Page 80 of Homegrown Magic

“Will the Queens’ Guard come to drive us from our homes?”

“Surely something can be done…”

Yael opens their mouth, but Margot raises her voice over the crowd’s, determined to be heard. “I believed there was something to be done, a deal the Clauneck Company would accept in place of the land. But as I discovered only yesterday, it’s not something I can do. Or rather, I won’t do it, because the harm it will cause is too great to be worth the cost.”

Yael can see the muscles in her throat move as she works to swallow her nerves, along with the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. They squeeze her hand again.

“I know…I shouldn’t have left it so long without telling you all,” she continues. “But I didn’t want the knowledge to burden you. I was so set on fixing things myself, on living up to Fern’s legacy. But Bloomfield is Granny Fern’s legacy, and she intended it as a place where nobody would have to make their way in the world alone. I should have remembered that and trusted in it. I should have trusted you all.”

“And what about you, Yael?” Mike calls. “Are you here to speak for the Claunecks?”

The crowd murmurs at this, waiting on an answer.

Yael grips the stairway railing, white-knuckled, with the hand that isn’t holding Margot’s. It would’ve been easier to let her explain everything, but they’ve come this far, and they owe the people of Bloomfield this much and more. “Listen, please! I’ll tell you what I’ve found out, but…first, I must apologize as well. To all of you. When I left, I—I didn’t mean to stay away for so long. I may not be a pillar of this community, but Bloomfield has felt like home, perhaps my first home, and I hope you can forgive me for it someday.”

There’s a second stretch of silence just before a plate-sized cinnamon bun slaps them in the chest. It leaves behind a swirl of icing as it thumps to the ground. Yael turns to find the source, eyes wide, and sees Clementine behind the bar counter looking as shocked as they.

“I…I thought you’d catch it!” she stammers, clapping her hands to her pinkening cheeks. “I thought we were doing a whole bit, and you’d catch it, and we’d all have a laugh. And then we could move on to the part where you help us save Bloomfield.”

“Ah yes, that part.” Yael rubs absently at the icing streak only to wipe their now sticky fingers on their trousers, making more of a mess of themself. “Well. As Margot says, she believed that everything that Granny Fern built—the estate in the woods, the greenhouses, the land upon which Bloomfield itself sits—went to her direct heirs in absence of a recorded will, as you all know. And when the Greenwillows let that fortune pour through their fingers, and my family swooped in to recoup the money that, frankly, they could’ve afforded to lose, the company would have been abiding by the laws of Harrow to seize it all. But when I went down to the company Records Library to confirm—”

“You were working for the Clauneck Company?” Mike cries out from the crowd.

Yael can hardly blame him. “I was. It was a very big mistake. The biggest I’ve made in my life—if one of many. But listen. There was no official record of the company claiming Bloomfield. Because it was never the company’s land to claim.” Now Yael slips the file out of their satchel, holding the key piece of parchment they found inside it up in view of the townsfolk. “This is Granny Fern’s will. A will that supposedly didn’t exist, but very much does. Its signing was witnessed by a clerk in Olde Post weeks before Margot came here to care for her grandmother. While Fern left a good deal of her wealth to her daughter and son-in-law, the land this town sits on was meant for Margot to inherit and care for, along with the greenhouses and the estate where the manor and cottage sit. Margot lost it all under false pretenses, and the Claunecks knew it. I daresay they’re responsible for it.”

In the crowd, Yvonne calls to Margot, “Fern never told you about any of this?”

She shakes her head. “By the time I came back to Bloomfield, Granny was gone. And she never liked to dwell on the future, anyhow. I wish that I’d asked, I should have asked, but…I suppose I wasn’t prepared to consider a world without her.”

“What matters is this: Margot never should have been held responsible for her parents’ debts. It’s against the laws of Harrow. And while we may not be able to prove that the Claunecks had a hand in the will’s disappearance from local records—though we might try tracking down this clerk from Olde Post—we can prove by their possession of the will that they’re wrongfully threatening Bloomfield. And were we to make this known throughout the kingdom, it may just prompt present and former clients to take a closer look at their accounts.”

“So we’re not going to lose Bloomfield?” Tulip asks.

The crowd erupts with excited chatter.

“Not today,” Margot raises her voice to assure them. “And Yael and I have spoken about how to make sure that nothing and no one can threaten our home like this again. The land shouldn’t be owned by one person; it should belong to all of us, in equal measure. I know that’s what Granny Fern would’ve wanted and likely would’ve set up herself, if she’d known how. If she’d had more time.”

“Is that possible?”

“It is with a community land trust,” Yael says. “It’ll take some doing, but I happen to have studied law at Auximia. Granted, it was more of the potatoes-into-gold and gold-into-potatoes type of law, but I know enough to help. And I will. Whenever I’m not working in the greenhouses, of course.”

“Did you mean it?” Margot asks as they trot side by side down the forest road, out of the town proper and toward her cottage. “About wanting to work in the greenhouses again?”

They’d lingered at Clementine’s for a long while, making furious plans with the townsfolk over a fresh batch of blackberry apple cake—and all right, yes, wine and ale—emerging to the lengthening shadows of late afternoon. Yael’s not sure what to do about the night ahead of them. Ride back to the tavern to beg Clementine for their old room, they suppose. Perhaps she’ll let them sleep behind the bar counter, if it’s been taken since. But it seemed right to see Margot home first. Despite all their plotting in the early hours of the morning, there’s so much left to say.

Beginning with this. “Yes, I meant it. I’ve got some moves to make before we’re out of this completely, but without the constant threat of the Claunecks coming to seize the shop, I thought you might be able to spend more time on your remedies—perhaps one that might help your parents—without my parents breathing down your neck about that vile potion.”

“I see.” Margot stares at the road ahead as she contemplates.

“And anyhow, I’ve come to love growing things. I should warn you, I haven’t got a scrap of magic left in me, and no hope of getting it back. But I never had much to begin with. And I’ll learn everything I can from you first, if you’ll have me. As an assistant, or…or an apprentice, if that suits,” they assure her. Yael dares not hope for anything but that she accepts their help. Surely, that would be enough.

“Wait, go back a moment,” Margot says. “What do you mean, no magic? How does a warlock lose their magic?”

The only explanation is the full explanation, and so they recount their time in Ashaway in full, beginning with their lie. “That night, on the balcony—I never blamed you for any of it, Margot, I swear. I thought that…I thought I was saving you. From living under the power of the Claunecks, or living without Bloomfield. I thought that any life we might have together could only cost you everything. I wanted to spare you from that, and from the burden of choosing your own ruin. It was wrong. Margot, I was so wrong.”

Margot shakes her head and starts to speak. “I thought this might be the case. Or at least I hoped it might be when I saw the daisy.”

They draw in a sharp breath, remembering the flower they’d set on Margot’s pillow in the inn just as they left for the masquerade. Spell or no, how could they ever have forgotten?