I can get you over here.” Trevor herds a gaggle of women, their arms laden with candles and crowns, to a second cash register that’s only necessary on the holidays. The Magick Happens is a friendly clamor of bells chiming every time the door opens, Southwind’s traditional Celtic music, hot paper curling from receipt printers, and exclamations. Every doorway’s vibrant with May flowers—pansies, forsythia, yarrow, lilies. Streamers in white, dark green, and red cascade from witch bells, light fixtures, the stairs, every flower coronet. It is May Day, my favorite twenty-four hours of the year.
“You write a wish on it,” I’m telling a young couple visiting from upstate, pressing a scrap of cloth into their palms. “Then tie it to one of those trees.” I indicate the hawthorn, ash, and sycamore trees growing out of the sidewalk out front, roots unfurling deep below the road. Our town was built to accommodate nature as much as possible, some of our buildings shaped irregularly to fit around the trees that laid claim first. “Those trees right there are the best ones for wish-casting.” They’re each home to a dozen wishes apiece.
“Oooh,” the lady breathes. “How fantastical!”
It’s so crowded in here that it’s getting hot, and multiple people have complained about the lack of space on my porch. Doing the flowers for Kristin’s wedding has opened my mind to the idea of offering baby shower services and birthday parties someday. When I have space.
At lunchtime, we engage in the traditional May Day trading of gifts with neighboring shops, passing out herbal blends and packs of candles in exchange for hot cross buns, lavender and lemon shortbread, and margherita pizza.
I carry a slice with me into the Garden, stopped every so often by patrons with questions or excited remarks, wonderfully dizzy with the aromas of delicious food and spring magic.
“Which ones should I get for my wife and daughter?” a middle-aged man asks me, picking through a crate of premade posies.
“Lavender, alfalfa, and peppermint for the daughter.” I sort them so that he can see. “Primrose, woodruff, and birch for the wife.”
“What’s this one mean?” A lady holds up a corsage.
“Ahh. White violets are for taking a chance on happiness.”
She examines it. “Suppose I should. Why not?”
“That’s the spirit!” I’m a filthy hypocrite for saying so, as my flower crown is made of striped carnations. I’ve got a veritable razor wire fence on my head.
“Romina!” Trevor calls. “This guy wants to know what kind of rocks are in the May Day charm bags?”
“Bloodstone.”
A new, and unexpected, voice responds. “Hey, missed you at breakfast.”
I spin. Alex.
“Oh! Sorry. I wish I could’ve come, but it’s a busy day for us.” I scoop up Snapdragon, who isn’t allowed in the Garden and who was supposed to stay upstairs today. Nosy cat. Some of these plants are toxic.
He scoots aside to allow a customer to squeeze by. “I see that.” He opens his arms for me to deposit the cat into. “You need help?”
“Nah, we’ve got it.” I avert my gaze, sweeping loose leaves. “Thank you, though.”
“I can . . .” He casts around. “Water something?”
“Where’s your son?”
“Miles is with a cousin of mine, and her son, who’s his age.” He follows me through the store. “What’s going on out there?” Nods through the open door, where two people stand next to the green-and-white-striped maypole erected in our yard, joining their wrists with a long red ribbon. Luna’s conducting their steps.
“Handfasting. Not a real one, just for fun.”
His brow crinkles.
“It’s a tradition rooted in the god and goddess of spring. They were kept apart for a winter, then were able to come back together in spring.”
“Separated for a period, then reunited, hm?” His tone is light.
“So the story goes.”
His eyes travel to the top of my head, clocking the flowers. I watch his cogs spin. A frown develops. “Romina?”
“Sorry, I just . . . It’s not a great time right now.” I try to paste on a smile. “There’s a lot of work to do.”
“Of course. Yeah. I’ll come back later, then? Is that okay?”
I don’t meet his eyes. “Yeah, that’s okay.”
I feel him watching me for several moments before he turns and disappears.
That evening, I’m facing a small bonfire glowing in our night market, which I still cannot believe we put together in time, watching fireflies arc and dip while I pop a third fairy cake in my mouth. Behind me, voices clatter and bodies move from booth to booth: Gilda Halifax is reading palms in her spookiest voice, a gauzy blue scarf wrapped around her head; a local jewelry artist is selling druzy gemstone earrings; a fantasy author and friend of Zelda’s is signing copies of her book that hit shelves last Tuesday. Here, at our magical night market, one can discover things they might not find in our shop by day: mystical candles that can only be lit on the full moon, scrying bowls, popcorn-filled cauldrons. Your very own Book of Shadows starter kit.
As proud and happy as I should feel, I’m stiff and antsy instead; nothing tastes right. This is only partially due to the phase of the moon—the moon is void-of-course tonight, meaning it’s stuck in a transitional phase until it enters Libra tomorrow. When the moon is void-of-course, it can provoke feelings of doubt, restlessness, and low energy, so it’s unwise to make any major decisions. But I’m going to, anyway. I can sense my muddled thoughts creeping toward resolution. I am going to bruise a heart tonight in order to prevent a broken one down the road.
Smoke and cinders funnel into midnight-blue dusk. A figure skirts the flames. Even with his features bathed in shadow, I’d know him anywhere.
Sometimes, I wonder. If I could rewind to the moment I called off our engagement, and tap undo, what would have happened? Would we be married now?
He stops before me, expression guarded. “Hi there.”
I run a hand through my hair. “Hi.” It’s all I can manage to say. Face-to-face, all of my it would be for the best if . . . convictions evacuate.
Alex nods, as though I’ve confirmed a suspicion with only one word. “Come on.” He leads me away from the crowd, across Foxglove Creek, not stopping until we’re enclosed in a thicket and there’s nothing else to see or hear except each other. “I knew it. I started getting a bad feeling yesterday. You’re trying to slither away, even though I’m still holding all your jewelry as collateral. Quick, give me your shoes.”
I flick him a half smile. “They’re not your size.”
He lightly grips my waist, persuading me to stand with my back against a mossy tree trunk. Above, black foliage towers. “Talk to me,” he says softly.
I don’t know where to start. So I blurt: “I can’t do . . . whatever this is, with you.”
The color drains from his face. He’s inhumanly still, moonlight tracing cheekbones, and I sense a diversion in the flow of his focus—usually so riveted on me, now turning inward. It shrinks back inside of him to a dark, vulnerable place I can’t see.
“Why.”
I know it would be cleaner to keep it vague. I’m not looking for a relationship right now, I’ve got too much going on, or even something like I think we’d be better as friends. But I can’t lie to him. He doesn’t deserve it.
“It’s . . .” I wipe my eyes. Concern flashes through him, but he doesn’t make any motion to step toward me, to comfort me. “God, it’s even worse on May Day. Celebrating love and fertility! The best time to conceive a child. Always gets me extra emotional.” I try to force a laugh, but I don’t find this situation funny at all.
He waits.
“Do you remember what I told you about Adalyn? The daughter of a man I used to be with? How hard it was for me when we broke up and I never got to see Adalyn again?”
“Yes.” And then it clicks. “Oh.” All of his rigidity melts. “Oh.”
I hold up a staying hand just as he begins to move. He halts at once.
“It’s not that I think it would be the same experience all over again. You and Spencer aren’t the same person. Part of me knows that. But he was so kind to me until I moved in, kept calling me Angel. Which I thought was a sweet pet name, but there was a dark side to it. Angel became an expectation: Do whatever I want without complaint. After I moved in, the difference was night and day. I wanted to leave, but Adalyn came down with a fever—I know this is going off topic, but I’m just trying to illustrate—anyway, Adalyn came down with a fever of a hundred and three, but Spencer wouldn’t do anything about it, said she was fine. Turned out, she had an ear infection.”
He slides his hands into his pockets, listening. It surprises me, because I thought he would interrupt, try to change my mind before I’ve explained myself fully.
“Not long after, I went away to visit Zelda. When I came back, Adalyn had awful diaper rash, painful red blisters. There was dried snot all over her face, her clothes were a mess, the same clothes she was wearing when I left. I asked how Adalyn ate for him, because she was fussy, you’d have to be patient and wait for her to come around to it, and he said she ‘wasn’t hungry.’ That he tried to get her to eat but she only took a couple ounces and was full. That man did not try. I knew he didn’t.”
Alex nods, once.
“I didn’t trust him to parent this kid, so I thought, fine, the responsible thing to do was to stay for a couple weeks until Spencer got his head straight. He hadn’t been single that long, maybe he was still reeling. Maybe he could see a therapist to help him bond with the baby, help with his traumas. I let him get away with a lot. I tried to track down the ex-wife, get child support if nothing else, but Spencer said no, she’d made her choice and didn’t want them, so he didn’t want anything from her, either. He worried that if she started paying child support, she’d end up with visitation, too, and would take Adalyn away.” The words are spilling out faster and faster. “His ex-wife was obviously unreliable, neither of them wanted anything to do with that baby. I’m the only one who gave her any attention. I missed so much work when Adalyn was sick that I had to quit my job—”
“You had to what?”
“Spencer wasn’t going to stay home. I intended to go back to the daycare center eventually, but they replaced me. I got used to being with Adalyn all the time, taking her shopping, to the park. Spencer insisted on referring to me as the mama, so that’s what she called me.”
Grief breaks over his face. It hurts me just as much as my own grief, to see his reaction.
“It was Adalyn’s first word.” My voice is shaking. “I loved being her mom, Alex. I loved it so much. I know that I shouldn’t have stayed with Spencer for as long as I did, but that’s . . . that’s how it went, and I didn’t see the situation clearly to understand that loving Adalyn wasn’t reason enough to stay in that relationship, until much later. Eventually, I told him we were over and moved out. I said that I’d raised his daughter as my own and would like to adopt her, split custody. Things were looking like they might go in that direction, but then his ex-wife came back around, said she was finally ready to be a family. I had no legal claim, so they cut me out of the picture. Didn’t even let me say goodbye, didn’t let me explain it to Adalyn—I have cried so many nights, imagining her confused, not knowing where I am, why I went away. Calling out for me. I still feel so much shame for not leaving earlier, but at the same time, regret for leaving at all, because of what I lost.”
He can’t hold himself back anymore. Alex folds me into his embrace, and it doesn’t feel like falling, like it felt last night when we danced. This feels like being caught, an unbreakable net of understanding and warmth, like he’s tucked me away inside of his own heart for safekeeping.
“I loved that little girl,” I sob.
He murmurs my name, his hand rubbing circles over my back.
“I begged him to let me visit her and explain that I didn’t choose to leave her, but he acted like I was being unreasonable, like I was being selfish. Said it would be better for everyone if I never contacted them again.”
“That’s terrible. I don’t even know what to . . . I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry for getting your shirt wet.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t imagine how painful that must have been. The whole time you were telling me about this, I was imagining Miles and José. José has helped raise Miles with Kelsey, loves him like he’s his own. If things went south in their marriage, I’d be devastated if he got shut out of Miles’s life. My heart breaks for you. I know you must have been a wonderful mom to Adalyn. But I think I can see now, that my suggestion of having breakfast with my son today probably brought some feelings back.”
I nod.
“When I said we’d have breakfast together, that’s really all I meant to happen. I’d intended a friendly thing, nothing serious, I wasn’t going to tell him we were dating or anything like that at this point, that’s not how I operate as a dad—”
“Of course.” I feel like an idiot. “Yeah, that’s . . .” My voice fades away. I keep trying to grasp for language and fail. “I don’t know how to explain it. I just want to feel stable. If I start dating anyone again, I want to feel sure.”
“Can you ever really be sure of anyone, in the beginning?”
He has a point.
“I know I sound irrational, not to mention presumptuous. We’re not even dating and here I am, demanding a guaranteed, seamless happy-ever-after.”
“What you sound like,” he tells me lowly, gently, “is someone who’s been badly hurt before, and you want to avoid being hurt again.” He lifts a shoulder and lets it fall. “Makes perfect sense. I don’t know what the future holds. We’ve got so much ahead of us. But stable? I can show you stable.”
Alex King: incorrigible problem-solver.
“You and me . . .” He pauses. “Do you want to be a you and me? Does any part of you want that? Even though another part of you is afraid?”
My heart flutters, betraying me. “Yes,” I whisper.
“I need to hear you say that you want me.”
This man is a sorcerer. I tried to end things between us, and yet here I am telling him I want to be a couple. “I want you,” I admit. “I want you so bad, I can’t stand it. But this isn’t like the first time around, when it was easy. Our lives aren’t in sync. I’ve got emotional damage and am terrified of taking risks. I’m scared I’ll lose you again, that it’ll hurt even worse this time. I’m scared to love someone else’s child the way all children deserve to be loved, wholeheartedly, as if they’re my own, then to suddenly no longer have them in my life. I don’t see how . . .” My thoughts unravel.
“Leave that to me. I’ll show you how.” He’s solemn. Steady. “You and I will get on solid ground together. We’ll move slowly. The foundation of your last relationship was built upside down, sounds like. I can promise that until we’re sure where this is going, we’ll keep Miles out of it, and build the foundation right. You and I need to spend time together alone first.”
My gaze drops from his eyes to his chest. “It sounds a little less scary, the way you say it.”
He chucks me under the chin. “Anything is possible if you plan it right.”
“How is it that you always know exactly what to do? It’s annoying.”
“I’m going to remember that you said I always know exactly what to do. It’s so close to admitting that I know everything.”
I laugh. That’s such a sneaky trick of his, making me laugh. Making me let go of my worries, if only for a moment. “The muscles in your neck must be like steel cables, to hold up such a big head all the time.”
He winks.
We wander back to the market, night settling in earnest now, our hands not quite wrapped together but not quite lonely. A deliberate brushing of fingers. Chemicals have been added to the bonfire, flames of every color ripping from the logs like party streamers. Just a little ways away lies a three-by-three-foot square of hot coals, which Luna and I arranged earlier. “Care to give it a go?” he asks.
The old tradition is for couples to hold hands and leap over the coals together. If they land on the other side still holding hands, they become honorary May Majesties.
“Don’t let me burn,” I tell him. “I like these shoes.”
I lace my fingers in his, looking to him for reassurance, and his fingers tighten in mine automatically. I know a ferocious pleasure when we leap and land together, closer than we were before; like magic has sealed the warm and fluttery feelings within us.
“My queen.” He bows low, one arm outstretched.
I remove the flowers from my head, settling them on his.
He makes a face. “Striped carnations? Sends the wrong message. I’ll be needing snowdrops. Grow any yet in your new greenhouse?”
“The greenhouse is out of commission,” I remind him. “Needs a new floor, remember? And a couple of windows.”
He scratches his jaw, eyes mischievous. “You sure about that?”
Imparting a suspicious look at him, I turn toward the greenhouse. I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at it lately. “Yes, I’m—”
Right away, I can see that missing windowpanes have materialized. “How!” I shout, making a beeline for the door. “How did you do this? And the—oh my goodness! You didn’t. You didn’t.”
“Oh, but I did.”
I hear the grin in his voice, and I could kiss him. I could shake him. But I can’t do anything at all because the rotten hardwood is gone, replaced with gravel, and the moldy shelves are gone, replaced with nice metal ones. I’m going to cry. Over glass and gravel and metal.
I lift my hands to my cheeks, totally at a loss. “Alex King.”
“I hope you don’t mind that it’s not concrete. Did a little research and gravel should work just fine for now. It’s much cheaper and quicker, too.”
I stare around me in amazement. “I can’t believe you did this. And again, how? I’ve been in the yard all evening, prepping for tonight. I should’ve heard something.”
He leans back against a shelf, arms crossed over his chest. My focus is irresistibly drawn to the lines of his body, graceful but firm. The hard sweep of his jaw, shadows beneath, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. “I did it this morning, while you were busy inside the shop.”
“I just . . .” My hands fall limply at my sides. “Thank you. So much. You have no idea what this means to me. I don’t even know what to say, or how to thank you properly.”
He taps the rim of an empty flowerpot resting on a new shelf. “Just don’t forget me when you’re famous.” He checks his phone. “I’ve got to get back now, though. Glad to see you like it all.”
He awaits my response, but since I can’t grapple for any, he throws his head back on a laugh. “Boy, you are shocked, aren’t you? Clearly not used to surprises. Think I’ll have to change that.”
My heart can barely take it. I’m going to expand. I’m going to grow and grow, with nothing to stop me. I’ll stretch my roots out all over Ohio. More people will hear about my flora fortunes, and they’ll come to visit the shop. They’ll leave with armfuls of flowers, candles, books. I’m going to dream a garden so beautiful that it’ll spawn legends; tourists will be able to feel the promise of true love in every leaf. I’m so swelled up with joy that I could burst.
“I’ll walk you to the fire station,” I finally manage to say. It’s the halfway point between here and Half Moon Mill. Although I need to get back to work, I don’t want to send Alex off on his lonesome just yet.
I check his hands furtively, every so often, wondering if he’ll try to hold mine. But he doesn’t. I can’t blame him. My emotions are an unpredictable seesaw between the desire to run for the hills or to drag him to my bed. Finally, when I can’t stand the silence anymore, I stop walking and burst, “Why did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“The greenhouse!” It’s all I can think about. Who does that? Who just sneaks into a woman’s yard and fixes broken things? I can’t wrap my mind around it.
He shrugs. “You needed it done.”
“Yeah, but you don’t even believe in flora fortunes, in what I do for a living.”
Alex takes a step closer to me. Tilts his head down so that our noses are close to touching. “What you do for a living is one of the surprises about you that I like the best. Me not understanding it only makes it better.”
I just stare at him. “What.” That does not compute. Alex is all about understanding things. It’s what drives him.
“It’s like a puzzle,” he goes on. “I love puzzles. The harder, the better. Nothing about magic makes any sense to me, but you seem to have it all figured out, and I admire that. I admire your passion when you talk about what you do, the ambitions you have. Frankly, passion and ambition are downright gorgeous on you. I’ll be your biggest customer and I don’t even know what the hell all this shit is—I’ll be here all the time buying things I don’t understand, just to see you in all your hot witchy businesswoman glory.”
Once again, he’s rendered me speechless. When we continue walking, I tentatively reach for his hand. “I like your passion, too,” I admit. “Just throwing it out there—I wouldn’t mind seeing you in a hard hat. I’ve thought about it a lot.”
“Noted.” He clears his throat. “To be honest, I compulsively fix things. Those missing windowpanes have been bugging the hell out of me. I have a dent puller tool in my truck so that I can offer to pull dents out of people’s cars. And it isn’t to be nice. It’s actually selfish. I just really fucking love pulling dents out of cars.”
Alex’s arm becomes a beam of support to hold on to while I laugh. It’s one of those laughs that makes your whole body go slack, that fiddles with your vision and makes it seem like all the lights around you flare brighter. “Of course you do.”
“Hey, we’ve all got our weird things.”
“Yeah. You’ve got that, and I’ve got you.”
He nudges me, smiling. Then, a minute later:
“Romina?”
I peer up at him, but his eyes are fixed straight ahead. “Yeah?”
“I need you to know that I’m coming for you. Okay? Making my intentions unmistakably clear. I’m not going to play games. I know what I want and I’m not stupid enough to let you go twice.”
I nearly walk into a lamppost.
“That okay with you?”
It’s the strangest phenomenon, when my tears haven’t even dried yet but my mouth can’t help but trip into a cautiously optimistic smile.
We reach the fire station.
“Yes. A slow, careful, looking-both-ways-before-we-cross yes.”
“Good. Get ready.”
I’m not sure if a relationship between us can work at this stage of our lives, or if we’ll end up hurting each other again. I guess there’s no way of predicting which way we’ll go. “Thank you. Not just for the greenhouse, but for being understanding, for comforting me,” I say, voice thick. “For letting me cry on your shirt. Which is super soft, by the way, and smells amazing. What kind of detergent do you use?”
“Not telling.”
“Why?”
He squints. “If you co-opt it, my smell will lose its special appeal.”
He begins to head home. Revolves to face me while continuing to walk backward. “You’ll be seeing me around, Romina Romina.”
It’s the first spell cast in his determined pursuit. I feel it take immediate effect, as if a fizzy tablet’s dissolved into my limbic system.
I shiver with a mixture of terror and delight. Alex never throws his hat into the ring for any venture unless he knows he’s going to win.
