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FIFTEEN

Thorn knew she wasn’t anyone’s “type.” But to find love, she had to become someone’s type. She would change herself to suit their tastes. There must be a potion for that.

She figured out just the thing.

But after a whole day of trying to develop the life-changing recipe, she had made no headway. “I don’t know if I can get this right.”

A wave of hopelessness washed over her. She thought of Mother, who had spent most of her waking hours trying to concoct the Forever True Love potion. A month before her death, she’d reached a level of obsession to where she hardly ate or slept. But even after all that, she’d failed.

“What if I can’t figure out this potion, either?” Thorn whispered, as if asking the question too loudly would make it come true.

Bandit bit her ankle.

“Ouch! What was that for?”

A cat’s prerogative. He sauntered away like he’d just accomplished his one mission for the day.

Thorn wanted to wreak vengeance by hiding the mouse toy Walls had gotten him, but he looked too adorable in his black cloak. Besides, that bite had kicked her out of her despondency. She took a deep breath and resumed brainstorming.

And she did it. After five days, she figured out her base recipe.

She spent another three tweaking it and gathering ingredients.

In between, she scoured social media for popular actresses and models between the ages of twenty and thirty.

After making her final choice, it took another day and a lot of swearing before she figured out how to work the printer in the cabinet.

During this time, feedback for the tours was a mixed bag.

When Thorn was noodling on the recipe, the tourists were unimpressed that she was sleeping on the job.

When Thorn was brewing the potion, they were thrilled to see a witch sorting out strange ingredients on the table and dropping herbs into a cauldron.

When she was glued to her phone searching for a popular celebrity to turn herself into, they asked if she was being paid by the hour.

When she was trying to figure out the printer in the cabinet, they thought an old-fashioned witch operating modern technology was out of character, but they were delighted by her alliterative curses.

Finally, she dipped the actress’s printed selfie into the waiting cauldron. The woman’s playful pout disintegrated into the green brew, and so, nine days after the witch was last dumped, Thorn’s Shape-Shifting potion was ready.

Thorn waited until the last tourist of the last group of the day had left before raising her vial. “Here’s to a new me.”

From his perch on the mantel, Bandit watched Thorn’s outward transformation the way a seasoned witch’s familiar would—with a sprinkle of curiosity, a dash of worry, and a heap of what-will-go-wrong-this-time?

resignation. While witches carefully tailored their potions to achieve certain results, it was impossible to guarantee their effects or know all the unintended ones until the concoction was administered.

But Bandit saw that the Shape-Shifting potion was at least half successful.

There was an immediate physical transformation in Thorn’s appearance.

Fifteen minutes after ingesting the potion, she had turned into a blond thirty-year-old with legs almost twice the length of her original ones.

And just two hours after updating her picture on Darling, she got over a hundred matches and DMs, despite the first line on her profile being YES, I JUST LOOK LIKE THAT ACTRESS.

This time, she didn’t even have to engage in small talk over text.

At least ten of them asked her straightaway to meet up.

But Thorn hadn’t only crafted this potion just for her to look like her chosen celebrity. She would declare this a failure if this didn’t change a few other things about her, too. She had to become the right type, inside and out. The only way to find out if it had worked was by waiting.

In the meantime, she took the chance to lock down another first date.

She chose Noah. Not because he was a thirty-nine-year-old Realtor who loved long walks on the beach, didn’t want kids, and was looking for someone to settle down with, but because he suggested meeting at the pavilion by the river.

It was an important place for her; the spirits must be trying to tell her something.

“Another first date!” Thorn put down her cell phone on the table and picked up her cup of tea.

Bandit sat up and hissed.

“What’s gotten into you? You know it’s me. You saw me shape-shift.”

Your hand.

“Great goblins!” Right there, at the end of her hand that was grasping the handle of the cup, was a raised pinky finger.

She brought her pinky down to reunite with her other fingers.

But two seconds later, when she ceased to focus on holding it down, it popped back out and hung there daintily.

She had adopted the actress’s habits. Thorn still had full control of her body, but when she wasn’t consciously puppeteering it, it was relying on the actress’s muscle memory.

Thorn got up onto the chair. “One last test before I declare this Shape-Shifting potion a success.”

If you die, I will eat your face.

She let herself fall forward. In fluid movements, she curled, rolled, and sprang back up to a standing position. “I read that her latest movie was historical action. And she did the stunts herself.”

Now you’re ready to challenge the kickboxing vet to a duel.

She laughed. But instead of throwing her head back in her usual cackle, she tipped her head forward a little and giggled.

That’s creepy.

Thorn was first to arrive for the date. The sunset was beautiful, and before she realized it, she’d snapped a picture. She had seen a lot of scenic photographs on the actress’s Snapster account.

Thorn decided to waste not, want not, and she texted the picture to Walls.

THORN: Waiting for my second first date.

WALLS: That’s where today’s date is? Around here, that’s known as a make-out spot.

She thought it was strange that there was a dedicated place for making out.

That could be done anywhere. But to get a husband, she would play by these modern rules.

“Noah and I certainly can make each other out,” she said as she tucked the phone back into her pocket.

“The faster we learn all the important things about each other, the faster he’ll propose. Maybe even after five dates.”

Noah turned out to be a man of few words. When she asked how his day had been, all he said was, “Good.” When she asked what he liked about long walks on the beach, he said, “The sand.”

She couldn’t work out of if he was disinterested or just quiet.

Quiet, she could work with. It might even be easier for her to live with a quiet man than a chatty one.

It’d be a less drastic change from her current situation, just with twice the laundry, twice the romps in bed, and none of the loneliness.

And she knew how to find out which of the two Noah was.

“I’m a witch,” she said.

“Cool.”

She threw her hands up. If a man had no follow-up questions about his date being a witch, he was simply not interested. And if this popular actress wasn’t his type, there wasn’t much Thorn could do about that.

Then she found out what he was interested in.

Out of nowhere, he scooted along the bench toward her until their thighs touched.

He placed an arm around her shoulders. His eyes were blazing with desire, similar to the way the blacksmith’s had been under the influence of the True Love potion.

Her heart thumped so hard that it surprised her.

When the blacksmith had been in love with her, she’d been so preoccupied with trying to get him to say “I love you.” But now, she could just enjoy the attention.

Noah licked his lips. He leaned forward, expertly angling his face to fit hers. Things were moving much faster than she had come to expect from a modern first date, but a proposal could certainly only come after a kiss, so she had no objections. She closed her eyes and surrendered.

And then Noah was screaming. “Whab be hell?!”

Thorn opened her eyes to find herself massaging her knuckles.

And then she heard herself say, “Sleazeball.” She cupped her mouth with both hands.

It was a word that wasn’t in her own vocabulary.

When Thorn had released control, her chosen actress’s reflexes had taken over.

And, apparently, she was not one for kissing on the first date.

“I thought you wanted it,” Noah probably said through his bloody, fat lips.

“I do!” Thorn grabbed his face and puckered her lips. “Let’s kiss. Then we can talk marriage.”

“Marriage?” He leaped backward as if she were a disgusting toad. “I’m just looking for sex. No strings attached.”

“But your profile says you’re a thirty-nine-year-old Realtor who loves long walks on the beach, doesn’t want kids, and is looking for someone to settle down with!”

“How are you so naive? Have you been living under a rock?”

She remembered her ex-lover saying something similar a long time ago.

She’d met Thomas when they were nineteen.

He had spotted her on the rare times she ventured out of the forest. She was capable of procuring most things herself, but it saved her a lot of time to trade a few bottles of potions for good leather to make shoes.

The townspeople never talked to her outside of trades, except Thomas.

The young woodcutter had asked her for her name, then said it was unique.

She’d been taken aback, but after that she made sure to pay him a visit whenever she came into town.

He encouraged her to come out of the woods more, and that was how she’d first started selling wares at Sunday markets and canoodling with a young man.

Even though he ended up breaking her heart, he had managed to convince her to open up her world a little.

“No, I live in a house! In the forest!”

“What? Never mind.” He waved a dismissive hand. “People make things up all the time on dating profiles. I hate long walks. And I hate the beach.”

“You liar.”

“Come on. Don’t tell me you never lie on dates.”

Thorn had nothing to say to that. She was a lie from head to toe, even a little on the inside.

The difference was that she was committed to her lies.

If she had managed to get a second, third, fourth date and so on and marry Noah, she would’ve kept taking the Shape-Shifting potion every week for the rest of her life.

He would never have found out the truth. Everybody would get what they wanted.

But out of nowhere, an image of Walls came to her mind, accompanied by the thought that if he were her date, she wouldn’t need to lie by taking the Shape-Shifting potion.

She shook her head, trying to dislodge the idea of being on a date with Walls. Madam Maude deserved a hex for putting the notion in Thorn’s head that he was suitable for her.

“If you didn’t even want to kiss,” Noah asked, exasperated, “why did you agree to this date?”

“A date doesn’t require participants to kiss.”

“Do you really not know that this”—he gestured around the pavilion—“is a make-out spot?”

“I do know. A friend told me.” Then it dawned on her that perhaps this was another case where language had evolved over centuries.

Noah stepped backward. “What’s happening to you?”

“Do you mean to you?” she asked.

Noah was shrinking. And he was inching backward, until he tumbled out of the pavilion and fell on his butt.

Just then, the top of her head clonked against the rafters. And as she was about to rub her head, she saw that her fingers were as big as baguettes. Noah wasn’t shrinking—Thorn was turning into a giant.

“Oh no. The Shape-Shifting potion!” It had gotten the right shape, but not the right size. She ducked out of the pavilion and stepped over Noah, who was too shocked to get up. “Sorry you didn’t get a kiss. But at least you get a glimpse of my bloomers.”

Never mind that those bloomers were now as large as parachutes.