He checked on the cider, stacked in crates in a back room that had probably been a servant’s quarters in some previous century. As he cleaned garden dirt from his hands, he decided that he’d pack some of the cider and mark it especially for Bartleby, to thank him. But he didn’t need any help, and Bartleby wouldn’t want to be there anyway.
The offering should appease both dead witches and living familiars. And if Bartleby saw any meaning in such a gift, at least he would be kind about it and understand why Piotr had stayed away.
The decision should have calmed him, but the resounding silence of the house drove Piotr outside before noon. He locked the door, then froze on the porch as a battered Dorchester Grocery pickup truck pulled up at the curb in front of his house.
The cats and one dog on his porch scattered like leaves in the wind.
Piotr watched Bartleby drag in a deep breath, then unhook his seatbelt and kick open the driver’s side door. Bartleby glanced up at Piotr, extremely unimpressed with him, judging from his expression, but then turned and picked up a cardboard drink carrier with two paper cups in it.
Piotr fought the need to duck his head in apology.
Bartleby kicked the door shut in the same way he’d opened it, then swept forward. He was wearing overalls, and a tight, much too small t-shirt that read Dorchester Grocery across the front. He’d put on his red trenchcoat, as well as a scarf, which he hadn’t knotted. His throat and part of his chest were exposed. He’d driven with the windows down, and his hair was a mess. But he turned his face up into the noon sun as he walked, like a living flower.
He came level with Piotr before stopping. Piotr was wearing jeans and a sweater, black this time. His scarf had color, or at least it was white and gold. Bartleby’s mother had given it to him as a birthday gift last year. Bartleby considered it, and Piotr, with wide eyes. His gaze lingered on Piotr’s chest, and then his shoulders, before he caught his breath and met Piotr’s stare.
He held up the tray, and waited.
Piotr supposed Mr. Dorchester had told his son about his plans, although he didn’t know why Bartleby would make this sort of effort, except stubbornness. He thought about asking if Bartleby was missing work for this, but then held his tongue and gave in.
“Okay.” Piotr agreed. “Okay. If you really want to do this.”
“There has to be a reason you enjoy it so much.” Bartleby studied him. “And to be honest, a pumpkin patch sounds adorable. At the store the pumpkins are in a bin with some hay. Not nearly as cute, I admit, which might be why you don’t simply ask for some from us. But whatever the reason, you won’t, and I daren’t mention hay with you around, so.” He left this unfinished as he insistently held the tray beneath Piotr’s nose. “It’s not going to kill you to bring a friend with you to pick out pumpkins, is it?”
Piotr startled a bit at ‘friend.’ He might have used that word to describe them if he were talking to an outsider, or to Kelly at work if ever saw them together. In a way they were friends, albeit friends who didn’t talk regularly, who only saw each other a few times a year despite living about twenty minutes apart. They weren’t family, precisely, but they knew about each other. For example, Piotr knew Bartleby had never had a serious relationship, that the nature of what he was interfered. No one wanted a boyfriend who would be just as devoted, if not more devoted, to his chosen witch as he was to them.
He and Bartleby stood next to each other during ceremonies, but usually without exchanging a word. Piotr only knew what he knew because the others had passed on the information. He hadn’t hung out with Bartleby just to spend time with him since their early twenties, and that Samhain when Bartleby had drunk too much spiced cider.
“Are we friends, Bartleby?” he asked. The words hung in the air, almost visible, and then he watched them hit Bartleby like a curse.
Bartleby closed his eyes, then opened them. They were ordinary brown with his face turned from the sun. “Oh, I get it. Is that what this has been about? A familiar isn’t worth your time? I’m not powerful enough to be seen with you? Or, what? I’ll leave you the second some mightier witch comes along? I don’t need this, Piotr. Not from you.” His anger was fierce and soft, stinging like kitten’s claws.
Piotr reached out without thinking and closed his hand around Bartleby’s sleeve. “That’s not what I meant.”
Bartleby practically hissed at him as he jerked his arm away. “Then what did you mean?”
Piotr gestured, at what, he couldn’t say—the sun, the porch now empty of animals, maybe the lattes. “Do you really want to do this? No matter what the others tell you, you don’t have to spend time with me. I’m not going to lose myself to loneliness. I’m powerful, Bartleby. I’ve accepted being alone. I don’t want you to be here if you’d rather be somewhere else.”
The sound that slipped past Bartleby’s unpainted but still rosy lips was slow and sweet. “Ah,” he said, once, and then again. “Ah. All alone in this big house with only a gruff old woman and a ghost for company. I forgot you need a translator.” He reached for a cup and took a long drink from it, as though his nerves required steadying. He swallowed before speaking. “Piotr, if you want me to go with you, just ask me. No matter how powerful, if you wanted a friend, you only ever had to ask.”
“No.” Piotr scowled and straightened and felt more like a bear on its hide legs than ever. “No,” he repeated himself, and realized he was supremely annoyed, even if he couldn’t have said why. “You’re going. You insisted, which is as good as a vow, so you’re going, and I’m making you carry everything.”
Magic, his mind reminded him. This time of year meant chaos and mischief, and a world where anything could happen.
Bartleby looked like he was havi
ng a similar revelation. He gaped and smiled, then shook his head and closed his open mouth. “Me carry everything?” he protested. It was apparently his sole objection. “But you’re bigger than me.”
Piotr was bigger than him. He had no reason to feel taken aback at the description, to feel acutely and abruptly noticed as he had the first time someone had looked at him with interest.
He stared at Bartleby, the blossoming honeysuckle in his skin, the never-truly-innocent innocence in his eyes, and realized his heart was pounding. “I thought you were here to help me,” he remarked, his voice low and hoarse and much too serious.
Bartleby’s eyes went round with something almost indescribable, except that it was giving and warm. “I am,” he agreed, in the tiniest whisper Piotr had ever heard, like a hummingbird with a secret. Then he blinked. “I am,” he huffed indignantly. “But you can carry your own pumpkins, Mr. Powerful Witch.”
Then he shoved the tray at Piotr’s chest until Piotr accepted it, and sailed down the steps toward the curb.
~~
The sun stayed out, its rays bright if not warm. The sky was pale blue and clear. The air was crisp. This kind of perfect autumn day shouldn’t exist on this coast, and yet for the afternoon, the trees were orange and fiery red, and the brisk wind made every face shiny.
Fallen leaves were underfoot, along with loose hay, which had made Piotr shoot Bartleby an expectant look, but Bartleby hadn’t had a thing to say about the hay bales used to display the pumpkins. Perhaps he was too busy darting around like a puppy off its leash for the first time.
The pumpkin patch had slides and a petting zoo with goats, clearly for children, but Piotr and Bartleby had come here during school hours so the only children around were the very young. Bartleby had stopped at the fence to watch the toddlers as they either petted the greedy creatures or cried and ran from them. He made stern faces at the billy goat that had wandered over to peer at Piotr.
When the dog that must have belonged to one of the patch employees came over to Piotr for attention, Bartleby had turned that stern face on Piotr, as if that was his fault, as if he’d asked for the animals’ attention. In a fit of pique, Bartleby then left him in order to go buy hot apple cider from the cart nearby.
Piotr took that as the slap in the face it was meant to be, although he hadn’t done anything to call the dog over. But Bartleby wasn’t given to holding grudges, and a minute later he had drifted back to Piotr’s side to share the drink with him. It was nonalcoholic cider, meant for kids, but Piotr had still found himself smiling when Bartleby had confessed to not liking it nearly as much as his. For someone who teased Piotr about his love of flavored seasonal drinks, Bartleby had gulped down his pumpkin latte in the car, and seemed addicted to fresh cider.
Piotr took his attention from his growing pile of cooking pumpkins to find where Bartleby had gone now. He found him in the middle of the field, surrounded by toddlers, all of them staring at the murder of crows that had chosen a scarecrow for their perch. Bartleby had a large orange pumpkin under each arm.
Piotr was fairly certain the people working here thought Bartleby was a lunatic. He was also certain that the tiny children listening to whatever Bartleby was probably telling them about crows, loved him a lot more than they’d loved the goats.
Piotr stacked his pumpkins in a pile by the little stall that served as a checkout lane, and turned as Bartleby reappeared, minus any stray children. He was breathless and triumphant. “Nosy birds,” Bartleby explained, without explaining anything, and then indicated his pumpkins. “I did it. I found two that will be perfect for jack-o-lanterns—are you going to carve all of those?”
He stared down at the pile of pumpkins, and then the large one in Piotr’s arms. He didn’t even bother to glare at the dog still with him.
“We are going to carve these,” Piotr corrected him, although he’d had no intention of asking Bartleby to do any of that. “Not all of them. Some of them. These are for cooking. Some will get carved. The rest will be decoration.” Piotr considered. “Until I turn them into pies in November.”
“Pie!” Bartleby grinned. “Do I get a pie?” He was at his best outside, at least, until the weather turned cold again. He tucked himself against Piotr at an especially chilly blast of wind.
Piotr turned his face to it, judging how long they had before clouds rolled in and he would need to get Bartleby someplace comfortable and warm. It would be close to dinner time by then, close enough to offer to feed him, anyway.
He stopped the thought there and shook his head. He satisfied his hidden needs by taking one end of Bartleby’s scarf and looping it around Bartleby’s neck as Bartleby had apparently forgotten to do. He pretended not to see Bartleby’s slow blink of surprise, or how he stared at Piotr as if he was trying to read his mind. “One pie?” Piotr distracted him. “That’s all you’re going to ask for? And I know for a fact your parents’ store sells fresh pumpkin pie around Thanksgiving.”
“That is not the same as one made for me.” Bartleby sniffed a little, as if the cold had made his nose run. Piotr wished for a handkerchief, but then Bartleby stuck his two pumpkins in the stack and approached the counter, and the barrel of gourds, which seemed to interest him. “We should get a large turnip or something, and carve that into a lantern, like people used to do before they realized pumpkins were better for it. A nice ugly turnip to scare away malignant spirits.”
“Are you going to put on a mummer’s mask and roam the neighborhood too?” Piotr tried to hide his surprise that Bartleby knew about the ancient traditions that had become modern Halloween. He didn’t know why he hadn’t expected it. Bartleby knew magic lore and he knew it well.
“And cover this pretty face?” Bartleby chided him, and then appeared startled when the guy behind the counter laughed. His surprise was brief, then Bartleby leaned against the counter and smiled widely. “I do like someone who recognizes all I have to offer,” he cooed, without shame or fear or hesitation.
The guy behind the counter stared at him as though he had never met anyone like him before. Piotr knew the feeling.
Bartleby trailed his burgundy-tipped fingers along the countertop, the action light but deliberate. If the guy behind the counter had any likes or dislikes about men wearing nail polish or any other such thing, he seemed to have forgotten them.
“Did you… did see our crowns?” The guy behind the counter asked, not quite stuttering. Piotr glanced toward the items in question, harvest crowns of leaves and dried flowers, yellow and orange and red, and sighed as Bartleby chose one.
Bartleby settled it on top of his head without a mirror, then turned expectantly. “Well?”
There were moments, usually in the spring, at Beltane, when Piotr would behold the loveliness of flowers and itch to decorate his house with them. He would think about it when he stood off to the side during the dancing, as he considered how no amount of washing his face in morning dew would make it sweet. That tradition was for young maidens anyway, and those seeking a spouse. Piotr could charm his face all day and night, and it wouldn’t change anything. Bartleby wanted a witch to help, not a husband.
Bartleby held still as he waited for the compliment the cashier was working up to giving him. His slight smile was more shy than sure, although Piotr didn’t understand why. Bartleby was natural when decorated with nature’s splendor, lovely as the harvest itself. Although Piotr felt fresh flowers suited him better than dried.
Piotr stepped forward to put his money on the counter, leaving enough to cover the crown despite his every secret, jealous thought. His sudden intrusion startled the cashier into a small jump, and made Bartleby turn toward him in astonishment.
Piotr looked away without meeting his eye, and started taking the pumpkins to the truck. He managed it in two trips, and then stood by the passenger door to observe the slow return of the clouds. The dog stayed at his feet until Bartleby finally returned.
“There you are.” Bartleby exclaimed, announcing his presence with
the crunch of leaves. He paused to watch the dog slink back to its owner, who was probably the guy at the register. Then he came over to Piotr with a handful of bills. “Your change.”
Piotr hadn’t expected change, but shoved it in his pocket before getting in the truck.
Bartleby wasn’t wearing the crown, but Piotr could still see it when he looked at him. Which was why he kept his eyes on the road as Bartleby climbed in the truck and began to drive.
“Something wrong?” Bartleby glanced at him a few times. “You disappeared.”
Responding that Bartleby had disappeared first would have been childish, as well as untrue. Bartleby had flirted. That was all. He had flirted, and despite how date-like the afternoon had been, he hadn’t flirted with Piotr. He had no reason to. Piotr shouldn’t forget that again.
Piotr shook his head, and even without turning, saw the look Bartleby gave him while they were at a red light.
When they were parked in front of his house, Piotr stared at the closed curtains of the parlor before working his jaw. “You didn’t have to come out with me. But it’s good you had fun.” Piotr couldn’t make himself sound excited about it, but at least he was polite. “I have a lot to get done today, so….”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m here.” Bartleby hopped out of the truck and climbed onto the back. When Piotr got out too, he began to hand him pumpkins until his arms were full. “I’m helping.”
“Yeah?” Piotr asked in a completely different tone, breathlessly close to a snarl. “That was helping?”
“Got them for you cheaper, didn’t I?” Bartleby wrinkled his nose at him, à la Samantha Stephens once again, as if being sexy and appealing was his particular brand of magic.
“That isn’t what I needed,” Piotr insisted, then marched up the steps. He couldn’t reach his keys with his arms full, and dropped a few pumpkins in the rocking chair that was strangely empty of neighborhood cats. “As I was saying, I have a lot to get done today, so if you wanted to go back there….” He couldn’t finish that sentence.
