Chapter 13

ChapterThirteen

The wind blew too loud today. It slapped against Thea’s ears and made her hair dance around her face in such a crazy pattern that she feared what would happen if she untied her locks for a single second. Still, it made gardening a little more entertaining. She had to get creative and put rocks on the seed packets she was planting, even though they were well out of season, and she had to figure out the best way to keep her hat on.

Her mother had said the hat was a ridiculous addition. Thea’s face was adorable with freckles, and no matter how hard she tried, the sun always gave her a few of them.

But Thea wanted to look like the young woman Alistair had met a year ago. She couldn’t help but compare herself to that moment. Even though she wouldn’t be likely to see him again soon, she wanted to feel like she was the same young woman who had made an impact on his life.

“Growing up is hard, Browning.” She shoved the trowel into the earth and leaned back on her haunches. “I don’t want to grow up and differ from the woman he expects, but I also don’t want to stay a child because that would make everything rather awkward. Don’t you think?”

He burped and then shoved his hands into the small cup of blackberries she’d placed next to him. He’d been stuffing his face all morning as though he knew something she didn’t.

“Why are you eating so much today?” she grumbled, then returned to digging in the earth. “There are plenty of raspberries in the house for you. Or better yet, those mealworms that Marigold bought and you refuse to eat.”

Toads were supposed to eat hardier stuff than just sugary treats. But Browning wasn’t a regular toad, she supposed.

“You know, if you eat too many sweets, all the teeth in your head are going to rot out.” The warning was one her mother used to give her and not one that Browning cared about at all.

He rolled his eyes at her and popped another juicy raspberry into his mouth. The munching sounds made the hairs on her arms stand up, but she’d endure it for him. He was so rarely happy, after all. Her grumpy familiar could have a few moments of happiness, even if they were unhealthy.

A black feather floated down from the sky and landed in front of her. Smiling, she reached for it and ran the soft feathers through her fingers.

“Atlas?” she asked, peering up at the bright blue sky with not a cloud in sight. She should be able to see the magical familiar if he were here, but... Well, she couldn’t find him at all. “Atlas, where are you?”

The answering squawk came from behind her. Thea gasped and turned so quickly she almost slapped his beak.

Breathing hard, she pressed her hand to her chest. “Where did you come from?”

Another loud noise was her answer until she was treated with a rare comment from her Browning.

“Alistair.” Browning smacked his lips loudly and then rolled onto his back. The moss cushioned him as he rubbed his extended belly with a webbed hand. “Extra letter.”

She glared at her familiar. “Thank you for being so eloquent while giving me poor Atlas’s words.” Thea stroked a hand down the raven’s back, careful to avoid the thorns. “You are much more charming than him, I know. I’m so sorry you have to deal with him as much as I do.”

Browning snorted while she shared a look with the handsome raven.

Sighing, she untied the letter around Atlas’s leg and unrolled it. This was an unusual time for them to be sending letters, and her stomach twisted with the fear that something might be wrong. What if Alistair’s father had decided to move them? Or what if he had to go back to the Academy and something terrible had happened?

Too many situations could happen to him without her knowing, and she didn’t know what she’d do if he just... disappeared.

Thea,

I’m sure you haven’t forgotten our birthday is in two days. I took such a long time trying to figure out the perfect gift to give you or a special moment, but honestly, there is nothing I want more than to see you.

If possible, can you meet me at Ceridwen’s altar? Just like the last time.

Perhaps it’s too much to ask but.... come? Please.

I haven’t seen your face in too long, and I fear I might have forgotten what you look like.

Yours,

Alistair

He wanted to see her? For their birthday?

“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh I...”

Helplessly, she looked at Atlas, who seemed to preen now that she had read his master’s words. At the look on her face, he shook his head a bit and took a couple of steps away from her. Disappointed, perhaps?

“It’s not like that,” she was quick to say. “I want to see him too, Atlas. More than anything. But look at me.”

She stood to make her point. The dress she wore was a hand-me-down from Belladonna, who had given it to Marigold, who had then given it to Thea. She couldn’t remember the last time she had brushed her hair but knew it was in a billowing, tangled nest on top of her head. There was dirt smudged on her cheeks and wedged so far underneath her nails that even a bath couldn’t fix the problem. Not to mention she had so much work to do, and running off with the boat would make her mother suspicious.

Two days. She only had two days to fix all this, and what would she do if she couldn’t?

“I look like a creature who walked out of a swamp!” she exclaimed before throwing her hands up into the air. “I’m supposed to look beautiful to him and here I am, just a monster from a lagoon who has no right to even stand in front of him. He’s an Orbweaver, for goddess sake!”

The two familiars stared at her with equal expressions of horror and realization. There was a lot of work to do if she wanted to impress him, and Thea only knew of one person who could help her with that.

Belladonna.

Her sister had spent her entire life making herself beautiful. Everyone knew her name in the town, and everyone said she looked like her mother when Fenna had been her age. Their mother was known for being a beauty. Marigold looked like their father, who had been a striking man until an accidental spell had caught him the wrong way. And Thea? Well... Thea was just Thea.

“Oh dear,” she muttered, then dropped all her gardening things onto the ground. Gardening could wait when something as important as this came up.

She raced back to the house, slamming into the gate and wrenching it open. The magic of their home grumbled at her, but she didn’t pause to see if it would punish her or not. There was so much she needed to do.

“Thea?” her mother asked as she ran by.

“No time to talk, Máthair! Where is Belladonna?”

Her mother wordlessly pointed toward Belladonna’s room, so that’s where Thea ran. Meanwhile, she sent her thoughts to the house and begged it to run a bath for her. A long one with more soap than she usually used. She might need two baths if she were being honest. It had been a long day in the garden, after all.

Slamming her fists onto the door, she banged over and over until Belladonna opened up. Her sister wrenched the door open with an angry snarl and shouted, “What? What could you possibly want, Thea!”

She held out the letter to her older sister. And while Belladonna took her time reading every single word that Alistair had written, all the anger in her expression disappeared by the second time she looked up.

“Who’s this?” Belladonna asked.

“Alistair.” As if that answered everything. Clearing her throat, she tried again. “I’ve been writing to him for over a year now. And he wants to meet.”

“He’s from Wildecliff?”

“Why does that matter?” Thea gestured up and down her body. “Would you look at me? I can’t go see him like this! Help!”

At least that got through Belladonna’s head. Her sister eyed her and then snorted in agreement. “You can’t see anyone like that. Not if you want them to give you any respect. Do you have to look like a goblin every time I see you?”

“I’m asking for your help.”

Her sister lit up as though Thea had told her she’d found the spell for immortality. “Say it again.”

“I’m asking for your help, Belladonna.” She lifted her hands from her hips and then dropped them again. “Make me pretty. Like you.”

The squeal from her sister’s mouth made her other two family members come running. Máthair’s face was creased with worry as she sprinted into the hallway, hair flying in all directions and eyes wide. “What’s wrong?”

Thea couldn’t breathe as Belladonna wrapped her arms around her. “Too. Tight,” she wheezed.

“Thea’s finally asked me to make her pretty!” Bella shrieked again. The sound nearly burst Thea’s eardrum. “We’re going to shove her into the bath. We’re going to brush her hair. Oh! I can try the new facial cream on her that I’ve been dying to try. It’ll make her skin so rosy!”

Their mother sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Is that worth waking the entire house for?”

Belladonna glared at their mother with more venom in her gaze than Thea had ever seen before. “Yes!”

With that, she yanked Thea into her room and slammed the door in their mother’s face.

“Is that worth waking the entire house?” Belladonna repeated with a low hiss. “It’s like Máthair has never looked at you.”

Thea had to repeat to herself that Belladonna meant nothing by it. She hadn’t intended to insult Thea when she said those things. It was just that Thea and Belladonna had very different opinions about what made a person pretty. Unfortunately, Belladonna’s opinions matched those of the men in their village.

“House!” Belladonna ordered. “Two baths, all the soap you can conjure, and make sure to get some of that lavender scented hair soap I bought. Seven sponges, please, each one with varying levels of roughness. Perhaps we could also use a nail file, but I haven’t looked yet.” Thea tried not to flinch when Belladonna snagged one of her hands and held it up to the light. “Yes, nail file. Two probably. I think we’ll break the first one trying to fix all this.”

“Bella,” Thea whined.

“You’re the one who asked for this, so settle down, would you? At least two brushes. We’ll need more, but we’ll start out with two. Those tangles are going to take me forever.”

And that was precisely how Thea found herself sitting in a boiling hot tub with her knees drawn to her chest while her sister piled more and more soap in her hair. Belladonna claimed the soap she used for Thea’s hair was supposed to soften the knots and make her curls stand out better. But Thea didn’t have curls. She had waves, unlike their mother’s pretty ringlets. No soap was going to make her hair turn into their mother’s.

She shivered every time Belladonna hit a bad knot.

“Oh stop doing that,” Belladonna said, but her brushing turned a little more gentle again. “There’s nothing wrong with the way I brush your hair.”

“I know there isn’t,” Thea whispered. “I should have brushed it a long time ago.”

She heard nothing but the slight sloshing of water against the sides of the tub. This was the second round of water they’d used, and at least there wasn’t dirt sitting around her feet now. She’d been shocked at how much grime had come off her body on the first round of scrubbing.

Belladonna brushed her hand through Thea’s long hair and let it slap back down into the water. “When you were very little, Máthair used to let me brush your hair like this. I don’t know if you remember, but you always complained everyone but me was too rough with it.”

“Did I?” She was sad she didn’t remember. But her memories as a child weren’t all that clear. She remembered their father only in one snippet. A big man with bright blue eyes, who laughed so loud it scared her sometimes. That was all.

Her sister ran her fingers through her hair one last time. “I used to treat you like a little doll. And it never used to scare me how quiet you were. Not until I got older and remembered you’d just sit there and let me do whatever I wanted. You were such a solemn child. Quiet. Still. I’d never seen a little girl be like that before. Or any child.”

Thea didn’t remember that either. But why would she? Glancing over her shoulder, she saw tears in her sister’s eyes. “And that makes you sad?”

“Only because you’re all grown up now.” Belladonna stood and held out the towel for her. “And we won’t all live together forever, so don’t mind me getting all emotional that this might be the last time I get to do this.”

Thea rolled her eyes and stepped into the towel. Tying it down around her chest tightly, she shook the wet strands out of her face. “Oh, you’ll do it again. I’ll call you when I’m old and disgusting and remind you of this moment. You can hobble your way over here with two canes and then brush my hair again.”

Though her sister laughed, the sound wasn’t as happy as she’d hoped. Instead, Belladonna ran her hand over Thea’s head and brought her close for a quick hug. “Can I pick out your dress, at least? I know you aren’t leaving tonight, but...”

“Go ahead.”

If Belladonna was a little too nice for the next couple of days, Thea tried to ignore it. But she felt especially pretty sitting on their boat in the middle of the night two days later.

Her hair, though never curly like their mother’s, blew about her face in gentle waves as dark as the sky above her. Bella’s magic cream really did make her skin glow like the full moon, and her cheeks appeared even plumper.

The dress that Bella had chosen was quite pretty. Baby blue and fitting on the top, it hugged her tiny waist and fell into a full skirt that darkened into midnight blue by the bottom. It was lovely and a perfect dress for a witch. She hoped she didn’t ruin it by the end of the night. There were a lot of thorns and mud on the path to the altar.

Every dip of the paddle in the water made her stomach churn with anxiety. What if she wasn’t as he remembered? What if she didn’t hold a candle to all those pretty women in the Academy? Thea had seen a few of the visitors from Wildecliff in the town before. The women were especially perfect.

As her boat hit the rocky shore of Wildecliff, she stepped into a puddle of mud that soaked the right side of the dress’s hem.

“No,” she whispered, then sighed.

It was bound to happen. She couldn’t hide who she was from him forever.

Thea reached into the boat and swung Browning’s sling over her shoulder. The toad let out a little grunt of surprise as he too was swung up in the air but settled down quick enough.

“I couldn’t go without you,” she said with a soft laugh.

Thea patted his back on the short path to the altar. She told herself it was to soothe him because Browning must be a little nervous about the whole situation. But really, she needed to pat him to make her own nerves settle.

She paused on the path that led to the altar. Leaves obscured her view but also hid her from any prying eyes.

Thea moved the leaves just a bit to look into the clearing. And there he was. The freckled boy she remembered with burnished yellow hair and freckles all over his face. He’d gotten taller, she realized. Lankier too, and his shoulders were broader than she remembered. He wore dark green pants and a white shirt with buttons halfway down it.

Alistair had his hands tucked into his pockets as he stood beside the altar. He leaned against it, then stood up, then leaned against it again. As though he didn’t know what was the best way to wait for her.

“He looks quite handsome, don’t you think?” she asked Browning.

Her toad didn’t reply, of course. But she thought Alistair painted quite the picture. He was tall, handsome, and so uncomfortable waiting for her by himself. Even from this distance, she could see the freckles on his cheeks, and she wondered if his eyes were as green as she remembered.

Taking a deep breath, Thea stepped off the path and into the moonlight.