Page 11 of Nix and Tell

“Could you boil the kettle? I’m going to need a warming drink after this. And maybe some sugar.”

I can see the determination in Chlo’s face as soon as I set her the task. She feels useful now, like she can’t possibly belong here without a purpose. As if she needs utility to have worth. I want to drop everything and go hold her, look after her, do anything that will chase away the horror of that compulsion, but I can’t do so yet.

Protections first.

I’d usually use fresh river water to anoint my doors, but that would probably be more of an invitation here, so I run my finger along my shelf of spell ingredients until I find what I want.

Sand.

The very opposite of flowing water.

A thin line of superglue against every entry point: windows, doors, even the chimney breast. Upstairs and down. And then sand pressed up against it.

Chlo’s finished with the kettle in the back office by the time I’m finishing off the last window, and she brings over a steaming mug.

“Hot chocolate,” she says. “For the sugar and the virtual hug.”

Nodding, I take the mug from her, cocooning it in my hands, and let myself breathe in the smell. It’s a good choice—nothing’s quite as comforting as thick hot chocolate, and mine is from Café Angelina in Paris. Thick, velvety and quite frankly, a hug in a mug.

“Come on,” I say, and turn the main lights off in the shop. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Chlo’s eyes widen, just a tiny bit, and I realise that for all the time we’ve spent together in the last year, she’s never been in my little flat.

All of us Riverside Shop owners live above our shops, and I imagine that mine looks much the same as hers, but still. There’s a slight fizz as she walks over the threshold, and her colour drains from her face.

“Ummm… Vi? I feel… weird.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that in trying to keep out Trisantona, there might be an adverse effect on other people in the village. Taking Chlo’s hot chocolate from her, I drag her to the bathroom and splash water at her from the sink.

In a few moments, she looks much like her old self—if a little dishevelled.

“Shall we… shall we sit down?”

She nods, and I lead her into my cosy living room. Chlo perches awkwardly on the edge of my sofa, until I tug her backwards so that she’s nestled into the l-shaped corner. “Why are you on edge?”

“Why am I… Vi,you made a deal with a goddess.” I try to protest, but she holds up a hand. “Don’t try and deny it; that’s the only way she’d have dropped the compulsion on me, and you know it. And now you know that there’s magic.”

“I’ve always known that there’s magic. I own a spell shop,” I point out. But she’s right; it’s not the same, and I know it.

“You sell crystals, and do rituals and that’s lovely and all,” she says, clearly trying to be polite, “but it’s not the same as having so much power you could drown in it.”

Impulsively, I reach out and take her hand. “Are you okay?”

“Am I…? Vi, have you not heard a word I’ve said? You’ve made a deal with a goddess!”

“I wasn’t going to have her interfere with us.” I flush as I say the words, but I’m emboldened by some sense of determination. “We were going along at a nice old pace, and then she tried to change things for her benefit. I don’t want that. And I don’t like that she fucked with you to do it.”

There was a flicker of a smile when I swore, and Chlo sighed. “I know. I didn’t want to speak to you like that. It wasn’t… I wasn’t…”

“It’s not the way that either of us would have chosen to have that conversation.”

“No.”

“Okay, well, you’re not under a compulsion now. Let’s talk.”

“Talk?”

“About us.”

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