And, of course, she couldn’t screw anything up if there was nothing to screw up.
“Here we are!” said Miss Cat, spreading her arms before a little cottage crouching beneath the pines. It was made of fat logs with a sharp peaked roof and a chimney made of smooth river rocks. The door was painted bright purple, and two wind chimes clanged cheerfully in the morning breeze, hanging from the roof over the little porch. Isabella stared at it, utterly embarrassed that honest-to-goodness tears had sprung to her eyes.
This little cottage was all her own.
“Oh, it’s lovely,” she breathed, as Miss Cat handed over the worn silver key.
“Let me see, let me see,” said the woman, tapping her lip thoughtfully. “I’ll come by in a few days, get you started on the yearly spell. It’s for the Winter Solstice, but it’s quite easy, nothing to fret about. I’m trying to remember if I’ve told you everything,” she pondered.
Movement at the edge of the trees drew both woman and witch’s attention. Alice leaped forward a step and stopped, paws stock still in the snow.
It was an animal, a large animal that moved in the shadows of the trees. Isabella cocked her head, shaded her eyes, peered intently at the shadows. Was it a deer?
Miss Cat shook her head, put an arm about Isabella’s shoulders and began to steer her toward the cottage.
“Was that deer…white?” asked Isabella. The trees obscured her view now, but she could have sworn…
“Never you mind about that deer,” said Miss Cat, mouth in a tight line.
“But I’ve never seen a—”
“Isabella, our town is a haven,” she said, words clipped. ”Our lives are perfect...now. And it took quite a bit of work to get us to this point. And Miss Deer—” Her lips curled up on the words. “She is the exact opposite of all those things we hold so close to our hearts here in Benevolence.”
“She's a Changer, too?” asked Isabella, peering around the edge of the cottage, even as Miss Cat practically pushed her up the stairs.
“Yes,” snarled the woman, with the ultimate testiness, the warmth of their earlier exchange gone. “She’s an outcast.”
Isabella stared mutely as the silver key was snatched from her hand. Miss Cat finagled with the doorknob until it gave way beneath the key.
Looking over her shoulder at the mute witch, Miss Cat sighed, urged her forward. “Let’s get your fire set. And I shall tell you a story.”
---
“Once,” said Miss Cat, crumpling bits of paper on the hearth, “there was a terrible winter in Benevolence. It was a few hundred years ago. The crops were bad. We had very little food. It was a terrible time.
“It drew close to the Winter Solstice, and there was so much snow that no one could leave their houses. At night, we huddled about our little fires, and—one night—we heard a great howl…like a wolf, but a giant wolf, a monstrous wolf. And it was a monstrous wolf: the Wolf of Winter.”
Isabella shook her head. She’d never heard of such a thing, but Miss Cat’s face was deadly serious.
“The Wolf of Winter brings blizzards, brings sickness, brings death to a place,” she said gravely. “We had many wards—protections—on our town, on our houses, but they weren’t strong enough. At that time, there was a Mr. Deer here in Benevolence, and he disabled the wards, let the wolf in. Almost everyone perished.”
Isabella listened intently, arms folded. “And then?”
“And then!” said the woman, rolling her eyes to the heavens. “Think, girl! We ran Mr. Deer out of town! He betrayed us all, and most folk died because of him. None of his descendants are allowed on our streets. They are all bad,” she uttered with finality.
Isabella choked a little, cleared her throat. “But...that was two hundred years ago,” she said gently. “His descendants had nothing to do with—”
Miss Cat cast such a sharp glance upon the witch that Isabella fell silent. “You cannot speak because you do not know,” she said coolly. “But mark my words—do not approach Miss Deer. She is bad, through and through, just like her great grandfather.”
Isabella sighed, rubbed at her temples. “She…lives around here?”
The woman snorted. “In a little hut up the mountain. She’s a curse on us all.”
And that seemed to pretty much close the subject.
---
Miss Cat’s mood improved after they ceased speaking of the Deers, and when she left, she kissed Isabella on both cheeks and gave her a great hug. “Welcome, welcome,” she purred, then winked. ”You know, I thought you were a Changer, too. Your last name, Fox…”
“Oh!” Isabella chuckled. ”No, I’m not—I’m just a witch.”
“I think you’ll do well here,” said Miss Cat, and then she was gone with many promises to come on the morrow, after Isabella had gotten settled.
“If that woman changes into a cat in my presence, I can’t promise to maintain common decency,” said Alice, sniffing around the hearth after Miss Cat had gone. ”I don’t think she was very nice.”
“No,” said Isabella, shivering. ”But there has to be a catch to everything, doesn’t there?”
“What was that whole business about outcasts?” said Alice, stretching. “Be warned: that’s the type of thinking that makes it so easy for people to go from nice, calm citizens to witch burners, you know.”
Isabella shrugged, sat down on the floor before the fire, patting her lap. Alice obliged, crawling up and onto her, kneading even as she began her purr litany.
So it was a very clear rule: no associating with Miss Deer. But Isabella’s interest was piqued, and she felt terribly sorry for the Changer. Was she old, young, lonely, sad?
She had woken unreasonably early, so Isabella had a little nap curled up on her new living room floor, head in arms, warm cat on her stomach.
She dreamed of white deer against white snow and white stars burning.
---
“I won’t,” said Alice, shrinking down even closer to the rocking chair, “and you can’t make me.”
“That’s just cruel, Alice,” said Isabella, exasperated, holding out her hands to the puffed-up cat. ”You want me to explore this brand new place all by my lonesome?”
“You got along perfectly well before me,” pointed out the cat. “And you know it’s too cold! I’ll freeze my whiskers off!”
There would be no cajoling her. Isabella gathered up her basket and held her shawl closer. “You’re terrible,” she sighed to the cat on her way out, but Alice had already forgotten her and was purring with gusto before the fire.
It was almost sunset; Isabella was itching to be outside. She’d brought her first day’s dinner from the Hag Bar, but it wasn’t sustenance she was after. She wanted to do a little spell for her own prosperity. If she was perfectly truthful with herself, she would have admitted that it wasn’t so much a spell for prosperity as it was for things-actually-going-right-for-a-change. And, for such a spell, she needed luna leaf.
Luna leaf grew at all times throughout the year, the little silver plant growing companionably on the branches of pine trees. For the purposes of magic, it had to be gathered at sunset, and it had to be gathered the day one cast the spell. She had chosen the spell from her great book with care; it might be the most difficult spell, but it was almost guaranteed to provide results, and Isabella was tired. She was tired of being run out of towns, and she was tired of always having to leave, and though Miss Cat had shown her an alarming tendency toward prejudice, it wasn’t enough to lessen her adoration for Benevolence. She’d only been here about half a day, and already she knew she was starting to love it with all of her heart.
It helped, too, that the villagers hadn’t yet considered setting her on fire.
So Isabella set out of her little witch’s cottage, moving through the snow with a deliberate stride. It was almost sunset, and she didn’t have much time to find what she was looking for. Her breath came out in great, white puffs, and she set off along a small path through the greater pine
trees, gazing up at the cobalt sky, the bright splash of gold that rimmed the world where the sun was descending.
Ah-ha! There! Isabella strode over to the smaller evergreen and put up her hand. Yes, the luna leaf was within reach. She peeled off her mittens, taking the sharp herb-gathering blade out of her satchel. The setting sun glinted along the blade, and—for a moment—Isabella turned to watch the sun setting, allowing her vision to blur a little. Her heart slowed, her breathing stilled, and she began to listen to the music of the forest, gathering cold and close, all of the creatures getting ready for sleep or waking, leaping from branch to branch or rustling through the snow.
There was movement to her right, and she cast an incurious glance toward it before stopping, breath frozen in her throat.
A white doe.
The doe had not yet seen her, was standing alert and stiff, gazing off in the direction opposite Isabella. She had never seen a white deer before in her life, and now twice in one day? This could not be a different animal. This could only be the woman, the Changer...the outcast.
The doe turned and—one forefoot stilled in the air—saw Isabella.
Her great, wide eyes were as wet and wide as pools, set in her delicate, fragile skull. Her nose quivered, and as instantly as an eye blink, the doe was gone, and a woman stood in its place.
She was covered in multiple furs, white furs like the hide of the doe, and her face was hidden from view by a thick shawl, her skirt dragging in the drifts.
Woman and witch paused, staring at one another for a long, piercing moment. The moment shattered when a crow took off from a close pine, cawing and showering Isabella with a thick clump of snow from the branch.
“Ugh,” she muttered, shaking the snow out of her hair and shivering as it slid down in the tiny gap between the scarf and her neck. When she looked up again, the woman was gone, vanished, melting into the twilit woods without a sound.
Isabella sighed, hands on hips. The sun had already slipped beneath the edge of the world, her chance to gather the luna leaf leaving with it, but she wasn’t particularly distraught about that fact. She gathered up her basket, her knife, and turned to leave the woods, feeling the whole while the skin-pricking sensation of being watched.
The witch took the cheese sandwich from her satchel, wrapped in the too-red cloth napkin of the Hag Bar, and—with a slow deliberateness—placed it on a drift.
She felt quite silly about this action later—really, who would want a day-old cheese sandwich?—but her motive was true. If she’d been an outcast with few comforts, perhaps the thing she’d miss most was cheese.
And, anyway, the sandwich was gone in the morning. Whether it was taken by forest creatures or the Changer, she couldn’t know.
---
“Why do you do that?” asked Alice, patting her knee with one paw. Isabella woke from her reverie, glancing down at her crochet. The last row was all wrong. She sighed, began to pull out the stitches.
“Do what?” she replied, a bit testy. The cat sat down at her foot and stared up, imploring.
“You leave,” said Alice. “You’re here, but you’re not really...here.”
“Just thinking about something,” she mumbled, trying to concentrate on the next stitch. It was hopeless. She set down her little hook, the yarn and the wretchedly misshapen scarf, and rose from the rocker.
“You’ve been like this all day,” yowled Alice plaintively. “What’s the matter? Are they going to come for us again?” The cat’s “they,” of course, referred to the recurring mobs hellbent on setting fire to Isabella.
The witch shook her head. “No,” Isabella reassured her cat, scratching her gently behind the ears. “I’m just thinking of someone.”
Alice cocked her head but said not another word, narrowing her eyes with a feline shrewdness.
Miss Cat came at half past noon, the wan winter sunshine still bright enough to make the snowdrifts glow. She stood on the doorstep, hand outstretched toward the door, face set in a curious expression, as if she’d just tasted something quite bad. Isabella looked from her eyes to the outstretched hand, and then paused.
Made from twigs and bits of string, a tiny deer-like shape crouched in the woman’s hand. It was so small, it lay between the two lines in Miss Cat’s palm that would denote how long her life might be, and if it would be happy. Isabella felt a strange sensation come over her, even as Miss Cat asked, “What is this? It was on your doorstep.” Not your typical greeting, and the sharp way that she clipped her words was less than friendly. Isabella swallowed.
“It’s…part of a spell I did,” she lied, snatching the small thing from the woman and secreting it in to her skirt’s pocket.
Miss Cat did not look entirely convinced, actually appeared quite suspicious, but when Isabella smiled widely at her, she sighed and relented. “I came to show you around town, and to explain the Winter Solstice spell,” she said, reluctant.
Isabella patted her pocket to make certain the deer was still there and took up her shawl.
A few thoughts circled the witch’s mind, but the most incessant was this: The Changer made this for me. But why?
Had Miss Deer really been moved so much by a day-old cheese sandwich? As Isabella scooped Alice up from her warm spot by the fire, shut and locked the door behind her, she dropped the silver key in the same pocket that housed the little deer and—inexplicably—felt her heart flutter.
…What was going on? She bit her lip, followed Miss Cat down the street and into the town proper, trying to stay her trembling heart. She tried to remind herself, and repeatedly, how Miss Cat had all but forbidden her to have any contact with Miss Deer.
But, as Isabella knew too well, some things just couldn’t be helped.
“The spell,” said Miss Cat, hurrying down the street, witch in tow, “is begun on the quarter moon before the Winter Solstice. So...now,” she said, over her shoulder. “It is completed the night of the Winter Solstice, when we begin our celebrations.”
“What is the spell for?” asked Isabella, running to catch up. “What does it do?”
Miss Cat stopped before the dry goods store, hand upon the doorknob. “It is to ward the town from the Wolf of Winter,” she said with deep sincerity. Isabella stared at her, then tried her best to wipe the disbelief from her face.
The Wolf of Winter was just a story. If the thing had really existed, if it had ravaged the mountain like Miss Cat had told her, it would exist in the history books in the Academy, but there had been no such story. So Isabella hadn’t believed a word of it when Miss Cat had regaled her the day before, but apparently Miss Cat had believed, and deeply.
They ventured into the shop of one Mrs. Goose, an elderly woman with pristinely pinned hair who nodded at the two of them from behind the wide wooden counter. Miss Cat went straight to the big, carved spools of ribbon.
“It’s a simple weaving spell,” she said, running her fingers over the loose ends of ribbon. Isabella stared at them skeptically as Miss Cat picked one up here, dropped one there, testing the weight and length of each piece. Finally, the woman turned to Mrs. Goose.
“None of these will do, Eliza. They’re not special enough,” she said, shaking her head, but Mrs. Goose was having none of it.
“Every year, you say the exact same thing, Polly,” said Eliza, sighing. “The Wolf of Winter hasn’t been seen in generations. The ribbons we have out will do nicely. You don’t need nothin’ fancy for a weaving spell.”
Polly Cat appeared horrified, mouth round in indignation, but Isabella stepped between them.
“Hi, ma’am,” she said, smiling at Mrs. Goose. “I’m the new magicmaker of the town. Name’s Isabella.”
“Hello,” said Mrs. Goose warmly. “How is the witch house treating you? Do you like it all right?”
“It’s lovely. The whole town is lovely,” said Isabella, smiling. “I’m so happy to be here…”
Miss Cat pushed between the two women and slammed three bolts of ribbon down on the counter. “F
ifty lengths, all four arms' length,” she muttered to Mrs. Goose, who turned her lips up thinly at the corners and drew large, sharp shears out from beneath the ribbon. The sound of snipping filled the store while Isabella wandered from row to row, marveling at the pretty fabrics, the dry bags of beans, the wooden barrels of flour and sugar and hard candy.
She went up to the front and picked up a delicate glass ornament, a blue sphere, from its little bed of straw. It was hand-blown from a far-away city, maybe even Arktos City, where the Magicmaker Academy had been. She’d never really noticed all of the fine things in the city. Maybe she’d been jaded. But here, in this little, secreted-away town, the fragile glass in her hands seemed as fine a treasure as a palmful of gems.
“Here are your fifty,” said Mrs. Goose heavily, pushing the ribbons across the counter at Miss Cat.
“Now, child,” said Miss Cat, holding the ribbons out to the witch, “you must begin the spell.”
A weaving spell. Isabella’s mind raced. “How do you usually do it?” she ventured.
Miss Cat held up one of the ribbons and handed it to Mrs. Goose, who took it, albeit gingerly. She took another strand out of the pile and tucked it into her coat pocket. “Every person in the town gets one ribbon to imbue with magic,” she said. “On the night of the Solstice, they all bring them together, you weave them at the entrance to town and seal the spell, and it’s done. Another winter without the Wolf.”
Isabella pursed her lips, stared down at the mound of ribbons in her hands doubtfully.
“Hand them out over the next few days. It’ll be a lovely excuse for you to get acquainted with everyone in town,” said Miss Cat, nodding her farewell to Mrs. Goose. Eliza Goose winked at the witch as she turned to leave the shop.
“Don’t let her boss you around,” said Mrs. Goose, voice a conspirator’s whisper. “She’s not bad, just headstrong...ever since Mr. Cat passed. Well, she got more stubborn.” She frowned. “She’s been getting worse—don’t let her boss you,” she repeated, and then Isabella was ushered out of the shop, Polly Cat’s arm snaked around the witch’s waist.
Under Her Spell Page 2