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ELEVEN

Later that evening, Thorn was once again standing before the impenetrable traffic. Except this time, she was alone. By vet’s orders, Bandit wasn’t fit for duty.

While contemplating the inevitable end of her life on this road, her pocket rang. She answered with “This had better not be a spam call. I’m staring death in the face.”

There were a couple of seconds of silence, then: “Thorn?”

It was Walls calling. After tending to Bandit earlier that day, he had returned to his clinic.

She was to meet him there at seven o’clock, when he got off work, and he’d take her to procure the ingredients for the Youth potion.

But she had spent the past twenty minutes wringing her empty shopping bag and failing to cross the road.

“Follow me,” he said on the phone, just as Thorn caught sight of him standing on the other side of the road.

He motioned for her to follow. They walked on their own sides of the road in parallel for a little while, separated by four lanes of traffic.

“Sorry, I should have offered to meet you at the cottage. Wait there. I’ll come to you. ”

There were a bunch of other people already waiting at the crossing.

As soon as Thorn arrived, the lights changed.

Cars stopped. People walked. But her feet wouldn’t move.

She kept hearing Bandit’s awful yowl the day they’d dared to venture out of the park.

She wished she had a vial of Liar Liar potion to hide the memory of the incident from herself.

Then she saw Walls jogging toward her.

“Let’s take the next one,” he said as he reached her. He said some other things, but she couldn’t pay attention. “Is there something on my beard? I had rice for lunch.”

“It’s just beard on your beard.” She was actually berating herself for being so useless at something as simple as crossing the road.

She had given Walls so much trouble with regard to Bandit, and now this.

What Mother had once said about her rang in her ears: What a troublesome child.

That had been when Thorn was so sick she couldn’t feed herself.

The lights changed, and Walls stepped off the footpath. Thorn still couldn’t.

He stuck out his elbow. “Hold on to me.”

She did. And he led her beyond the boundary of the park that had become her cocoon for the past five weeks.

For her, it was like stepping into another world. The park and the cottage had been a safe in-between zone bridging her past and new lives. She had been exposed to many modern things, but now was the first time she actually felt like she was in the twenty-first century.

If it weren’t for Walls gently pulling her out of harm’s way, she would have walked into a trash can, stepped right into a puddle, and pissed off five strangers.

She had her mouth open the whole time, her head swiveling in every direction physiology allowed.

But it seemed he enjoyed watching her reaction so much that he almost walked into a lamp pole himself.

“I’ve lived in this town for many years now,” he said. “And I still love it, but you’re making me reappreciate it.”

“This makes my old town seem like a backward little tenth-century village.”

“Wait till I take you to visit our bigger cities.”

“These are all stores. Where do people live?”

“In the apartments above the stores. And this is also the town center. If we headed about five blocks north, we’d hit the strictly residential area. I live in a townhouse there, and my parents just several blocks from me. Meg lives a little farther up from them.”

Thorn ogled a clothing store with floor-to-ceiling glass. “Everything is so slick and clean and… geometrical. I can’t believe there is really a place here that sells something as unruly as witchcraft supplies.”

“Believe me,” Wall said, pushing open the door of the next store.

As soon as she stepped inside, she was at a loss for words.

He grinned as he watched her scanning the room with the glee of a child in a candy shop. “Although,” he said, “I don’t think flowers are really used for witchcraft these days.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this.” She grabbed stalks and bouquets of flowers as the florist watched on with dollar signs in her eyes. “And how did you understand my ingredient list?”

Walls nodded. “I am very wise.”

“Braggart.”

He laughed. “At the risk of lessening your opinion of me, I’ll be honest. I’m only familiar with common plants that are toxic to cats and dogs.

I recognized ‘breath of babies’ as baby’s breath.

And ‘bill of crane,’ or cranesbill, is another name for geranium.

I figured you’d find at least those two here.

As for the other ingredients, there are more stores to try. ”

Later, Thorn tapped her phone at the register like Meg had taught her to.

The Historical Society gave her 25 percent of all tour earnings, which should be enough to cover some flowers, since she’d spent nothing else so far.

“That’s nine ingredients down. Thank you, Walls.

Now I just have to go and track down the other sixteen. ”

“Do you have so little faith in me? We’ve barely begun.”

At their next stop, the grocery store, she checked five more ingredients off her list. Four were from the herbs and spices aisle, and one from personal care.

Walls placed the bottle of essential oil into the shopping basket. “Nuts of pigs is a very apt name for jojoba.”

“We use names that conjure up a visual,” she explained. “Makes it easier when you’re foraging for that ingredient.”

Their final shopping stop was a home-improvement store. In the gardening section, Thorn found another nine ingredients. She was now only one item short for her Youth potion so she could find a man to make her whole.

“I concede defeat,” Walls said, typing into his phone. “I don’t know what a ‘bleeding tooth’ is or where we can get it.”

“I used to collect them from the barber. Sometimes he had clients who needed them pulled out of their mouths.”

He looked a little horrified as he stared at the image on his phone. “People had fungi growing in their mouths?”

She leaned over to take a look at his web search results of grotesque white and red mushrooms. “You can hardly feel them.”

He kept walking but turned a shade of green.

She tried her best not to grin. “Compared to this century, it’s only fair that our dental hygiene was abysmal. In fact, I was about to have the barber take one out from my mouth before I accidentally transported myself here.”

He held on to her elbow and turned her around. “There’s a dentist back where we just came from. I’m sure they’ll take a walk-in for that .”

“It’s no big deal. But you should take a look first and give me your professional opinion.” She opened her mouth wide.

“I treat animals, not humans. Let’s go. The dentist will probably use a big pair of forceps to yank out that bad boy. It might hurt.”

She dug her heels in. “Surely dental work in this century is painless?”

“Afraid not. We can put man on the moon, but we cannot make dentistry painless,” he said without even a hint of sympathy. And that was how Thorn knew he was playing along.

She laughed. “For a second there, you believed me, right?”

“I was horrified for two seconds.” He guided her back around toward his clinic.

“Mushrooms in the mouth!” She snorted. “Come on, the olden days weren’t that terrible.”

“But if what you mean by ‘bleeding tooth’ is an actual bloody tooth, then I can give that to you.” He poised two fingers over his open mouth.

Thorn slapped his hand away. “Your teeth are too white and neatly organized to be sacrificed!”

He grinned rather triumphantly.

Thorn raised her eyebrows in surprise. “You don’t look like the joking type.”

“I was only half joking. I do have teeth to give you. Earlier today, I did a few extractions on a dog. Hopefully those are still in the trash, and still bloody. Come, this way.”

Thorn followed.

Where have you been? Bandit skittered toward Thorn when she got home. His cloak got in the way of elegant strides. I cannot hunt in this state. I am skin and bones!

“I fed you just before I left,” she said, placing her shopping bag and wrapped flowers by the cauldron.

That was four hours ago! Bandit stuck his head into the bag. Wait, I smell the vet. Where is he? Does he have more treats?

“He left. Promised his niece he’d hang out with her. She’s staying at his parents’ while Meg’s away. Tonight, they’re going to read a book called The Princess Diaries about a dowdy girl who discovers she’s actually a princess.”

Why are you telling me this useless information instead of feeding me? Bandit inspected Thorn’s haul . Plants? And a bag with a bloody tooth? That’s what you brought home for dinner?

She fished out a small pouch from her pocket and shook it.

Meow!

“It’s not the kind that Walls bribes you with—they don’t have that at the grocery store. Supposedly you have to go to a ‘pet store.’ Imagine, Bandit, a store that only sells things for pets!”

I’m not a pet. I’m a familiar.

Thorn studied the back of the pouch. “This says, ‘for pet consumption only.’?”

Meow.

She squeezed out the wet cat food into a bowl, and Bandit left her to brew her Youth potion in peace.

A few hours later, Thorn was ladling the potion out of the cauldron and into twenty little vials. Each contained a dose whose effects would last for a whole week.

She took a sip of the last big scoop and gagged. But she dove right back in and finished the dose. She’d do anything for love, even if it meant drinking a brew that tasted like a mixture of apricot and ass.

Her flesh started to ripple. She felt it most on her face and neck. Her skin shimmered. The little spots on the backs of her hands lightened, then vanished. The gray streaks in her hair darkened to jet-black.

She turned to Bandit, who had finished his food and was now one with the rocking chair. “How old do I look now?”

Like when I first found you.

“I’m twenty-nine.”