Another journal

Last year I participated in an “Ominous October” writing challenge, to write a ~5k story around a theme a week of October. I only got the first two weeks done (because I had other creative projects going on), but I enjoyed it. Here’s my story for the theme “Changeling / Curse.”

---

The scene was one that Mol was intimately familiar with thanks to numerous films and shows. A basement of a church or a rec centre, or whatever kind of public-enough place that had a side entrance to a big, rentable room. Sometimes the room had a bare concrete floor, sometimes the room had that sad speckled industrial carpet with pile of all of a quarter-inch, the barest layer of softness that did little to dampen sound or blunt a fall. There was always a table off to the side with a big ancient coffee urn, or a couple of those brown-paperboard containers like caffeinated box wine. There would be some sort of carb, doughnuts freshly picked up from the nearest 24-hour place hopefully and not sitting in a sad little kitchenette since noon. Or there could be those packets of black and white sandwich cookies slid out from their neat rows onto a platter, like what one saw at small town banks. There would be a circle of chairs, the folding kind. The walls would hold informational and motivational posters for whatever the space did during the day, their cherry candy colours washed green in the hum of the fluorescent banks.

Despite the entire space looking exactly as she’d pictured it, with any variances from her memory only heightening the familiarity, Mol stopped dead as she crossed the door, uncertain that she’d come to the right place. A body bumped her from behind, which was expected if one was going to freeze up in the centre of a doorway. Murmuring apologetic noises, Mol shuffled aside, crossing the threshold. An older lady—at least, older than Mol—patted her arm as she passed, in two gentle pats conveying a full sentence about how “we’ve all been there, dearie, no worries.”

Mol watched the woman beeline to the coffee (which was in a press pot decorated in delicate florals, another one in plaid waiting behind as backup), pour a cup and add an unsettling amount of powdered whitener. When she moved to the tray of pastries, Mol gathered herself and strode as confidentially to the table as she could muster, summoning all of her masks to remind her how a person should act in a situation like this. Pumping the top of the pot for her coffee, she watched the other woman pluck something filled with jam from the cut-glass platter. Like the airpots, the tray was a heavy looking thing that had probably been in service as long as Mol had been alive, objects pulled out for hundreds and hundreds of potlucks and meetings over the years. Leaving her coffee plain, Mol edged along the table to choose her own pastry and realised the woman was still there. 

Analysing the situation, she realised that the other woman had been taking her time at the table so that she could speak to Mol in a casual way. Well played, Mol thought, mentally shuffling through possibilities before going for the simplest. She smiled at the woman and asked what pastry she should pick.

The woman cocked her head like a bird, eyes flicking between Mol and the platter thoughtfully. “If you don’t like sweet, the cheese danish is actually quite good.” She nodded at Mol’s steaming cup of coffee. “But, if you drink it black so you can have a sweet, then the chocolate chip muffin is a classic that pairs well.” She hefted her cup, the liquid inside as light as an adobe wall, then jiggled the napkin-wrapped pastry with her other hand. “My choice is always cream and jam.”

Mol picked up the suggested muffin and smiled, though she didn’t bother engaging her eyes in the movement. To her surprise, the woman seemed to notice and laughed, her eyes crinkling.

“Well, I know it’s not cream, love. It’s a bit of a joke just for me I guess.” She sipped the coffee, her eyes twinkling. “I did look up what was in it once, and sometimes it is a milk-derived thing but,” she glanced at the tidy jar of packets, “not this brand.”

Realising she hadn’t moved her body since picking up the pastry, Mol made a small turn towards the expected circle of chairs. It was still a full ten minutes before the meeting was set to start and people that looked like regulars were gathered at various points along the basement walls, though two had already claimed chairs and were chatting with their heads close together. Shuffling through her mental cards again, Mol selected an action and tilted her head back to the other woman, using her chin to point at the waiting circle.

“This is the C.C.A. meeting?” A beat before adding an improvisation. “Or am I stealing snacks from the wrong group?” Mol decided not to smile, but kept her tone light.

“It is! And good of you to ask, because we have had folks wander in—though that was after they switched from Wednesdays to Thursdays and some poor souls from a monthly group spent a full half hour with us before realising how rather wrong they’d gotten it.” The woman looked at Mol, fully and openly but in a nice way, like how one looks at a cat or an interesting building. She felt assessed but not judged. With a decisive nod, the woman gave another smile. “You’ll do fine, love.” And with that she turned and strode off to a group gathered by a bookshelf, biting into her flaky pastry and shedding bits of it in her wake.

Mol found an empty spot along the wall and sipped her too-hot coffee between nibbling on the edges of the muffin. She felt herself go into neutral, where her body could continue eating in a normal-person way while her brain idled along on its own. Over the rim of her paper cup she looked at the others in the room and wondered if she’d seen any before. It was a small enough city, and people coming to a C.C.A. meeting would probably have similar daily paths, it would be logical to have encountered some of them in the natural rhythms of life. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to find any faces familiar in that seen-you-at-the-grocery-at-9pm way, or if it would be better if everyone was a stranger.

Someone with a clipboard made their way to the circle of chairs with purposefulness, and Mol watched the various clusters of people begin moving toward them like drops of ferrous fluid pulled to a magnet. She topped up her coffee before following, knowing she’d want the cup to give her hands and mouth something to do while listening. The muffin, half-finished, shedding crumbs, she wrapped up in a napkin and slipped into her bag. The woman who had talked to her was sat between two of the people she’d gone to talk to, which was a relief, Mol wouldn’t need to wonder if she was expected to sit beside her. Finding an empty seat, Mol eased her way between the gap of two chairs and sat down, tucking her feet onto the crossbar, both hands on the coffee cup perched on her bag that she’d slung around to sit in her lap. 

Once everyone was settled, the person with the clipboard stood. They looked exactly like someone who held a clipboard while standing in a circle of chairs in a basement should, at least based on most media. A causal but collared shirt above pants that weren’t slacks or jeans, lightly tinted glasses, a few leather bracelets. Clearing their throat with a smile, they nodded in a way that encompassed the entire group.

“Welcome to Cursed and Changed Anonymous.  These weekly meetings are casual support and discussion sessions where we can freely talk about daily difficulties, share milestones, and generally have a place to chat with others familiar with similar situations.” Their eyes flickered around the circle, “I see we do have some new faces tonight, know that you don’t have to introduce yourself tonight, but that it can help—both because it can feel good to say a thing out loud and because you might find others here who have found themselves in your shoes.”

Mol had spent most of the bus ride to the meeting trying to decide if she’d introduce herself and hadn’t landed on a decision. She carefully uncrossed her feet from where she’d hooked them onto the chair, feeling the soles align flat with the ground. Even if she wasn’t expected to stand, if she took the plunge she wanted to feel grounded. Before she could pull a trigger on making a choice, someone a few people down the circle waved a hand and stood.

“Hi, um, I’m Benny.” Benny ran a hand through his short, messy hair in a practised motion that Mol envied. It carried exactly the right nervous weight. “I’m a late bloomer in the cursed department, I guess. I had a girlfriend who was into some weird stuff with books—” at this, one or two people along the circle let out knowing sighs. Benny half-stretched his hand out to them, in a gesture of recognition. “Yeah well, you can guess then, um, the short of it is that we are no longer dating but I am definitely carrying a curse for two, ha.” He looked as if he were going to say something more, but the shadow of a hand appeared at his throat and his mouth closed with a reflexive snap, teeth clicking together before he sat abruptly.

The person with the clipboard’s eyes flicked to Mol, slipping off quickly and exerting no pressure. It was fully up to her if she wanted to share with the group. She mentally gave herself a little shove, enough to tip the balance. Because she’d prepared her body it was easy to stand, hands still clutching—not gripping—the paper coffee cup.

Mol realised the woman who had talked to her at the refreshments table was just inside her peripheral vision along the curve of the chairs. Putting on a familiar posture of “telling a story” Mol looked around the circle with a smile balanced somewhere between shy and welcoming. She let the words she’d practised on the bus ride slide easily from her lips.

“Hello, I’m Mol and I think I probably fall right between cursed and changed. I’m getting a little tired of straddling the line and thought this might be a good place to find support.” She was careful to aim her words and gaze at nobody in particular, so it felt like an even distribution of attention. Even so, she remained aware of both the person with the clipboard and the woman from the refreshments table.

She let her gaze drop to the floor. “In the evening I get whisked away to, I guess, fairy land. Only the time discrepancy is inverted from standard so I live there for anywhere from days to months, mostly. Then I wake up back here, and its the next day.” Mol felt, more than saw, a movement among the circle. She looked up, used a small smile. “Yes, like that Star Trek episode,”

Mol dropped the smile. “But actually. Not every night, but most nights. Since it truly is happening, I have brought things back with me.” Another movement along the circle, in her peripheral. “I’m about 35, days counted here. When I count all of them, I’m about 120.” It was off-script, but she added “I’m tired.”

She sat back down, perching her feet onto the crossbar, both hands on the coffee cup resting on her bag. Mol couldn’t decide if she felt better. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t said it out loud before, but she’d hoped that telling other people who’d also been touched by curses might feel different.

Nobody else had newcomer introductions—or if they did then Mol had brought the vibe down with hers—so the person with the clipboard moved them along the agenda.

“Does anyone have any wins, losses, or observations from this week?” They nodded to a willowy man who raised his hand with a grin. “Yosh?”

Remaining seated, the man spread his hands wide and simply said, “I’m learning to control it.” Cheers broke out from several points in the circle. Nodding, he continued “It’s not—” at this he spit a pearl into his palm. “It’s not cured, obviously, but—” a ruby this time “—its better by far.” More cheers and someone clapped, while Yosh tucked the two gems away into the zip pocket of his pullover.

The rest of the meeting went like that, people sharing things that had went well or things that had gone badly, then hearing encouragement and support from the rest. Mol joined in where she felt it was appropriate, cheering along or hissing in frustration, though she kept her lips pressed tightly when advice was asked. There were more than enough folks chiming in with help and she felt a depth of ignorance about how to manage video conferencing when one always appeared as the viewer’s true desire.

A chime sounded from the pocket of the person with the clipboard and they raised both hands, the paper on the clipboard flapping as it was brought aloft. The group, which had been offering words of encouragement to a woman who was debating when to disclose her curse to a new partner, wound down their chatter.

“That’s it for the evening, folks.” They stood and nodded to the group. “We’ve got the room for another half hour, socialising and discussion can continue while we put things away.”

Mol slid out of her chair and made her way back to the refreshments table. After she threw her empty cup into the trash she gazed at the airpots of coffee and arranged possibilities. She picked one up, and began to gaze around the room in a purposeful way, sending out the signal that she was looking for the next step in helping put things away. She was unsurprised to find the woman she’d talked to before standing beside her.

“Is there a kitchenette?” Mol hefted the airpot, which felt empty.

“Sure is, love, follow me.” The woman picked up the other airpot, and wove her way through the milling group to what Mol had assumed was some sort of reading nook, separated from the main room by a cheery floral curtain on a tension rod. The woman twitched the curtain open, revealing a narrow counter with a shallow sink, and the oldest fridge Mol had seen, all cowering under sets of mismatched cupboards.

Mol hefted the airpot onto one of the few empty patches of counter. Most of the cracked yellow formica was taken up by a catering-sized coffee maker, flanked by bins of tea and coffee on each side as though it were some sort of beverage dignitary.

The woman popped open the lid of the airpot and dumped the last tablespoons of coffee down the drain. As she angled the pot nearly horizontal to get its mouth under the spigot, she said “Angie.”

“Mm?” Mol had been mentally inventorying the contents of a wooden bookshelf stocked with cans and bags rather than books.

“My name is Angie, I realised I didn’t introduce myself at all when we were chatting earlier. Mol, isn’t it?” She swirled the open airpot around before dumping the contents into the sink, stepping back to avoid the splash. “If you don’t mind my asking, when did it all start, your plane-hopping?”

She held out her hands and it took Mol a moment to realise Angie wanted the airpot she’d set down. Mol handed it over, buying time with a tilt of her head, as though she were considering.

“I don’t mean, how did you get cursed, you know, that’s personal, I just mean, how much of your life has been spent getting tossed around like a hot potato?”

Mol shrugged, “about fifteen years.” She had done the math, some years back. She’d spent 95 years of life on a different plane, which averaged out to something like six and a half years for every year her curse had been active. Feeling impulsive, she added “it’s not every night, there was one year where I was only taken one night, but I was there for about eight years in a go that time.”

“Well that sounds quite worse, honestly.” Angie gave the airpot one last shake and bustled past Mol, back to the refreshments table. Mol followed, assuming that was what she was supposed to do.

At the table, Angie spread out a napkin and placed the remaining pastries on it. “I hate when people cut things in half, look at this, two half doughnuts, who is going to want those things?” She nodded at Mol, “grab the tray, love?”

Mol did and Angie scooped up the coffee caddy and baskets of napkins and spoons, then the two of them navigated the thinning group back to the kitchenette.

“It’s not fair, actually,” Angie began as she set the caddy and baskets on top of the bookcase-pantry. “I’ve been asking you questions but not told you my situation.” She took the heavy cut-glass tray from Mol and put it into the sink, where it sat angled, only the bottom third fitting into the shallow basin. She turned the water on. “I have a similar situation, and I’d like to think I sensed it on you but it’s just how luck shakes out, doesn’t it, love?”

She swiped the tray with a sponge and moved the spigot back and forth to rinse it before simply pulling it out to rest across the sink, faintly dripping. “I’m a changeling, more or less, emphasis on the less. I’m the one that ended up in fairyland.”

“Oh.” Mol had no script for this, and thanked a too-long lifetime of experience that for keeping her face neutral with a trend toward sympathetic. She could feel the open door of the kitchenette nook behind her, heard the slowing chatter of people getting ready to lock up.

“Well, you know how time is there.” Angie looked away from the tray to stare at Mol. “I grew up, came of age, went travelling and thought I’d see what happened to my mirror-half.” Her voice was still cheery, but hollow.

Mol melted her face toward sympathy, softening the brow, the area under her eyes tightening with concern. “More time, or less?”

Angie broke eye contact, waving her hand dismissively. “Less.”

“Ah.”

“Well!” Angie made shooing motions at Mol, “better to come back a week after my fourth birthday than four hundred years in the future, I suppose.”

Mol let herself be herded out of the kitchenette. In the main room, the chairs had been folded and slotted into a rolling rack along one of the walls. Only crumbs remained of the leftover pastries Angie had set out.

Using the napkin to sweep straggler crumbs into the trash, Mol gave the other woman a small smile. “Looks like someone did want those half-doughnuts.”

“Hm,” Angie squinted. “My working theory is it was the picky bastard that cut them in half in the first place, coming to finish off what they’d mangled.”

Fishing her headphones out of her bag, Mol shook her head to both agree with both Angie’s theory and in memoriam of the halved pastries. She slipped them around her neck, their bright retro style underlined by a thick wire that plugged into her phone.

“Here then,” a slip of paper with a phone number scrawled on it waved in Mol’s peripheral. “No commitment,” Angie added with a smile as Mol took it. “Just know you can ring me up if you need.” Her eyes narrowed for a moment as she thought. “Or text!”

“Wonderful, thank you so much.” Mol smiled, let it engage her eyes. “And maybe see you next week?”

“Oh absolutely! A pleasure to meet you, doll!” Angie swanned out ahead of Mol, who folded the paper carefully and put it into the front zip pocket of her bag.

Taking one last glance around the room, Mol pulled the headphones on and brought up the transit app, queued to her return journey, before she stepped out the door.

The bus ride home, Mol played through the evening again, deciding what was worth remembering. Once comfortably home, inside the two-bedroom she could only afford because her patrons gave her gifts with great market rates, Mol put her things away. Everything had a place, less because Mol was a tidy person, but more because she was not by nature good at remembering small things and that was compounded by her curse. Knowing you’d put something in a logical place yesterday was no use if, by your memory, that yesterday was four months ago.

She set out what clothes she wanted for the next day, along with a printed to-do list she modified with a green pen. Mol had a folder of pre-printed daily lists, which she liked to think of as her “landing itineraries.” Even without a guide she could get through a weekday without too much disorientation, but it helped to know what she’d wanted to get at the grocery store the next day or that it was compost pickup that week.

Flipping through the folder, Mol found the page for two days from now and stuck the slip of paper with Angie’s number to it with a piece of sparkly washi tape before adding a contextual note. She flipped ahead to the next week and added the C.C.A. meeting to evening activities, writing “(maybe?)” below.

Mol finished a few more notes while the kettle boiled, then enjoyed a cup of lavender tea with a well-battered paperback before running through her evening routine and slipping into bed. As she did every night for the past fifteen years, Mol wondered if she’d be taken while she slept. For the first time in a long time, she hoped she was.

?

A week later, in the mundane world, Mol was back in the basement, waiting for the meeting to begin. She decided to forgo a pastry this time, having neglected to note the partial muffin in her bag and only unearthing it, quite squished, either three days or six months later, depending on one’s perspective. Mol felt an ease in her bones as she poured a cup of coffee from one of the old airpots. Doing anything a second time was always smoother, and she always processed situations better with a purpose in mind.

When Angie arrived, Mol put on a pleasant smile and raised her hand in a small wave. She had texted Angie the day after they’d met, as her itinerary reminded her to do. Mol preferred texting because she could always scroll up to see where a conversation had left off, no matter how many subjective days or weeks had passed. Luckily they hadn’t said much to each other beyond initial pleasantries, which was a relief.

Mol waited by the refreshment table while Angie mixed her concoction of coffee and whitener and stared thoughtfully at the plate of pastries before picking the same kind of jam-filled she’d taken the previous week.

“I’m glad to see you again,” Mol said, sipping her still-too-hot cup.

“So am I,” Angie smiled. Her eyes crinkled in concern as she added “how has your week been, love?”

Mol had anticipated the question and gave a half-shrug as a reply, receiving the expected pat on the arm in return.

Angie caught the eyes of somebody behind Mol and brightened. “I’ve got to go make the rounds. Excuse me, doll.”

“Oh, of course, I should probably grab a chair soon anyway.” Mol got one more pat on the arm before Angie slipped off to a group of people who could have been the same as the previous week. She hadn’t taken notes about who Angie was talking to before the meeting, though she had found that those kinds of details weren’t easily recalled and were rarely worth the effort.

Although people were still circulating, Mol made her way to the ring of chairs and sat down, once more tucking her feet onto the crossbar, both hands on the coffee cup perched on her bag. A couple more group sessions and she would have worn a groove in her memory for the C.C.A.. Mol wasn’t sure yet if that was what she wanted, but relaxed into the confidence of having been there before and knowing that she wouldn’t need to introduce herself this time around.

The person with the clipboard was possibly wearing the same clothes they had the previous week. Mol wondered if they had outfits they wore on specific days, or for specific occasions, or if their closet was simply like a cartoon character’s, filled with identical causal collared shirts in an inoffensive colour palette. Good for them, if so. While Mol pondered this, the chairs around her filled in.

There was only one new person this time around, with a story about a ring they couldn’t remove. Mol let her face show support and interest, eyes open and brow lightly creased.

After, as everyone shared moments from their week, Mol let their words filter through her, reacting at appropriate moments but forgetting the content once the next person began their anecdote. So far, the same as the last time.

Near the end of the meeting, during a pause, Angie cleared her throat. Mol leaned forward, pillowing her elbows on the bag in her lap. Angie’s eyes were bright but in a different way than they normally were, now shimmering with the impression of wetness.

She took a breath. “This will mean more if you know my situation, which some of you do,” there were murmurs of agreement in response. “But I have a meeting set up with my parent-sponsors next week and I plan to ask them about returning.”

Mol observed the group’s reactions in her peripheral vision, keeping her focus on Angie and her face supportive-neutral. The rest of the circle’s feelings seemed to run the spectrum, from enthusiasm to a wariness that bordered on anger, which Mol found interesting. She had been piecing together Angie’s situation from their single conversation and other observations, and this development could mean a lot of different things.

A few members voiced their support for whatever she decided to choose, and strength in meeting with the people who’d snatched her from this plane. Angie almost glowed under their attention, drawing their words in like ballast.

“If I’m not here next meeting you’ll know what their answer was.”

Mol wondered at a life that could be dropped so easily, even as she acknowledged that everyone had different brains and approached the world from a myriad of perspectives. She let the rest of the meeting wash past her and timed her steps to catch up to Angie at the refreshment table, where they each grabbed an airpot at the same time.

Angie offered Mol a smile. Once they were in the confessional booth of a kitchenette, Mol let the words come out quickly, and they sounded nervous, spontaneous.

“Can I get you coffee or something after? I know it’s kind of late, but I thought you might want a friendly ear?” She crooked the corner of her mouth up in a partial smile, hopeful.

From her body language, shoulders relaxing from an almost invisible tensing, it was what Angie wanted to hear. “You sweetheart. Yes, I’d love that actually.”

They finished the routine of cleaning up the table and Angie led Mol out the door and down the street to the kind of cafe that attracted late-night student study groups. Mol asked Angie to order for her from the giant, cramped menu, payment card in hand, ready to tap the moment Angie finished. While they waited for their orders Mol wondered how many days a person would need to try every drink listed in quirky font on the board behind the register. A month and a half, she thought, counting the columns and multiplying them by the number of items in one of the columns. Roughly, anyway.

Once they had their drinks, Angie led Mol out a back door that led to a charming garden patio strung with fairy lights. Mol perched on the wrought-iron chair and glanced around. The closest person was at the opposite corner of the garden, headphones on, their face lit by the glow of a laptop screen. She turned back to Angie.

“Want to talk about it?”

Angie sipped her coffee—something with carmel syrup from what Mol could smell—before answering. “You know, I wanted to go back almost as soon as I got here.” She waved her hand. “Not just because of the time thing, seeing a replica of yourself at four and realising that if you stuck around you’d get the horrible privilege of watching a changeling raised in your place in real-time.

“I was just homesick. I’d built up the idea of normality in my mind and worshiped it, almost. It didn’t matter how comparatively kind my parent-sponsors were, or that I had a lover who liked me for more than just the novelty of my humanity. I wanted a ‘human life’ and I wanted it so badly I burned every bridge to get back to what I thought was home.”

“Oh no.” Mol hadn’t meant to say that out loud but decided it was a fine and normal reaction, so she focused her energy on toning down the amount of shock that showed on her face. She tried a drink of what Angie had ordered for her and immediately had to re-divert some of her energy to pretending to sip the chocolate-mango latte while not letting it pass her lips.

Angie patted her hand. “Oh no pretty much covers it, love.” She brightened momentarily. “How do you like the drink? Fun, isn’t it? It’s like a little flavour vacation.”

Mol nodded. “That is a great description.” Angie’s hand was still on her hand and Mol briefly calculated the next social steps of disengaging before she caught a particular tilt of Angie’s head.

“Burned bridges can be rebuilt though, if you have the right materials.” Her grip tightened on Mol, fingers beginning to bracelet her wrist. Mol kept her body very still, her other hand still firmly gripping the to-go cup of chocolate-mango latte.

Angie smiled, and Mol wondered if Angie was the kind of person who would eventually get pointed teeth after living in a different plane for long enough. Angie seemed to like aesthetics.

“You, my dear,” the grip tightened more, “are the perfect building materials. You know I learned about you from one of my tutors? Not because of your curse, but because you’d married into some royal family and your coming and going was of particular legal interest when it came to inheritance.”

“So, your plan is—ransom?” Mol held Angie’s eyes. “Some sort of influence-based leverage?” She leaned forward, which Angie didn’t seem to like paired with the unbroken eye contact. “Do you honestly think, after I’ve spent 95 years over there, even if it has been spread out over goodness knows how many centuries, that I’m little more than a token?”

Mol clenched the hand holding her still very-full drink, aiming it at Angie. Chocolate-mango latte erupted, sticky and fragrant, from chin to lap. Reflexively, Angie let go of Mol’s wrist as she fruitlessly swiped at the sixteen ounces of liquid soaking enthusiastically into her clothing.

Dropping the cup, Mol reached one hand into her coat pocket and set the other gently, but firmly, around Angie’s throat as she stood. From the corner of her eye, Mol checked that the person at the other end of the garden hadn’t moved more than desultorily tapping at the keys of their laptop.

“Let’s go home then, shall we, love?” Mol gripped the talisman in her coat pocket and they tipped, from nighttime cafe garden to a sunny verdant bower.

There were no convenient cafe chairs where they arrived, so when Mol let go of Angie’s throat the woman toppled backward, landing heavy on the soft moss-covered ground. The fall seemed to knock words out of her.

“But, you can’t control when you go!”

“Correction: I couldn’t.” Mol brought her hand out of her pocket and shrugged showily. “I don’t make a useful token of exchange, but as a daughter gone astray you rather did.” She considered putting on a mean smile, but decided the other woman wasn’t worth the effort of playacting.

Angie was sputtering, trying to speak, but Mol ignored her and looked up to the two figures waiting under a silvery willow. “There she is, as asked. A pleasure doing business with you.”

With everything checked off her to-do list, Mol stepped lightly from the bower, tapping the pocket that held her new talisman. With the freedom to come and go as she pleased, she felt no rush.