The blonde girl caught me off guard, so I can’t help staring. She is hot. Supermodel gorgeous. The way she's dressed, she could’ve been on some lewd cover for the farmer lifestyle magazine. Even her golden hair is perfect, giving her a sunshine glow amidst the gloom of the storm. It doesn’t help that her overalls barely hide anything; she’s bouncing hypnotically on top of her reptile horse.
I can almost count the freckles on her face. There's a cinnamon stick between her lips. And she has startlingly green eyes. So green that the grass all around the wooden gate looks dull and lifeless. That’s just unfair! Heat rises to my face as I avert my eyes.
Those guys from before are with her. Four large men, also garbed in overalls and straw hats like it's their group's uniform. Two of them have curly beards. One of them is bald.
They come to a stop right in front of me, blocking the way back. The guys crack their necks and breathe loudly while her mount glares and claws the dirt. This creature seems larger and scarier than the other reptile horses in town. A forked tongue slithers out, and its dark eyes are razor-focused on me.
"Uh..." I swallow hard, trying not to make eye contact with the woman. She couldn't be much older than me. She might even be younger. "Can I help you?"
"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" she asks. Her mount's talons reach for the wagon, but I jerk it out of reach.
My alarm bells are ringing. I've been around enough suspicious people in the city to know when to run. And Kivuli told me to get away from anything like this. But I remind myself over and over not to panic. I can turn into a bear.
I glance around again, licking my lips, trying to find an escape. A place to hide. "It looks like rain," I tell her. "I'm just trying to get-" I almost say home. I stop myself, but I accidentally look over my shoulder toward the top of the hills, and I guess that's a dead giveaway.
"The lighthouse?" she asks, her eyes widening. "You live with the witch hag in the lighthouse?"
"She's not a hag," I say forcefully, surprising myself. A hag wouldn't feed and shelter a stranger who fell from the sky.
"Oh?" She laughs. It's a mocking, sardonic laugh, one hand over her mouth like she just can't stop herself. The others join in; their laughs are ugly and rough, and as soon as she lowers her hand, they stop in unison. "Are you her new toy?"
That throws me off. The guys kinda smirk and eye me, and suddenly, I feel very naked. Very uncomfortable. "Toy?"
"You know..." She licks her cinnamon stick. "Servant girl. Wench. Whore. Up to you what you want to call yourself, but I hear she's built like a boy Kaballus." She pats her mount's head as if to make the point clear, and it blinks each time. But at least now I know the creature’s name.
I pull on the wagon, trying to disengage. I don't care for this kind of mean-spirited talk.
She calls after me. "The hag has needs, right? But you look so tiny! How do you handle her?"
Some of her guys rush around in front of me, crossing their beefy arms and blocking my way. I know their type, too. They hang around popular girls hoping, praying to get a chance out of pity or proximity. Bully culture is always the same, even in another world.
I stare down at their boots, trembling with rage. I clutch the letter opener tight. I have this embarrassing problem. Whenever I'm really, really angry, I want to break down crying.
But I don't want this bitch to see me cry. I hear her drop to the ground, so I turn to face her, figuring the men wouldn't do anything without her permission. And if they were gonna grab me, they would've done so already.
She kicks up a cloud of dust as she steps toward me. She's about a few inches taller and much healthier and bigger. She pokes my chest. "Flat," she says with another mocking laugh. Then she pulls on the gown. "And what are you wearing? Her last girl was much better looking. Can't the hag afford fitting clothes anymore? Or is she working you so hard you can't even eat properly?"
A raindrop hits my head. I think about how I could probably stab her at least a few times before the others could stop me. Now that's a thought I never thought I'd have.
She's not done. She starts talking about my hair and pats my head. Her lips twist with concern. "Are you ill? Do you need some leeches? The old hag's really working you ragged. I bet she pulls out all your hair while plowing you from behind."
I clench my teeth, holding my breath and trying not to blink, begging for it to start raining already so nobody would have to see me cry. I’m so mad that I barely register the notification of
She smirks then pats the chair. She squeezes the maroon cushion. "Oh, I like this. Maybe I'll rip it out and attach it to my saddle."
That's about all I can take. I slap her hand away, and I'm just about to plunge the letter opener into her ridiculous tits, when a voice cuts through the tension. It's bright and clear and sharp and makes both of us freeze.
"How about you leave her be?"
The blonde girl turns, holding her hat as the wind picks up. Her eyes narrow. "Isabelle," she hisses.
I follow her gaze to see another girl sliding out from behind a tree. Thick locks of dark hair billow around her brown face. She’s wearing a dark, collared dress that goes down to her thighs, and nothing else. No pants. No socks. No shoes.
Isabelle walks closer. She’s pretty. Not in the supermodel way that the blonde girl was, but in a quiet, homely sort of way. Like the girl next door. Except, she’s barefooted.
When she reaches us, she smiles, and her entire face lights up as two dimples appear. “Sorry about Mia,” she says. “All she’s good for is stuffing her face and keeping brilliant company.” She gestures at the guys, but they don't come closer. In fact, they seem to be backing off. Their body language shifted from tough to cowering.
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"Stupid witch," says Mia. She takes out her cinnamon stick to spit. Her group spits as well, mouthing curses.
But Isabelle twirls her hand. Her long, slender fingers move like they're threading the wind, and roots shoot out of the ground. Gnarly brown tentacles, about as thick as the roots of the trees around us. One particularly large one curls around Mia's waist and holds her in place as she cries out. Isabelle motions with her other hand, and I hear the guys shout.
Roots burst from the road and grabbed their legs, wrapping around their knees and thighs. They cry out in fear and anger, struggling to snap the roots off.
Isabelle walks right up to Mia. She's a little shorter, but she walks with swagger, her hips swaying, her chin jutting out. She takes Mia's hat and places it on her own head. "Better get going, Mia. It looks like rain, and I'd hate for you to get stuck out here with wood shoved up your backside."
Mia's face flushes deeply red, almost as red as the chair cushion. She bites through her cinnamon stick and spits it out. Her golden hair rises with the sudden breeze.
Isabelle snaps her finger, and the root unwinds itself from Mia's body, spurting back into the dirt. Mia makes a rude sound, then stomps away, climbing back onto her Kaballus, and trotting back into Blossom Water. The guys kick themselves free and rush after her, glaring at me and Isabelle.
I exhale, feeling like a deflating balloon. I glance at my savior, Isabelle. She's lean with defiant confidence in her sharp eyes, and she has a healthy brown glow about her. Like she spends a lot of time in the sun. And she has a great figure. Athletic and attractive. The wind teases her skirt, blowing it every which way, and I try very hard not to glance at her legs.
She adjusts the straw hat and smiles again. "Don't think I've seen you around," she says, placing one hand on her hip and eyeing me from head to toe. "You alright?"
I nod. "Yeah." I think the straw hat looks a lot better on her than it did on Mia. Isabelle’s smile is too cute. And those eyes... they look right through me. She's slender and strong and pretty and confident. Everything that I'm not.
"I'm called Isabelle of the Wallowing Woods. How about you?"
"Oh," I say. "I'm just Sam." Wallowing Woods? Is that her title?
She squints at me, pursing her lips. "Sam of the nothing yet, then..." she says. "Or should I start calling you Madam Mayor?"
"Madam Mayor?" I blush, then I remember. The fox. The job. My new stats. "I don't know how that happened."
But Isabelle isn't even paying attention. She pokes the chair. "Mia was right. This is a rather nice chair. Bluebell’s work if I’m not mistaken."
More raindrops land on my face, and I look up. Isabelle must've seen the worried expression on my face. She waves her hand again and branches shoot out of the ground, curling over the wagon where green leaves, each one larger than a full-sized pizza, swish out of the wood, forming a covering that made the wagon look like a miniature caravan. The branches snap off the dirt and curl underneath the wagon, holding everything in place.
"Oh," I whisper, marveling at her abilities. "Thank you."
"Figure you don't want your sweet chair to get wet." She raises her hand again, but instead of summoning more plants, she removes the straw hat and places it on my head. "A gift for our new mayor."
"I'm not-" But I stop myself and shake my head. It’s getting harder to breathe; I’m still panicking. "Thanks," I say, turning away and slowly dragging the wagon up the road again. I'd be out of the wooded area and in the hills soon enough. Isabelle follows me, hands folded behind her back as she skips.
"I like your shoes," she says.
"Thanks."
Something about Isabelle is making me nervous. She's using magic so openly. Carelessly. Isn't she worried? Mia even called her a witch. Won't she get in trouble? Or is she... what if she's the real danger?
"Don't worry about Mia," says Isabelle after a while. “I would’ve loved to see the look on her face if you attacked her though. That little blade of yours is cute.” We're walking up the dirt road, the branches overhead giving us some protection from the light rain. But thunder booms in the distance ahead, and in a few moments, we'd be at the hills.
I don't respond. I'm not sure what to say. I don’t want to say anything. How doe she even know about the mayor thing? Or my letter opener? It's carefully hidden in my sleeve.
"She's too afraid of my Father to do anything. And you know what? She's been haughty like that since...." She skips in front of me and turns, pausing. Her hands go to her chest, and she makes a growing gesture. "Ever since all the guys started fawning over her, she turned into that. She was so sweet back in the day... we went to school together. Me and her. Before they burned it down."
I still don't know what to say, so I kind of nod and keep going, hoping to get back inside the cottage before heavy rain starts. I can almost smell it in the air, and I just want to be where it's safe and quiet. And people aren't staring at me, and a strangely beautiful girl isn't trying to talk to me.
“But don’t let my Father catch you either,” she says. She shakes her head. “Your blood smells much too sweet, and Father would...”
That gives me pause. “What? What do you mean by that?”
She purses her lips and shrugs. “You just smell really nice, that’s all. It's a compliment.”
I squint at her, knowing there’s something she’s not telling me, but I don’t push it. I don’t really want to know what she means. Her father sounds scary.
We reach the edge of the woods; I can see the well and the sign that says to ring the bell for evil spirits. I have to make a right turn here and go up the hills, and judging by Isabelle’s body language, she had to take the other path.
"You ain't even going to thank me for saving you?" she asks, coming to a stop and puffing out her cheeks. Her feet are caked in mud. Raindrops splash on her forehead and nose, but she doesn't seem to mind. Her dress gets soaked and sticks to her. "Pretty rude. You thanked me for covering the wagon. And for the hat. But not for saving you? A good mayor should know better than that."
I can only maintain eye contact with her for so long. I follow the droplets of rain running down her face, her lips. "Thank you," I whisper. I get the sense she wants something, and I almost reach into my pocket for the pouch before remembering the pink woman. “I wish I had some silver or something...” Maybe she’s from a struggling family and needed shoes; there seemed to be a lot of people in need back in town.
Isabelle makes a face, sticking out her tongue. "I hate silver." But then she brightens. "How about this? You'll just have to owe me one."
"Owe you one?"
"A favor. A favor from the new mayor of Blossom Water. That's definitely worth its weight in silver, right? I'll come collect one day when I need something."
"I guess... that's okay." Then I shake my head. "But I don't want to be mayor."
"You don't really have a choice," she points out. "What's done is done. Also, you have to promise."
"Promise?"
"Yeah," she says. "The favor. You have to promise me."
"Okay," I say, feeling kind of flustered by all this and just hoping she'll leave me alone if I go along with it. "I promise."
But she hops super close and grabs my hands. She holds them together, close to her soft chest. Her nose brushes mine. I forget to breathe. Staring into her eyes reminds me of last night, when I collapsed in the snow and saw the dancing lights and the stars for the first time. Can she feel my heart pounding through my palms?
The alert comes up again.
"Don't," she says with a sly grin. "You don't want me. And now the promise is made. A promise you must keep."
She doesn't give me a chance to react. She steps back, beaming as the rain falls harder.
"Alright then, Mayor Sam of the nothing yet. I'll see you around. Don't get into too much trouble, okay?" Then she races off, vanishing between the trees just as thunder shatters the air. The light rain becomes a heavy downpour, leaving me with an afterimage of her backside.
I'm still a little dizzy from how close she got to my face. How she touched me. But I didn't flinch away? I didn’t feel repulsed?
I didn't mind her touch?
"Isabelle," I whisper. Then I shiver. Not from the rain battering my new straw hat. Or the strengthening wind. Pressed between my palms is a pink petal, crushed so that its sweet flowery fragrance emanates all around me.
I want to sit down and cry.