Page 84 of Homegrown Magic

“Just rest, hmm?” She spins and draws her knees up around Yael’s hips, sloshing water over the lip of the tub as she settles into their lap. “That’s all?”

“For such a clean person, your thoughts are filthy, Margot Greenfern.” It’s the name she’s taken and used for the past year: something new, and something gone, but forever a part of her. They tsk, their hands floating up to touch her. “I’ve not even had my breakfast tea.”

“As though that ever stops you.”

Yael murmurs their concession. “Very well. I am yours.” They grip her by the waist and pull her closer, to kissing distance. “Do what you will.”

Instead, she turns her cheek to lay her head on their chest. “I could do this every day, I think.”

“We nearly have.”

After racing back to Bloomfield last summer—and after spending their night (and the next day as well, and the night after…) properly making up to Margot for their absence—Yael had set out again for Olde Post. According to the town clerk who’d taken the position just over three years prior, the old clerk responsible for filing Granny Fern’s will had since moved on from the town, claiming to have fallen into an unexpected inheritance soon after Fern’s death. Star student or not, Yael was capable of doing that math. They had the new clerk send a prompt letter of notice to the Clauneck Company advising them of their office’s “clerical error.”

Yael might not have found evidence of the Claunecks’ meddling beyond a shadow of doubt, but evidence of their former family’s priorities they had aplenty—twenty-three years of it. And if there was one thing the Claunecks wanted more than a potion as dangerous as it was profitable, it was to preserve their reputation. That was the whole reason they’d wanted their unimportant and ill-functioning heir back in the first place; the reason they spent months spreading rumors about Yael’s illness to cover up for their absence, rather than risking exposure by dragging them back.

Slipping a few silver denaris to the clerk bought Yael the chance to add a postscript to the notice of error:

To whom it may concern at the Clauneck Company,

We trust that this oversight, which has wrongfully stripped a young woman of her home, and might have jeopardized the town itself, will be swiftly remedied. Margot and I await your prompt response. Should any doubts linger on the company’s end over the correct course of action, I shall be glad to pursue my own course; I have reason to believe that the clerk responsible may be greatly helpful in bringing to light what has remained in the dark until now. Please know that our impatience is nothing personal; it is simply business.

All best,

Yael X

A prompt response had indeed followed. A letter formally addressed to Margot Greenwillow arrived at the clerk’s office on Clauneck Company letterhead, releasing all of her seized property back to her. A separate notice addressed to Yael arrived soon after, formalizing their “termination,” also on company letterhead. Termination of employment, and of inheritance, Yael safely assumed. They may not have had any clue where the old clerk actually resided, nor whether they’d be at all keen to help, and so an uneasy stalemate was the most they could do without it. But Margot was free. Yael was free. And Bloomfield was free.

The next time they rode to Olde Post, it was with Margot to formalize the land trust.

Now, aside from Yael’s trips to neighboring hamlets and communities that have requested Yael’s counsel so that they might follow in Bloomfield’s footsteps, and Margot’s travels to fairs and festivals around the kingdom where her skills as a master plant witch and remedy maker are in constant demand, their days are largely the same: Margot in her workshop and Yael in the greenhouses. Lying in the bed they share at the end of each day and drifting off to sleep, Yael knows in their bones that there could be no happier life than this one.

“I mean,” Margot says, sighing contentedly against their shoulder, “that I could do this every day to come—just be with you—and never grow tired of it.”

Yael believes her—and what a beautiful gift that is. “Very well. I am yours,” they repeat, little louder than a whisper this time.

“That’s good to hear. Otherwise, I might’ve been a bit nervous before proposing.”

Where Yael’s fingers had been drifting idly up and down Margot’s spine, stroking her back, they still completely. “Propose? Marriage, you mean?”

She sits up to look down at them, rain-cloud-colored eyes aglow. “If you like.”

“It’s…it’s just so soon, and I’ve so many options…” They try to dissemble, but a grin spreads across their face, unstoppable as sunrise. “Have you gotten me a ring and everything?”

“I have, but I don’t exactly have it on me.” Margot laughs as they dip their gaze down her body, searching just to be safe. “I’d planned to do this later, perhaps at the festival. You always seem to thwart my plans, Yael Greenfern.”

“And who says I’ll take your name?” But again, they cannot lie without smiling, because it’s perfect.

It is who they were born to be.

Margot

“Come with me, this way,” Margot says, pulling Yael by the hand. They stand at the edge of town, in a wildflower meadow between the mammoth fields and the forest that leads to Margot’s cottage. Behind them, the sun sinks below the horizon, and above them, the first stars twinkle in the purple-and-orange gloaming sky. In the middle of the field, beyond a copse of oak trees, a fat yellow disk of a moon rises. A warm breeze that smells of autumn leaves and woodsmoke fills the air, bringing with it the sound of fiddle music from somewhere nearby.

“Where are we going, Daisy?” Yael asks wearily. “Let’s take a bottle of cider home and celebrate our engagement. I was thinking of revisiting that delicious thing you tried last night…”

Margot turns to smile coyly at them. “There’ll be time for all that later. I have one more thing to show you.”

“What else could there possibly be? I’ve already seen the best the Bloomfield harvest festival has to offer, and besides, most people have packed up for the night. Nobody but the old-timers were left in the square.”