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Fixed Fate

Anya

I kept my ears alert for the strange sound all evening—as Hattie and I dished up stew, made small-talk, delivered the final round of drinks, supplied tonight’s lone guest with an extra blanket, and wished the last of the regulars a good night as they stumbled out into the night—but I didn’t hear it again. Nor did I hear Remy’s wagon rumbling down the cobblestones.

After locking the front door, I joined Hattie in the back kitchen, where she was prepping dough for tomorrow’s breakfast hand-pies. I took up a knife from the block, ran it quickly over a steel to sharpen the blade, then started chopping potatoes.

Everyone had a bit of sensory magic, usually no more than a proclivity for a single sense. Hattie’s gift was taste, and she’d honed it expertly, able to concoct not only delicious drinks and meals for my pub, but also medicinal tinctures and the occasional potion (though she was not a licensed apothecary). The Possum might’ve been my establishment, but in the kitchen, Hattie was boss.

Silence spread between us, but it wasn’t amiable tonight. I could tell by the way Hattie worked the dough with rough, frustrated hands.

“You’re mad about the chimney thing,” I said.

“Martha said she saw you up on Stone Hill fixing Farmer Quinn’s gate today, and yet you won’t let his son help us?” Hattie shook her head, not bothering to look up from her task. “You really ought to say ‘no’ more often.”

This was not a new argument between us. Hattie was always going on about my need to slow down, give less, and accept help every once in a while—but helping was in my nature. It was how I’d been raised. My mother had come to Waldron as a pregnant teenager, newly cast out by her parents, and the town had welcomed her with open arms. She’d spent her life here showing her appreciation through acts of service, and even now, long after her death, I continued to live by her example, always lending a hand, always eager to demonstrate my gratitude for what this community did for her—for us.

“You can’t possibly be chiding me for being helpful.”

“You and I and the Fates themselves know you could do with a good chiding every once in a while, especially when it comes to helping,” Hattie said, swinging the dough onto the table with a smack. “You never stop. It’s a wonder you haven’t keeled over from sheer exhaustion.”

“Are you saying you’d prefer to make the hand-pies by yourself tonight?”

She arched a brow, unamused. “I’m saying ,” Hattie emphasized, “that you can’t pour from an empty cup.”

“Who says my cup is empty?”

“ I do.”

“It’s not that bad,” I protested. “So, the inn needs a few repairs—that’s normal .”

Hattie halted abruptly and faced me, her pretty face pinched. “They’re piling up! There’s the roof leak in room five, the mold problem in the storeroom, and that iffy-looking pine out back that really ought to be felled before it crushes the garden shed.” She rubbed the back of her wrist across her forehead, as if even the thought of the chores I’d let slide in favor of town-related tasks fatigued her. “You’re so busy helping folks with their chores that you’ve let ours worsen into problems you can no longer fix on your own. There’s no shame in taking care of your own needs first .”

My mother never refused anyone, though. It’s why the town loved her so much. “I think you’re forgetting all the work I have done around here as of late. Reupholstering the dining chairs, building new bar shelves, and the tables—”

“Yes, yes, you’re very handy and capable,” Hattie said with a dismissive wave of her flour-coated hand.

“And you, my dear friend, are not ,” I pointed out.

She scowled but didn’t deny it as she started rolling out the dough. Her skills in the kitchen were well balanced by my skills with everything else. It’s how we worked so well together.

“All I’m saying is, there’s no shame in asking for assistance every once in a while, and it doesn’t have to be mine,” Hattie said. “Need I remind you of the last time you tried to repair the roof by yourself?”

I rubbed my wrist reflexively. “It was only a sprain.”

Hattie narrowed her eyes.

“I’m not saying I disagree about the repairs,” I relented. “But with the Mirrors arriving, and no one else to manage preparations…I’ve just had a lot on my plate. You know how important the town festivals are to me.”

Hattie sighed, her voice softening as she relented, “Yes, I do.”

My mother had loved festivals. Especially Astrophel, Waldron-on-Wend’s six-day festival leading up to winter solstice (which also happened to be my birthday). I’d been vying for the town’s trust to take the lead on organizing Astrophel this year, and the Fate Ceremony was the perfect trial run.

“Are you nervous about the Mirrors this year?” Hattie asked, letting up on our argument—for now.

“I suppose I’m a bit nervous about the food being finished in time,” I mused. “Martha’s apprentice seemed quite frazzled this afternoon, and—”

“No,” Hattie cut me off. “I mean: are you nervous about what you’ll see ?”

In all the hubbub, I’d lost sight of the actual point of tomorrow’s ceremony: to glimpse my Fate. Though the Mirrors of Fortune and Death visited every year, what folks saw in them rarely changed. It was widely known that, after the age of thirty, one’s Fate became “fixed”—unchanging—and seeing as I would turn thirty in two months’ time, I didn’t expect my Fate to change now.

“I’ll see what I always see,” I told Hattie with a shrug. “Not much of anything.”

Ever since I was a girl, the Mirror of Fortune showed me peaceful fog drifting over rippling water: the surface of the River Wend, confirmation that my greatest fortune was living here in Waldron-on-Wend. And, to my relief, the Mirror of Death showed me the most coveted killer: old age (specifically, the wrinkled backs of my hands resting upon a flowery bedspread, gently fading from my vision).

“You aren’t thirty yet, though,” Hattie pointed out, cutting the dough into neat rectangles. “Your Fate could change.”

“I am happy with my Fate,” I insisted. “And seeing as I have no big adventures planned, I don’t see it changing now—or ever.” Slicing the last of the potatoes, I moved on to the onions. “What about you? You still have two years to change yours. Fancy a man to appear in your Fortune?”

Eight years ago, Hattie had come to the Pretty Possum as a bruised, shaking twenty-year-old newlywed, seeking shelter from a cruel husband. Her parents had married her off to the mayor of Poe-on-Wend, the town to the south, and Hattie had escaped by the skin of her teeth, trekking through mud and snow for six days to arrive at Waldron-on-Wend. I’d given her shelter, but more importantly, I’d scared off her husband’s henchman with a bit of cheeky echo magic and a well-placed Wicker in the woods. A letter of divorce had arrived by messenger two weeks later.

Yet, of the two of us, Hattie was the head-over-heels romantic. Given her history, I found that quality both miraculous and inspiring.

“I must admit, seeing a nice man in my future wouldn’t be an unwelcome occurrence,” she said bashfully.

“A nice man, meaning…Noble?” I teased.

Mauve colored her cheeks, obscuring her freckles.

“Haven’t you only met him, like, twice?”

“I see him around plenty,” Hattie said with a huff.

“ Where ?”

“At the market. On the street. Sometimes I glimpse him through the shop door of the smithy.”

“How romantic,” I deadpanned. “How do you know he’s…interesting?”

I couldn’t imagine being with someone who didn’t know how to hold a conversation.

“Affection can grow from afar,” Hattie said. “You of all people would know.”

“I don’t hold any particular affection for Remy,” I lied. “And affection from afar isn’t necessarily accurate. What if you built Noble up in your head as a man completely unlike who he actually is?”

Hattie blinked rapidly, cheeks flushing. On a sigh, she said, “It’s for the Fates to decide.”

It was a common saying. A comfort to most. But I found the implication of my limited autonomy rather disconcerting—even though, paradoxically, I did look forward to the peaceful certainty of a fixed Fate.

Not wanting to spoil Hattie’s hopefulness, I merely said, “We’ll find out soon enough.”

On the inside, however, a sickly-sweet sense of dread was forming in my gut, like an apple rotting in the pit of my stomach. The feeling took me back to when I was thirteen, peering past my mother as she gazed into the Mirror of Death and—for the first time—saw not old age as she had before, but the illness that would take her just three months later. She had been twenty-nine, the same age as I was now, and her Fate had indeed changed.

For all the many ways I wished to honor my mother’s legacy, a changing Fate was certainly not one of them. I loved my life in Waldron-on-Wend. I thrived here. My most coveted outcome for tomorrow’s Fate Ceremony was for everything to remain exactly the same.