I woke to the familiar knitting of a cat on my hip. Unfortunately, this blanket was too thin, so I also woke to a quill scribbling across my vision.

Health -1 (23/24)

Couldn’t it have left me alone long enough to try to dream about being back at home? Ah, it wouldn’t have lasted anyway with the way the straw poked at me from underneath and Terra from on top of me. I gave a big sigh and still had to blink back tears when I didn’t see my daughter’s smiling face in the photograph that should have been on my bedside table. Instead, I had a box of tissues.

My mana was sparkling for release, so I cast a clean on myself and Spark on the candle I’d blown out. I was really liking magic, especially now that I had twice the mana due to my level up last night. I felt better, cleaner, and more powerful than I had in ages. A few minutes of petting Terra and I had a really clean room, including that cat box. It might have been faster and easier to do it by hand but who would really choose that? I didn’t.

Basic Clean +2

Exp +20 (20/500)

I got my first good look in the mirror. Yep, that was me, sans the wrinkles that had been a hallmark of the wisdom I’d earned the hard way. I knew I should have been happy to be young again, but I didn’t know how to feel. What had Daddy said? Don’t quit your day job. Feelings could figure themselves out in the back of my mind while I did the job that gave me a roof over my head and food in my belly.

The clean spell worked better than a shower, but it wasn’t a brush, curling iron, or hairspray. I tried to tame the mop with my fingers and made do with a quick twisting braid that tucked into itself. It would likely fall out five minutes after I started working, but I didn’t have a watch to time it, so maybe it would stay. I wasn’t even sure what time it was, so I didn’t really have time to figure out how to make new spells just to do my hair. I had a quick image of sparking up my hair that deterred me further from that line of thinking, at least for now.

Will +1

Beauty +4

I briefly debated leaving Terra in my room to keep her safe, but she took that choice out of my hands when I opened my door, and she slithered out between my legs. It gave me pause. My Terra had been terrified of everything, startled at the least noise, spent half her life under the bed. She turned at the top of the back stairway to look at me with a little meow as if she was asking what was holding me up. I chuckled at myself and followed.

She made herself busy exploring the kitchen while I cleaned up the empty stew pot and dishes from the night before. Doing it with magic felt good. Terra scurried after a moth while I got the fire going with a few spark spells. She nearly tripped me on the way to and from the well for the morning water I’d need for the cooking. Thankfully, she chased a mouse out of the pantry as I set up all my ingredients for the day. No matter what I was doing, Terra was never more than a few feet from me, so I began to relax about her safety. All the while, I thought, and I planned.

Basic Clean +3

Spark +1

Exp +40 (60/500)

It was like cooking at home. I never had known how to cook for a family of four. I’d always ended up with my biggest pots full of bubbling goodness. I started with the bread, setting it to rise as I chopped vegetables and chunked up some of the brined meat from the pantry. Throughout the process, I did what I’d done at home. I filled my food with love. My mana filled and emptied a little at a time as I diced, sauteed, and kneaded.

Strength +3

Constitution +2

Skill Learned: Mana Infusion

Exp +20 (80/500)

I should have asked Sammi how to turn those silly notifications off.

Notifications set to summary only.

It was like everything I did was infused with a little bit of my magic. The bread rose faster and smelled yeastier than I expected it to. The oat-like things tasted like I’d added maple and brown sugar to it. I offered a bit of everything to Terra along the way, letting her be my tester. She chased one bit of fallen ginger-shaped carrot across the floor for almost an hour. It lightened my heart and made the job into light work.

“Ya need to start cooking later in the day,” Mabel grumbled at me, groggily.

I did a little double take. “Why?”

“I can’t be sleeping through that amazing smell.” She gave me a sharp-toothed grin.

“It beats waking up to a bucket of cold water to the face,” I deadpanned back at her. I’d practiced that comeback and was therefore prepared with words.

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I was rewarded with a delayed chuckle and a muttered, “You’ll do.”

She spooned up a portion of my cooked oats and heaved herself up on to a kitchen stool to eat it. I watched patiently until I saw her eyes close in appreciation. Terra hopped up on the counter, more than an arm’s length from Mabel and stared. I was feeling pleasantly in my element. I was more in my element here than I’d been in college. It was like some tension was releasing deep within me.

“What’s with the cat?” Mabel pointed her spoon at Terra between bites.

“She’s my familiar,” I answered frankly.

Mabel nearly fumbled her bowl of oats. I froze, realizing I’d made some kind of error. Sammi had said that people here would know what a familiar was, so I hadn’t thought to hide it. My bucket of water script had worked out, but my lack of knowledge of this world made it hard to come up with reliably innocent scripts. I felt like a kid again, having to learn what to say and what not to say.

“You do magic?” Mabel coughed out.

“Is that a problem?” I asked, twisting the corner of my apron to have something to do with my hands. Terra hopped across counters to push against my arm supportively. I pet her and felt a little better.

“And you wanna work here?”

“Uh, yeah.” That’s what I sounded like without a script. I tried to read Mabel, but I really was at the mercy of a very unfamiliar environment. Being on the spectrum for me made relatively normal conversations more like a minefield of errors to be traversed.

“Why?” she asked. Now I was in trouble and all that tension I’d felt releasing before rushed back in like a wolf reclaiming its territory.

“Because I know how to cook?” I didn’t have a script and was bound to say something stupid. This didn’t always happen. I could often steer a conversation back toward a script that would work, but my mind was woefully short of ones that were RPG-world appropriate.

Mabel fished three coppers out of a pocket of her skirt and placed them on the counter between us, then gave me a pointed look. When I didn’t respond, she waved at them and gave a chuckle.

“That’s what knowing how to cook’ll get ya,” she scoffed. I quickly calculated that I must have sold thirty plates of food at one copper a piece if that was my share.

“I need a kitchen?” I stalled, knowing it wasn’t an answer to any question on her mind.

Mabel scrunched her thick, bushy eyebrows together over her larger-than-beauty-queen nose and tilted her head to the side. Most people could read that automatically as a signal that she was confused, but for me, I just hoped it meant the same thing in this world as it had in mine. I’d memorized the basic facial expressions in my world. Then I’d memorized a lot of non-basic ones and pored over shows like The Mentalist and Lie to Me.

“Are you firing me?” I asked.

“If you don’t set fire to me, I won’t set fire to you,” Mabel quipped, watching me even as she spooned another bite into her mouth.

“I meant, do I have to leave?” I needed clarity.

“You don’t have to do anything but -”

“Stay black and die?” I muttered and immediately knew it was the wrong thing to say. It usually was, considering that I didn’t belong in that culture any more than I belonged in my own. I’d married into it, but that hardly counted when I didn’t look the part.

Mabel now had eyebrows up like I’d said something crazy. I was used to that expression. I searched my mind for something innocent to say. Sports reference like, “How about those Mets?” No. Magic reference like, “What would Harry do?” Probably not. “Video game reference like, “I paused my game for this?” Um, no. I realized I’d become complacent in my use of memes to detract from my strangeness.

“Why would you want to work here for a few coppers a day, when you could sell your magic for more?” Mabel finally gave me enough reference to steer toward a script or two. And that also answered a few of my questions. Magic was rare and it was valued higher than food. That didn’t mean I could quit my day job yet. This job had everything I needed to grow strong enough to take on Beau. No, I hadn’t forgotten him. I had just decided to stop thinking about him.

“Oh.” I stalled, falling back on basic truth. “I do want this job. Very much.”

Mabel waited, content to eat while I worked up words. I appreciated that. It was great growth in our relationship considering it had started with a bucket of water in my face.

“The food is good, right?” I asked her.

Mabel answered with a roll of her eyes. I hoped that meant yes.

“I’m just working up my magic,” I admitted. “I like cooking and maybe I’ll figure out potions soon, but I need some time to get my feet under me.”

Mabel stared, still waiting.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go.” I looked down to Terra. “We don’t have anywhere else to go,” I amended. My mana threatened to overcharge with all my nervous fidgeting, so I cast Mend on the counter. “And I promise I’ll leave the place better than I found it.”

Mabel jumped back from the counter as it smoothed magically in front of her eyes.

“What else could I do with that? Be a maid?” I reasoned, and she looked at me with wide eyes.

“I knew ya’d be trouble, but this is more trouble than even I’d figured on.” She perched back on her stool.

“I’m not trouble,” I tried to deny, but it sounded hollow even to me.

“Didn’t say ya were trouble.” She pointed her spoon at me as she picked up her bowl again. “I said ya’d be trouble. There’s a difference.”

I cast Mend on the rest of the wooden counters. Twice. Mabel ate. I could only guess at the thoughts churning behind her eyes. I cleaned stuff too. What? That was a lot of nervous energy. I do NOT fidget normally.

Mana Infusion +5

Basic Clean +4

Mend +3

Meditation +2

Exp +140 (220/500)

Now? I asked my quill buddy silently.

Notifications set to End of Chapter Summary.

Somehow that notification filled me with a tremendous unease. It meant something ominous to me. Was I just some book to this system? Some plot line? Some? What? I felt cheap like a woman who’d realized her husband had whored her out to get a promotion. Was my life so cheap?

“I’m not putting ya out,” Mabel interrupted my mental anguish. My mind misunderstood the word “out” at first. My mind rewrote what she’d said as that she wasn’t whoring me out. She was still talking. “We sold more food last night than I have over the last week, so I’ll keep ya as long as you’ll stay. It’s you’s who’s gonna have light feet faster than I can find another cook.”

Mabel scraped out the last dregs of her bowl of oats and stood.

“Why would I want to go anywhere else?” I asked.

Mabel pointed at the three little copper coins with one hand while tossing her dirty bowl into a bucket with the other dirty dishes. I’d found it more efficient to clean the water in the bucket full of dishes than clean each dish.

“Not everything’s about money,” I said as she ducked out the back door toward the yard. I didn’t know if she’d heard me. Terra looked up at me with Puss ‘n Boots eyes. I cast a clean on the bucket of dishes to discharge the mana I’d incurred by petting her.