Page 22 of The Witch & the Hound
I took a sip. Perfect temperature, perfect sweetness. Of course it was.
"So," the fingernail woman said, leaning against the counter. "Tell us about him. The barghest."
"Bram," I said warily. "What do you want to know?"
"Is he nice?" Mrs. Kelvin asked.
"Very."
"Good in bed?" the bakery owner added, grinning.
"I'm not answering that."
They all laughed.
"That's a yes," the manicurist declared.
Mrs. Carroll squeezed my shoulder. "We're happy for you, Maggie. Really. You deserve this."
I looked at their faces, women I'd bought bread from, waved to in passing, nodded at during town meetings. Women who'd kept a polite distance while I built my walls and my soap business and my carefully isolated life.
Now they were here, helping me tear those walls down.
"Thank you," I managed.
"Don't thank us yet," Mrs. Kelvin said. "Wait until you see what I do with those curls."
Thursday at eleven, I walked into the salon like a condemned woman approaching the gallows.
Mrs. Kelvin took one look at my hair and sighed. "Sit."
For the next hour, she worked magic. Deep conditioning treatment, some kind of curl cream that smelled like coconuts, careful scrunching and shaping. She talked the whole time—about her daughter in college, about the upcoming Halloween festival, about how Bram had helped her carry her groceries last week when she'd parked too far from the store.
It hadn't occurred to me that it wasn't just me who made emergency trips to the nearby, larger town. That everyone in town would know who he was, if not his name.
"He didn't have to," she said, working the product through my hair. "I didn't even ask. He just saw me struggling and came over. Polite as anything."
"That sounds like him," I said.
"You could do worse than a man who notices when someone needs help." She met my eyes in the mirror. "We all judged him when he first arrived. The horns, the tail. It's hard not to stare, you know?"
"I know."
"But he's been nothing but courteous. Never complains. Works hard. Keeps to himself." She paused. "We should've been kinder. Made him feel more welcome."
"You can start now," I said quietly.
She nodded. "We will."
When she finished, my curls actually looked like curls instead of a frizzy approximation. They framed my face, bounced when I moved, and caught the light.
I barely recognized myself.
"Now go see Brenda," Mrs. Kelvin pointed to the back corner. "And Maggie? You look lovely."
Brenda sat me down, filed my nails into neat ovals, pushed back my cuticles, and painted them with a clear gloss when I declined any color.
"I'll chip these in two days making soap," I said.
