by Julie Abe
As they started talking over each other about who copied who for their apron designs, an idea better than corn aprons popped into my mind.
I pulled my wand out and fiddled with it. They’d asked for help. My fingers sparked with magic. This was perfect. Even my magic was ready for this fix. Ember wove around my ankles as I thought of the right spell.
“It’s her fault that I’m losing customers, being next to this corn shop. Who would want corn?” Trina sniped.
“Who would want cloudberries?” Trixie shouted louder. “No one likes those globs.”
“The entire town knows that my cloudberry preserves always sell out.”
It would have to be a great spell. Something for them to stop shouting over each other. Still, I didn’t want to cast anything strange that’d change their personalities. Just a little nudge in the right direction was all they needed.
I cleared my throat. Trixie turned. “What are you doing?”
“Just as the two of you requested. It’ll be the perfect fix.” I waved my wand around them and chanted, “Fix and mix, mend a friendship once torn, come together like cloudberries and corn.”
The shelves rumbled. I frowned.
Trixie and Trina opened their mouths, and—
The door between the shops flew open, and from the other side, I could see thick red cloudberry bushes and racks filled with all sorts of cloudberry goods.
The stalks rattled ominously.
The corn soap floated up into the air, and the socks quickly followed. The shelves shook, and then all noise sucked out of the air.
Uh.
Oh.
Red cloudberry soap flew out of the other shop and into the corn soap with a loud smack. The two mashed together, into a red-and-yellow bar.
This was not what I had imagined. The spell was meant to mend Trixie and Trina’s friendship. It was not supposed to make the corn and cloudberries meld together.
Pop! Pop!
Trixie and Trina gasped, staring at something over my shoulder, and my stomach curdled. I slowly turned around.
The ears of corn burst into clouds of popcorn. Dainty red-orange cloudberries flew into the shop and pelted the freshly popped kernels. It looked like shooting stars arcing across a sunrise of vibrant red and melted-butter yellow, flamefox gold and the palest of pinks. It would’ve been beautiful if it weren’t for—
Pop! Smack! Bang!
All around us, corn and cloudberries fused together. Inside me, too, it felt like thoughts were colliding and falling apart. My magic had never misfired like this before. Mother had been right. Using my powers more and more had increased the amount I could draw upon, but this was more like a magical wreck than a proper enchantment.
“I’m so sorry,” I cried. “Let me think of a spell to fix this, I think—”
Before I could lift my wand, I felt two pairs of hands on my back shoving me out the front and into a gaping crowd of onlookers, staring up at popcorn streaking over their heads.
“Out, out, out!” Trixie and Trina shouted. “Do not cast a single spell!”
I ducked as more kernels flew at us.
Ember frolicked around, chomping at the popcorn raining from the sky.
“What is going on?” a deep voice said from behind me. I froze as blood drained from my face. Kyo caught a wayward kernel in his hand and popped it into his mouth.
Mayor Taira’s secretary. That meant Mayor Taira would absolutely, positively hear about this. If she questioned me, could I really say, “Oh yes, I blew up their shops, but I promise I was only trying to help them”?
Kyo would probably change his scroll to note Ruin the town as my business reason.
Trina and Trixie glared from the doorway. Their frowns were identical, eyebrows furrowing like the slanted signs above them. Even the store names had lumped together into a singular CORNCLOUDBERRIES.
Next to Kyo, Davy opened his mouth and a kernel flew in. “This is the best! Who would’ve thought that cloudberry popcorn could taste this amazing?”
From Kyo’s other side, Charlotte frowned as a kernel landed on her forehead and she quickly brushed it off. She snapped, sounding exactly like Mayor Taira, “What just happened, Eva?”
“She”—the twins pointed at me—“made our shops explode!”
“Trixie, Trina!” Kyo gaped. “The two of you are speaking in sync!”
“We are not on speaking terms.”
“They asked me for an enchantment.” I tried to stand as straight as Mother when she faced Grottel and pushed for information about his investigations into the Culling and rogue magic, but I had to duck as popcorn flew at my face.
“Is this true?” Kyo turned to the twins, who stared anywhere but at each other.
“Maybe.” Trina scowled. “But I wanted her to vanish that pest.”
“Possibly.” Trixie crossed her arms. “All I asked for was someone to squash that gnat.”
“But this isn’t what we wanted.” They stabbed the air in front of my nose. “This is her fault!”
Davy leaned toward me. “I heard they haven’t talked in sync since they set up shop. And that’s been more than ten years.”
Charlotte plucked the festival scroll out of my open knapsack. “Well, Eva, I can take care of the rest of this—”
“Wait, please,” I said. “Give me one more chance.”
Kyo’s mustache twitched as he chewed thoughtfully.
“Please, Kyo, Charlotte, I’m so sorry. I never meant for the shops to fuse.”
Charlotte shook her head. “I just don’t think an outsider should really be helping us, after all.”
“C’mon, Char, give Eva another chance,” Davy added. “This popcorn is really tasty, too! Trixie, Trina, want a piece?” He waved a handful of popcorn in front of them, but they turned up their noses.
Trixie said, “Its only redeeming quality is my corn sourced from the Nytta farms, the best in all of Rivelle Realm.”
“No, it’s because my cloudberries are picked by the cleverest harvesters in the Sakuya Mountains.”
Charlotte shot a glance at Kyo, who inclined his head toward me. She took a deep breath and shoved the festival scroll back into my arms. “One last chance. Because Kyo’s being nice, and for Rin’s sake, since she’s sticking her neck out for you.”
Davy shot me a sympathetic glance as he chewed on the popcorn. “It’s tasty, though!”
I gulped, tucking my arms tightly around the scroll. “Thank you, Charlotte! And Trina and Trixie! If there’s anything I can do to fix this, please let me know.”
The twins—and Charlotte—stared down at me with matching glares.
I scurried back toward my cottage, the festival scroll safe in my arms, but my heart heavy.
CHAPTER 17
BLOSSOM
The next morning, with a good night’s rest and Ember’s steadfast warmth fortifying me, I loaded the flamefox into my knapsack and pulled out the Fiery Phoenix.
“I’ll show the town I’m a witch by flying,” I whispered, even as my knees knocked together as I peeked over the edge of the cliff. “I’ve got to fly, like Mother.”
When Mother flew, she soared. She would jump onto our balcony railing and leap off with a whoop. When I ran to the edge, she was already a pinprick in the distance, brighter than any star, and no matter how far I flew, I never seemed to be able to catch up to her.
She’d told me as I wobbled on my broomstick, time and time again, Evergreen witches don’t hide from the sun, heights, or a bit of water.
“I don’t want to hide!” I cried out, but my voice was lost in the roar of the waves below me. Ember pawed at me through the knapsack, as if trying to pat my shoulder, the way I tried to calm him when he was barking at shadows outside the cottage.
I couldn’t do her jumping mount so I sat on the broom and felt it stir with energy, just how it’d flown when I’d trained with Mother. I sat back, tugging the broomstick up, and the winds swirled playfully around me, fluttering my hat.
But just when my heart thumped with joy, the bristles shook like ruffled feathers, dropping me to the ground.
I landed on my backside, Ember neatly hopping out of the knapsack and onto my stomach to stare down, as if admonishing me. The tail of the broomstick drooped. I simply didn’t have enough magical bristles, and they were the engine of the broom.
Back in the cottage, I poured the remaining broken bristles out of the jar. I dug through the kitchen shelves and found the cloth Father had wrapped around his latest package of yuzu croissants. Mother had used her magic so the paper bird could carry the package all the way here, so the fabric had a part of her, too. Surely this would work, right?
“Spinner, spinner, spin through the wind; flying together, flying to the end,” I incanted, and a burst of light filled the cottage. When my eyesight cleared, I grinned. About a third of the broken bristles had fused with the cloth, gleaming with the same diamond-silver shimmer that marked Mother’s Grand Master status. With another spell, I attached the bristles, the tail looking much fuller.
There. Now I could fly. Ember raced next to me out the door, and when I knelt, he leaped into my knapsack.
“I won’t hide from the sun, heights, or a bit of water!” I chanted, as if it was a spell, and then I hopped onto my broomstick.
Playful tendrils of wind curled around the broomstick as I kicked off the ground. From my knapsack, Ember let out a yip of glee.
And then the end of the broomstick suddenly dropped down, and I slid off unceremoniously onto the rocky cliffside and into a patch of dusklight flowers.
I rolled onto my back. “I guess I need more bristles,” I groaned, as Ember poked his warm, wet nose into my cheek to check on me. Above, the morning light made the clouds gleam like spun sugar.
“Curses! Look at how bright it is! I need to do the festival sign-ups, now. We’re walking.”
Ember and I marched into the town square, ideas for my broomstick swirling in my mind. Maybe I could ask Davy—or even Charlotte—for something to fuse with the bristles? Would Charlotte really give me anything?
But the moment I spied the shadows of Trixie and Trina arguing in the doorway of their now-combined shop, all thoughts of my broomstick flew out my mind. My hands trembled as I pulled out the festival scroll from my knapsack.
I could figure out how to fix my broomstick anytime before the sand trickled down my hourglass. But I couldn’t let Charlotte down again.
Since it was early in the morning, the shopkeepers around the square were still setting up before hordes of shoppers and tourists flocked to the grocer’s shop, its tables creaking under the weight of barrels of oil and sacks of brown sugar, or the bakery, piping out buttery contomelon rolls and yellow crescent cookies sprinkled with citrusy yuzu peels.
Head ducked, I hurried to the closest shop at the corner, the florist’s stand, breathing in the cane-sugar scent of dusklight flowers. The glass vases lining the counter were heavy with dusklight stems, the velvety purple buds closed tight. The stand was a thick wood, unlike my flimsy crates, in front of a small room. A silhouette moved inside the door that was slightly propped open.
I knocked on the doorframe.
“Come in,” a light, delicate voice called.
I pushed open the door and something rustled above me. I stiffened, tightening my hand around my wand. Ember jolted backward. We both peered up.
Flowers lined the ceiling. It was like I’d wandered into a new world.
Blossoms of every shape and size and color smothered the walls, the ceiling… every spare space other than a few winding paths and the windows, filled with light.
A young woman in a wheelchair looked up from where she was trimming a stem and turned her head to the side. “Hello there.” Her voice was gentle, like wind rustling through grass.
There was something so peaceful about her and this tiny, filled-to-the-brim shop. It was like the fields back home, when I’d lain on the side of the hill with my parents and pretended to scry the future in the sky. And every time I saw a cloud, I believed it was in the shape of a witch’s hat, or an Elite license, or something that meant I, too, could become a witch. I smiled hesitantly. “I’m Apprentice Eva Evergreen, helping out Auteri for my Novice quest. I’m here to sign up all the shopkeepers for the Festival of Lights.”
“I’m Ami, the town florist. Sign me up for flower crowns.” Then she paused, nodded at my birch wand. “You’re a repair witch, right? I heard about you from Rin.”
“At your service.” I bobbed into a quick bow, curiosity tugging at me. My heart thumped. Did she have a repair job?
She brushed her short black hair behind her ear. “Ah, then, if you have a moment—do you mind taking a look at the ceiling pipes?”
“Pipes?” I echoed. All I saw were lush flowers.
She gestured above us. “Many years ago, a weather witch charmed pipes onto the ceiling to water my plants. But over time, some of my vines have wrapped around them, wearing the copper through, and they’ve been leaking over the walls.”
When I looked closely, glimpses of copper pipes and sprinkler heads peeked out from behind the vines and flowers swathing the ceiling. And some of the plants around the broken pipes looked faintly limp, as if they weren’t getting quite enough water.
“The local metalworker said she wouldn’t be able to fix the pipes without having to snip out vines.” Ami cast a soft look at her plants. “And cutting them feels wrong when they don’t need pruning. All they’re missing is their proper dose of water.”
I paced, trying to think of a spell. How could I fix the pipes without harming the plants? Mend what’s within… Maybe something like—
Knock, knock.
I spun around, breaking my concentration.
“Ami,” a familiar voice called. “Mind if I come in?”
Strangely, Ami turned red, darker than the peonies in her arms. “Oh! Of course, come in.”
My stomach flipped as Kyo stepped inside. He swung a paper bag in his hand and stopped abruptly as he saw me. “Hello, Eva.”
Curses. Hopefully, Mayor Taira wasn’t with him.
“H-hello.” I inched toward the door, Ember at my heels, straining to see if Mayor Taira was nearby. “Am I in the way? I can come back later.”
Ami smiled. “It’s all right, Kyo just stops by with breakfast every once in a while. Not often enough.”
To my surprise, the steely guard turned pink at her words, and shuffled his feet. “Well, I… if you ever need breakfast, just let me know. I can drop it off anytime.”
My shoulders loosened. He was alone.
“Oh, thank you. But you treat me so much already, I couldn’t possibly ask for more.”
“Well, your tea is the best in town,” Kyo replied. “I’d climb mountains for it.”
They glanced bashfully at each other out of the side of their eyes, and probably would’ve stayed like that forever. I wondered if Ember and I could silently tiptoe out without them noticing.
But my boot squeaked on the tiles, and Kyo stumbled backward, nearly smashing a pot of white moonlilies.
“Ah, right!” Kyo’s face burned crimson. “Have a contomelon roll, Eva. You too, little flamefox.” He pushed the bag at me.
“Would you like some tea?” Ami asked.
“Not today,” Kyo said, checking his wristwatch. “I’m late as it is.” He tipped his hat at us and hurried out.
The sweet, sugary scent of the freshly baked rolls made my stomach grumble. I offered the bag toward Ami. “Want a roll?”
“Hmm?” Lost in thought, the florist was watching Kyo slip through the crowds. Then she brightened, turning to me. “Right! Contomelon rolls.”
After Ami, Ember, and I gobbled down steaming-hot contomelon rolls with cups of Ami’s blooming flower tea, I started investigating the leaks.
Sure enough, using a small ladder from under one of Ami’s shelves, I found the spots where vines had eroded the copper and plants hung limply from lack of water.
Ho
w could I fix this? I searched for a spell, glancing around for any ideas. My heart jumped when I realized that the morning crowd in front of the bakery, waiting in line for breakfast, peered inquisitively through the shop’s open doors and windows.
“Look, it’s the witch!” one of the townspeople said.
“Who uses seaweed for a spell?” someone else grumbled loudly. “What’ll she use today, potatoes?”
I had enough sense not to use potatoes for a spell. Unless I could eat the spell afterward.
Still, I bit down a retort and flexed my fingers for magic. A sluggish feeling stirred up and down my arms. I definitely had more blood than magic. Gritting my teeth, I took a deep breath and chanted, “Close the metal, gentle on petals.”
A faint white light zapped along the copper. It still looked like there were holes, but maybe the spell had magically sealed them.
“You can turn on the water over there, when you’re ready.” Ami pointed at a knob by the door.
I twisted the small metal wheel. Water slowly trickled out of the sprinkler heads and not the holes, spraying a faint, gentle mist.
Excitement sparked inside my chest. It hadn’t leaked through at all. I grinned, spinning the wheel to turn it up, and peered up at the pipes. “It worked!”
The crowd shifted closer—
And water gushed straight through the biggest hole, directly above me, splashing down on my hat and all over my blouse. Ami shot backward, the water barely missing her.
I spluttered, wiping my face as I cranked off the water. Some of the crowd snickered, and I shot a glare at them. They were sailors in gray, likely Soma’s crew.
“Looks like Soma was right.” One of the sailors smirked. Ember growled, but I quickly shook my head at him. Soma was right. I wasn’t much of a witch.
I willed myself to melt away like the water droplets. “That—that—should’ve worked,” I stammered. “My magic’s low from yesterday.” I wrung out my hat. The pointed tip drooped to the side, as if it, too, wasn’t so certain that my spells would work.