Taffy had begun to go by Taffeta.

Maidens had a sixth sense about these things; at least, Mildred felt she’d had one. Mildred had stopped going by Milly a whole two years and six months before her own matron had moved on and become a crone. You couldn’t have a name like Taffy or Milly as a matron witch. Nobody would listen to a Taffy or a Milly.

But it seemed the days of anyone paying heed to Matron Mildred Daemonne had become numbered, too.

Where Taffy had been content to only ever offer her help in any given situation, patiently accepting tasks as they came and were delegated by Mildred, Taffeta had begun insisting. Snatching. Taking on tasks before Mildred even got the chance to offer them, sometimes before Mildred even knew the task needed to be performed. Still under the guise of help, of course. That was what maidens were for, weren’t they?

The apothecary shop mirror chimed its warning that it was about to project an image. There was nothing notable about the time or date; some days Mildred might receive dozens of calls, from other witches usually, some she might not receive any at all. As of late, Mildred had learned to just ignore them. Whether she liked it or not—and she really hadn’t minded taking her own messages before—Taffeta would pay it full attention and then filter on the pertinent information to Mildred. More and more lately, there didn’t even seem to be pertinent information to be filtered. Taffeta handled it all on her own. No need to bother Mildred.

No need for Mildred.

Not as a matron witch, anyway. Taffeta was more than happy to leave certain tasks to Mildred. Less administrative, more… cronely. It wasn’t lost on Mildred. She still felt just as sharp as ever; perfectly able to crunch numbers or dance her way through the tedium of coven politics. It was just lucky for Taffeta that those weren’t the parts of witchery Mildred enjoyed.

“Isn’t this your goddaughter?” Taffeta called moments after the mirror’s chime had stopped.

Mildred hobbled quickly to her desk, where the mirror was kept. It wasn’t because she was old. She had tripped over a cauldron earlier in the week, and Taffeta had insisted Mildred had been the one to leave it out. As if she had ever been so forgetful. And though Mildred had bound it with a poultice of her own making, it was still sore and healing. She wasn’t a cleric after all. But it did seem to be going slower than it might have before.

Leaning over Taffeta’s shoulder, Mildred dawned the spectacles that hung from a beaded chain around her neck. She only had to use them for things like reading and small, detailed work. “I think it is.”

The princess was eighteen now, wasn’t she? Nearly out of the danger zone of needing a fairy godmother, though some of them now were realizing they still wanted one well into their twenties. Mildred had begun to think the princess might never have needed her. That wouldn’t have been a terrible thing. At least, Mildred didn’t used to think so.

Briallen looked as capable as any young woman might at her age, albeit a bit miserable in the moment. Her cheeks were tear-stained, and her eyes were red, but at least she wasn’t wearing any makeup to be set running and smearing. Or maybe she’d washed it off. The mirror that picked up the princess on the other end seemed to be hung in the princess’s bathroom. It didn’t appear as though the princess had intended to call at all, not with the location or the way Briallen ranted to herself, but Mildred had been warned that accidentally calling on one’s fairy godmother was a common occurrence.

Mildred reached over Taffeta’s shoulder to turn a knob in the mirror’s base so that whatever was being said could actually be heard.

“And, what?!” Briallen paced in front of the mirror like a caged tiger. "Like I couldn’t go around talking about whoever I like and saying… whatever! And they’d actually believe me too, because I’m the crown princess! I mean, how is everyone forgetting that? They should be so lucky to have to put up with anything I want to put them through!” But something about that only brought on more tears; Briallen sank out of the mirror’s range of vision to continue crying on the floor.

“Oh dear.” Mildred’s heart sank with the girl, even though she had only the vaguest hint as to what was going on.

“What do any of them know about curse breaking anyway?” The princess wailed from the floor. “Really? One stupid little afternoon with me is like having to try and break a curse? Really? Well then, fine! I can be cursed! I’ll show you cursed!”

Mildred and Taffeta groaned. You couldn’t go around hoping to be cursed, especially not if you were a princess; that was just asking for trouble. Briallen didn’t know what she was saying. That had to be it.

“We should answer her, shouldn’t we?” Taffeta asked quietly, still half listening to the princess’s hiccuped rant about goblins, or gremlins, or maybe it was gargoyles… Whatever it was, she was very worked up. “I mean, do you want me to-”

Oh, absolutely not. This wasn’t going to be one of those things Taffeta did for her, even if Mildred had needed to be talked into being a fairy godmother to begin with. “She’s my goddaughter, Taffeta. Of course I’m going to answer her. I’m going to have to go to her. Right now.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“I’m only offering to help you.” Even with the mirror still projecting the image of Briallen’s bathroom, Taffeta’s pout was easy to see reflected in it. “No need to get mean.”

“You will be helping me.” Mildred placed a hand on Taffeta’s shoulder. Some in an act of comfort and reassurance, but also to steady herself as she straightened up. “You’ll be here, keeping the hearth fires burning here.”

Taffeta hesitated, then turned in her seat to look at Mildred. “Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t sure.” Mildred stepped away as if that would be the end of things. It wouldn’t be. Even she knew that.

“Well.” Taffeta still didn’t feel emboldened enough to argue. Thank goodness. But she did follow Mildred through the apothecary and up the steps to Mildred’s bedroom. “How long do you think you’ll be?”

“I’m not sure.” But Mildred was going to be prepared, hence the beeline to her closet and her carpet bag therein. The princess hadn’t been very specific, unfortunately, but based on Mildred’s collection of anecdotal information about the godmother-goddaughter relationship, this had a chance of being ‘it’. The moment the entire concept was built on. And even that had the range of a simple one-and-done spell, straight on through to much more complicated rituals, and on to entire ordeals.

“Because Matron Maxina is still expecting you in Greenrest, remember?” Taffeta sat herself down on the foot of the bed, beside where Mildred had set the carpet bag.

Mildred would have snorted at the entire idea whether her back was turned to Taffeta or not, but at least the closet muffled the sound. Maxina was only a recent matron, another one of Taffeta’s cohorts. “We can always reschedule if we have to. You told me it wasn’t anything pressing, remember?”

Taffeta didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She hadn’t been able to when she first brought it to Mildred’s attention, more than likely because it had something to do with Taffeta’s own status still being that of a maiden and Mildred's being the next best space to be filled. If only Mildred could be convinced to step aside.

“Those are your matron robes.” Taffeta announced when Mildred returned from her closet.

Mildred folded the simple black robes on her bedspread before setting them into the carpet bag. ”Yes. They are.”

“Don’t you think she might be expecting a crone by this point?”

“Well,” Mildred doubted very much that the princess knew what she was expecting. Or that she’d even called on Mildred at all. But wasn’t that a clever way for Taffeta to slip that into the conversation. “She’ll have to live with the disappointment, as I do not have crones robes.”

“You could put in a request-”

“And make the poor girl wait?” Mildred found herself hoping for an entire ordeal. They couldn’t make her a crone while she was in the middle of something, and they shouldn’t have even considered it until after the princess was out of the typical age of needing her fairy godmother.

Certainly, a crone could still perform all the necessary magics of a fairy godmother; a number of them continued to happily volunteer for the less fortunate and motherless list, but it looked funny if you hadn’t done any godmothering before you became a crone. Mildred had liked that about Briallen. The princess hadn’t asked for her once. It was the naming ceremony, once on her sixth birthday, and then nothing until maybe last year, when the royal missives started filtering in. Taffeta had wanted to respond, of course, but it wasn’t the parents’ place to go making requests on behalf of a goddaughter. Mildred had ignored them.

Mildred wondered now if perhaps she should go and review them. Maybe she would gain some insight as to what could have finally pushed the poor girl to come literally crying to Mildred.

“Well, no… But are you really sure you should go alone? We can close up the shop, and that way I can help with whatever it is. A little experience never hurt anyone, right? And are you really going to feel up to flying all the way to-”

“Yes!” Mildred snapped her carpet bag shut. Really, she had been considering the more pedestrian modes of transportation—that alone might drag things out for her by weeks if she did it right—but now that Taffeta had gone and implied what she did, Mildred would be flying her broom, the discomfort of it all be damned.

“You don’t have to be mean about it.” Taffeta repeated. It was nothing but crocodile tears, though Taffeta wasn’t crying this time. Mildred wasn’t any meaner than she always had been; she just didn’t have the patience to soften things anymore. Taffeta should have been glad for that. It was a sign Mildred saw the maiden as more of an equal.

Mildred carried her carpet bag back down to the shop floor and began to fill it with bundles of herbs, bottles of tinctures, and other spell components she thought might become necessary. Until another thought struck her: that she didn’t know exactly what the princess might ask of her, and so it could hardly be her fault if this fairy godmothering business took weeks, maybe even months, because she had to wait for the proper accouterments to be collected at the castle. Perhaps not everything had to come with her.

When Mildred stepped away from the cupboard, Taffeta was already there, broom in hand. Her grip curled and twisted tighter around the knobby broom handle as she seemed to be reconsidering the gesture. Mildred waited patiently for her decision.

“Do you promise to send for me if it gets to be too much?” Taffeta asked, and her grip relaxed only to tighten again with another question. “And you will call me when you get there, regardless, won’t you?”

“Of course.” Mildred crossed her fingers when she answered. She wouldn’t need Taffeta’s help. There wasn’t any helping to be done. Although, she would call, of course. If she didn’t, Taffeta was just as likely to come flying out after her to try and hurry this along. She wouldn’t want to go disappointing Matron Maxina…

“You haven’t left me on my own in so long.” The way Taffeta said it, it sounded more like a realization than anything else. So caught up in everything else, Mildred hadn’t realized it either.

“There now,” Mildred said, putting a hand over Taffeta’s instead of grabbing for the broom. “You run this place yourself already. You’ll hardly know I’m gone.”

That was a bit of the point, wasn’t it? Taffeta no longer needed a matron; she couldn’t wait to shuffle Mildred off to some backwoods cottage and get on with her life. All this hesitation now, Mildred didn’t understand.

Taffeta pursed her lips into not quite a smile and made a noise, like she thought about arguing some more, but she couldn’t. They both knew it. So instead, she let go of the broom.