Page 14 of Homegrown Magic

Her ankle brushes up against an unfamiliar object. Margot flexes her foot, curling her toes around a lump of blankets or perhaps a lost sock. But no. It’s solid and warm. Clearly, another human foot.

Yael’s foot.

Margot yanks her own foot away as last night comes back in flashes. The tavern. Sage heading off on her adventure. Ordering one last ale. A stranger sitting beside her, striking up a conversation. That stranger being Yael Clauneck, somehow. And then they had…what? Come back to the cottage and…

Margot’s memory is a little fuzzy after that point. She closes her eyes, feeling Yael’s arms wrapped around her waist in the garden, their lips pushed against hers. (The rumors were true: Yael Clauneck is an excellent kisser.) Margot fumbling to open the cottage door. Yael stumbling up to the loft to get cleaned up. Margot slipping out of her garden boots and strawberry dress, hopeful, nervous…and then climbing the loft ladder to find Yael deep in the blankets, snoring. Margot tried to sleep in one of the chairs by the fire, but she’d given up after an hour or so of tossing and turning and snuck into the loft, curling up on her own side of the mattress while making sure there was as much distance as possible between her and Yael.

Yael is still snoring softly, the noise nearly lost beneath the birdsong and wind chimes. They’re hidden somewhere under Margot’s many pillows and quilts, a lump of a human tucked into the back corner of the large mattress, which is how Margot missed them. How could she have forgotten she’d brought Yael Clauneck home last night?

Or, better question: Now that she’s remembered, what’s she meant to do with them?

She was supposed to have one night of fun. Something quick, easy, and uncomplicated. Margot was supposed to break her incredibly long dry spell, but that hadn’t worked out.

Six months and fourteen days now.

Should she wake Yael? Tell them to leave? Try to pick up where the two of them left off last night? That would be nice, to kiss passionately as the sun rises. Or to cuddle, or to just be held.

Margot stretches again, reaching for the shape of Yael. She pauses, though, halfway through.

Last night was all about putting off reality, but today there would be questions—real things that needed to be asked and answered—and far less liquor to soften it all. Better to get up and leave before Yael wakes. Shifting carefully, Margot swings her bare feet over the loft ladder. With practiced steps, she moves down into the main room of the cottage. She searches through her laundry baskets—really, she must do laundry today—and plucks her last clean dress from the clothesline that stretches across the living room. This one is dark green, so it hides the stains of her work, and is embroidered with flowers. Then, sliding the letter from the Claunecks into her pocket—she certainly can’t leave it around for Yael to find—she puts on shoes, places a meowing, hungry Harvey into a basket, and slips out of the cottage, having managed not to wake Yael.

Hopefully they’ll be gone by the time she comes back for lunch.

Hours later, Margot returns to the cottage, Harvey at her heels. She pushes the front door open, making dust motes spin in buttery slants of light. The door creaks, but beyond that, quiet fills the small house. Nothing has moved since this morning. Her piled-high dirty-laundry basket is still next to the front door, embers of a fire smolder in the grate, and yesterday morning’s teacup rests on the kitchen table.

“Yael?” Margot whispers, her voice loud in the stillness. She closes the cottage door and steps into the living room.

There’s no reply. Surely Yael’s left by now. There’s no sign of their mechanical steed, but then, she wouldn’t hear or smell the thing, and in the blur of last night, she can’t quite remember where they left it, or if they set it loose to roam. Margot isn’t going to check the surrounding woods; that seems wildly unnecessary. It’s almost one o’clock, and what grown-ups sleep past seven? Or nine at the latest? Certainly not Margot or anyone in Bloomfield. Most of the village’s residents, including Clementine, who works late, are get-up-early souls who gather every morning in the town square, no matter the weather, for coffee and morning gossip or, occasionally, heated debate.

Margot yawns and slips off her boots. She’s up the loft ladder in a few seconds, her tired body already dreaming of the midday nap she’s going to take before returning to work. But she pauses at the top, swearing silently.

There, sitting up and framed by the light coming in through the round window, is Yael. They smile at Margot, looking adorable and well rested.

“Morning to you,” Yael says, giving a huge yawn.

“Hardly morning.” Margot can’t keep a waspish note from her voice. “It’s nearly one.”

“Oh! Not surprising at all, given how hungry I am.” Yael peers out the window and nods, as if satisfied that the sun is exactly where it needs to be. “I suppose we worked up quite an appetite last night?”

Margot opens and closes her mouth, not quite sure what to say to that. Yael isn’t meant to be here. They’re meant to be gone, just a strange dream, with no impact on Margot’s real life. “You don’t remember?” she finally gets out.

“I remember kissing you.” A wicked grin curls Yael’s lips. “And I remember riding to your house, climbing the ladder…” They run a hand over their face and look up through their long, dark eyelashes, sheepishly. “And then, um, it’s a bit of a blur.”

“That’s because you fell asleep.”

“I didn’t.”

“You were snoring. Loudly.”

Yael groans, falling back among the bedding. “I swear, that’s just like me.”

“So much for your reputation.” Margot can’t keep a teasing tone out of her voice.

Yael flings a pillow at her, which Margot dodges. It goes sailing out of the loft, landing with a thump in the living room below.

“Let me buy you breakfast or lunch or whatever meal you want,” they say, sitting up again, “to restore at least some part of my legend.”

“I’ve already eaten,” Margot says, “twice. But I’ll make you a cup of tea.”