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​A Witch By Any Other Name

Queer & Enchanted Stories

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Margery Bayne

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

A WITCH BY ANY OTHER NAME

First edition. June 11, 2025.

Copyright © 2025 MARGERY BAYNE.

ISBN: 979-8998662003

Written by MARGERY BAYNE.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

"Unruly women are always witches 

no matter what century we're in."

 - Roxane Gay

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​A Witch By Any Other Name

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THEY CALL ME A SOUL-stealer. A corrupter of children. A sorceress. A monster.

They exaggerate it like bedtime stories, a fable to twist me into a malevolent force, a demon shadow in the forest, that will come for the kiddies who wander too far, who question too much, who want things they shouldn’t. They whisper it like rumors between old wives: in confidence, in shock, in need. They complain over it, bawdy and slurred, between men and their beers—the secret that everyone knows. All of it doing my work for me, letting everyone from cottage to castle-side know I’m here, and what I can do.

And they come. I’ve never stolen a single one. Never tricked, lured, enchanted, or seduced. Yet they come.

They come with feeble knocks: exhausted, scared, and doubtful. Or they come with shouting pleas, sure they are being chased. Or they stand by the bark of a tree and look, look, look before turning back.

Sometimes they come on dares. Throw a rock through the window! Catch a glimpse of the witch! Steal cursed weeds from her garden! Sometimes those same hooligans return—weeks, months, years later—bashful, looking for help. I’ve never turned away a single one. 

They come with what little possessions they have in a sack, or they come with nothing but the clothes on their back. Sometimes they come without even their shoes—having been run out of their home, their village, their life without a chance to put them on. Some never had shoes in the first place. They come with bruises, split lips, and broken spirits. They come with grand plans, an escape turned into an adventure, with money saved and maps sketched out: to go to the city, they heard it’s different there; to go down south where no one knows them; to make it out to the coast because the ocean sounded like another word for freedom.

They come alone, planting their feet on my doorstep, voices betraying a tremble. Sometimes they come with their hair already cropped or grown long, with a dress exchanged for breeches, or the other way around. Some are still in their everyday disguises. When I ask their name, they’ll hesitate or throw out the mismatched thing their parents gave them. When I say, “Your real name,” there is sometimes a gasp, sometimes tears, or sometimes a gleam behind their eyes as they seem to glow from within. All of it evidence of the precious hidden truth finally cracking through, pleased and terrified to be seen. 

They come in pairs, fingers woven together, bold and defiant. A rebellion forged through heartache. Boy and boy. Girl and girl. Love is such a thing to be proud of even in a world that thinks evening should only be paired with day when two lovely midnights or two sunny afternoons are just as perfect complements.

Or they come as two and leave as one. A mother secreting away a child. Friend helping friend. Or a pact that breaks at the crossroads of the familiar past and the wide-open future. They come with a child in their belly, only a child themselves, not knowing how it happened or knowing too well. Afraid of a future of shame, of hunger, of being trapped with the demon who did it to them. Being afraid of a future they didn’t want.

They leave with potions. Potions that will set their womb free. With potions that will keep it that way. Potions that will help them grow a beard. That will steady their nerves. That will lighten their voice. 

They leave with amulets. Amulets that show them a path through the forest only they can see. That will make any angry fist thrown at them glance away. That will let them know their lover who has the second of the pair is safe and thriving no matter the distance. 

They leave with a few coins when I can spare them. A full belly even when I can’t. Wrists wrapped, bruises poulticed. They leave with a new pair of shoes, a disguise, a plan.

They leave with names. Of the street in the city with couples all like them. Of a captain at the harbor ports who has their own mismatched crew and will call you any name you please. Of inns along their way where no one will bother them if they mention me.

They leave with confidence. A promise that I’ll keep their secrets, cover their tracks, and never leak a clue. 

In the town, there will be wails. In the fields, shouting. Anger in the barroom. I’ve had a few errant drunks and half-ordered mobs come my way before. But I’m still here. Of this they don’t lie: the forest is mine, and I master its darkness. Still, the whispers will hiss, the rumors will grow, and the legends and name-calling will continue to twist.

They call me a soul-stealer. A corrupter of children. A monster. Because I do for their children want they can’t. Because I love their children—the ones who question, who wander, who want—enough to help them when they won’t.

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​The Witch & The Runaway

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SOMEHOW PEOPLE ALWAYS came to entreat the Witch for help at the most inconvenient times. Today it was after supper. She had just sat in her favorite rocking chair to give her weary bones a rest when a frantic pounding at the door forced her to get up.

Having helped many people in her many years, the Witch was good at identifying their problems before a single word was spoken. So when she opened the door she immediately noted three things about the woman on the other side. She was young. The dress rain-plastered to her shivering body was an expensive beaded satin. And her face had the famous royal peaked nose smack dab in the middle of it.

The Witch said, “Let me guess... Arranged marriage?”

The young woman, none other than the Princess herself, gave a shaky nod. The Witch sighed and opened the door wider.

The Witch had a process for these sorts of things: blankets tucked around shoulders, tea brewed, fire stoked, and only after would she allow the conversation to be started. Her hearing had grown too poor and her patience too thin to listen to fumbling tales through chattering teeth and panicked breathing. She’d rather be comfortable before it began.

The Witch carried a cup of tea over to the Princess, hobbling around pots laid out on the floor to catch pinging drops sneaking in from the leaky roof. She was used to seeing the runaways who came to her slope-shouldered and cowering, but the Princess sat without a hint of a slouch. She accepted her earthenware teacup with prim fingers.

The Witch eased herself into the chair across from the Princess. “Out with it then.” 

“My family has chosen my future husband for me,” the Princess said. “But I don’t want him.”

“Is he cruel? Or old? Or ugly?” the Witch asked. The usual suspects, with some more valid than others.

“No, ma’am,” the Princess said.

“Ah, you want to marry for love then.”

Then, the Princess said something that surprised the Witch even though she had enough beggars of help at her door over her many years to believe that she couldn’t be surprised anymore.

The Princess said, “I don’t want to get married at all.”

~~~

THE PRINCESS TOLD HER tale. Once she was done, the Witch said, “That doesn’t need a spell. Just a disguise. I suggest you learn how to slouch.”

The Witch watched as the Princess tried, but remained incredibly poised.

“The other thing you’ll need...” She paused to drain the end of her tea. “Is a means to support yourself. If you plan to stay unmarried, that is. Can you sew?”

The Princess shook her head.

“Cook?”

Again, her head shook.

The witch rubbed at her temples. “Cobble?”

“What’s that?”

The Witch sighed.

“I know how to write poetry,” the Princess volunteered.

“That’s no good to anyone.” This was the problem with trying to help the rich; they had no skills. “You’re young. You still have time to learn a trade. Until you’re able to support yourself, you can stay here.”

The Princess jumped up from her chair and flung her arms around the Witch’s shoulders with a fluidity of youth that had long ago bypassed the Witch.

“Thank you,” the Princess said. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”

The Witch could guess, considering she was being half-strangled by a hug. Even more, she knew she might be the only one in a hundred miles that would respect the girl’s plight enough to give actual aid, instead of turning her back over to the search parties—whether for allegiance or reward monies—that were sure to follow.

By heck, there was a reason she lived in a cottage with a leaky roof: She had never been particularly good at business.

~~~

A WEEK OF RAINSTORMS may have slowed them down, but when the search party arrived in the village, the Witch threw open her door wide like she had nothing to hide.

“No one here but me and my niece.”

When the guards peered past the old woman’s crooked self to see a young woman with close-cropped hair, a soot-smudged face, and dressed in peasant grab, they of course determined she couldn’t be her Highness, the Royal Princess, the delicate Flower of the Kingdom.

It helped that most of them had probably never seen her, save from afar during some ceremony. They were sure, though, her royal glory would be instantly recognizable especially against the rundown backdrop of a village like this one, if she was indeed even here. Even more, there was no way she’d be in a cottage with a known witch other than unwillingly, and this girl doing the Witch’s mending.

“Ouch!” the peasant girl exclaimed when her thumb became a victim of a needle.

“We’ll leave you to your work, women. But if you see anything...”

“I’ll hightail it to the castle myself to let their Highnesses know. Bye now.” She closed the door on them, already annoyed. All went to plan, but annoyed she was nonetheless; it happened when you got older and your patience, as well as your joints, started to go.

“I don’t think I have it cut out to be a seamstress,” the Princess said.

“You don’t have it cut out to be anything but a squatter right now,” the Witch replied. The Princess was remarkably unflapped by the guards, but the Witch had been serving her soothing tea the last few days in preparation for this moment. “But no one is cut out for anything until after they practice.” She yanked the cloak from the princess’ hands and inspected the lopsided stitches that indeed showed no promise after several days of lessons.

“At least you’ll be able to mend your clothes good enough to look like a vagrant,” the Witch muttered under her breath.

“What else had you mentioned?” the Princess asked, unhearing of the criticism. “Cobbling?”

The Witch released an exhausted grunt. Damn her gentle heart.

~~~

SOMETIMES HER BACK failed her. Punishment for being old, for spending too many years hunched over her herb gardens, her boiling pot, and her work table.

“I thought we were going into town today,” the Princess said, her voice lingering a question at the end. She had kneeled down beside the Witch’s bed, a narrow thing set against the wall. The princess had been sleeping on a rollout pallet tucked along the other side of the bungalow. The Witch had acquired the pallet years ago; she had homed enough wayward souls in her time.

“Not today, lass,” the Witch said, her voice coming out a croak. “Today’s not a day for moving.”

“Are you alright?”

The Witch shifted on her pillow and moaned. “No.”

“What can I—”

“A potion. In the cabinet. Top shelf. Green bottle. Bring it here.”

Lying with her eyes shut, the Witch heard the Princess rush across the room and rifle through the cabinet. Bottles and jars clinked, clattered and thudded in a way that would’ve made her cringe if she hadn’t known from the long-standing tradition of pain that even a cringe would send a spike of hurt through her.

“This?” the Princess said, coming back to the Witch’s side.

The Witch peeked one eye open. “Yes. That. Open it.” The cork popped. “Hand it to me.” She held out a feeble arm.

“Um,” the Princess said, even as she laid the glass vial in the Witch’s hand. “It’s empty.”

The Witch could tell just from the weight of it that it was true; still, she tipped the rim to her mouth, hoping for any spare drop. None. It was bone dry. She remembered now using it up last month during weeding season when her wrists had gone bad on her. But she had been busy then with all the potions she’d been making for a pair of pregnant sisters in the town that her refills had been put at the end of the order line and forgotten.

She wanted to fling the bottle across the room, but her limited range of motion precluded it. Instead, she had to suffice with dropping it. She dropped it.

“I could go to town...” the Princess started, unsure. Her problems had always probably been solved by ordering a servant to find what was needed. “Buy some for you.”

“I’m the witch in these parts. You aren’t going to find any of this in town... Nothing for me to do but sleep it off and hope it gets better.”

“I could—” the Princess’ words caught again against her teeth before they spilled out, “Make more?”

The offer hung in the air. A ridiculous idea as the Princess had no training in potion making and so far had shown little potential in any of the handicrafts or domestic arts. While the Witch, wizened with practice, could whip up the potion without consulting her recipe book, it was by no means simple.

“Well,” the Witch said, “I suppose there’s nothing better to do.”

~~~

“THESE HERBS?” THE PRINCESS asked after her third trip out to the garden. It took a moment for the Witch’s eyes to focus on the green offering the girl held up.

“Yes,” she said. “Finally.”

A bit defensive, the Princess said, “A lot of leaves are fan-shaped.”

“Just drop in three of them, untouched.”

This should be the true test of any Witch’s competency, explaining your potion-making process step-by-step for someone else’s hands to do. Someone who didn’t know what a pestle was or the difference between slicing and mincing. 

“They’re in.”

“Now stir, sunwise, ten times. Only ten. Hear me on that?”

“Yes, I hear you,” the Princess replied, short. The Witch wasn’t used to being talked back to with an attitude. The Princess, she supposed, was similarly not used to being ordered around by strange old women. What a pair they made.

After a time that it could’ve taken to stir anywhere from eight to fifteen circles, the Princess peeped up, “Um...”

Oh, no, thought the Witch. What a useless venture. And a waste of ingredients to boot.

“Is it supposed to be turning yellow?” 

Oh, thought the Witch, a pleasant surprise. How unexpected.  

“That’s exactly what it’s supposed to be turning.”

A few steps remained: a pinch of ground tortoiseshell, a slow brew over the fire, and the final snap which served as the hit of intention necessary for good magic.

“You just want me to snap? Over the pot?” the Princess asked.

“Just do it, girl,” the Witch said. “Think about what you’re making and what you want it to do.”

After a lingering quiet, the Witch was satisfied when she heard the click of fingers.

“Now bring some here.”

The Princess brought over a scoop of potion in a ladle and helped the Witch guide it to her lips. The Witch’s lips puckered after she managed down the first gulp.

“Is it alright?” the Princess asked.

With care, the Witch sat up in bed, her body eased of pain. “If it doesn’t taste foul then you didn’t do it right.”

The Princess blinked.

“You did good, girl,” the Witch said. “I’m already on the mend.”

Yes, she had done very good. Unusually good, indeed.

~~~

“WHAT EXACTLY DOES A witch do?” The Princess picked at a loose thread on her cuff. “Other than the potions.” 

“Potions, talismans, charms... for health, luck, fortune. For fertility, or for the opposite.” The Princess blushed. How amusing it was to watch someone soft enough to be shocked by anything, let alone human nature. Or, at least, some humans’ nature. 

“Do you...curse people?”

The Witch frowned. “Now that’s just nasty rumors.”

“I just needed to know,” the Princess said, words tumbling out. “Needed to make sure.”

The Witch counted five snake fangs into the pestle as the Princess watched her work. The local boys—the ones who were brave enough to approach her front door—knew they could make a few pennies by collecting them from the snakes killed about town. Only after she recounted the fangs, for it was better to correct a mistake before it became one, did she speak.

“When you’re a witch,” she said. “People come to you to solve their problems. That’s what the job is. No cursing needed...” She snorted. “The older I get the more I see that most problems don’t need an application of magic to be solved. Just an application of common sense.”

Sometimes it was an application of a roof over a runaway’s head.

“Could anyone do it?” asked the Princess.

“Not anyone.” The Witch worked her knobbly hands harder over a pestle, grinding the snake fangs into a fine dust. “You need to have a certain sort of patience for it.”

A little noise sounded in the back of the Princess’ throat. A half-aborted laugh. The Witch may be terse, but she was also diligent.

“Could—Could I do it? Could I be a witch?”

Knuckles aching, the Witch loosened her grip on the pestle.

“Let me,” the Princess said, suddenly by the Witch’s side. The Witch let her take over, willing to admit the girl had shown some aptitude for the work, and seemed eager.

“It’s lonely work,” the Witch said. “Everyone comes to you for help, but they avoid you the rest of the time. Think you’re strange. Creepy.”

“But it’s good work,” the Princess said. “Helpful. Needed.”

“Yes, it’s that too.”

The Princess’s hands were sure and steady around the mortar and pestle, especially for not knowing what they were called mere days ago.

“You’re not going to change your mind about running away?” the Witch asked. “About not being a princess anymore? About... the rest of it?”

“Well,” the Princess said, pausing to inspect the fineness of the dust. “I haven’t yet.”  

~~~

BEFORE THEY KNEW IT a month had passed. A luck talisman was traded with a local carpenter for a bed frame. The Princess ran errands in town with the Witch’s money. Villagers began recognizing her as the Witch’s niece, or apprentice, or “enchanted into service” servant depending on who was doing the telling. 

No one expected her as the missing princess despite being the same age and showing up around the same time the princess disappeared. And the villagers were keeping an eye out too, with rewards posted and fancying themselves all heroes. None of them had ever seen a royal, but they expected to recognize the Princess’ dignity of spirit or whatnot. The dignity of spirit that was not possessed by a Witch’s apprentice with sloppy chopped hair and mud splattered up her hem. The obfuscation charm the Princess wore as a necklace helped.

So another month passed—spring rains exchanged for summer sun. Many days were spent out in the garden.

“No, not that one,” the Witch would snipe every so often, leaning on a newly acquired walking stick as the Princess was on her knees doing the actual gardening. “Yes, that,” she’d add, tapping the Princess’ foot with her walking stick in emphasis. She found she liked this new extension of herself. Great for brandishing as well as walking. 

There were plenty of things in the Witch’s life that she just tolerated: the ache of her joints, the leaky roof of her cottage, and the children who dared to knock on her door before darting away. There were things like the meaningfulness of her work that kept her satisfied. There weren’t many things around that she considered nice.

Having someone to help out with her work was nice. Having someone to teach all her years of learned knowledge was nice. Thinking about how her village, the neighboring town, and the next runaway wouldn’t be left in a lurch after the local witch eventually passed was nice.

The way the Princess had become a true apprentice, taking on the work with pinched-eyebrows concentration and thoughtful questions, was nice.

“I never favored the idea of marriage,” the Princess said as she weeded around the mugwort. “Of being a wife and a mother and attending to my husband’s affairs. But I was assured I’d grow into it. Grow into understanding. Change my mind. I... I believed that I would. Until I was given the betrothal announcement, and then I realized that there was no more growing up for me to do. It was there, in front of me, and I still didn’t want it. Not with him. Not with anyone.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” the Witch said. 

“You’re the first person who’s understood.”

“Well, do you see a husband hanging around about here?” the Witch countered, and they never said anything else on the matter. They never needed to.

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​You Make Your Own Luck

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THE WITCH’S COTTAGE was picturesque with its colorful garden and the lace curtains hanging in the windows, but Adelaide was sure it wasn’t going to stay that way for long. She shored up her shoulders as she came to stand at the threshold, not knowing what would happen when she identified herself to the person inside. She had her plans, but plans weren’t her family’s strong suit; that was the downside of being cursed.

Adelaide knocked.

The door opened and in the doorway stood a young woman of Adelaide’s equivalent age with almost-black hair down past her shoulders.

Adelaide folded her hands in front of herself. “I’m Adelaide of Longshire, and I’m here to break my family’s curse.”

The witch rolled her eyes. “My name’s Myra. And no.”

And thus far the interaction had gone as it had for generations.

“So how are we going to do this?” Myra said. “Do you have a dagger hidden in your boot? Some friends hiding in the trees?”

Adelaide shook her head.

“I heard stories about how one of your lot came after my grandmother with a... spear, was it?”

“My uncle.” Adelaide had heard the story too. “He slipped on chicken dropping and impaled himself.”

Myra raised a pair of thin, uncaring eyebrows. “Did he survive?”

“Yes, actually. Walked with a limp for the rest of his life, but he had a good sense of humor about it. You have to have a good sense of humor about being cursed.”

As dry as a summer drought, Myra said, “Do you now?”

Unbothered by the standoff, a chicken clucked its way between their feet.

“Well? Get on with it. I have other things to do with my day.”

“That’s the thing.” Adelaide twisted her hands. “I didn’t come here to try and kill you.”

The witch cocked her head in a tiny, unspoken question.

“It hasn’t worked in—well—forever. So I thought there ought to be a better way. A less dangerous way. A friendlier way.” She cleared her throat. “I entreat to strike a bargain.”

“And what do you have to bargain with?”

Holding out her empty palms, Adelaide said, “I figured I could work the curse off?”

Myra slammed the door in her face.

Adelaide would’ve had every right to give up then, find accommodations for the night, and start her journey home in the morning. Making this pilgrimage to break the curse was a more generational rite of passage than actual hope. Back home, her family would be pleased she returned uninjured.

However, along with humor, stubbornness was the other factor needed for getting through life cursed with bad luck.

Adelaide camped outside Myra’s cottage that night with nothing more than her pack as a pillow. It rained.

~~~

ADELAIDE AWOKE TO A blanket being tossed on her face. She drew it back to the sight of heeled boots inches from her nose.

“Come inside. I can’t have an ill wretch on my doorstep. It’ll scare away my customers.”

Adelaide wrapped the blanket around her damp shoulders and followed Myra inside. She sat where instructed at a sturdy wooden table and accepted the ceramic bowl of porridge with only a mild worry about being poisoned.

The inside of the cottage was done up as elaborately as Myra was done up herself. There was no bare inch to be found with the patterned rugs and wall hangings, plump couches and cushioned stools, as well as all the things one expected to find in a witch’s house: dried bundles of herbs hanging from the rafters and shelves of bottles holding mysterious and worrisome contents.

When Myra folded her hands across the table from Adelaide, Adelaide noted the neat crescent moons of her fingernails.

“I’ve been thinking over your offer.”

Adelaide paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth. A drop of the porridge plopped down onto her trousers.

“One lucky thing has happened to you. I require an assistant. For errands and such.”

“Okay.”

“It won’t be easy.”

“Nothing in my life has been easy.”

“What I’m saying is...” Myra sat up taller in her chair, but it didn’t quite manage to be intimidating. “I won’t take it easy on you.”

~~~

ON MONDAY, MYRA SENT Adelaide into town with a list of goods to buy. It took Adelaide three trips, a bloody knee, and until nightfall to get them all.

On Tuesday, Myra sent Adelaide up the Ivy Hills to pick the potent blue flowers that liked to bloom there this time of spring. Adelaide came back covered from head to toe with mud.

On Wednesday, Myra sent Adelaide to the well to fetch water. Adelaide fell down the well. It took until noon for a townsfolk to hear her calls from the bottom. While very late and very soaking, she returned to the cottage with her bucket of water anyway.

On Thursday, Myra sent Adelaide up on the cottage roof to clean off the bramble and patch an area Myra had noticed dripping last rain. Adelaide fell off the roof. Twice.

Lucky for her, the one-story cottage didn’t have all that high of a roof. Lucky for her, the cottage was surrounded by soft shrubs and gardens. Lucky for her, the family curse wasn’t meant to kill.

She commented on this observed state of things over dinner that evening, a simple stew with bread and cheese.

Myra picked the crust off her slice. “If my ancestor intended to kill yours, they would’ve just done it. But to cause inconvenience and frustration for years and generations hence... that’s a lot more rewarding.” She flicked the crust into the fire. It wasn’t so far into spring yet that the nights could be handled without the hearth lit.

Adelaide knocked her bowl off the table with her elbow, but it didn’t crack where it struck the carpeted floor.

“I’m sending you fishing tomorrow,” Myra said. “I hope you know how to swim.”

~~~

“YOU’RE SURPRISINGLY dry,” Myra commented when Adelaide returned the next orange-glowed afternoon. She was sitting in the garden on a stool, knitting something lumpy.

“I lost the fishing pole,” Adelaide said.

Myra's attention flashed up from her work. She’d lined her gray eyes with smudged kohl, and it made every look sharper. “My fishing pole?”

“Bad luck sometimes catches others in its net.”

“I suppose no fish then, either.”

Adelaide heaved a net from over her shoulder and plopped the still-floppy fish in the dirt at Myra’s feet. Myra drew back the toes of her shiny boots.

“I didn’t lose it in the river.” 

Adelaide led Myra to the place where the pole was lost, closer to the cottage than not, and pointed up. Myra squinted. High above them in the branches, the fishing pole dangled.

“How did it get up there?”

“I’m not entirely sure. It got caught. I tugged. Whatever it was caught on tugged back and...” Adelaide lifted her arms skyward.

Myra had her long fingers pressed to her lips. Then she laughed. It began like the first drops of rain on your head before the clouds opened up for a storm. Stormed she did, laughing so hard that she had to grab hold of Adelaide’s arm to keep herself standing. Adelaide found herself laughing too.

Myra wiped a tear from the corner of her eye once she regained enough of her breath to speak: “You really do have to find the humor in it.”

“It’s easy to find it funny when it’s the first time it has happened to you.”

Although Adelaide hadn’t been mad, Myra found something sour in it nonetheless.

“The only bad luck I’ve had is waiting around for one of your lot to try and kill me.”

There was less humor in the air now.

“Well...” Adelaide said when the silence had dragged. “Can’t you magic it down?”

Myra eyed the great height over her. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Me.”

~~~

WORKING FOR MYRA AND sleeping in the spare closet turned into a spare bedroom, Adelaide witnessed how a single, young witch made her way in the world. Myra had daily visitors come to collect potions and poultices, herbs and strange roots, or to sit down over her home-brewed tea to discuss health or love issues and to be prescribed the appropriate remedy. All at a cost, of course. What Adelaide never saw was the same person come twice.

“Don’t you get lonely out here?” Adelaide asked with her attempt at mending spread in her lap. The needle’s point had become very acquainted with the pad of her thumb.

“I have constant business. How could I get lonely?” Myra didn’t look up from her work with a mortar and pestle.

A knock on the door interrupted them. Myra opened the door just a crack and had a perfunctory conversation with whoever was on the other side. She came back with a bundle of fabric in her arms. “Trade,” she muttered to Adelaide on her way to the cabinet.

Once back at the door she passed two vials out to however had come knocking, then latched it with a huff.

“What kind of trade?”

Myra shook out the bundle of fabric. It was a coat: woolen, gray, and with a boxy cut. “Not my style, but some people can only pay what they can pay. Are you in need of a coat?”

Adelaide shook her head.

Myra refolded it over her arm. “I’m sure I’ll run across someone who needs it by next winter.” She tucked the bundle on one of her many shelves.

Adelaide thought of her home, the farm and the farmhouse, and its mass of opponents there and at its nearby neighbors. Her family was large despite its magical disadvantages. They were always bruised and scraped, and getting into scraps and other troubles. But they were surviving, even thriving, bonded together even stronger and more willfully for their misfortunes. The farm was work—farms always were—but it rarely felt like it.

“But don’t you do anything for fun?”

Myra dusted her hands off against each other. “Of course I do. You’ve been here two weeks and think you know my life?”

“All I know is what I’ve seen,” Adelaide said in what she thought was a very measured answer. Myra took it as a challenge.

“I have plenty of fun. I’m even going to a party. Look...” She plucked up a letter from atop the refuse pile meant for the hearth. “Tonight. I hope you have something decent to wear.”

“I’m going?” Adelaide plucked her thumb with the needle again.

Myra tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Every proper lady arrives with an attendant.”

Adelaide wondered when witches had become proper ladies, but she didn’t ask. She knew very well that luck wasn’t to be tested.

~~~

MYRA SCOFFED AT THE sight of her.

Adelaide knew what she looked like, being a bit tallish, with shoulders a bit squarish, and her dusty blonde hair cut short in an unusual fashion, but she held up her chin anyway. “I’m a working woman. Trousers are more practical. These are clean and well-mended.”

Myra shimmed on a black lace glove. “I suppose it’s the best we can do on short notice.”

Even on the most regular day, Myra favored petticoats; fabrics embroidered, layered, or laced; and dark colors that contrast-complimented her pale complexion. So what she wore now looked like what she wore every day, save for the accessories: the jeweled comb in her braided-up hair and a parasol with painted silk panels.

“Was that a courting gift?” Adelaide asked, curious, for the parasol was both a delicate and wondrously constructed thing. 

“I can buy my own gifts.” She angled the parasol on her shoulder in such a way that blocked Adelaide from her view as they walked side-by-side into town.

At the manor, Myra flicked out her invite to the doorman and brushed inside before she could be announced. Inside, Adelaide saw why Myra had intended to burn the invitation.

To Adelaide’s country girl eye, Myra had looked glamorous from the moment she first opened her cottage door. Surrounded by other fancy ladies, something of Myra’s glamor dimmed. Her clothes were too dark and old-fashioned. And when surrounded by pristine dresses tailored fresh for the season—they revealed their weathering.

From the ogling, standoffish crowds emerged a young gentleman who Adelaide wouldn’t call handsome, just well-kept. He extended his arms as he approached.

“Myra. I didn’t expect you to come. But it’s bad manners to snub the local witch.”

Snickering speckled the air. 

“Dain,” Myra said dryly. “I had to accept one of your invites eventually, or you might think I didn’t like you.”

In a gesture that increased the giggling, Dain offered an arm. Myra eyed it like it was moldy before she slipped her arm through his. Some unpleasantries were to be endured in a battle of wills.

Myra passed the closed parasol to Adelaide as she was led away. Adelaide stood there, paralyzed between wanting to follow and feeling like she couldn’t.

“She realizes that no one wants her here, right?” asked one twitty lady to another. “That the invitation was a joke?”

“Like inviting the help,” droned another.

The third, “Well, I’m not going to tell her. I don’t want to be cursed.”

The parasol started to seem weapon-like.

A hand on her elbow disrupted her murderous notions. A butler motioned her to the edge of the hall, where the other attendants waited, ignored and ready to spring to action when required. He stowed the parasol in the closet. Only a few minutes of anxious waiting passed before Adelaide heard raised voices.

She found Myra and Dain arguing on the patio off the back of the hall. Whatever the argument was about, Adelaide didn’t know, too distracted by what she saw. Myra tried to brush past Dain in a huff. Dain grabbed her arm to stop her. Myra yanked her arm against his stubborn grip; his grip held.

“Let go,” Myra said through gritted teeth.

Whatever he said in response was a low hiss in her ear. Adelaide didn’t need to hear it to march right up to the pair.

“She said 'let go.'”

Dain eyed Adelaide, unimpressed. “Oh look, Myra, you got a new footman.”

“You are foul,” Myra spat.

Adelaide said, “I really do suggest you let go.”

He didn’t. Twice was more than enough of a warning. What Adelaide did next might’ve not been the most proper thing for a fancy party, but it got him to let go.

~~~

THE PUNCH WAS WELL-formed. Fingers curled in the correct position to avoid injury, arm cocked at a precise length for leverage, and the aim true. If Adelaide had been a member of any other family, it would’ve been perfect.

Back at the cottage, Myra cleaned and wrapped Adelaide’s knuckles.

“You didn’t have to do it.” Her now loose hair hid her eyes as she worked, but not enough for Adelaide not to spy their redness. 

“I wanted to.”

Myra pulled the bandage snug. Adelaide winced.

“I could’ve taken care of myself. I have ways of taking care of myself.”

She held Adelaide’s injured hand between her two palms.

Adelaide curled her fingers over Myra’s. “People shouldn’t always have to take care of themselves all alone.”

~~~

MYRA WAS STRANGE THE next day. Quiet, although she would often get quiet when she concentrated on her work. This was a quiet wrapped in a cloak of melancholy.

She spent her afternoon at her work table, cutting, smashing, and grinding with aggression that worked up a beaded sweat on her brow. For Adelaide's task, she had said, “Just... just...” then waved a hand in the air, giving up. So Adelaide sat on a stool in a corner where she was least likely to bump or break anything—for it felt like a day for being careful—and just watched Myra move.

After a very decisive chop of the knife, Myra stilled, her hands planted on the table’s edge as if it alone was holding her up.

“It does get lonely.”

She looked so sad; Adelaide didn’t want her to be. All plans of winning her favor—working hard, head down, to end the curse—vanished. It was replaced with this: Myra was sad and Adelaide wanted to fix it.

She crossed the room. With a careful touch, she lifted Myra’s chin.

Myra stared at her; she blinked. For Adelaide it had been as gradual as the growing dusk; for Myra, it was a moment before and after a blink.

Myra pressed onto her tiptoes. That was all that was needed to complete the kiss.

~~~

MYRA RAN HER FINGERS through Adelaide’s hair. “Why short? It has a nice texture. It would look good long.”

“I’ve learned that long hair is more likely to get into unlucky situations than short.”

Myra’s mouth turned into a thin, hard line for a moment before she turned away to stir the cauldron simmering in the fireplace.

“What’s this?” Adelaide asked. Myra had been well into creating the brew when Adelaide awoke. “It smells good.” Something fresh and herby.

“It’s good for coughs.”

“Do people get a lot of coughs in the spring?”

Myra’s mouth turned into that line again. “I’m refilling my stock.”

Adelaide pressed the tip of her tongue to the back of her teeth. She had a lot of things she wanted to say but was sure she would tangle any words in the wrong configurations.

From nothing, Myra straightened up. “The parasol.”

A leaden weight settled in Adelaide’s stomach.

“Did you bring it back from the party?”

Adelaide shook her head.

“Oh, no.” Myra hunched over, tangling her fingers in her hair. “No, no, no.”

Adelaide reached out a hand for Myra and then flitted it away a second later, before contact landed.

Pacing, Myra started to play out her options. “I can’t just go and ask for it back. If Dain knew it was mine, he would toss it into the fire for sure...”

“Can you just...” Adelaide wiggled her fingers to connote magic.

“It doesn’t work like that!”

Myra stopped pacing, but only to stand there in the middle of the cottage, whittling her perfect crescent thumbnail with her teeth.

“I’ll do it.”

“What?” Myra snapped.

“I’m not so well known in town. I’ll sneak in and get it. I left it after all.”

“Do you think you can do it?” Myra asked. “Given your... condition?”

“I have no idea.” But Adelaide had never wanted to succeed at something more.

~~~

AS IT WAS A DRIZZLY day, Adelaide had fair reason to keep her hood drawn. Other than soaking her feet in a puddle on the way into town, her trip to the manor went smoothly. When she reached the gate, the butler she recognized from the party was crossing the grounds. She called out to him. He curved from his path to meet her.

“Can I help you?” he said in a tone that suggested that she better make it snappy.

Adelaide pulled back her hood in hopes that he would remember her. “Yes. Thank you. And excuse me, but at the party, my lady... Myra. You know, the witch...?”

The butler stared, seemingly unmoved.

Adelaide gulped. “She left her parasol. I’ve come to retrieve it.”

The butler unlatched the gate. “Follow me.”

With each step squelching in the wet grass, he led her around the house to the kitchen entrance. The kitchen was warm and dry, both of which she appreciated, even as he ordered, “Wait here” and left her to the curious looks of the cooks and scullery maids.

The butler returned with an oblong, brown paper package that seemed the right shape and size for the parasol. “To keep it dry,” he explained as he handed it over. He gestured to one of the maids, and she brought Adelaide a basket of loaves still warm from the oven.

“My youngest daughter wouldn’t have survived childbirth if it wasn’t for your lady. I’ll never be able to repay that. If there’s ever anything she needs...”

“I’ll let her know.”

During her return trek, the drizzle petered out.

~~~

“MY GRANDMOTHER GAVE it to me,” Myra explained, with the parasol laid across her knees. She had been near tears at its return, and even closer once hearing what the butler had said. “She was a practical woman. And it was a fanciful gift for a fanciful girl. And my grandmother got it for me.” Myra smoothed her hands over the folded silk. “She was all the family I had.”

“What of your mother?” Adelaide expected a bad answer.

“She traveled south to Piaya when I was nine and never came back.”

“She died?”

“She just didn’t come back.”

“Your father?”

“I wouldn’t know him if I saw him.”

No brothers or sisters either, Adelaide could guess. If there were any aunts or uncles or cousins, they weren’t important enough to be mentioned. What a lonely life, living in this cottage with just the memory of all the people that left her.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Myra said. “Like I’m a tragedy. I’m needed in this town. I help people. Whether they like me or not, I have a profession and purpose here. If Dain himself showed up tomorrow desperate and ailing, I would help him to the best of my ability, because that’s what I do. It’s what my grandmother taught me to do.”

Adelaide thought if Dain showed up here tomorrow, the first thing she’d do was kick him in the shin and the second thing she’d do was kick him again.

“Makes me wonder then,” Adelaide asked with a wiry grin. “What could it have been that my ancestor did that was so bad that his entire family line was cursed for eternity.”

Myra turned the folded parasol over in her lap once, twice, a third time. She looked up.

“Maybe we could find out.”

~~~

“I’M SURE THAT WE BOTH have our own version of the story passed down to us. Probably victimizing our ancestor appropriately and villainizing the other. Perhaps if we compare stories, we can get a clue to the truth.”

Adelaide worried her lip with her teeth. “Are... are you sure this will make anything better? Maybe it will make us hate each other.”

“While I find you pleasant enough, I need to know if sufficient amends have been made to pardon your whole family line.” Myra flipped her hair over her shoulder. It was a type of punctuation.

“My story involves my many-great uncle Eustace—”

“Eustace?” Myra laughed. “He had bad luck even before he was cursed.”

“Eustace was traveling through these parts to get to the city and got injured. He went to the local witch for aid. And the witch, supposedly, had put him under a trance to make him stay and be her servant. When he broke out of the trance and ran away, she cursed him and all his descents with bad luck.”

Myra squinted at her. “Is that why you offered to work for me? Is that what you thought I wanted?”

“...it might’ve inspired the idea.”

Myra stretched out her legs before her, crossing them at the ankles, the hem of the dress rucked up high enough for Adelaide to spy the delicate curves of her stocking-covered calves.

“My story involves your many-great uncle trying to kidnap the witch’s son.”

“Very different stories then.”

Myra hmmed. “More research then. We have to do more research.”

~~~

WHAT ADELAIDE THOUGHT had been a bench tucked under the window, as it had been draped with a crochet throw and topped with cushions, turned out to be a trunk. Together they dragged it out to the middle of the floor. When Myra unlocked it and threw open the lid, Adelaide saw that it was filled with leather-bound journals.

“What are these?” Adelaide reached out to touch but paused before her fingers completed their journey.

“Spellbooks.” Myra kneeled before the trunk and plucked one up with no hesitation. “For lack of a better word. Of course, any witch would have plentiful journals in their lifetime, full of scraps, notes, ideas, alterations.” She fanned through the pages with her thumb. The old, yellowed pages crinkled. “These are the final product. A compendium of each’s best knowledge, of spell or potion, discovered or amended.”

“What’re we doing with them?” Adelaide asked.

“What one does with books. Read them.”

“And to what purpose are we reading them?”

Myra snapped the book in her hand shut. “To find the one with the bad luck spell, of course.”

“Of course,” Adelaide repeated, not feeling ‘of course’ at all. “You don’t know which one has it?”

“Believe it or not, your family’s bad luck curse is not the center of my daily interests.”

“So we’re reading all these?” Adelaide knew how to read, but didn’t do it much for pleasure after she outgrew the fairy stories of her youth.

“Yes.” Myra laid a journal open on her lap. “You see, a spell book isn’t just like a list of recipes... ingredients, and rituals, that is. Each spell has a story. Inspiration and motivation behind it. And that bad luck spell surely will have the story.”

“Your side’s story.”

“Sure, but untainted by generations of hand-me-down additions. A little closer to the truth. And, of course, every curse that’s created comes with its cure. Comes with its... counter-curse.”

~~~

ADELAIDE RUBBED AT her tired eyes as she set a spell book into the discard pile.

“All I know for sure,” Myra said as she snapped another journal closed, “Is the only thing that definitely won’t break the curse is one of your lot killing me. If one of you managed it’d probably just make it worse. A natural contingency built into many a curse. I know that’s something you’d expect to hear from someone in my position, but I think you know me well enough now to believe it.”

“If it’s any salve,” Adelaide said. “I don’t think any of my family wants to kill you. It’s more of a tradition to try than an actual belief it will work.” 

“What a tradition,” Myra remarked dryly.

A knock on the door interrupted.

Myra sighed. “They all have to show up today when I’m busy after avoiding me since the party.”

“Avoiding you?”

“Word of Dain and our fight had to travel. His family does a lot of business in this town. The townsfolk couldn’t look to be choosing my side.” She raked her fingers through her hair, working out a few tangles. “I may save their lives and marriages and complexions, but he gives them money.”

The knock repeated.

“Coming!”

This guest—a middle-aged and frazzled woman—had to be invited in and have tea offered.

“It’s just not an easy thing to talk about,” she prefaced, fingers twitchy on a chintz teacup. None of Myra’s dishware matched, but it was all eccentric and beautiful. 

“Please, Mrs. Dower, take your time.” Myra laid a calming hand on top of the woman’s, but her eyes kept sliding back to the trunk of spell books spilled out on the floor.

The teacup clattered as Mrs. Dower replaced it onto the saucer. “I need you to understand, I love my children.”

“Of course,” Myra said.

“And my husband.”

“Brava on the success of your marriage.”

“And I also love...” Mrs. Dower went rather pink. “Being close to my husband.”

“Again, brava on the success of your marriage.”

Then it exploded out of the woman: “But I just can’t have any more babies.”

“See?” Myra said. “Wasn’t that easy?” 

She sent Mrs. Dowers off with a potion, instructions, orders to come back next month for resupply, and an insistence that this one was on the house. 

After the thankful woman had been urged out the door, Myra collapsed in the chair—just like her teacups, mismatched and exquisite—Adelaide had noticed she favored. 

“She didn’t have to make it such an ordeal. We all know what happens in the marriage bedroom.”

Adelaide felt herself growing heated around the face.

Myra noticed. Myra laughed. “Have I offended your farmgirl sensibilities, Ada?”

Adelaide grew hotter, because ‘Ada.’ No one called her that save for her mother and kid brother, a sort of offhand nickname that was familiar as it was affectionate.

“Well...” Myra slid like water from the chair back to the floor. “Back to work.”

~~~

“IT’S NOT HERE!” MYRA thumped down the last of the journals on the floor. “How could it not be here?”

It had taken them into the night and, after a rest, into the next morning to finish their search of the spell books. Adelaide's eyes ached in a way she didn’t know eyes could ache.

Grinding her knuckles into those very aching eyes, she asked, “Could you’ve missed something?”

They hadn’t been reading the journals to detailed completion, but skimming over the contents—disordered and unlabeled—to find the spell they were searching for. 

“I don’t know,” Myra snarled. “Could you have missed something?”

Adelaide leaned away. “I’ve tried my best.”

Myra threw up her hands. “Your best? Your best is a mess.”

It felt cruel of her to say it, like a hot weight in Adelaide’s gut. She knew a good deal of her life was a mess, but she tried and...

“It’s not my fault.”

Myra stood and started pacing in front of the hearth, dragging her hands through her hair and over her face. Within all the pacing, frantic and exhausted, words escaped her:

“I thought if I found it, I’d have a clue what to do. That maybe there would be an easy fix. A contingency. Or I could take it to a real witch, at least.”

“Stop.” Adelaide pressed up onto her knees. “Stop.” She got to her feet. She didn’t care for seeing Myra like this.

Myra stopped pacing but didn’t calm. Hands fisted in the hair at the nape of her neck, she said, “I’m a horrible person. Awful.”

Adelaide stepped forward. “You’re not.”

Myra stepped backward. “I am. I—I don’t know how to break the curse. I never have. I’m not even magic.”

The confession thudded inside the cottage as if it had been thundering.

“But...” The potions. The spell books. The fact that everyone called her a witch.

“It sometimes skips a generation. My grandmother was, but... I’m just a herbalist. I do my best with what I can, but if generations of people are used to this being the witch’s cottage...” She dropped her arms, her eyes glossy. “I’m sorry.”

Adelaide didn’t know what to say. Or feel. All her plans to save her family... But hadn’t she lost track of her plans a long time ago?

Myra made her final confession: “If I could break the curse for you, I would.”

Adelaide said, “I need to think.”

~~~

WITH SUMMER APPROACHING, the night air was pleasant and the cricket song strong. The forest wasn’t a silent entity, just wordless. That was what Adelaide needed right now, no words so that her thoughts and feelings had a place to stretch themselves out. She felt betrayed, somewhat, because Myra and herself had made an agreement. An exchange. Sure, it had been flimsy terms, Adelaide hoping to appeal to her favor and knowing it more likely than not to fail. But she had been operating on a slim hope. A hope that never existed.

On the other hand, Myra was contrite over the matter. She hadn’t needed to admit her deficiency with magic at all. And it seemed she had been trying her best to find a way out of the curse.

Wasn’t it better to have a non-witch who wanted to break the curse than a witch who could do it full well and just refused? 

Was it?

Adelaide slept outside that night, the first time since her first day here. Tonight, it was that perfect temperature between cool and warm that one got on rare days in the transitioning seasons. Despite everything else, it was a lucky night to be mad.

~~~

WHEN ADELAIDE RETURNED in the morning, Myra was wearing the same frock as the day before.

“I’m not mad,” Adelaide said, and she wasn’t anymore. What she was: Refreshed from a heavy sleep in the fresh night air, and resigned. “But this means I have to go home.”

Myra nodded, tightly. “Let me pack you some food. And some... I have all that cough remedy brewed, so... It’s the least I can do.”

Adelaide agreed but remained sitting outside where the chickens clucked. While she wasn’t mad, she was heavy. The idea of taking on the first of several days' long walk back home was unappealing, even as appealing as the lure of home was. 

Plus, she was afraid to go back inside the cottage. To be overwhelmed by the smells of herbs, tea, and perfume. Afraid she would miss the feel of the velvet cushions, the look of mismatched decorations, and the woman that governed over them all.

They hadn’t spoken of the kiss since it happened. They hadn’t kissed again. While the surrounding air had grown more at ease after, Myra freer with soft touches and softer laughter, Adelaide had assumed that Myra hadn’t wanted to repeat the experience but also hadn’t wanted to embarrass Adelaide by bringing it up.

Myra returned outside with Adelaide’s pack, properly stuffed.

“Do you mean to leave right away?”

“I suppose,” Adelaide said.

Ask me to stay, she thought, as if she, mundane as could be, could magic the thought into Myra’s head. Ask me to stay. She couldn’t stay without reason, but if Myra asked... 

Myra took in a breath that sounded suspiciously like a sniffle.

“Travel safe. Promise?”

Adelaide nodded. That’s all she could manage.

She adjusted the straps of her pack, hoping it was a delay that would escalate into another delay. It didn’t. Never in her life had Adelaide been lucky enough to get what she wanted.

Aligning herself in the direction of the eastward path, she started away.

“Eh! Lady! Lady!” A young errand boy from town hollered as he ran up the path from the town. It was nothing Adelaide had to deal with now.

His pounding feet ran straight past Myra’s cottage and towards Adelaide.

“I’m talking to you, lady!” He skidded to a stop where Adelaide paused. He held out a folded parchment. “You got a letter.”

The scrawl on the front was her mother’s.

“Were you leaving?” the boy asked. “Lucky getting here just in time, eh?”

Myra paid the boy, and he ran off back to town.

Adelaide had written home once during her stay, just reassurances she had arrived safely, that the witch hadn’t killed her on sight, and that she didn’t know how long she would be.

“Were you expecting a letter?” Myra asked.

Adelaide shook her head.

“Then you did get it just in time. How fortuitous.”

“Fortuitous.” Adelaide flipped the letter over and broke the wax.

Dearest Adelaide,

My wonderful and resourceful daughter, whatever you’ve done has worked! I didn’t notice at first. None of us did.

Last week, when your father was patching the roof, he lost his balance on the ladder and looked like he was going to fall, but he caught himself at the last moment. He clung to the rungs waiting for the ladder to topple anyway, the shingles to slide off, lightning to strike,—anything!—and it didn’t. Neither of us knew what to think, but we started paying attention.

It's been like that for the whole family. All the little things that used to go wrong no longer do. Of course, there are still some scraped knees and kitchen burns, but only in proportion to the regular follies of life. Nothing like it used to be.

I hope you’re enjoying this freedom of luck wherever you are, and I hope even more to see you soon.

Love,

Your Mother

“What is it?” Myra demanded. “You look pale.”

Adelaide passed over the letter. Soon she heard Myra sucking in a breath, coming to the same conclusion.

Adelaide didn’t leave that morning.

~~~

“NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT it... things have been going rather smoothly lately.” Adelaide wasn’t sure when the last time she tripped or spilled soup on her pants. “The last time I hurt myself was...” She held up the hand she had punched Dain with. “And everything went awfully easy when I went to get your parasol, and that was a situation rife with unlucky possibilities”

“So whatever broke the curse had to have happened between...” Myra trailed off.

Only one thing of note had occurred between those events, and even though she didn’t say it, she could feel it through the flushed heat climbing up her neck.

Myra laughed in an airy way that was reminiscent of hysteria. “A kiss? How trite. A kiss is too easy of a thing to hang a curse on.”

Adelaide hadn’t thought the kiss had been easy when she had given it; she thought even less so now.

“Look at all these spell books lying about.” Myra swooped down to collect one she had left tossed in a far corner, then to the trunk; she reached inside. Her hand retreated with a jerk.

“What’s wrong?” Adelaide leaned to see.

“This trunk has a false bottom.”

Adelaide helped her pry it out. Under it was one last journal.

~~~

THEY SAT SHOULDER-TO-shoulder on the floor to read it together. This one was an actual journal instead of a spell book, the passages recorded day by day, written by the hand of Myra’s many-great grandfather—son of a witch, magic in his own right, still in the apprentice stages—who fell in love with a traveler, Adelaide’s many-great uncle.

“Uncle Eustace wasn’t enchanted. He was just in love,” Adelaide said when they were partway through.

“And there was no kidnapping attempt,” Myra said, a few pages later. “They were trying to run away together.”

But there was more to the story than that. Their two families didn’t want them together. Because of old fears about witches and outsiders and other backward things. Two families that forced them apart.

So Myra’s many-great grandfather, heartbroken, sent his vengeance through a curse.

Adelaide pointed at the page. “Is that a squiggle or an ‘s’?”

“I believe an ‘s’.”

“But then... curses. More than one.”

Myra pulled the journal close and started reading faster. She turned the page, read some more, then sucked in a breath.

Before Adelaide could ask what, she started aloud: “To Eustace’s family, may they forever be ill-favored by luck in all of their ventures, so they can never forget what they have broken. To my own family, may they forever be alone, so they will always know what they’ve done to me. These are both bound until a time when there is reconciliation in equal amounts to what was taken.”

Adelaide wasn’t sure exactly what that all meant in its practicalities. Maybe Myra, a non-witch but raised by one, knew. What Adelaide thought she understood was that it was more than a kiss between them that had broken the curses; it was a scary and thrilling thought.

Myra dropped the journal. It fell open-faced on the floor. “I want you to stay. I could use a hand around here. I could teach you everything I know, and we could work together, or you could do something else in town. Whatever you wanted, I’d help you.” After catching her breath, she added, “It’s a selfish want, I know, but I want it. I’d miss you too much if you go.”

The offer that Adelaide had ached for just this morning hung there. A reason to stay a little longer. A reason to stay a lot longer. But her family needed her; they needed all the help they could get on the farm, as neither planting nor growing nor harvesting went smoothly under their cursed hands and... Oh, right.

Wasn’t it also true that a time came for all young people to leave their childhood home and begin to make a life of their own?

“I have to go back,” Adelaide said. “To visit. And to get the rest of my things, so I can move in proper.”

Myra tackle-hugged her, Adelaide catching her as firmly in her arms as Myra had flung them around her shoulders. Her face was full of Myra’s hair, and she couldn’t quite breathe, but she never wanted to let go.

~~~

MYRA ENTWINED HER FINGERS with Adelaide’s as she experimented with hand-holding.

“Did you know whatever happened to your uncle Eustace?”

“Grew old as a bachelor. Went off on a walk one day, and was so unlucky he got so lost that he never came back,” Adelaide said. “Or that’s the story. And yours?”

“Moved out to make his own way. Traveled west. Never came back after that.”

“Do you—” She started, then shook her head. “Never mind.”

“What was it?”

“It’s stupid.”

“I do not believe you think stupid thoughts.”

Adelaide lifted their entangled hands and pressed a kiss on Myra’s knuckles. For all the times she had made Adelaide heat up, it was now her turn. Myra went a fetching shade of pink that clashed with her dark plum bodice.

“Do you think they maybe found each other? Years later? After they left?” 

Myra laid her head on Adelaide’s shoulder.

“I hope so. I hope they were that lucky.”

​

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​Bonus Story

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​Boldly

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AS THE TRUMPETS ROARED, Lady Annora placed her hand on the sun-warmed stretch of the bench beside her. Where was Isolde? She had promised last night that she wouldn’t let Annora go through this alone.

Last night Annora had let her stone-faced exterior crack and released all her secret weakness onto Isolde’s shoulder. Of how she wished she had given up her stubbornness long ago to pick a suitor that was at least amicable, if not preferable. Of her fear of being bound forever to some stranger by only the virtue of his swordplay. Of her longing to keep spending her days as she had in the glory of this past summer, unattached and in Isolde’s company.

Isolde had stroked her hair and swore to her an impossible promise that everything would end in their favor. 

“Chin up,” Mother whispered like a yellowjacket in her ear. Annora refolded her hands. In public, she would not break, but she refused to look happy with her fate. Every hopeful knight, every country boy with a hand-me-down sword and a young man’s ambition, every late-born son who had no claim on their own inheritance would know maybe they could win her dowry today, but not her heart.

Isolde’s seat remained empty as the tournament progressed in its cacophony: the clang of swords, the cheer of the crowd making bets and picking favorites, and the magistrates declaring the winners to the various bouts splayed across the field.

Annora had no stakes set on anyone, just doom pounding through her chest. Boyd of Overshire—whom she had known as a child—wouldn’t have been an awful fate, but he lost in an early round. When it came to the final two fighters after hours of matches and the spectators’ revelry, they were both strangers. A bearded, burly man who looked all the more burly for the litheness of his opponent—short and anonymous under a helmet.

“Just a boy,” Mother murmured. None of these fights were to the death, but everyone gathered knew death could happen.

A trumpet call curled in the air. The matchup seemed so brutal and unfair that Annora looked away for the length of it. When the match was called it was to her surprise to see the lithe fighter left standing on the muddy field.

Mother rose to her feet; the crowd shushed. “Good sir, please reveal yourself.”

A gloved hand reached up and removed the helmet. A length of charcoal hair unfurled as a familiar face was revealed. It was Isolde.

~~~

ISOLDE WAS A STRANGE one. Ever since she and her widower father moved back from foreign lands to their long untended estate she had been gathering stares and gossip. She rode horses astride. Traveled between her estate and Annora’s unchaperoned. Accompanied her father’s retinue on hunts.

Some assumed Isolde’s father had pressed onto her all his unfulfilled desires for a son. Isolde confided in Annora the truth: “He doesn’t want me to be his son. He wants me to be myself.”

Annora had been taught to hold her tongue.

Isolde walked into the great hall with her helmet tucked under one arm, a split lip, and no shame. She caught Annora’s eye.

Mother had whisked Annora away back into the safety of the rigid-walled manor as soon as Isolde had revealed herself on the tournament field. The magistrates had trailed behind, bickering between themselves at the level of this... Disgrace? Insult? Invalidation?

No one asked Annora’s opinion.

“What were you hoping to achieve, Lady Isolde?” Mother’s voice was as sharp as an arrow amongst the cold stone walls.

Isolde’s gaze skated over to the clump of magistrates. “Did I win?”

“Of course you didn’t win,” Mother barked. 

Isolde didn’t flinch.

The head magistrate looked up from his scrolls. “The Tournament rules only called for candidates brave and worthy. It doesn’t forbid the entrance of a woman, despite how uncouth—” He spat the word—“The idea is.”

“Do you fight in proxy for your father?” Mother snapped.

Annora’s guts twisted. Any of today’s swordsmen could’ve been conscripted by some benefactor to risk life and limb in their name and for their benefit. But from Isolde, this would be a betrayal.

“No,” Isolde said, cutting the idea down.

“Then who?”

She lifted her chin. “For Lady Annora.”

The room itself couldn’t seem to breathe.

“I’ve fought and won in proxy for Lady Annora so that she may have the right to her own hand and dowry. She will not marry anyone except by her own choice and can use her dowry to attend to her own expenses... And if the great lady of this manor is not pleased with her daughter’s continued boarding, my family’s estate is open.”

The room exploded at once. The magistrate’s voices cluttered over each other's arguments and Mother standing, louder than the rest: “Young lady, if that’s the way things were don’t, don’t you think...” She cut off, expression tight.

Annora knew her mother wasn’t the villainess in this situation. Father had fallen to sudden illness, Annora wasn’t set to inherit, and the tournament was a last hope for a quick marriage to save their fate.

“We both want the same thing,” Isolde told her.

Mother sat back down, a curve to her spine that wasn’t usually there. Exhaustion? Or relief?

Unintimidated, to the magistrates Isolde said, “It may be unprecedented. But you will find nothing in your laws to oppose it.”

There was some more muttering stamped with a final and unsure expression about needing to take this matter under further review. Isolde grinned; she knew this was another fight she had just won.

~~~

ANNORA DABBED A TOWELETTE to Isolde’s split lip. “I don’t know where you find it in you to be so bold.” Side-by-side in the privacy of Annora’s sitting room they finally had the freedom to speak.

“Anything for you,” Isolde said, then winced when Annora dabbed a little too hard.

Annora pulled back. “You could’ve been hurt. Or killed. For just a chance to...”

Isolde’s fingers—calloused from the grip of swords and reins and other bold things—wrapped around Annora’s. “Anything. For you.”

Today had already yanked Annora from dread to impossible hope to this—the nearly full moon outside casting a view Annora thought she knew in fresh, cool light. A summer-long of sharing beds instead of tucking away into guest suites. Of sitting pressed side-by-side over the same book. Of Isolde taking Annora’s hand to drag her off on some adventure exploring a hollow in the woods.

Was Annora bold enough to put a name to the moonlit feelings inside herself? Bold enough to take up the sword?

“Your heart’s your own to choose what to do with,” Isolde said. “But it would be a lie to say I do not hope—”

With a rush she thought just might be courage, Annora leaned in and silenced Isolde with a kiss.

This morning she had thought no one had the possibility of winning her heart and soul. She just hadn’t realized someone already had.

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​Acknowledgements

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“A WITCH BY ANY OTHER Name” was first published by Metastellar in May 2024.

“The Witch & The Runaway” was first published by Briar’s Lit in January 2019.

“You Make Your Own Luck” was first published by Typehouse in March 2022.

“Boldly” was first published by Fascinate Me Fiction on Medium.com in July 2024.

About the Author

Margery Bayne is a librarian by day and writer by night based in Baltimore, Maryland.  She is a published author of speculative and literary short stories, and an aspiring novelist. Armed with a Susquehanna University BA in Creative Writing and a University of Maryland Masters of Library Science, she shares her weekly musings on the writing process at The Writing Cooperative on Medium. In 2022, she published her first book Object Impermanence: Weird and Fantastic Stories. When she's not lost in books, she's chasing miles, folding origami, cuddling with her black cat, and embracing her cool aunt status. 

Read more at MARGERY BAYNE’s site.