Page 7 of Enchanted Village

After a time when Margaret thought things were going well, there inevitably came a moment when they would ask for a serious dinner to discuss something. And that something was always how unreasonable it was for her to prioritize work and how hurt they were that she had not upended her entire life to focus completely on them. They could never understand why it was so important to her—no matter how much she reminded the men in question that the Toasty Owl was, simply put, everything to her.

It had surprised her, that first time when a man said this to her. After all, in the beginning, they had loved that she owned a pub. They told her they respected a woman who made her own way. Sometimes they even dared to tell her how attractive it was, how they loved watching her handle a rowdy customer or her no-nonsense approach that came naturally.

But then, they did not really love when she had to work for hours on balancing the books before the pub opened. They did not love when she was too tired from working all week to meet them for dinner. And they really, really did not love when she had to cancel on them because some emergency came up at the pub.

And maybe if the pub was just work to her, she could’ve made adjustments or tweaked her schedule or something else. But Margaret had quite literally been brought up in the Toasty Owl. Ever since she’d been a little girl, she’d been “working” at the pub in some way. When she was small, it had been as simple as helping her mother and grandmother stack glasses, but the tasks accumulated as she grew older: She’d had to perfect her penmanship to write the specials on the pub’s chalkboard, she’d gathered firewood for the fireplace, she’d scrubbed floors and cleaned toilets and counted money and done pretty much everything a person could think of.

Her favorite, of course, had been coming up with the drinks.

The Toasty Owl had been her grandmother’s place first and foremost, and from the moment the Open sign had been turned over that very first day, the pub had been known for its drinks. Anyone, young and old, could come to the Toasty Owl for a hot or cold beverage. Fiona Nettle’s magic for mixology had worked on alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks alike, making the pub a destination for anyone and everyone. People came on their good days to extend the good and their bad days to banish the bad, and always, there was a Nettle-made drink in their hand. That was the way it had been when Margaret’s grandmother owned it, then her mother, and now with her.

It was the way it had to be.

“Margaret?” Liza prodded, breaking up Margaret’s nostalgia. “You still with me?”

“Sorry,” she said. “You were saying something about my . . .”

“Sequestering,” Liza filled in. “And you had promised not to do that anymore. You told me you were going to start dating straightaway.”

Margaret laughed. “I think you made that last part up.”

“Oh, I thought I might’ve had you,” Liza said with a grin. “But can you at least please promise to at least be open-minded? Just . . . give the next one a chance. That’s all I’m asking.”

Margaret sighed. She knew she wasn’t going to win this argument. Honestly, it was hard to win any argument with Liza. And besides, the request was reasonable. She could be open-minded. And if they had issues with her business . . . well, at least she would be holding up her half of the bargain with Liza.

“I promise,” she said, just as they arrived outside the Toasty Owl. “Now, let’s get inside. It’s getting colder by the second.”

Inside, however, two ghosts were waiting for them at the bar. These weren’t literal ghosts, but they might as well have been, given that they were standing as still as statues, wearing black cloaks with hoods, and staring straight ahead at the door when it opened. Oh, and they were pastier than even Margaret, which was saying something.

The ghosts were Jeremiah and Hyde, a pair of brothers and recent graduates of Emberwind Academy whom Margaret had hired last July to help her run the pub. Jeremiah was the friendlier one, and by friendlier, this meant that he spoke when addressed and sometimes followed up with a question. Hyde only spoke to customers to give a cutting, judgmental comment with a deadpan delivery that usually went directly over the customer’s head.

“What are you two doing here?” Liza asked, clutching her chest in surprise. They blinked at her the way they always did, in a way that suggested she was either beneath them or beyond them. It was impossible to say which.

“We’ve come with news,” Jeremiah said.

“I’d say someone died,” Liza muttered under her breath, “but they dress like that all the time, so who knows.”

“Hush,” Margaret said, refusing to giggle. She respected Jeremiah’s and Hyde’s commitment to . . . whatever it was they were doing.

“We’ve been called elsewhere,” Hyde said.

Margaret blinked. “Called . . . elsewhere?”

“Beckoned on to new experiences,” Jeremiah added. “Drawn to new realms.”

Margaret exchanged a look with Liza before glancing back at the pair.

“Are you trying to tell me that you’re quitting?” Margaret asked, as gently as she could. But it didn’t matter. Hyde immediately started to sob.

“It wasn’t our choice,” Jeremiah said, letting Hyde collapse onto his shoulder. “Miss Margaret, you must know that.”

Margaret was thrown by the sudden outpouring of emotion. She’d always thought that the pair merely tolerated her. She’d been surprised when they’d shown up seeking a job, surprised that they’d stayed, and surprised now that, apparently, they’d enjoyed the job enough to be moved to tears when they had to leave.

“Oh, well,” Margaret said, stepping over to the pair to pat Hyde awkwardly on the back. “There’s no need for crying. You’ve been—um—exemplary employees.”

They had not, in fact. Margaret had spent most of the time she employed them fixing messes they’d made. But there was no need to bring that up now.

“Our parents are making us come home,” Hyde said, following a loud sniff. “They said they won’t pay for us to live out here anymore if we’re not at school.”