Page 9 of Geoffrey the Very Strange
"Yes. Now if youdon'tmime, I'm very buzzy today. Cecil will show you out."
Not that Aspic needed any showing. It was a straight shot to the entrance. But he took the hint that Geoffrey's tolerance was at an end and if he didn't leave like a polite delivery boy, he might be magically tossed out. Cecil was even making little shooing motions from the corner, just in case.
"Nice to fully meet you, Geoffrey. Have fun with the shells." Aspic waved, but Geoffrey had pointedly turned his back.
Back out in the sunlight, Aspic buried his face in his hands. "Have fun with the shells? Oh, Sundrop, what iswrongwith me?"
She chirruped at him and flew to his head to settle in his mass of hair, probably thinking that preening would make him feel better. Or maybe she thought it was a good nest.
"It's not that I expected we'd be friends or anything silly like that." Aspic picked up the handles of his now much-lighter cart and began the trudge back down the hill. "But now hereallythinks I'm an idiot."
Chee-erp.
"Oh, that's easy for you to say. Everyone thinks you're cute and adorable and beautiful."
Chirr-rup?
"Idothink he's interesting, yes. And cute in a grouchy way. I don't think that's the point here."
Tsheer!
"You don't have to be rude about it." Aspic stopped in surprise. "We're at the bottom of the hill already. Down was so much easier than going up." He took a moment to consult Heliotrope's map. "Good. We're not far. Left at the next fork in the path and deeper into the woods. All right, Sundrop. Let's go see if we'll be eaten by the forest witch."
She was quiet after that, hunkered down in his hair. Either he'd scared her about being eaten or she was anticipating a good show. Hard to tell with raptors.
After a straightforward walk into the woods, where he only missed the turn into the clearing once because of blackberry brambles, they arrived at Grandma Tutti's cottage. It wasn't at all what he'd expected.
City witches tended to live in the worst neighborhoods, often in run-down or abandoned buildings, neglected graveyards, and shantytowns. They often couldn't live out in the open because of local laws, and even when witchcraft wasn't specifically illegal, upright citizens blamed witches when things went wrong. Poverty, secretiveness, and underworld connections—that was what he had associated with witches.
Clearly that wasn't the case here.
Grandma Tutti's cottage was cozy and well kept. The slate roof went perfectly with the walls of bright-gray stone. The windows were round, the panes all glass. White-gravel paths led from the front door to the edge of the clearing and out into the side garden, with its beanpoles, squash trellises, and plum trees bordering the edge. A raised chicken coop sat farther back from the house, and red-brown hens pecked contentedly between the neat rows of vegetables. Flowerbeds with cheerful groups of daisies and zinnias lined the front of the house.
Utterly charming, without a single child-luring gingerbread tile in sight.
As he stood at the top of the path taking in the clearing, the front door opened. The woman who walked out was tall and stately. Elderly, yes—her hands showed age spots, and the wrinkles around her eyes spoke to decades of smiles—but her back was straight and her step sure. She wore her frost-white hair in a crown of braids that shone as she stepped into the sunlight.
"Good afternoon, young sir," she called up. "What can I do for you?"
"Yes, ma'am. I, ah, have your delivery from Talondon's. Could I come down?"
She waved him toward the house. "Of course. Come in, come in. Is Clover ill?"
"No, ma'am. He just had to take the bakery order, so you're stuck with me."
"Leave the cart on the path, dear. There you go. And wipe your feet on the mat." She opened the door and led the way in, the evergreen of her dress and shawl momentarily vanishing as Aspic's eyes adjusted from the bright outdoors. "I assume you know you have a jewel kestrel in your hair."
"Oh. Yes." Aspic had retained enough sense to snag the packet from the cart before he came in. He reached up and encouraged the tiny raptor onto his finger. "This is Sundrop. I'm Aspic. Just started working at Talondon's a bit ago."
"Good to meet you both." She bent to address Sundrop directly. "And do you work at the shop as well, young lady?" Grandma Tutti nodded sagely at Sundrop'scheep. "I'm sure you're doing a fine job. Come sit, you two."
She moved farther into the house to put the kettle on the cast-iron-and-enamel stove in the corner. The cottage's ground floor was nearly one large room, with a little scullery doorway at the back where Aspic spied buckets and brooms. Whitewashed walls and floors of sand-colored stone made the space bright and open. A comfy rocking chair and a bench sat near the fireplace, but since there was no fire on such a warm day, Aspic took a seat at the table, a highly polished plank one that could have seated eight people. Either family had lived with her at one time or they came for visits.
Onions hung in a bunch by the stove. Marked canisters marched in regimented rows on the shelf nearby—parsley, salt, rosemary, and so on. A basket of eggs sat beside them. The room smelled of recently baked bread, apple-cider vinegar, and wood smoke. Leftover parts of Aspic screamed at him to be cautious, to be afraid, but he couldn't hold onto them. This room emanated safety, hospitality, and care.
"Ma'am—"
"You can call me Grandma Tutti. Everyone does." She set a plate of iced sweet buns in front of him and a shallow plate of water in front of Sundrop.
