Page 37

THIRTY-ONE

Alder Woodlane. Fourth-generation warlock. Sells enchanted and unenchanted wares. Forty-five. Loyal servant to a cat familiar. Good kisser.

Thorn hadn’t verified that last point in the résumé, but so far, she was enjoying discussing witchcraft with him. He was her first fifteen-minute date on this Night of Love and Lemonade.

“Your Croak potion sounds absolutely delightful,” Alder said with his plump lips.

Madam Maude, who had donned her pointiest hat for this special occasion, came around and handed them silver goblets of lemonade.

Thorn didn’t touch hers. It reminded her too much of what she’d left behind, of Walls. “The only downside to the Croak potion is there is no antidote to reverse its effects as needed.”

Alder took a sip and moistened his lips, which now looked even more alluring. “Maybe we can develop one if we put our heads together.”

It was a very interesting prospect. Thorn had never considered dating a warlock.

There weren’t many of them, and witchcraft was very solitary work.

There was no serendipitously bumping into each other in the workplace.

She glanced around at the other four pairs of speed-daters sitting on their BYO chairs around her front yard.

It was the most witches and warlocks she had ever seen in one place.

Madam Maude had reasoned that the whole town wasn’t ready for such an event, but their witches were.

And Thorn’s sanctuary of serenity was the only suitable venue where the speed-daters would be away from prying, judging eyes.

When Bandit was informed that a crowd would advance upon the house, surprisingly, he did not vehemently protest.

The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else , he had said. That’s what I heard a modern human say.

Thorn supposed she might not be totally opposed to getting under Alder eventually, but she wanted to get to know him better first. She tipped her hat toward him. “Maybe if we put our hats together.”

He played along. As their pointy hats touched, Thorn thought that Madam Maude should add “dreamy eyes” to his résumé.

The sound of bells jingling filled the cool late-afternoon air.

Madam Maude was ringing a set of big brass bells. “The first round is over. Warlocks, please carry your chair to the next witch.”

Alder stood up, but instead of moving on, he grabbed Thorn’s hand. “I’ve found my match, Madam Maude. I don’t need to chat with the other women.”

Madam Maude was very surprised. “Why, that’s lovely, but the rules—”

“We’ve found our matches, too.” Another warlock and witch stood up, hand in hand.

The other three pairs did the same.

“This is most unexpected,” Madam Maude said, clutching the empty tray to her chest. “And most successful. I suppose you can all chat with whoever you wish for the rest of the event.”

Thorn turned to Alder. “Would you fly with me to watch the sunset?”

The witch and the warlock sat on a broom hovering just above the tip of the fig tree. They watched the purple and orange rays breaking through the clouds. It was the most romantic date Thorn had ever been on.

The broom wobbled a little as Alder shifted his weight. He looped an arm around Thorn’s shoulders. His smell was familiar, that of herbs and potions. He tightened his embrace, but she leaned away.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Too fast?”

“No,” she said. “It’s not that. You don’t smell right.”

He clamped his arms tightly against his body. “I’m sorry. I was going to take a bath yesterday, but the well’s dry, and—”

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean… I’m sorry, Alder. But I care for another man.” One who smelled of laundry detergent.

“Which warlock? Don’t tell me it’s that one with the insufficiently curled shoes.”

“Not anyone from today. This man only sees me as a friend. I thought if I met a nice wizard tonight, I could get over that man.”

“But he only sees you as a friend. Me, I love”—but before Alder could say the last word, Thorn clasped her hand over his mouth.

“Don’t say it,” Thorn said. “Don’t you think it’s too soon? It’s our first date!”

“Date?”

“Courtship meeting.” She removed her hand from his mouth.

“It is our first date, but it was love at second sight.”

“Second?”

Alder nodded. “I saw you when I first arrived, and you caught my eye, but I thought I should keep my options open. I was supposed to talk to five witches today, after all. But when we chatted over lemonade, I just knew. I love—”

Thorn had clamped her hand over his mouth again. “Oh no. The lemonade.” She looked down at the other witches and wizards below. It was halfway to an orgy. Much more than hands being kissed. “Madam Maude, don’t tell me you did this.”

Madam Maude stood frozen in the midst of the loved-up couples. Then she took a deep breath, and screamed, “Thorn Scarhart!”

“Thorn Scarhart,” Alder said, much more gently, “I love—”

Thorn kicked Alder off the broom.

The dreaminess in his eyes was replaced by horror. It looked like the spell on him was broken. And then he free-fell.

Thorn gripped the handle of her broom and dove straight down after him. She managed to grab one of his ankles, but it was too late to slow the descent. They plummeted through leaves, branches, and then the roof of the cottage.

Feeling like one giant bruise, Thorn groaned. She lifted her head to check on Alder. He had scratches on his arms and was out cold, but luckily there was no blood gushing out of him anywhere and he was breathing. “Thank goodness.”

Madam Maude burst into the cottage, and upon seeing the carnage, immediately shut the door behind her.

“Are they still being frisky out there?” Thorn asked.

“No. It looked like the noise from your crash jolted them out of the spell.”

Thorn pulled herself up. She looked at her broom, which had snapped into brooms. “That potion is inferior.”

“Thorn Scarhart! I told you NO POTIONS!”

“I swear it wasn’t me! I thought it was you.

You didn’t add something right before serving it?

” Thorn rushed to the wall of shelves. “There’s a flask of True Love potion missing.

It’s from the inferior batch I made for the blacksmith.

Who would’ve dumped it in the lemonade? No one else is allowed inside my house. ”

“First things first,” Madam Maude said. “Do you have the antidote?”

Next to the last remaining vial of the inferior batch, there was a flask of mud-filled liquid. Thorn handed it to Madam Maude. “This should be enough for nine people.”

While Madam Maude headed outside to destroy love, Thorn scanned the cottage. There was no one else. Not that Bandit would deign to meddle in the love affairs of humans, but he wasn’t even home. He had left before the event started, stating that human courtship was frustrating just to witness.

Then she spotted the broken ceramic pieces under the table. “The water jug! Oh no— Penny? Bandit better not have snuck back in and eaten her.”

Madam Maude came back inside with an empty flask. “It worked. There’s not one dreamy eye out there anymore.”

Thorn rushed over to her wardrobe. Penny’s dress was gone. “Penny turned back into a human!”

“I didn’t see her leave,” Madam Maude said.

There was only one place a grown human could hide in the cottage. Thorn shouted, “Come out, Penny!”

Two seconds later, a hand slithered out from under the bed, followed by the rest of Penny. “It was me. I added your True Love potion to the lemonade.”

“ Why? ” Thorn and Madam Maude asked at the same time.

“These past months, I’ve watched Thorn try so hard to find love. It always ends in disaster. I was looking for love, too, when you turned me into a frog. I’m in love with the carpenter, but he loves another.”

“The carpenter who’s good with his hands?” Madam Maude asked. “He’s about to marry the butcher’s daughter.”

“I know. That’s why I understand Thorn. I just want her to find true love,” Penny said, half walking, half hopping over to the table. She was still getting used to her human legs again. There was no chair at the round table, since the single chair had been taken outside for speed dating.

“But Penny,” Thorn said, offering Penny the short stool by the fireplace, “it’s not true love if it comes from a cauldron.”

Madam Maude raised her eyebrows at Thorn, and Thorn was equally surprised at what she’d just said.

“What does that matter?” Penny said. “True love is too hard to find and keep. You should know, Thorn. You abandoned the electric kettle and modern plumbing just to escape the heartbreak of being dumped by Walls.”

“I am heartbroken, but he didn’t dump me.”

“He didn’t? Sorry, it was hard to hear through the thick glass of my enclosure, and my frog body liked to sleep at random times. But if Walls didn’t break up with you, why in the bloody hell did you return to this backward era?”

“Was it because you were afraid Rose would find you again?” Madam Maude asked.

“I wasn’t looking forward to seeing her again after realizing the truth, but that wasn’t it.” Thorn sat on her bed. “Walls didn’t truly love me. He accidentally drank the New-and-Improved True Love potion.”

Penny scratched her head. “But why does that matter? You’ve been using potions to find love all this time.”

“When Walls mistakenly drank the potion, I thought it was a gift from the spirits—my only chance to be with him. I made excuses and pushed aside my guilt about letting it play out. But then my memories of Rose returned—how she used my love for her thirty years ago to try to take my life. And it snapped me back to reality: I’d taken unfair advantage of Walls, who had been so kind to me.

I was horrified by my actions and couldn’t face myself, so I ran away. ”

“That was stupid.” Penny sat down next to Thorn.

“But who am I to talk? I went looking for you in the woods at night to buy a love potion. And I came back here with you because I was too afraid to stand on my own two feet in a new era, even though I’d have loved twenty-first-century fashion and online dating. ”

“Then we were both fools. I thought I needed potions to find love because that’s what my mother did, or tried to do, my whole life.

I thought I needed magic to get someone to love me because for so long, I believed that I was unlovable.

But from the moment we met, Walls was kind to me without any spells or potions.

I’d never had that; I didn’t even know it was possible.

Even when it wasn’t romantic, I felt safe with him.

He made me think I was worth being kind to.

That maybe I am worthy of friendship and love. ”

Madam Maude gazed at Thorn with pride and tears in her eyes.

“I’ve received kindness from Meg, too.” Thorn got up and took Madam Maude’s hands. “And from you, Madam Maude. I’m sorry I couldn’t see it until now.”

Madam Maude squeezed Thorn’s hands. “You know I love you like my own child.”

“I may still have work to do before fully believing I’m enough, but I want to get there.”

Penny sighed. “You couldn’t have had this epiphany before you brought us back here?”

Madam Maude smiled sadly. “Maybe you’re better suited to the future.”

“At the very least, I need to apologize to Walls.” Thorn picked up her hat from the corner where it had landed in the crash. Its tip was crumpled. “I want to go back to the twenty-first century.”

Penny shot to her feet. “Can you take us back?”

“But how?” Madam Maude asked.

The cosmic cat distribution system.

Everyone turned to the kitchen window just as Bandit hopped onto it. He stayed there.

I will know how to open the portal when it’s needed, he said . We can only use it when it’s crucial, but I’m willing to pay the price.

“There’s no way in heck I’d let you use your extra lives.” Thorn put on her hat. “I’ll go to the twenty-first century the same way I went there in the first place—by drinking the screwed-up New-and-Improved True Love potion.”

Madam Maude wagged a finger. “That’s too risky. We don’t know how it works, since you didn’t mean for that potion to have that effect. What if you accidentally end up in the thirtieth century? Or the tenth? Until we investigate that recipe further, we have to think of a better way.”

Just then, the door slammed open. Nine witches and warlocks tumbled in, forming a heap at the doorway. Many pointy hats were squashed.

“Sorry for eavesdropping,” a witch named Ebony said sheepishly. “But maybe we can help.”

From where he lay among the broken pieces of Thorn’s roof and his pride, Alder moaned, “This is the worst date ever.”