Page 57 of Beyond the Cottage

Isobel swept into the kitchen, and Gretta’s chair scraped back until it hit the wall. The inferno of panic had faded, but its embers still glowed.

The witch paused. Keeping all the space possible between herself and Gretta, she went to the cupboard and pulled out a tall green bottle. She collected two teacups and sat at the far side of the table.

“Thirsty yet?” Isobel asked, splashing honey-scented liquid into a cup.

“No.” Gretta opened her notepad.

Witch: Geriatric, spry. Accent indeterminate. Homespun gown unadorned, gold band on left middle finger. Hair red-gray, eyes green, height medium.

Blithe comportment. Overly familiar. Loss of mental faculties or ruse?

Isobel set the bottle between them without filling the second cup. “What would you like to ask me, Gretta? I might not be able to answer all your questions, but I’ll do my darnedest.”

Shaking off her unease, Gretta leaned in. She unsuccessfully tried to get a read on Isobel’s faint mystical energy. Her skin crawled from old-fashioned dislike, rather than any intensity of magic. “Why are your powers missing?”

“They’re not missing, just bound. Mostly.”

Gretta scribbled. “By who? Why? How?” She was especially interested in the last one. If there was some way to innately prevent witches from using their powers, it would be more revolutionary than Ansel’s repellent.

“Slow down, honey, one question at a time. I bound them myself.”

“How?”

Isobel sipped her drink, mulling the question. “I hate to be a wet rag so soon, but I can’t share that with you. Suffice to say, you wouldn’t be able to replicate the method.”

Faculties: Decidedly sharp.

“Why would you bind your own powers?”

Isobel sniffed. “Because my aunties are high-handed busybodies who utterly lack a modern sensibility.”

She hadaunties?Gretta never heard of a witch with a family unit before. No one even knew how they spawned, since they were all female and well-past childbearing age. If fertile ones existed, where were the witch men, the witch children?

Or maybe aunties was a euphemism? It was possible theydidn’ttraditionally bear offspring or have families. Magic itself was inexplicable, so it stood to reason witch biology might be just as strange. Gretta had once suggested Nat quietly set up a dissection project, but he’d shut her down. It wouldn’tdofor an elected official to fund a program involving dead women and scalpels.

Whatever the explanation, Gretta didn’t believe witches dropped fully-formed from the sky.

“Where do you all comefrom?” she asked. “The whole goddamn world has been explored, yet no one’s found the cesspool you crawled out of.”

Isobel waved her hand. “It’s so far away, you don’t need to worry about it.”

“How do you get here, then? What’s your mode of transportation?”

“Doors, I suppose you could say.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Alas, I’ve already said more than I ought to.”

“Yet you’ve told me virtually nothing.”

When Isobel merely shrugged, Gretta slapped her pencil on the pad. The witch’s vague and useless answers only inspiredmore questions. She obviously had no intention of fielding the existential ones, so maybe it was time to change course. Witch geography wasn’t currently the most pressing matter, anyway.

“What caste do you belong to?” Gretta asked. If she couldn’t get an answer to that one, she may as well pack it in.

“I’m an imagolus.”

Disappointment punched Gretta in the gut. Then it occurred to her witches might use different terminology. “What’s an imagolus? Specificity, if you please.”

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