Page 25 of The Flame King's Queen

“I missed you all as well, so much. And yes, I’m a witch. It’s not against the law to be a witch now, though some people still don’t trust us.”

As we approach the village, I wonder if Biddy Hawthorne, my crone, might come and meet us. There’s no sign of her as we enter the little square with the well, but there are half a dozen crows perched atop walls and gates of the neglected cottages. Biddy doesn’t often leave her cottage, so she uses the birds as her eyes and ears.

Dad addresses one with a polite nod as he passes by. “Afternoon, Mistress Hawthorne.”

The bird ruffles his feathers in greeting.

“You knew?” I ask Dad in surprise. “All this time, you knew Biddy was a witch?”

“Oh, yes, my girl. We all knew. And right helpful to us she’s been over the years, tending to the sick and old and expecting mothers. We’d never have given her up to the witchfinders. Out here, who else is there to help us?”

A warm feeling fills me. A sense of being home, but also, I feel accepted here in a way I don’t quite feel in the big city of Lenhale. How wonderful to be a witch in the countryside.

The three of us arrive at the doorstep of our cottage, and how neglected it looks with dead leaves scattered on the doorstep and all the garden overgrown with weeds. How forlorn it feels when we enter, when there are signs of Ma and Waylen all around us. Her cross-stitch on the walls. His wooden horse toy in the corner.

“If it is too painful to remain here, you needn’t live in Amriste,” I tell them. “We can find a new home for you anywhere. In the capital if you wish, or in a town closer to Lenhale.”

Dad shakes his head. “It’s a kind offer, but Amriste is our home. I was born here, and I’ll die here.”

“You will visit us often, won’t you?” Anise asks.

I smile at her. “Of course I will. You’re both here, and my crone is as well. You’re just a short dragon ride from Lenhale.”

We set to work making the cottage feel homely again. Anise sweeps the floors while I dust the surfaces and clean the windows, and Dad fetches firewood to fill the stove. There are beds to be made with fresh linen and a pot of grain stew with lardons to be cooked for our supper. Soon the cottage feels warm again, and filled with the scent of woodsmoke and cooking food.

Toward sunset, I fill a basket with food we brought from the palace, including bread and cheese and preserved fruit, and a serving of the hot grain stew in an earthenware jar. “I will take this food to Mistress Hawthorne and see if there is anything I may do for her,” I tell Anise. “Would you like to come with me?”

“Oh, yes,” she asks eagerly. “Ma didn’t like it when I talked to Mistress Hawthorne because she was afraid the Brethren would get me.”

We head out the front door into the golden evening. The birds are chattering madly to each other in the trees, sharing the day’s gossip as they all gather to roost. “Remember that you must call her Mistress Hawthorne and treat her with respect, or she’ll have you counting the raindrops in a bucket of water or combing the grass in the meadow.”

Anise giggles. “Is that what she makes you do?”

“That and more. Life as an apprentice witch is no plate of apple fritters.”

“But you’re the next Queen of Maledin.”

“Not in Mistress Hawthorne’s cottage, I’m not.” We arrive at Biddy’s front gate, and I open it for Anise and then step through. In many ways, it’s a relief to be just Isavelle here. I wouldn’t give up Zabriel and my future with him for anything, but here I’m free from the weight of thousands of people’s expectations.

“It’s me, Mistress Hawthorne,” I call as I knock on the ancient front door, and when she croaks a reply, I let us in. My crone is seated in her old, threadbare armchair by the fire, picking dried blossoms from an armload of cuttings. Her old black dress is faded and patched, but she’s always refused my offer of the seamstresses at the castle making her any new clothes. “Do you remember my sister, Anise?”

There’s no need to inform Biddy that the villagers are home. The crows tell her all that they see and hear.

Anise beams at her. “Hello, Mistress Hawthorne.”

“Welcome home, girl. Fetch a stool, and help me with these plants. I’m making a remedy. The brambles have overgrown the gardens and laneways, and I’ll have every child in the village through my door with stings and scrapes by the end of the week. Isavelle, there’s fresh tea in the pot. Thank you for the basket, you can leave it by the stove.”

I find some cups to fill with tea and join my sister on a stool. As she and Biddy pick flowers and drop them into a basket, I fish handfuls out and grind them with a mortar and pestle into a paste that’s good for cuts.

“Mistress Hawthorne, are you going to teach Isavelle any magic today?” Anise asks.

“Magic is for pompous warlocks who wear silly robes. We do good, sensible witchcraft here, and mayhap I will. What would my young witch wish to learn?” Mistress Hawthorne eyes me with a grizzled, raised eyebrow.

I get what I’m given when I come to see Mistress Hawthorne, so this is an unusually generous offer. I think about it carefully. “I should like to see. There are stories about queens and witches and fairy godmothers who look into mirrors and ponds and can see the present or the future, so I know it’s possible.”

“But that’s just something that happens in stories,” Anise protests.

“Fairy tales can be real. My mate is in one,” I tell her.

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