I

To learn the craft of witches, one must cultivate the pillars of magical living: curiosity, attentiveness, and perseverance. Those who are curious desire to understand the mysteries of the world; those who are attentive observe and apply their focus to achieving that understanding; those who persevere embrace the challenges inherent in the unending pursuit of wisdom and skill, accepting that magic is both a science and an art, beholden only to itself.

—from Professor Ambrosius Wickham’s Correspondence Course for Aspiring Witches,
“Lesson One: On Living in a Manner Designed to Encourage Magical Potential”

The sounds of raised voices and rattled crockery interrupted Lissa’s contemplation of the endless ocean and seagrape trees outside her tower home, and she wished for what surely must be the millionth time in a week that her family would go to the devil. Not literally; demon summoning was best left to professionals. She simply craved a crumb of peace, a grain of quiet, while the Barnes brood were like a flock of chickens bickering over the same feed.

How could she encourage her so-called magical potential under such conditions?

She mustn’t mope. Moping wouldn’t finish the first of her four reports to Professor Wickham regarding her weekly progress, nor would it make her chores any easier or quicker. Work now, magic later, assuming her next lesson arrived today.

A few more scratches of her quill, and the letter blundered its way to an awkward completion. Not an auspicious start to her correspondence course, and the lessons would only grow more difficult in the coming weeks as she began working with actual spells. She set aside her lap desk, pulled her notebook and pencil from her pocket and crossed that item off her list for the day.

“Lissa, breakfast!” her sister Tavya yelled. Everyone but her grandmother had two volumes: loud and louder.

“Coming!” Lissa called back.

Shouldering a sack of soiled clothing and linens, Lissa descended the winding staircase of the former watchtower her family occupied. She collected her sisters’ bags of laundry, then her brothers’, perusing their room and finding a stray sock before continuing to her parents’ and grandmother’s floor. The scent of breakfast grew stronger.

She deposited the bags next to the front door and followed the curve of the stone wall. Through an archway, the kitchen stretched past the tower, a wooden structure added in her great-grandfather’s time. A table dominated the center of the room, carved by her great-grandaunt on the spot from local mahogany, and too large to be moved anywhere else. Much like her family.

A steaming bowl of rice sat half-empty in the middle of the table, flanked by crisp fried fish and a basket of buttered toast. Lissa’s grandmother stood in front of the iron cookstove; everyone else had already served themselves and were eating with the same concentration and dedication they applied to their work. Except for her pale brunette mother, all of them might have been carved from mahogany as well, with nearly identical golden-brown skin and auburn hair.

Lissa’s core was where she differed from the rest. Nary a song in her heart nor a dream in her head, her father had once said, only numbers and lists. She hadn’t bothered to explain that she simply didn’t let her thoughts and hopes fly from her mouth the way her siblings did. No one would have listened.

Gramma cracked an egg into a hot pan. “Nice dress. Mail day?”

Lissa flushed. How did her grandmother know about her tender feelings for Dev, the mail carrier?

“Where is my new purfling channel cleaner, Lissa?” Tavya mumbled around a bite of bread.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Mother said, then resumed chewing.

“I’ll ask Herrer later,” Lissa said. “It’s on my list.”

“Oh, on her list,” Marco said. “So it is written, so it shall be.”

Gramma flicked his ear and he dropped his fork. Stella and Braulio laughed.

Lissa scooped rice into her bowl and added a piece of fish. “Red should be picking up the violins for the Calabash Conservatory order today.”

Her father’s fork paused in front of his mouth. “When?”

“Before noon, probably, since the weather seems fine.” Lissa took her bowl to Gramma to have the fried egg dropped on top of her fish, breaking the yolk so it soaked into the rice.

The Barnes family were luthiers, renowned for their musical instruments, both mundane and magical, though they did none of the enchanting themselves. Crafting to the specifications required to hold a spell was its own special skill, however, and they’d been doing it superbly for generations. Sometimes Lissa felt as if the ghosts of her ancestors were the mortar holding the stones of the tower together.

“Is everything packed?” Mother asked.

“Yes, and I checked it all yesterday.”

“Make sure you go over it twice.”

“Yes, Mother.” As if she hadn’t managed the orders for a decade.

The others finished eating, swallowed tiny cups of strong coffee, then left. Lissa forced herself to savor her food, noting the slight crunch of the thin parts of the fish, the garlic mixed into the rice, the sweetness of the coffee. Cooking was its own sort of magic. She couldn’t linger too long, however; her list of chores awaited.

And she didn’t want to miss the mail delivery…

“Lissa!” her father called from the front door. “Have you seen my spectacles?”

“Are they on your head?” Lissa replied.

“Of course not, they—devil take me, they are. Confound the blasted things.” The door slammed shut, and Gramma snorted a laugh.

“They never change,” Gramma said.

“Neither do I,” Lissa said, though she privately acknowledged her magic course was a change, albeit a small one.

One of Lissa’s thousand cousins, Red was a Southport Barnes who traveled so much his wagon was his home. His real name was Chris, but a tall, broad fellow with hair and beard of a certain color attracted the obvious nickname. He’d been delivering Barnes instruments to every corner of the island of Anivarra since before Lissa took over the management duties from her grandfather, so he needed no schooling in the routine of it. He arrived earlier than she expected, easily lifting and stacking the two dozen boxed violins into his wagon as Lissa counted them off. Then he tucked the invoice into his vest, clicked his tongue at his mules, and departed for Riversend with a wave and a basket of Gramma’s treats. Lissa crossed “Supervise delivery” off her list and tucked her notebook and pencil back into her pocket.

Lissa ducked into the massive barn that served as her family’s workshop, a short walk from home. The Barnes maker’s mark stamped onto all their labels hung above the wide barn doors, carved into a plank of willow. The first of Lissa’s ancestors to craft instruments had drawn the stylized tower symbol in honor of their new residence when he moved with his young wife to Seagrape Cove, and every item from this workshop had proudly borne the image ever since, even after they expanded into the larger building.

The scents of wood and glue and varnish greeted her like old friends, along with the rhythmic tapping and scraping and sawing that signaled different stages of the production process. Motes of sawdust danced through shafts of light from the windows set near the slanted wooden roof, reminding her to sweep soon.

No one called out to her; no one asked her questions, or even seemed to notice she was there. When her parents and siblings crafted, the world around them vanished, narrowed to the task before them. Soon she would offer them lunch, and they might surface long enough to eat, or they might grunt and ignore her as their food sat untouched.

Professor Wickham would no doubt consider that level of focus ideal for students of witchcraft. Alas, someone had to mind mundane matters so the renowned artisans could work.

Her office was a glorified shack she’d affixed to the side of the barn like a barnacle on a boat. She retreated to her desk to concentrate on the account books; the numbers failed to hold her attention. She stood up and paced. She sat down and drummed her fingers on her thigh. Then, she straightened her skirts and stepped outside, heading toward the village to wait for Dev.

Late spring bloomed around her. Peacock trees burst with red and gold flowers, and scattered yellow snoutbean would no doubt be devoured by deer shortly. Mindful of her magic lesson, which tasked her with being attentive to her environment, she stopped to smell a cluster of vivid pink plumeria as a sea breeze swirled around her. Birds called to each other from the branches above and the bushes below, a flicker of sapphire, a rustle of emerald. What would it be like to fly away as they did?

“Lissa!” a familiar voice called, accompanied by the slow beat of hooves.

Dev trotted up the path on his horse. His gray uniform with yellow stripes across the breast marked him as a mail carrier, its metal buttons glinting in the dappled sunlight. His hair, brown as rosewood, peeked out from beneath a gray cap, and his dark brown eyes crinkled at the edges as he smiled down at her. A field of hyacinths blossomed in Lissa’s stomach.

“Good afternoon,” Lissa said. “I was heading toward the shop so you wouldn’t need to come this way.”

“It’s no trouble.” Dev dismounted and led the horse as they walked. “I do have letters for you, and you said you’d have one for me.”

“It’s for a correspondence course I’m taking,” Lissa explained. “I’m meant to send back weekly reports.”

“Brilliant! What are you learning?”

“Witchcraft. Only the fundamentals, mind you, a few rudimentary spells, but I don’t expect they’ll be simple.”

Dev whistled softly. “Will you have enough time, do you think?”

“I should. We just finished a large order, so all we have to do now is replenish the stock in my uncle’s shop. No hurry for that. And there are my usual chores, of course.” Lissa gripped her skirt nervously. “And I’m on the Seagrape Cove festival committee organizing the Summernight dance, but that’s over a month away.”

“I think you and I have very different notions of what it means to be busy,” he teased. “Next week, you can tell me how everything is coming along. Maybe over lunch at the inn?”

Lissa beamed. “I could treat you to fish pie. Do you like fish?”

“I do. And pie.”

They reached the village together, chatting amiably until they said their farewells. Lissa turned to leave, but Dev stopped her with a light hand on her arm.

“Your mail,” he said.

“Oh! Yes.” Lissa pulled her carefully folded letter from her pocket and handed it over, along with the ten-penny postage to Waycross. Dev traded her for a pair of papers; one was the next lesson from Professor Wickham, but the other bore the bold, heavy-handed scrawl of her Uncle Freddy.

Her breath hissed past her teeth. Lissa tucked the lesson under her arm and opened the letter, scanning its contents. A sour note screeched in her chest as her plans and hopes faded to distant echoes.

“You look like you got bad news,” Dev said.

“My uncle in Fiddlewood handles orders for us. This one is…” Lissa sighed. “Some rich merchant houses are having a wedding, and they want three butterfly harps by the week after Summernight.”

“Butterfly harps…those are the ones without strings?”

“Yes, they’re enchanted instead, played with delicate hand movements.” The gestures were reminiscent of the fluttering of butterfly wings, hence the name.

Dev slipped her letter and payment into his mailbag. “That’s a problem?”

“They’re the devil to make. They want tonewood from an oak or willow that butterflies have perched on, and the soundbox has to be carved from a single block, and they’re so large it’s—” Lissa stopped and smiled ruefully at him. “Sorry, you don’t need me to ramble at you about boring business.”

“A little ramble never hurt anyone. What’s it to you, though?”

“It means I’ll be busier than I expected for the next five weeks.” Sourcing materials, scheduling the enchantments, and worst of all, managing her temperamental family. It would take all of them working together to finish with time for delivery. And there was the festival committee…

“Too busy for your magic lessons?” Dev’s warm eyes regarded her with sympathy.

Lissa slammed the door on the discordant symphony of misery inside her. “I’ll find a way. I’m good at time management.” She wished she felt as confident as her brave words suggested.

Dev squeezed her shoulder. “If anyone can do it, you can. We can postpone lunch if it helps.”

“Absolutely not. You, me, fish pie.” She punctuated each word by slapping his chest with the letter, then gasped in horror and stepped back. “I’m so sorry!”

“S’fine. Will you have more messages to send right now? Do you need me to wait?”

“Please, would you?” Mail delivery to Seagrape Cove was weekly, not daily like in larger cities.

“It’s no trouble. See you soon.” Dev grinned and whistled to himself as he tied his horse to the post outside the shop and carried his mailbag inside.

Face flushed, Lissa stormed back toward the workshop, trees and flowers and birds now invisible to her as she furiously scribbled lists in her notebook and letters in her mind.

II

Mastering the manipulation of earth, air, fire, and water is the work of a lifetime, but as with all work, it must begin with small, easily comprehensible steps. Different visualizations, verbalizations, somatic approaches, and so forth will yield superior results for different people; do not be afraid to experiment and adjust as needed to realize your full potential.

—from “Lesson Two: Basic Classical Elemental Cantrips”

Lissa willed the candle to light. She pictured a dancing flame engulfing the wick, a tendril of smoke drifting from the top; it refused to ignite.

Resting her forehead on the polished wood surface of her dressing table, she closed her eyes and considered whether to continue trying or attempt another method. How soon was too soon to give up? No, it wasn’t giving up unless she never resumed this lesson. Perhaps she needed a break to clear her head?

No breaks. The moon glinted at the edges of her closed curtains, signaling the deepening of night. She would need to sleep soon, and it was nearly mail day again.

Whenever she’d tried to do a cantrip exercise over the course of the week, her thoughts had strayed to either the butterfly harp production or the Summernight dance. With time of the essence, she’d not only written urgent requests to her usual suppliers, she’d also borrowed the innkeeper’s horse and braved the three-day round trip to Sawyer’s Ferry, the nearest town with a robust wood trade. Better to have too many raw materials than none.

Alas, no luck there. They had stock but it was too green; it would take weeks to kiln dry it, and the sound wouldn’t be quite the same. Lissa bought some anyway. She returned home, exhausted, to a workshop in disarray and a family bristling with indignation at her absence. Then Mila, the village shopkeeper, cornered her for an impromptu meeting about decorations so requests could be meted out to the relevant people. Lissa, of course, had promised to make a list.

If Dev didn’t bring her good news, she might have to travel again, and farther, which would carve into profit margins as well as taking more time she couldn’t spare. But if they didn’t deliver as promised, they’d be in breach of contract and their reputation would suffer. What might the merchant houses do to Uncle Freddy?

“Light,” Lissa murmured, concentrating on the wick again. “Burn. Ignite.” She repeated each word three times, then seven.

Her door flew open, and Lissa shrieked. Braulio yelped and raised an arm defensively.

“Mercy, Lis, it’s only me,” he said.

“What?” Lissa demanded, hand pressed to her fluttering heart.

“I had a question about the guitar’s stain color and didn’t want to wait until morning. What are you doing, sitting here in the dark?”

“Nothing.”

He peered at the unlit candle. “You must have been doing nothing awfully hard to be so surprised. You usually hear me coming up the stairs. Like a basket of dropped gourds, you always tell me.”

Lissa considered whether to explain her new hobby. Perhaps it would make him a little more sympathetic? More considerate of her time and privacy?

“I’m taking a correspondence course to learn witchcraft,” she said. “This week I’m learning to light a candle with magic.”

“Magic?” Braulio wrinkled his nose. “Why not just use a match or firesteel? It’s easier and more reliable.”

“That’s not the point.”

“The point is…to do an easy thing the hard way?”

What was the use explaining? For artisans, the Barnes family could be literal-minded sometimes.

“Will the course teach you anything practical?” Braulio asked. “Magically mending shirts? Cleaning rooms? Seasoning wood faster?”

If only. “Use the red stain,” she told him. “Is that all?”

He scratched his nose. “Mother wanted to know if you ordered the ingredients for the Summernight dance potluck.”

“She’s still in the workshop?”

“Yes.”

And she no doubt got annoyed by some problem with the viola she was crafting, so she sent Braulio to stir another pot for her to stew in. Typical.

“The committee has everything well in hand,” Lissa said. “The foodstuffs should be delivered the week before, just like for every rubbishing holiday between now and Winter’s Peak.”

“You want me to tell her that?” Braulio’s eyebrows rose, disappearing into his hair.

“I’ll go talk to her.”

“What about your…?” Braulio gestured at the candle.

“I’ll try again later.” Lissa stood, stretching limbs stiff from tension. She preceded Braulio down the winding staircase, mentally rearranging her schedule to make room for at least one more attempt at the lesson. She didn’t want to report a failure to Dev, after all.

Thinking of that impending lunch gave her a frisson of pleasure that lent a jaunty bounce to her step. If Braulio noticed, which was unlikely, he didn’t remark on it.

The sight of Dev chatting with Mila made Lissa wish she had any talent with paints so she could capture the scene. He must have said something funny to the older woman, who chuckled and wagged a finger at him like he was a mischievous child. Curls peeked from under his cap, and he’d undone the top buttons of his uniform as a concession to the midday heat, revealing the notch of his collarbone and enough skin beneath to give her ideas.

If Gramma could see her making such a cake of herself, she’d never hear the end of it.

Dev pulled off his hat and ran a hand through his sweaty hair, glancing around the small village square as he did. His gaze met hers and his smile broadened. He waved the cap at her and put it back on, turning to Mila with a few words that had the shopkeeper looking at Lissa as well. In moments, Dev was ambling towards her.

“You’re looking quite fine today,” Dev said.

Lissa grinned. “Starting our lunch with a fib, hmm?”

“I’d never tell a pretty lady she looked like she needed a nap and a cup of coffee.” He offered his arm and she took it, and together they walked to the inn, Lissa still flushed from his compliment.

Over generous servings of the promised fish pie, Dev described how, unbeknownst to him, a succulent mulberry had fallen from a tree and stuck to his hat, and he couldn’t figure out why birds kept diving at his head until he finally dislodged it. Lissa shared her sister Stella’s woeful tale of losing her own straw hat when a brisk ocean wind whisked it into the boughs of a buttonwood tree, and how her brother Marco’s failed attempt to retrieve it had sent it sailing into the water. Back and forth they traded stories, until their plates were clean and their stomachs full, and while Lissa didn’t forget her troubles, they ebbed like the tide.

“How is the witchcraft study progressing?” Dev asked finally.

“Not as well as I’d hoped,” Lissa confessed. “This week was elemental cantrips. I managed the water one, struggled with air and earth, but fire? I simply couldn’t.”

“Three out of four is impressive. I’m sure some are more difficult than others.”

“They were for me. I can’t help but wonder if it would all be easier if I weren’t dealing with the butterfly harp order and the Summernight dance at the same time.”

“Could be.” Dev leaned back in his seat. “But if you can do this at all when your mind is full of a dozen other things, you’ll be able to handle it any other time, right?”

“I suppose so.” Lissa reluctantly consulted her pocket watch. “Speaking of the harps, I should return to the workshop.”

“Not without your mail,” Dev said. “Come on, I left the bag at the shop for safekeeping.”

Lissa fiddled with the pencil in her pocket as he retrieved his mailbag from Mila. Dev offered her a stack of letters, which she hastily examined. Her next magic lesson. Something from her uncle; devil take him if it was yet another order. Three others from suppliers. She held her breath and opened these with trembling hands.

“Good news or bad?” Dev eventually asked.

“Both,” Lissa said. “The wood for the soundboxes should arrive any day now, but there’s only enough for two harps. I also need different kinds of quartz and tourmaline to be worked into the neck in a particular pattern, and my crystal contact is out of the teal tourmaline.”

“No rest for the weary, then. Should I wait for anything?”

Lissa shook her head, handing him her course letter and another for her uncle, begging for help finding wood. She’d written it hoping she wouldn’t need it, but her hopes were proving as hard to manifest as the flame for her failed lesson.

Dev stepped close enough for her to smell his shaving soap, dipping his head to meet her downturned gaze. “Don’t run yourself completely ragged, hear me? Take care.”

Lissa’s heart fluttered on butterfly wings as she smiled at him. “I will. See you next week?”

“Absolutely. Consider me your regular pie appointment until further notice.” He shouldered his bag and ambled off, whistling once he reached his horse.

Despite her insistence that she needed to return to work, Lissa watched him mount up and trot away, waving a last farewell as he doffed his hat to her from the other end of the square.

III

Potion crafting is more complex than cooking or distillation or brewing, inasmuch as it requires many of the same skills as well as the additional application of magical intent and energy. The more of one’s vital essence that one devotes to the process, the more potent the result will be.

—from “Lesson Three: Potions, Poultices, and Other Magical Remedies”

Six days of grueling travel, contentious dance committee meetings, and managing her parents and siblings through the intricate labor of harp-making scraped Lissa’s nerves to sawdust. After several failed attempts, she finally brewed a potion to cure headaches, which she promptly drank. Her magical medicine was twice as effective as willow tea, but ten times more difficult to make. A lesson indeed.

Dev arrived late on mail day thanks to the skies pouring down enough water to fill a dozen oceans. With profuse apologies to Lissa for missing their lunch, he left all the mail at the shop and straggled back out into the rain.

So did Lissa, after which she sat in her office listening to her father test the sound of a violin despite the humidity. None of the Barnes family had any musical aptitude beyond perfect pitch, which didn’t usually bother her, but today she repressed the entirely unreasonable urge to tear the instrument from his hands and smash it to pieces against a tree until her skull ceased its infernal throbbing.

Alas, she’d already used her headache potion.

IV

In some ways, enchantment is the most extensive of the crafts comprising witchcraft as a whole. Many objects can be enchanted in different ways, using a vast range of reagents, with widely varying effects. An attempt to catalog the potential applications is beyond the scope of this course; instead, as with each lesson, we will narrowly tailor our goals, the better to ensure success.

—from “Lesson Four: Simple, Practical Enchanting with Common Components”

Two of the butterfly harps were mostly complete, with a little over a week before Red arrived to pick them up for transport to the enchanter. Lissa had little hope that all three would be finished in time; she’d finally sourced the missing tourmaline, but her less frequently used wood suppliers sent abject apologies or never responded, so she simply hadn’t the materials for her family to make the final soundbox. Still, she checked the tonewood in the kiln every day, turned it, even talked to it, as if her desperation-hued words might have some magical impact on its readiness.

She sat straight-backed in her office, performing breathing exercises to center herself. This week’s witchcraft lesson dangled from a vise propped on her desk, an oil lamp painting shadows on the walls. Lissa was meant to enchant a block of wood so it changed color to warn of impending rain. Such objects were commonplace; the one in the Barnes kitchen, a rooster with long curving tail feathers, turned blue-gray like a stormy sea.

Lissa had carved her small piece of mahogany into a tower, like her home and the Barnes maker’s mark. She’d never developed the skill her family had with a gouge or a chisel, being conscripted early on to help raise her siblings instead, but she fancied the result was at least recognizable.

Hopefully Dev would like it.

This assumed she could cast the spell correctly. Which she’d never manage if she couldn’t concentrate. Had she picked up the ribbon for Stella’s dress? She checked her list. Yes, that was crossed off. Inhale, exhale. If the oranges didn’t arrive soon, who could she convince to look for mangos as a substitute? Potential future problem; she added it to the list. Inhale, exhale. And what about—

Lissa groaned. Her mind would never stop. She might as well get on with the enchantment and hope for the best.

She opened the jar of glair she’d made the night before, wincing at its rotten-egg scent, and poured enough to coat the carving into a small ceramic bowl. To this she added three drops of rainwater and crushed morning glory petals. Paintbrush in hand, she prepared to swirl the concoction clockwise while chanting the instructed incantation.

A thump from the workshop, followed by a flurry of curses, cracked her already fragile concentration.

“Who the devil left this box here?” shouted Marco. “I think I broke my toe!”

“Stop shrieking like a gull, I’m trying to work!” Tavya snapped.

Lissa inhaled, her brush poised above the surface of the liquid.

“Oh, you’re trying to work, as if the rest of us aren’t.” That from Stella.

“What’s even in here…candles? Who needs this many candles?”

The box of extra candles for the Summernight dance lanterns. How had he managed to kick it? Lissa had put it in a corner.

“Hush, children,” Mother said. “All of us are working. None of you are special.”

Lissa dipped the brush in the glair mixture and stirred, murmuring the words of the spell.

“I just want to know which of you slovens put—” A thwack, accompanied by an indignant cry. “Who threw that shoe!”

Giggles replied.

“Let me see your feet, Tavya!” Marco demanded.

“Keep your hands off your sister, Marco,” Father said evenly.

A shriek. “My hair!”

“Marco!” Both parents in unison. A discordant orchestra of complaints and insults followed. And then, to her horror, a loud crack.

Lissa dropped her paintbrush on the desk and stalked to her door, throwing it open. Her family had stopped shouting, all of them staring at the same worktable with varying expressions of shock. A nearly completed butterfly harp rested on its side, the crystals lining the soundboard gleaming in the steady glow of the lamps arranged around it and swinging from the beams overhead. Its gracefully curved neck lay broken on the floor.

“Have you taken leave of your senses?” Lissa demanded. “Look what you’ve done! Which of you will draft the letter informing two powerful merchant families that their precious marriage alliance won’t have the musical spectacle they paid outrageous coin for? Will you go save Uncle Freddy from their wrath? Will you fix our tarnished reputation so we can continue to receive commissions? Or shall we close the workshop and move in with relatives? The devil knows there’s a Barnes in every city across Anivarra, with many a trade we can learn. Perhaps we can return to our farming roots? Feeding people is a worthy profession, and I’m sure you’ll all look utterly charming covered in manure.”

“Now, Lissa,” Father said. “There’s no call to paint a catastrophe on an empty wall. As long as the soundboard is whole, we can repair the neck—”

“We shouldn’t have to repair the neck! We don’t have time for this!”

“She’s only crabby because of her witchcraft course,” Braulio muttered.

Every eye turned to him, then back to Lissa, like gulls spotting dropped bread.

“What course?” Mother asked.

Lissa tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling beams. “I’ve been taking a correspondence course. In basic witchcraft.”

After a half-measure of silence, everyone began talking at once.

“Are you going to sell your magic?” Stella asked. “At the shop? Have you asked Mila—”

“Do you want to go to a magic school, or apprentice with someone?” Tavya’s eyes were wide as a sound hole.

“I think she should learn to spell the instruments,” Braulio added. “That way we don’t have to send them to an enchanter.”

“Maybe you’ll be a famous witch someday,” Marco mused. “In the distant future.”

Mother stared at Lissa, lips pursed, eyes narrowed. Her siblings’ excited yammering rose in pitch and volume, until Lissa wanted to clap her hands over her ears.

“Can you fix the harp neck?”

“No, she can’t even light a candle.”

“Why would you light a candle with magic?”

“That’s what I said!”

“But why?” Father asked, bewildered, and they all stared at her in unison again.

Lissa looked at her half-boots, sprinkled with sawdust as they always were, and tried to find the words that resonated in her soul. “Because I wanted to,” she said. “It sounded interesting, and enjoyable, and I wanted to do something that wasn’t work or chores. Something not for money, or reputation. Something…” She raised her empty hands then dropped them. “I wanted to do something for me, that didn’t have to be for anyone else if I didn’t want it to be. Just this one silly, selfish thing.”

To her surprise, no one had a response. Lissa walked to the corner where the box of candles sat, its lid askew. She carried it to her office, pausing in the doorway.

“Fix that harp,” she told her family. “I’ll check the wood in the kiln again tomorrow after breakfast.”

There wasn’t much space inside the small room, so Lissa shoved the box under her desk and hoped she wouldn’t be the next one to stub her toe. Then she closed the door and sat down again, contemplating the abandoned bowl of reagents. Could she continue where she’d stopped or did she need to start over?

But why? Her father’s question echoed in her head. Why, why, why…

Lissa picked up her brush. Inhale, exhale. Stir.

Mila nattered away about how the dried flower decorations were coming along as Lissa leaned against the shop counter, surreptitiously watching for Dev to come up the road. She held her notebook open with one hand and periodically added a new item to her task list, or crossed something off. A stray cat slept in a shaft of sunlight near the window, one white-tipped paw covering its eyes.

“Lissa, you’re not paying attention,” Mila chided. Before Lissa could object, she said, “Look what you just wrote.”

Her last note read, “Check ocean sieves.” Lissa scratched it out. What the devil had Mila been saying?

“Sorry, I was gathering shells,” Lissa said. More like rehearsing how she would ask Dev to the Summernight dance. “I’m listening now, I promise. Did we get the rum for the punch?”

“We did, and I’m not letting Pep near it this time. He has a heavy hand.” Mila’s gaze lit on something outside. “That’s your man, isn’t it?”

Lissa spun about, expecting Dev. Instead, Red’s wagon rolled up the road, mules looking dusty and put upon. Red, by contrast, seemed cheerful, almost smug, his bearded face stretched into a broad grin. She bolted toward the door, startling the sleeping cat in her haste to meet her cousin.

“You’re early,” Lissa blurted out. “The harps aren’t ready. One of the necks has to be remade—”

“And a pleasant day to you as well, Lis,” Red said, resting an arm on his thigh as he peered down at her. “Uncle Freddy sent me. He said you’d had trouble finding wood?”

“I did. Please tell me he was able to renegotiate the contract?”

“Even better,” Red said. “He sent letters to every Barnes across Anivarra, and Harmony Barnes over in Pitanga Point came through. I have the wood you need in the back.”

A high, thin note of hope trilled in Lissa’s heart. Crafting a butterfly harp in a single week was difficult, but not impossible. Not if her whole family worked together.

An uncertain prospect. After the candle-kicking, shoe-throwing fight the other night, they’d settled down, but their tempers often flared when they fretted over their work. Still, if she could keep as tight a rein on them as Red did on his mules, they had a chance.

“Thank you,” Lissa said. She started to climb up next to him so they could ride to the workshop together, but hesitated, one hand on the wagon seat.

“What are you waiting for?” Red asked.

Not what, whom. If she left now, she might miss Dev, and then she wouldn’t be able to ask him about the dance. Her hand slipped into her pocket, to touch the wooden tower she’d carved and enchanted for him. Would he wait for her? Or come to the workshop himself? Not if he was in a hurry. Then again, they’d missed each other last week, and he’d promised…

She had to be there when Red unloaded the wood. Nothing for it but to go with him now and then run back as soon as she finished. Lissa flung herself up onto the seat. With a flick of the reins, Red sent his mules trotting down the tree-lined path.

The arrival of Red and the wood was met with a chorus of cheers and a drumbeat of back-slapping. Her parents immediately began examining the stock to find which piece would make the best tonewood, while her siblings peppered Red with questions about his travels.

As soon as she reasonably could, Lissa slipped out the door and raced toward the village, half-boots pounding against the hard dirt. She slowed as she approached the square, steadying her breath and fixing her mussed hair.

An unfamiliar horse waited outside Mila’s shop. While Lissa puzzled over it, the door jangled open and a tall woman stepped out, wearing a gray uniform with yellow stripes like Dev’s and carrying a similar mailbag. She tipped her hat at Lissa.

“H’lo,” she said. “Need to send a letter?”

“No,” Lissa replied. “Yes. I was…looking for Dev. The usual mail carrier.”

“Sick as a dog, poor man.” The woman shook her head. “Caught a cold in the rains last week, and he’s still coming back from it. Should be well soon enough, one hopes, but in the meantime, I’m riding his route.”

So many thoughts and emotions brangled through Lissa at once that the world swayed. Was someone taking care of him? He lived alone in Camaway, a half day southwest, but the town was large enough that asking random strangers for directions would earn her odd looks at best. And what was she thinking? That she’d borrow a horse and ride to his rescue? Leave her family behind with the last harp strung around her neck like a noose?

“Could you deliver something to him for me?” Lissa asked, feeling the shape of the wooden tower through her skirt’s fabric. Or maybe the headache potion…

“I can take a letter for him,” the mail carrier said. “No packages, though. Won’t be seeing him directly, if that’s what you mean.”

“Never mind.” Lissa wouldn’t risk it. Instead, she pulled out her report for her correspondence course and the payment, handing them over with a bright, false smile.

The mail carrier tipped her hat again and mounted up, trotting off down the road. Lissa’s nerves felt like they’d been carved open with her sister’s purfling channel cleaner. The stray cat from the shop rubbed against her boot, then flopped down and began washing its leg as if it hadn’t a care.

How Lissa envied the creature. She wanted to throw herself on the ground, too.

Apprentice Barnes,

Congratulations on your completion of my introductory witchcraft course. The challenges you described in your reports, while particular to your situation, are by no means uncommon. Becoming more attuned to one’s present surroundings amidst a sea of distracting obligations is no simple task, and even the most supportive families and friends can still make demands on one’s time, be they pleasant or otherwise. Your commitment and perseverance speak highly of your potential, as do your successful projects. Should you wish to continue your studies, you may enroll in the intermediate course at your leisure under the same terms as this one.

Yours Respectfully,

Professor Ambrosius Wickham

The common room of Seagrape Cove’s sole inn and tavern served for most village meetings and events, from weddings to funerals and all between. The Summernight dance, however, was held outdoors in the village square unless foul weather drove it inside. Sunset painted the sky in vivid pinks and oranges like ripe mangos, and dried flower garlands and wreaths festooned the walls of the surrounding buildings, charms woven in to keep insects at bay. Tables in front of the inn were laden with baskets of fresh rolls, fish croquetas, platters of sweet pastries and fruit, and bowls of punch—with and without rum. Villagers wandered up to grab a bite before returning to conversations or dancing, or to take a plate to one of the chairs arranged in a semicircle near Herrer’s smithy. Children chased each other around the periphery, laughing and screaming, and a few dogs and cats stole scraps from benevolent hands.

The Barnes family, having happily provided the instruments for the local musicians from their ready-made stock, cavorted in the center of the square to a lively tune played on violin and guitar and conga drum. Lissa stood near Mila’s shop, a red ribbon woven through her auburn hair, braided into a crown. Her hibiscus-yellow dress warmed to gold in the lantern light, its red embroidery curling like vines down the loose skirts. The matching slippers would be the devil to clean in the morning, but tomorrow’s problems would wait.

If a particular person could have seen her like this, her night would have been perfect. As it was, Lissa basked in the glow of another order completed, the delivery picked up that very morning by Red. Her mother had still been tinkering with the decoration on the last harp when he arrived, but he’d been content to wait in the kitchen while Gramma fed him. Unless something went wrong between here and the enchanter’s workshop, or the customer’s home, their reputation—and her uncle—were safe. It had taken a week of coddling, coaxing, commands, and even some cozening when she pretended it was a day later than the actual date, but the harps emerged as some of their best work yet.

Braulio skipped up to her, hands out. “Dance with me, Lis!”

Lissa shook her head.

Her brother bumped her with his shoulder. “Come on, have to dance the sun down for a bright summer. Or are you planning a magic demonstration for us?”

“No magic,” Lissa said. “My course is over.”

“So that’s it? You’re finished with it?”

Lissa smoothed her skirt down. “I only wanted to see if it might be something I’d enjoy doing, something besides work. The spells were interesting, I suppose, but not the sort of thing one uses all the time. I might try the next course eventually, but for now, yes. That’s it.”

“Then unless you’ve turned an ankle, you’ve no excuse.” Braulio grabbed her hands and tugged her toward the dancers.

Lissa acquiesced, and was soon swaying her hips and spinning her skirts with the others. She danced with her brothers, her sisters, some of the other villagers, even her father when her mother took a break to drink some punch. She was about to do the same when her grandmother drew her into a complex pattern of steps and hand exchanges, age no obstacle to rhythm and joy.

Dizzy with the movements and music and her own laughter, Lissa hardly noticed herself being passed off to a new dancer. Her eyes caught up with her feet, and she stumbled in surprise.

“Dev?” Lissa asked. “What are you doing here?”

Dev spun her under his arm, then pulled her closer. “Dancing with you,” he replied, grinning. Instead of his uniform, he wore a red vest over a white linen shirt, his dark curls tumbling over his forehead.

“But why…how…?”

“You told me about it, remember? I was hoping to ask you if we could go together, but there was the storm, and then I was sick—”

Lissa’s grip on his hands tightened. “Are you well enough to do this?”

“I’m fine,” he replied. “And you’re already making me feel even better.”

Dev twirled her again, her skirts flaring around her legs. Hands linked, he unfurled Lissa’s body like a ribbon then rolled her back up tightly into his arms. On and on they danced together, as if the rest of the village had sailed to far-away lands and only they, and the music, remained.

One song ended, and as another began, Lissa guided Dev away from the square, ignoring Gramma’s saucy wink.

The scent of night-blooming jasmine suffused the air as they walked the tree-lined path to the beach, arm in arm. The top of her tower home peeked above the canopy, her bedroom window distant and small. The tower she’d enchanted for him waited on her dressing table inside; it could keep waiting.

Soon the dirt under their shoes yielded to sandy shore, ocean waves rolling forward and retreating in their own tidal dance beneath the ebony sky. Dev gazed at Lissa as if she had stars in her eyes, as if she’d hung the moon above the sea just for them, for this night. She didn’t have that kind of power, and she didn’t need it. When their lips pressed together, carved from a single piece of wood, when they held each other like the bright, sweet note of a summer song, nothing in her witchcraft course had ever come so close to magic.

 

(Editors’ Note: Valerie Valdes is interviewed by Caroline M. Yoachim in this issue.)

© 2024 Valerie Valdes