Chapter 3: What It Means to be a Witch
Chapter 3: What It Means to be a Witch
A gate made of iron lattice opened. Two horses pulled a carriage down the private decorative brick-paved road. Within these vast grounds, there was a well-tended garden, barracks and training grounds for the knights, and servants’ quarters.
Everyone the carriage came upon moved aside and bowed lower than its curtained window until it passed by.
By the time the carriage traveled past the fountain, the two horses decorated with feathers and jewels slowed to a controlled trot. The horses came to a complete stop before the gate where palace guards stood in wait. Behind the saluting guards was the palace where the king resided.
The footmen riding at the back of the polished carriage swiftly hopped down. They laid out the mounting block beneath the crescent-moon door and then opened it with great care.
Harij dismounted his horse behind the carriage and stood before the door. Long fingers reached out from within the carriage and rested delicately on his palm. Then a girl gracefully stepped onto the ground using the mounting block with a flowing movement that made her seem weightless.
Coral-painted lips curved in an arc. Hair the color of sun-kissed wheat cascaded down her slender back. The girl’s perfect posture hinted at her graceful bearing. After fixing the crease of her dress with one sweep of her hand, she glanced at Harij and nodded.
Instantly comprehending her desire, he released the girl’s hand, which was protected by a silk glove, and walked ahead of her down the path she was to take.
Looking straight ahead with her catlike eyes, the princess of Marjan, Billaura, stepped forward. In her gait, neither hesitation nor weakness could be found.
A maid alighted from a second carriage and held a parasol over Billaura.
“No need for the parasol,” Billaura curtly declined without even looking at the maid. “I’m forgoing my stroll. Go ask Professor Marshall if he can come. It seems that Lady Kosmas—the wife of the diplomat from Nefrit—will be attending today’s ball. Her hometown was Krielung. I want to review the history of Krielung before tonight.”
“At once, Your Highness.”
The maid lowered the parasol and whispered something in the ear of the footman beside her. The footman bowed and immediately left to attend to his task.
“Where is tonight’s orchestra? Revise the song list.”
“I will prepare the changes, Your Highness.”
“Instruct the head chef to add some Krielung dishes to the menu. He may be disgruntled by the last-minute alteration, but you will just have to convince him.”
“Please leave it to me.”
“Also, I want to prepare some topics to discuss with Lady Kosmas. Do we have anyone knowledgeable about Krielung affairs in the palace?”
“Lady Marmara’s younger sister has married a Krielung nobleman.”
“Then go to my mother and ask her to give me some of Lady Marmara’s time.”
“Certainly.”
The other maids from the second carriage pinched the sides of their dresses, dropped into graceful curtsies, and walked off in the respective directions of their duties.
Not once did they enter the princess’s line of sight. Just like her step, her gaze remained forward—on the road her knight had decided for her to tread upon.
She went through several gates, walked down hallways, turned at the corners, and finally reached her chambers. By the time she arrived, Marshall, her history instructor, had caught up to her.
“I apologize for interrupting you during your time off.”
“I praise God for giving me a student who is eager to learn.” He must have run there. The breathless quality to his speech proved it.
The passionate gaze of the young male teacher that lingered on the wise princess didn’t go unnoticed. Yet no one dared to mention it—they pretended not to know. After all, his feelings had no possible future in which they could be acted upon.
The king of Nefrit had fallen in love at first sight with Billaura, and she was to wed him at the end of next month.
“Princess Billaura, your clothes.”
“Yes, I’ll change. Please excuse me for a moment.”
The princess, surrounded by several maids, disappeared through the door with her head held high, her gaze trained forward.
∴ ∵ ∴
AFTER successfully escorting Princess Billaura to her private chambers, Harij changed shifts with another knight and headed to the Order of the Knights’ wing in the palace.
The sound of his boots hitting the hard marble floor echoed off the cold hallway walls. Soldiers had their own ranking system, which was assigned based on their social class, who backed them, and their pure strength and ability. Harij wasn’t just a knight, but a Royal Knight privileged with guarding the royal family inside the palace.
Born as the third son of a count, Harij left his hometown at a relatively young age to become a knight because he didn’t need to succeed his father for the family title and territory. His life in the royal capital was made comfortable by the unexpectedly generous farewell gift from his father consisting of a lovely manor and servants.
“Azm!”
Harij stopped at the sound of his name. His fellow knight Geones ran up to him, the indigo-blue cloak of a Royal Knight fluttering behind him. Geones’s friendly appearance and equally friendly personality helped him get along with everyone.
“Going on your lunch break?”
“No. I have some documents to check first.”
Geones waved a small bottle in front of Harij with an understanding smile for what awaited him. The bottle contained the tonic Harij always drank to fight off drowsiness. Geones had thoughtfully fetched it from the guardroom for him, as Harij had been accompanying Billaura since early morning. Harij gratefully accepted the bottle and downed the contents at once.
“You were in attendance at Lady Kvaravita’s all morning, right? My condolences.”
Ah, so that’s why he brought the pick-me-up, Harij concluded. Lady Kvaravita was notorious for being a big talker. The lady could go on for hours about nothing. This morning, too, they had spent far more time in her presence than had been scheduled for.
It has been said that the long conversations between women are the training grounds for gentlemen to learn how to stifle their yawns. Fortunately, Harij hadn’t been struck by a tidal wave of drowsiness capable of capsizing his self-control, but the fact that he downed the tonic in a fraction of a second showed how close he had come. Conversing with nobility was one of the princess’s vital duties, no matter how boring and sleep-inducing the conversations might be. Fully aware of what her responsibilities entailed, Billaura never impolitely ended a conversation, trivial as it might seem.
“Lady Kvaravita brought more than just her homemade lemon pie to the table today.”
“What else did she bring?”
“Diplomat Kosmas’s wife is coming to the banquet tonight. Lady Kvaravita convinced Lady Kosmas to step out of her shell as a homebody and join for the princess’s sake.”
“That’s huge!”
For Billaura, who was to marry into Nefrit, the better her relationship with the diplomat’s wife, the better her life would be. It wouldn’t hurt if they became the best of friends—it would only help. Lady Kvaravita was mediating on Billaura’s behalf to increase the odds of the princess gaining more allies. She could use all the assistance she could get, marrying into another country at a very tender age, though she had just become an adult.
This was also the fruit of Billaura’s unrelenting effort, for always listening to Lady Kvaravita’s long stories with a smile and eating two slices of her sour lemon pie.
“Where is Her Highness now? Didn’t she have plans to be out boating on the lake around this time?”
“She is already quite pressed for time and decided to learn what she could before receiving Lady Kosmas at the banquet tonight… I’m worried that she is being harder on herself than usual these days.”
Billaura had been so busy lately she barely had time to stop and breathe. Nefrit was a major world power and an important ally in diplomatic terms. They couldn’t make light of their union. But—
“She is to marry someone who is not only much older, but also already has grandchildren.”
“Don’t speak of it, Azm.”
“Lecherous geezer.”
“I told you not to say it,” Geones said with a dry laugh as he put his arm around Harij’s shoulders. His warm touch shared that he felt the same way.
Nefrit’s demands seemed too harsh to be placed on the sixteen-year-old Billaura. They were taking her to be the second wife of a man nearing sixty. Such arrangements weren’t uncommon in the long history formed between royalty and nobility of different kingdoms.
Needless to say, Harij wanted with all his heart for the princess he raised and treasured to have the happiest of marriages.
“At least I’m allowed to include a female knight and several of my own maids in my dowry. I’m grateful enough for that,” Billaura had said to her enraged knights with a lionhearted smile. Just by remembering that smile, the knights felt as if a heavy lead anvil were pressing against their chests.
“About two more months to go. After that, we can’t protect her anymore.”
“…Yeah.” Geones nodded.
That was why, before those two months ended, he had to obtain it, no matter what—that potion: Billaura’s first and last request.
∴ ∵ ∴
“…DID I enter the wrong hermitage?” Tien asked upon opening the door. He poked his head in and pretended to look around. He hadn’t visited in a while.
Rose let him be until he was finished with his teasing and welcomed him in with an incredulous look.
“Should I take that to mean you stock up at the hermitages of other witches who live out in the middle of nowhere?”
“Oh shucks, are you jealous?”
“……”
“I would be ecstatic if you were. Anyway, you gave me pause for a second there. I never thought I would see the day when this place would be clean enough to sit down again.”
Tien, who still remembered the days when Rose’s grandmother was alive, exaggerated his surprise at seeing the area around the table clear. His curiosity was piqued by how tidy it was compared with the clutter encumbering the rest of the Witch’s dwelling.
The moment the cowbell rang, Rose—positive it was Harij—immediately spread the freshly washed tablecloth over the table. She couldn’t really argue the point with Tien.
“I just felt like shaking things up. Are you coming in? Or do you plan to stand in my doorway all day?”
“Whoops. Sorry ’bout that.”
The autumn winds were starting to get chilly. Rose shivered from the cold air entering through the cracked open door. Tien slipped inside and shut the door.
“Fall has descended upon us, huh?”
True to Tien’s words, the forest had turned red. It was the season when animals noisily pawed at fallen leaves to find hidden nuts and berries in the woods.
Harij first visited her at the beginning of summer. She was surprised a whole season had passed by faster than the blink of an eye.
“Good to see you after all this time. I hope the summer heat didn’t take too much of a toll on you?” Tien asked as he pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Oh no!”
“Hmm? Is something wrong?”
“…No, I just...”
Rose loosely shook her head and told herself that it really was nothing. She was being foolish, getting sad over Tien sitting in that chair. At the table where she laid out the tablecloth.
She always sat there with Harij. Self-centered frustration pricked at her chest over someone using, without permission, the special area she had prepared for her time with Harij.
Harij surely didn’t think twice about the space Rose had come to treasure. She had simply put that extra value on his chair in her own mind.
“Never mind… It’s nothing.”
That’s right. There’s nothing to it. There was never any special meaning behind that chair in the first place.
“Did you stub a toe?” Tien asked with a laugh.
Rose shrugged and hoped he’d leave it at that.
“Shouldn’t you clean over there, too?”
She ignored his casual nagging. He had already taken a seat, so she needed to serve him a cup of tea to be polite.
“You also picked up the etiquette of serving tea to your guests! I’m touched!” he teased her again.
Rose picked up the pot and let her frustration come out in a sigh.
∴ ∵ ∴
BREAD straight out of the oven in the right hand, baked apples in the left.
Harij treaded along the rugged forest trail, conscious that he was carrying items completely out of character for a knight. His destination was the Witch’s hermitage, which he had been frequenting as of late.
Even to his amateur foodie eyes, Harij could tell the cored red apples would make a delicious snack. The fruit, which had been carefully baked in a stove with cinnamon and brown sugar, also delighted Harij’s discerning eye.
Two baked apples sat together in the basket. The baker’s wife had stuffed biscuits into the gaps to prevent the baked apples from rolling over before he arrived at his destination. Naturally, he paid for the biscuits, too, which made him an excellent customer.
He was almost to the Witch’s hovel. When he stepped in some deep leaf mold, he rubbed his boots together to remove the dirt stuck to them. Walking this trail had become second nature to him now.
He had developed a habit of carefully looking ahead when he approached the dock. After all, the Witch had a way of knowing he was there before he used the knocker—or perhaps before he ever boarded the small boat.
By the time he arrived at the dock, the forest-facing window curtain would always be open a crack. He couldn’t see what was going on inside the dark room, but only the Witch lived there. Whether she realized it or not, Harij knew she watched him from there.
But the curtains remained shut when he reached the dock today. Was she unaware of his presence?
And I’ve come with especially delicious apples as a treat. I know the Witch will be thrilled by them. What kind of expression will she make? Harij wondered—and then he realized something was off. The small boat used to travel to the Witch’s hovel was tied at the opposite dock.
“Does she have another client…?”
A considerable amount of time had passed since he had first started visiting the Witch’s domicile, but since he had never seen her receive a guest, he had completely forgotten she had other clients. He felt slightly relieved to know that the Witch, who made it sound like she couldn’t even afford a change of clothes, had clients.
That’s right. I don’t know what kind of potion her other client asked for, but I have to urge her to finish the love potion today. Harij rebuked himself for being too easy on her.
He didn’t want her to die of starvation before she finished the potion for him, and it was that thought that led him to bring her food. Apples are nutritious and a favorite of witches in stories, so they made the perfect gift to keep her going. There was nothing more or less to it.
“It’s not like I bring her food knowing it will thrill her…”
The two baked apples in the basket begged to differ.
Harij pondered his decision while he idly waited for the only boat. The sound of the Witch’s door opening caused him to raise his head.
Out stepped a young man with looks hailing from a foreign land—and then the Witch followed. She even accompanied him all the way to the dock.
Harij was terribly shocked. Not once had the Witch seen him off. And seeing her under the bright sunlight made him realize for the first time that her robe wasn’t black—as he had always thought—but the color of the forest.
Since leaving the hermitage, the Witch and the man became immersed in yet another conversation on the dock.
An awfully long farewell, by Harij’s account. He wasn’t the narrow-minded sort to become irritated waiting for a boat, and yet he watched the pair with mounting displeasure.
Suddenly, the man reached out. His fingers brushed the hood she always wore low over her face. Harij forgot to breathe for a second.
It was that great of a jolt. The now-hoodless witch’s face was exposed to the brilliant sunlight. The man’s back blocked their expressions from view, but the true face of the Witch was exposed so naturally to the wind.
She knocked aside the man’s hand. The gesture wasn’t one of rejection, but relaxed, like what a teenage daughter might do to bat away a meddling, overprotective guardian.
The Witch pulled her hood back on. Then she waved off the man who boarded the boat, as if shooing a wild dog. The man seemed to take that as her farewell, because he began rowing to the forest side.
The dinghy arrived in front of Harij as he blandly watched the whole series of events unfold. The man disembarked with familiar ease and greeted Harij with an unfamiliar bow.
“Hi there. Sorry for the wait. I didn’t think any other clients came at this time.”
“I share the sentiment. Goodbye.” As one hiding his identity, Harij kept his head down, returned a curt greeting, and walked past the other man.
He picked up the oars and used them for support when boarding the boat. Not wanting any undue prying into his identity wasn’t his only reason for being unduly brusque with the man.
Harij was confused—confused by his assumption that he was the only one granted the privilege of seeing the Witch’s face.
In fact, he wouldn’t mind if he, the sole person who knew her secret, was the one and only person she showed her unhidden expressions to. He had no doubt there was special significance behind that.
But he was more surprised by how much he cared about being special to her—and how much it bothered him that a man who didn’t know her secrets could look so intimately upon her revealed face.
“…Hey, you…”
The man called out to Harij before he started rowing. Harij turned toward the man, wondering what business he still had with him, and found his hawklike gaze piercing him.
The man’s stare contained hostility as he sized Harij up by looking at him from top to bottom. Though it made him uncomfortable, Harij couldn’t move. For some reason, he absolutely didn’t want to leave a bad impression on this man.
As Harij waited in silence for the other man to speak, the man suddenly cracked a smile.
“You have a pretty nice face there.”
Harij lost balance on top of the boat. He nearly toppled into the lake.
“Didn’t Rose tell you that?”
Harij was paralyzed with surprise. Once he realized what the man had said, he jerked his face up. The man was still scrutinizing him with narrowed eyes.
“I knew it. She’s so obvious, explaining away the robe and tablecloth as simply wanting to shake things up… Hehehe. Ah, pardon me. I’m in a talkative mood today. Business is going to be booming soon. I owe the former lady of the house a debt for being such a great customer. I must buy this and that in preparation for the future.”
The man, who had become delighted for reasons Harij didn’t understand, disappeared into the forest in jubilant spirits. Meanwhile, Harij stood on the boat with a stupefied look for a long moment before finally sitting and pulling the oars.
The water felt heavier than usual; the boat didn’t seem to move no matter how hard he rowed. Then again, not reaching his destination felt far more appealing today.
After all, Harij didn’t know what to talk to the Witch about anymore.
“Welcome.”
The Witch greeted him at the dock for the first time—as an afterthought after seeing the other man off. No doubt she felt compelled to upon spotting Harij.
Harij’s mood soured by the second. He was so irked he even considered throwing the baked apples into the lake to be done with it.
“…Who was that?” he asked in a deeper voice than intended. He closely watched her so he wouldn’t miss any tells from her reaction.
“I can’t disclose the identity of my clients…” The Witch looked up at Harij with a perfected poker face, but the diffidence in her reply hinted at her unease over the way he was acting.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Did he offend you somehow?”
The way she apologized for the other man’s actions as if he were family pierced Harij’s already splintering heart. He absolutely didn’t understand why, but it bothered him to no end.
Becoming cross, Harij tugged on the Witch’s hood. The cloth slid off her pale-pink tresses without resistance.
“…Mr. Client?”
Had Rose grown accustomed to being hoodless in front of him? She merely gave him a curious look instead of pulling the hood back on. Some of his annoyance doused by her reaction, Harij wordlessly held out the two baskets.
Rose gratefully accepted them, as if they were gifts from God. Though it was impolite, she lifted the cloth an inch and checked the contents hidden beneath.
Her face lacked any visible signs of emotion, as usual, but Harij knew she was delighted.
Then he softly muttered, “…Rose.”
He startled the Witch more than expected. He couldn’t tell for sure because of her long, dragging robe, but she seemed to have jumped at least an apple’s height off the ground.
Shock flashed across her features and her eyes opened as wide as they could.
“…That’s your name, isn’t it, Lady Witch?”
Amused by how her rounded eyes looked like they might fall out if they opened any further, Harij lifted the corners of his lips.
“May I call you that from—”
“No,” Rose said flatly. A complete and utter rejection. There was even a snappiness to her tone.
Irritated, Harij glowered at her. As someone who couldn’t lie, Rose saying no meant she truly did not want him to call her by name. Even though she let that other man say it.
“Then give that back.”
“What? …You don’t mean this, do you?”
Rose looked at the baskets. She asked him in such a pitiful voice, someone might think he was trying to take her children hostage if they heard. His annoyance was effectively silenced and he decided to bury the hatchet.
“Just kidding.”
As Harij walked off toward the hermitage, Rose looked like she wanted to say something to him, but she held her tongue. She trailed behind him, holding the baskets to her chest like precious treasures.
He opened the door he knew so well that he didn’t feel the need for restraint. And this time, Harij was overcome with a stirring of emotion he couldn’t hide. Two cups sat on the table in their usual spot.
He pressed his hand against the pit of his stomach. His intestines felt as if they were being squeezed in a knot.
“Is something the matter?” Rose stood behind him with the unasked question “Aren’t you going inside?”
“…No, I can’t…today.”
“Can’t what?” Rose gaped at him.
Harij wanted to punch himself for how poorly he was handling this.
How could I say that when I’ve only just come? All I’ve done so far is hand her the bread and baked apples. Plus, she already looked inside the basket and saw that there are two apples.
The two apples gave away the fact that Harij intended to eat with her again today.
At his special seat.
It shouldn’t have mattered. Whoever sat here wasn’t a problem. It was none of his business who said her name, saw her face, drank her tea—it shouldn’t have mattered.
He simply thought he was special because he had never seen her with another client.
“What’s wrong? Is something ailing you?”
Rose was starting to worry after him, since he was acting out of character.
“Come to think of it…my chest hurts,” he answered truthfully, a little out of sorts.
“Is it heartburn? Did you drink alcohol?”
“A little…last night.”
“All right, I will brew you some medicine to settle your stomach. Please drink it first before you go.”
“…Okay.”
Rose went to the kitchen. Staring blankly at her back, Harij nodded slowly.
∴ ∵ ∴
SPLAT!
Something splattering against her back caused Rose to stop.
She had gone into the city to buy the potion ingredients she had run out of. Finished with her shopping, she had just boarded the small boat on the forest side when something hit her.
Startled, she turned toward the forest. Her jaw dropped when she realized it wasn’t a bird that had swooped down on her.
“Hmph! Evil witch! We ain’t scared of ya one bit!”
Several boys and girls jeered behind her. The owners of those young voices raised their hands. Each of them clutched a ball of mud packed with straw and sawdust.
“Eat mud!”
“Wha— Hey, wai—!”
Before Rose could say anything, the kids threw their mud balls at her, one after another.
The cold concoction splattered into her hair and on her face. Undoubtedly, this was what had hit her back. The mud balls, soggy with water, hurt like an open-hand slap. Small bits of gravel mixed into the mud grazed her skin.
SPLASH! KER-SPLASH! Mud slammed into the lake. Rose had become the perfect stationary target because she chose to protect her new purchases over herself. Grimy mud caked her clothes.
Luckily, the attack stopped just before the boat was about to flip over.
“How do ya like that, huh?! Ya deserve it!”
Apparently, they had run out of mud balls to throw. Rose lifted her head. Afraid of the Witch’s revenge, the children scattered like baby spiders.
It all happened so fast, Rose could do nothing to stop it. Slowly, she assessed the damage at her feet. As luck would have it, very little mud stuck inside the boat. Most of it had landed in the lake.
Rose brushed the dirty hair sticking to her face behind her ear with her ring finger. Mud coated her cheeks and hair in thick globs. She wiped the scratchy muck from her cheeks with her fingertips.
“Lady Witch? Why are you just standing there? Muddy children just ran from this direction…”
Rose lifted her face. Harij was there, holding another basket of food.
What horrible timing. Still in shock from the mud assault, Rose’s brain refused to work, leaving her standing there, gaping at Harij.
Harij, however, immediately determined the fleeing children were responsible for the state he found her in. He scowled in disgust.
“They did this.”
“Wha? Um, uh, well…”
Harij took two wide strides up to Rose and roughly grabbed her. The next thing she knew, she was lifted off the boat and placed on the dock. Too many confusing things were happening all at once; she couldn’t keep up. Question marks danced over her head.
Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, Harij pressed it into her hand and raced into the forest depths without a word. He looked as if he might say a string of curse words if he dared speak anymore.
∴ ∵ ∴
“EEEK…!” Rose cried out.
Harij had returned with the captured children before she could finish wiping all the mud off.
“Noooo! Lemme go!”
“I’m so sorryyyy!”
“L-Let go! Let go of them!”
“You stupid geezer! I told you to let ’em go!”
He was holding two children under his arms, while the other two clung to him, trying to get their friends back. Harij had returned with a total of four children.
“Is this all of them?”
“I was too surprised to count…”
I wish he would put them down instead. The children’s shouts and cries are so loud, the forest animals are hiding.
“Stranger danger! Coward! Let ’em down!”
“Once all of you admit your mistakes, I will.”
“Like hell we will! Put ’em down before I get serious!”
The bossy kid must have been their leader. He clung to Harij’s arm, trying to wrench his friends free, all while kicking Harij repeatedly in the leg.
Rose let out another small cry. Harij looked like he was hurting, and the kid was being reckless.
“They went this way! Come over here! Hurry! Follow me!”
Another voice belonging to a different child from the four Harij had apprehended came from deeper in the forest. It appeared one of the children he’d failed to catch went to find an adult.
“Look! Over there! A scary man caught the others! Help them!”
Three adults ran behind the child leading the way. Even the adults who came ready for a fight paused after seeing the actual situation.
A muddy woman and children with muddy hands and clothes. The man holding them wore a traveler’s cloak, but he didn’t look suspicious.
Sensing the situation wasn’t what it seemed, the adults cautiously spoke to Harij.
“We were told a dangerous stranger made off with the children…”
“These children threw mud at this woman. Most likely for no reason. I tried to persuade them to apologize to her for their wrongdoing, but as you can see, they weren’t remorseful, so I brought them here myself.”
Things have taken a turn for the worse. Rose’s head was spinning.
The adults grew angry after hearing the story from Harij.
“What have you done?! I can’t believe you were throwing mud at a woman!”
“But, Pa! She’s a witch!” One of the children pointed a finger at Rose. The adults’ faces visibly stiffened.
“We saw it with our own eyes! She left from the Witch’s cabin!”
“She went into the city to do evil things! I just know it! I didn’t see her kidnap any kids yet, but we gotta defeat the wicked witch before she does!”
“All of you! Shush!” A woman covered her child’s mouth. Rose realized she was silencing them more out of fear for what the Witch would do to them than reproach for the child’s actions.
The stigma toward witches hadn’t changed in the four years since she started venturing into the city alone.
“Please, oh, please forgive these children, O great Witch of the Lake. They are still too young to realize you are a great and mighty witch.” The fully grown woman bowed while trembling.
What in the world did they imagine the Witch was going to do to them? Use her magic to curse them into eternal slumber? Transform the children into frogs?
“…I am not great,” Rose croaked. She wasn’t used to talking to non-clients. She was a recluse and proud of it.
Words escaped her, leaving only awkward silence.
“Don’t try to dismiss the children’s wrongdoing with your false praise,” Harij said to the woman in a low growl, seeing what Rose’s struggle to speak meant. “It doesn’t matter whether they’re someone great or a witch—throwing mud at a person is wrong.”
“But she’s a witch! She’s a nuisance to everyone! They all say it’d be better if she left the forest for good!”
“Hush, you! How could you say that?!” One of the adults knocked the kid who spoke on the back of his head. His face was bluer than the lake.
Rose balled her hands into fists. The three adults were confused to see the Witch shocked speechless.
“Why is that? What horrible things has the lady done to you?” Harij was the only person among them to speak calmly.
“…Nothing…yet.”
“Then how has she been a nuisance?”
The child considered Harij’s question for a long moment before choosing to remain silent. He lost some of his prior bravado.
“People are weak. They fear that which they don’t understand.” Harij turned toward Rose. Her heart lurched. She forced her eyes to meet his, instead of looking away.
“Can I tell them?”
“What?” Rose squeaked, not sure what he was suddenly asking her about.
“The potions you make, Lady Witch. Will it be a problem if I tell these people about them?”
“…No,” Rose answered in a small yet firm voice.
Rose was a witch. Witches don’t lie. So even if people learned about the potions, it wouldn’t bother her.
Armed with her blessing and knowledge of her deepest secrets, Harij openly addressed the adults. “Do you farm?”
“Y-Yes. We grow wheat and vegetables,” one of the villagers mumbled.
“Then you must use something to repel bugs?”
“Yes, of course. We burn powders to keep the bugs away.”
“Do you put on a hot compress when your back hurts?”
“Yeah. As good fortune would have it, such medicines have become easier to obtain and even people like us can buy them these days.”
“The lady here makes many of those medicines.” Astonished eyes turned toward Rose. “She hasn’t made everything that you use, but you can bet that some of you have benefited from her work.”
The adults exchanged uncomfortable looks. They fell silent, unable to say anything.
“It’s natural to fear the unknown—but using said fear to justify attacking an innocent person is the worst thing someone could do. Now, apologize,” Harij said, staring sternly at the children.
Most of them cried and begged for forgiveness, but one rebellious boy kept his face turned away.
“Then I have no choice but to make you reflect—in the lake.” Harij picked up the boy and swung him toward the lake.
“Waaah! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
Rose rushed over to Harij, afraid he might actually throw the boy into the icy lake. At this rate, she feared rumors of ill repute would start to spread about Harij, too.
“Mr. Client, h-he seems to have learned his lesson. I’m all right, so—”
“No, it’s not enough.”
“I’m so sorry!”
After the thirty-sixth “I’m sorry,” he finally put the boy down. The boy clung to one of the adults, his face wet with tears.
“I don’t have to be a witch to punish you,” Harij said, addressing the children and adults in a harsh tone. “Because I am an adult who can tell right from wrong. If you get the point, then learn to see things with your own eyes instead of believing rumors.”
The guilt-ridden adults bowed and took their children away. Rose shivered as she absentmindedly watched them leave.
So much had happened at once that she forgot she was still covered in muck. The water-filled mud balls sapped the heat from her.
“I’m sorry for leaving you like that. You must be cold.” Harij removed his cloak and wrapped it around Rose without any hesitation. It was Rose who panicked—because now even Harij’s clothing was going to get muddy.
“I can’t—”
“Just wear it.”
This wasn’t the first time Rose thought that Harij was too used to ordering people around. It was kind of funny being treated like one of the troops, and that helped untie the knot in her heart that was on the brink of overloading from nonstop trouble.
“In that case, I will gratefully borrow it. Also, thank you for what you did.”
Alone, Rose wouldn’t have been able to change anything. Incapable of getting angry or sad, she would have just sucked it up and trudged mud back into the hermitage. She definitely would not have been able to clear the stigma surrounding the “Witch of the Lake” that her grandmother had lived with all along.
“No problem. But they sure hit you with a lot of mud.”
Harij started wiping off what was still stuck to her. Rose let him do as he pleased since she felt he was cleaning her up the way he might a dirty pet. The wet mud had dried into crunchy clumps. Every time Harij stroked her cheeks, the mud peeled off.
“Do you have a bath in your house?”
“You have been inside. Do you think I have such a thing?”
“You can just use mine if you don’t have a problem with it.”
“I have a huge problem with that.”
“Then I’ll help you boil water.”
“Please leave the joking at that,” Rose stressed, amazed with how far he was taking his joke. Silence answered her. She took a closer look at Harij and noticed how uncomfortable he seemed. “What is it?”
“…I want you to tell me if you ever need anything or if anything bad happens to you. I will do everything in my power to help you.”
Harij seemed to be worried about the possibility that the villagers might react negatively to learning that their everyday medicines were made by the Witch.
“I won’t,” Rose said, firmly turning down his offer. “I am grateful for your help. But in the future, I will take care of—”
“You think you can take care of things by yourself?”
“Yes, I do. I’ve done everything on my own just fine until now.”
Even if handling everything alone didn’t net the best results, she would make do. And if she didn’t, she would just return to dust like her grandmother and mother before her. She couldn’t rely too much on someone who wouldn’t be around for long.
Harij frowned. Maybe he was angry at Rose for rejecting his kindness.
But even if it angered him, Rose had no intention of receiving more from him.
“It doesn’t matter whether they’re someone great or a witch—throwing mud at a person is wrong.”
No one—not even Rose herself—treated her like a person. Yet Harij didn’t hesitate to treat a witch like a person. He always had since that day four years ago.
Warmth spread through Rose. From the bottom of her heart, she believed as long as she had the words he said to those children, she could go at it alone for the rest of her life.
“Thank you, truly, for what you did today.”
I must finish the potion. As soon as possible. Rose made up her mind and bowed.
∴ ∵ ∴
A week went by, during which Rose had finished making the final adjustments without a wink of sleep. At last, the potion was finished.
The love potion Harij came to her for was finally complete.