by P. A. Mason
Cal waved his brother to silence. “They will do well enough for straps and scabbards. The ones from the butcher can serve for the larger items.”
“Do we have a deal, then? Billy comes by every three weeks, and I’ll come past for the other two.” Gretchen held up a finger. “Only for this season, mind. When a new contract comes around, we can negotiate a fee.”
Cal pressed his lips together and drew a deep breath, his eyes holding hers. Finally, he gave a tight nod and patted his brother on the shoulder. “Ready a contract. Then give her what she wants.”
Chapter 6
Drawing up the contract was tedious with Ewan left to the particulars, and Gretchen sprinted back to the carriage with her de-hair potion as the crowd milled around the vegetable displays. She flew past Nora who gave her an impatient frown and dived in the carriage's side to her hairy produce. The growth was out of control, and she had to hack away at the mess of curls to be sure the pumpkin was still underneath it.
Uncorking the bottle with her teeth, she sprinkled it over the top and rubbed the elixir into the orange flesh. “C’mon,” She spat the cork out and pulled at the hair. “Out you come.”
It started at the tips, golden locks turning brown and shriveling, and crept up toward the roots where they broke away from the skin. Gretchen wiped the mess away, her nose twitching at the dust, and marveled at the clean surface left behind. No sign of unnatural follicles or spots. With a victorious whoop, she pushed aside the curtain and grinned at Rapunzel who had come to take a look.
“What have you done?” she craned her neck to get a better look. “You were gone for ages.”
“Just a de-hair potion I whipped up.” Gretchen shined her fingernails on her shirt. “Cost a year’s worth of hauling around sacks of skin, but I’ll wager this thing is bigger than Mildred’s.”
Rapunzel’s eyes widened, and Gretchen spun to follow her gaze. The pumpkin shuddered, its flesh rippling.
“Is it supposed to do that?”
Gretchen’s mind raced. The pumpkin had two dousing’s of magic in one day. One to counter another. It wasn’t out of the realms of probability that it could cause some instability. She glared at the vegetable, daring it to try again, and it sat inanimate, like nothing had happened.
“A side effect is all,” Gretchen coughed. “Now, we need to get this baby to the contest. I don’t know where Jurgen’s gotten to, but I can’t carry it out myself.”
Rapunzel eyed the pumpkin askance but shrugged, waving Gretchen away so she could get hold of it. As she hefted it toward the line of contestants, Gretchen ripped her curtain free of the carriage doorway and trotted ahead to lay it out on the grass. When Rapunzel lowered it to the ground Gretchen fancied she’d heard a rumble, but pushed worry from her mind and stood proudly in line.
“What took you so long?” Farmer McBride nodded up the line where Nora already had her measuring tape out and was sizing up Mildred’s entry.
“Had to see a gal about a cat.” Gretchen shrugged and held a hand to her belly which churned with nerves.
It didn’t take long for Nora to make her way down the procession, first divining for any magical interference and then measuring both the height and girth of each pumpkin. She threw a few suspicious glances her way, but Gretchen only waved back with a smile.
“That thing sounds like it’s got a bellyache,” Rapunzel hissed.
She was bent almost double, and Gretchen eyed her over with a frown. If anything, she was getting bigger as time went on. Her hair was growing at a good rate too, now flowing around her ankles, though her dress had kept up with her height.
Gretchen turned to the pumpkin and held a hand to its side, feeling for anything out of the ordinary. “It’s nothing. It just has to last a few more minutes.”
Rapunzel shook her head and stamped off back to the wagon, evidently not convinced by Gretchen’s reassurances.
Measuring Farmer McBride’s haul was barely worth the effort, but she’d give it to Nora, she did so with genuine severity and respect. He acknowledged the measurements with a nonplussed shrug and turned with interest to watch Nora size up Gretchen’s pumpkin.
He wasn’t the only onlooker. The rest of the competitors had followed Nora after their turn with the measuring tape and smiled on at their rivals. The only sour look among the bunch belonged to Mildred who watched with arms folded in front of her.
“Be sure to be thorough with that one,” she sniped. “The rest of us aren’t witches with the means to inflate our chances.”
Nora took the remark in her stride and stood somberly in front of Gretchen’s pumpkin. Closing her eyes, she held hands out in front of her to sense any lingering magical trace. She stood for a full few minutes, lips twitching and brows furrowing, but when she opened her eyes, she smacked her lips and shrugged. “I can’t detect any foul play here. This entry qualifies.”
Gretchen held her breath as Nora shuffled around taking each measurement, refraining from tapping her toe as Nora fiddled with the tape.
“This is a close one,” Nora announced. “Less than an inch difference between the top two contenders. But I’m pleased to announce that this year’s winner of the Oakdale county fair’s largest pumpkin competition is—”
Gretchen’s eyebrows climbed her forehead as the pumpkin rumbled, its flesh twitching like it had a bad case of gas. She leaped out of the way just as it exploded, showering the onlookers in an orange spray of pulp and seeds. Shouts came from all around, and although a sticky mess covered Nora’s back, it was Mildred’s face that got splattered in slimy muck.
“Cheater!” Mildred cried. “Blatant fraud. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if that thing wasn’t even a pumpkin to start with.”
Farmer McBride scraped his finger along the remnants of the busted vegetable and stuck it in his mouth. A hush fell over the onlookers as he rolled his tongue over his teeth with a thoughtful look. “That’s a pumpkin if ever I’ve tasted one. Not as sweet as mine, but that’s to be expected.”
“She’s disqualified! Never in my life have I heard of an exploding pumpkin. There’s witchcraft in this and—”
“Silence!” Nora bellowed. “I haven’t announced the winner yet.”
She swung around to glare at Gretchen and wiped mush from the back of her hat. The onlookers squirmed as they brushed themselves off, and Gretchen swallowed.
“The winner of this year’s competition is Mildred Sampson, at a hundred and three inches.”
Mildred’s eyes blazed, victorious, as she puffed herself up and turned to the crowd. People either groaned or cheered as they kicked around pieces of pumpkin, and Farmer McBride sighed in resignation.
“I vote that Nora be deposed as the judge of these competitions.” Mildred held a finger up. “We all know those two are as thick as thieves, and as an official she was prepared to overlook cheating so her buddy wouldn’t be black marked for next year.”
“Now hold on there a minute.” Farmer McBride waved an arm. “It was you that insisted on having a witch preside over this competition way back when Esme was winning most years. And Nora has handed you plenty of blue ribbons, Mildred Sampson. We should let Gretchen answer for these irregularities.”
Eyes turned toward Gretchen, and shame bloomed in her belly. The accusation in Nora’s eyes was the hardest to bear, and Gretchen licked her lips searching for the right words. “Well, I mean in fairness, there isn't a single drop of performance-enhancing substances on that mess. I doused it with a hair growing potion that got out of hand, and when I countered it with a de-hair potion, it became unstable.” She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath before pushing on. “But that only happened because I’d fully intended on cheating. Did the old switcheroo and ended up with a giant hotel mogul, instead.”
Gretchen hung her head, and the crowd muttered around her. Mildred’s voice rang out again, shrill above the cacophony.
“Magical meddling. She admitted it. With intent to cheat. She should receive a life ban, and I stil
l stand by what I say about—”
Gretchen looked up as Nora hurled a glob of pulp at Mildred’s head. Everything went silent as it struck her hair, washing down her neck and shoulders. Nora stood heaving sharp breaths with a murderous glare, and Mildred stood frozen, her mouth agape. Chaos ensued.
Slushy projectiles hurled in every direction joined the first snort of laughter in a chorus of cackling. Gretchen smothered a giggle as she ducked at an incoming shot and took cover behind the remains of the pumpkin’s shell. The sounds of screeching indicated that Mildred had come out of her stupor, and Gretchen poked her head up just in time to get sprayed by a particularly wet clod of pulp. Farmer McBride gave her a toothy grin and waggled his fingers just as Rosalina snuck up behind him and pushed a handful onto his bald pate. Gretchen squawked with laughter and lay back on the printed curtain holding her belly.
It didn’t take long for the brawl to quiet down once most of the muck was stuck to people’s Sunday best, and all that littered the ground was fleshy husk. The crowd melted off toward the rest of the fair and Gretchen scrubbed a hand over her face with a snigger. Mildred had gone nowhere though and stood with her hands on her hips glaring at her.
“You should be ashamed of yourself, Gretchen Murkwood. If your Aunt Esme could see you now—”
“Don't you dare bring her into this,” Gretchen held up a warning finger. “Missing goat, my foot! You just wanted her out of the picture, and when I find out what happened in that cave, mark me, you’ll have worse than pumpkin on your face.”
Mildred gasped as if struck, hand held to her chest. Nora’s eyes bulged, and the few gawkers remaining scuttled away.
“You think,” Mildred’s mouth worked. “That I had something to do with her disappearance?”
Gretchen folded her arms and looked Mildred in the eye. “If the shoe fits.”
Mildred’s eyes glistened as she stood mute, her shoulder’s shuddering with silent sobs.
“She was one of my dearest friends,” she sniffled. “I may have asked her to fetch my Bess back, but I never imagined anything like that would happen.”
Try as she might, Gretchen couldn’t see a lie in those words, or the wretched look on Mildred’s face. She swallowed, wiping at a tear of her own, and hung her head to school her face back to calm.
“We may have been a little overzealous when it came to competitions, your aunt and I,” her voice quavered. “But I miss her sorely. There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by when I haven’t blamed myself.”
Gretchen frowned and looked up, but Mildred was already walking away back to her own cart past people packing up their displays. Nora patted Gretchen on the back and heaved a sigh.
“I suppose you don’t even have a charm to fix all this mess. You really are a pain in my rear end, you know. I’ll hear about this from the baron.”
“Is the messy part over?”
Nora and Gretchen turned to regard Rapunzel who stood clear of the mess with her tiny scissors absently trimming the ends of her long locks.
“Good grief, Gretchen. If anything, that girl is getting bigger. And what on earth is she wearing?”
Chapter 7
“I’d say she’s bigger by at least a few feet.” Jurgen rubbed his chin.
Gretchen groaned and took a swig of ale. She’d been arguing with Nora for close to an hour before the troll turned up to give his opinion.
“But the point is, it will wear off.”
“Not in time for tonight's party. You said it would be a few hours at the most.” Rapunzel sat cross-legged on the grass with her arms folded in front of her.
“What’s wrong with being big, anyway? You run an empire based on height!”
“I doubt she’d even get through the door.” Nora tilted her head. “Fancy brewing such a potent potion and wasting it like this.”
“All right, fine. The party is at the baron’s estate. We can use your glorified dungeon to brew something to counteract it.”
“If you expect me to take one more potion after seeing what happened to that pumpkin, you’re sadly mistaken.” Rapunzel turned her gaze to Nora. “What is your expert opinion?”
“Well,” Nora circled around her tapping her fingers together. “The safest thing to do would be to let it take its course. If you ingested the potion this morning, with the rate of growth, perhaps by tomorrow evening it will have worn off.”
Rapunzel opened her mouth in outrage, and Nora waved her to silence.
“Of course, I expect that won’t be to your liking, so I may be able to fix up a charm to make you look smaller. Can’t have you splattered all over the walls, now, can we?” Rapunzel nodded vigorously, and Nora gave her a grandmotherly smile. “Now hop into the cart and we can be on our way.”
Rapunzel pushed to her feet calling out for Peter the driver, and Nora’s smile disappeared as she rounded on Gretchen.
“You owe me for this. I won’t see a single copper coin for sorting it out. And don’t think you’ll get away with scurrying home. You can give an account to the baron himself to clear my good name.”
Gretchen chewed her lip and turned to Jurgen with a quirked eyebrow.
“Well, she still has my cart. I’ve already paid for ten barrels of cider, but I can put them in the carriage for now. Besides,” he flashed a toothy grin. “I’ll bet there’ll be plenty of fancy food at the estate tonight.”
“Good,” Nora clapped her hands. “Now, let’s get moving. I expected to fly home tonight, not dawdle along country roads.”
It didn’t take long before Peter had the horses hitched and they ambled out of the field and back through the town of Oakdale. With only a short stop to collect Jurgen’s supplies, they got a head start on the rest of the fairgoers who by then were well into their cups. Nora and Gretchen sat together on the back of the carriage with their feet dangling off the side, watching dust clouds billow in their wake.
“Mildred’s family are old blood, you know?” Nora absently fiddled with a long stand of straw. “Still hold a lot of influence with the well-to-do around here.”
Gretchen closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of the carriage. “Do you really care all that much about presiding over a pumpkin growing competition? I’m surprised you aren’t handing out ribbons for the prize pigs! Or maybe you could taste-test those cakes? That’s the kind of judging I could get around.”
“It may seem silly,” Nora huffed. “But it’s a matter of reputation. I never much cared for it at the start, but I’ve been doing it for years. They have tied my infamy to hexes and curses for as long as I can remember. It wasn’t until I started judging that I could walk down the street and have some people, just some, smile and nod at me.”
Gretchen let the idea sink in her mind, remembering the times when she’d passed people gossiping about the ‘hideous witch’ at the estate who paid wicked retribution to any who scorned the baron. She’d always thought it was something Nora was proud of. But she was no stranger to feeling like an unpleasant necessity of society.
“I, well, I’m sorry for setting you up like that. I had no idea it meant so much to you.”
“You’ll be the death of me, Gretchen Murkwood,” Nora reached over to squeeze her hand. “But I’ll never forget the look on Mildred’s face when her face got plastered in pumpkin.”
Both witches giggled and settled back into companionable silence.
“You know Mildred had nothing to do with Esme’s disappearance, don’t you?”
“They never did find that goat.” Gretchen pursed her lips. “She might not know what happened, but there had to be some kind of foul play. I will find out one day.”
“Lord help us.” Nora sighed and settled back on her perch with her eyes closed.
They arrived at the estate at twilight, and by the carriages lined up out front it looked like the party was off to a flying start. Nora directed Jurgen and Peter around the back where they pulled up by the stables proper with Rapunzel huddling as best she could under Gretche
n’s pumpkin splattered curtain.
“That was Fiona’s carriage,” she hissed as she climbed out of her hiding spot. “I’ll bet she’s stealing my business as we speak.”
Gretchen shrugged at Nora’s questioning look. “Some ogre beauty-queen selling swamp-bath getaways.”
Nora gave an appreciative nod and caught herself when Rapunzel glowered at her. “Heard those things give you warts.”
Rapunzel narrowed her eyes at the witch then looked around the courtyard between the stables and the looming house.
The servants who went about their business did so with sullen looks and dragging feet, paying no mind to Nora’s curious companions. Peter stayed behind with a word about caring for the horses, and they made a break for it to the stone steps that led down to Nora’s subterranean dwelling. Rapunzel had to crawl over the threshold with a wiggle of her hips, and inside she sat with her knees hugged to her chest, blowing cobwebs that hung from the rafters from her face. Nora clapped her hands with a muttered incantation and large crystals mounted on the walls gave off a warm glow.
“And you think my place is a dump.” Gretchen snorted and stretched her back.
“It’s not like she spends much time here,” Jurgen snickered but Nora silenced him with a glare.
“This is my workroom. My living quarters are in the estate proper.”
Gretchen trailed a finger along a dusty shelf with a wry grin. “Explains it even more.”
Nora threw up her hands and went to rummage through an odd assortment of rocks and crystals on the far wall. Jurgen sank to a bench seat by a table that dominated the space and Gretchen wandered over to see what Nora was poking through.
“We need a good light conductor for this kind of thing. Illusions aren’t something I enjoy working with.” She tossed aside an amethyst and held up a hunk of quartz to the light. “Now, I know I had one here someplace,” She fumbled around the back of the shelf and held up a perfectly clear crystal. “Ah ha! Have you ever seen a sunstone before?”