“Did this storyteller know me?” Eleanor seemed torn between outrage and delight. She did love being the center of attention. It was a common attitude among firebirds, apparently.
“Yes and no.” Rennet leaned across to take her hand and kiss it. “Now get comfortable, in case you fall asleep.”
“I won’t,” she protested, but wriggled against her pillows.
Rennet smiled despite the lump in his throat. “Ready?” He waited for her nod, then braced himself and began with something simple that an imp child had once loved. “Once upon a time, in a small village near a mountain, a young, fearsome witch lived alone…”
A Charm for Confidence
ZEKI PASSED through the village on his way home. The middle of the day meant more people outside shops and in the streets to see him, but Zeki’s long, black kaftan had a deep hood which he rarely lowered, even in the heat of summer. The words and symbols embroidered on the back marked his status as a healer and a witch, and since Zeki was the only healer around until one crossed the mountains, all would know him and avoid him if they wished to.
Which most did.
He adjusted the bags hanging from his shoulders and kept walking with his head down, his gaze on his leather boots and the faded purple linen of his pants. Early spring was too cold for linen, but Zeki did not like to wear dark colors at the bed of a newborn. His vest and wide sash were green with yellow stitching, his loose tunic shirt white. The baby had been eased into the world to the sight of its mother’s smile and color enough for a field of flowers. Zeki had made a blessing for health and then taken his leave before his face could make the young one cry.
Even distracted by the new love in their lives, the girl’s parents had been careful to not look at Zeki directly. Zeki was never certain if people could not stand his face or did not wish to offend him with their shocked expressions at the sight of him, but word of Zeki had traveled, and even those from other villages who came to consult him would keep their eyes turned away from him.
Zeki’s smile for that was helpless and more than a little bitter. Zeki, the hideous witch who lived alone outside of the village, who had cursed more than one fool with his sharp tongue. Or so it was said, and that made it true.
It did not matter. The lives of healers were often lonely. They held power over life and death, and spent much time in intense study and sometimes danger. It was to be expected, and Zeki had made his choice. The injuries to his face and neck had made some of it for him, true, but the outcome likely would have been the same. Especially as a newcomer, as these villagers accounted him, despite being born here. His father had been new, and that was enough to make Zeki forever an outsider even before the old witch had discovered his talent for magic and trained him in those arts as well.
The center of the village called to him despite his tired steps. Up all night to help bring a baby into the world, with work to be done today besides, but Zeki let the standing stone draw him close, as it always did. Perhaps because the connection made him feel less of a newcomer, less alone.
The yellow stone was taller than a man standing on another’s shoulders, and wider than an eagle’s outstretched wings. Carvings reached to the top, though the markings were long since worn down by wind and rain and left unreadable, even to Zeki. But he could still sense the hum of the magic. So could the villagers, though he imagined it did not feel the same to them.
It was around the stone where the people of this village held their festivals and feasts, the stone where some aired grievances or begged ancient gods for mercy. And in the spring, it was where the unmarried, old or young, placed marks and signs to announce they were open to being courted.
Usually, though not always, the marks were left and the announcement was made with a particular person in mind for the courting. Not every unattached person did it, either. Some had no need, with a sweetheart already, and others had no interest. Still others were pursued by so many that they saw no point in announcing it.
Zeki had been safe, happy to ignore the signs in front of the standing stone for yet another season.
But next to a bundle of sewing with neat, precise stitches that was likely from the dressmaker’s daughter, and a page of detailed copying from a manuscript that might have come from the scholar Shimizu, was a perfect ring of bread dotted with sesame seeds, and several lightly buttered, vaguely rose-shaped pieces of flatbread, no doubt bursting with pistachio or some sweet flavor.
Zeki stopped. No matter how delicious their offerings, no other cook or baker in town rivaled the one who had made those treats.
Theo had come out of hiding, then.
Zeki reached up to rub the scarring at his cheek, though he could not feel much more than a light pressure through the thick tissue. Theo could have put his gifts at the standing stone years ago but never had. Zeki had often wondered at the reasons. Now, he wondered what had changed.
Perhaps Theo had grown tired of the world insisting he ought to marry. Maybe he wanted a loving partner to help at the inn his parents owned, or someone to hold close at night the way many did, especially in winter when the nights were longest.
If Theo was lonely, had been lonely, it was none of Zeki’s business, and it mattered little that Theo had never mentioned it to him. Why should he speak of it to Zeki? No one would come to the witch Zeki for romantic advice. At least, not advice that was not some disguised attempt to bribe Zeki into casting a love spell, which he did not do, because if people felt love the way they said they did, they would know that coerced love was no love at all.
But, of course, no one asked for Zeki’s opinion, and it was simple to frighten away any would-be possessors of a love spell. Most especially when they spoke of getting Theodore Greenleaf to love them, which so many did.
Limbs heavier than before, Zeki turned from the standing stone and its coaxing whispers to continue on his path home. In all this time, no one had reached Theo’s heart, or so Zeki had thought. But he did not believe that careful, quiet Theo would put his mark before the stone without purpose. Not Theo, who had admirers already.
Despite his empty stomach, Zeki did not linger in town or stop at any inns. He stomped into his small house with a scowl on his mottled, scarred face and a headache behind his eyes. He unpacked his bags then stoked the fire to boil water for tea and to heat leftover porridge from the night before. He went to and from the gardens, and checked the herbs drying around the hearth, and sat down on his bed to eat without tasting a single spoonful.
Normally, if he went into town, he would have stopped at the Greenleaf’s inn. It was a treat for a lonely man to eat someone else’s cooking, he would have said, if anyone had asked. But Zeki wasn’t in the habit of lying to himself. The real reason was because he was like everyone else, and took pleasure in Theo Greenleaf’s company.
At least Zeki had never tried to push a courtship on Theo as others did, although his reasons for that were selfish and obvious with his wasted face. Zeki was not in the habit of making a fool of himself, either.
Zeki had been an unsuitable match for someone like Theo long before he had been an overeager witch’s apprentice who had carelessly let a potion explode in his face. Theo was so handsome he could have been called beautiful. His family were established and wealthy. Theo himself was kind and talented, with kitchen skills to make anyone want him in their home.
Zeki was small and thin, with a mouth made bitter over time, and no family, now. He had wild black hair, and skin that would have been the color of cassia if only he spent more time outdoors, and ordinary brown eyes that got lost in his extraordinarily hard-to-look-at face. He recognized the gods of this village but did not worship them. And he was a witch.
He would have said yesterday that he had no hopes in that area, but one glance at the standing stone had made it clear that he had, despite himself. He had dreamed of Theo, and wished to kiss him, and now his heart ached because he had to accept that hehadwanted those things, and that he would never have them. To allow hope to linger was reckless and painful, and would only become moreso in the coming days, because Zeki couldn’t imagine anyone hesitating to step forward for Theo. It should not take long for the inn to be filled with bright-eyed suitors, and even less time for Theo to choose one.
