Her mind simultaneously numb from, and racing with, calculations, Eliza took a break from the flame-bloom experiments for her nightly walk to check on the boy.

  He wasn’t there, and as she approached, she saw the blanket she’d given him, folded neatly and stashed behind a bush.

  “Is he coming back?” she heard herself whisper.

  Reflexively, she checked the tracking charm she’d placed on him, the one that had expired weeks ago.

  She went inside and tried to work on the flame bloom, but couldn’t concentrate. She went into the kitchen and quit halfway through making tea. She walked along the wall again, found his blanket again, but not him.

  As Eliza lowered to one knee and examined his spot, the chill night air itched at her exposed leg. She ran her fingertips over the rough edges of the burn scars that covered it.

  “Damn it, boy, if you could just…” she said to no one. “Just be all right. I’ll do better, I promise.”

  So, when he showed up the next morning, no worse for wear, she finally let out the breath she’d been holding in all night and set him to work scrubbing the blast chamber, telling him, “I have to go out for a bit. It seems I have my half of a promise to keep.”

  Her first stop was the bank where she picked up several rolls of brass florin coins. She’d decided to start paying the boy one per day. She’d only made him agree to no pay because that was the proper thing to do. After all, it’s what her master had done. It was tradition.

  But a florin wasn’t that much. It was less than she was spending on food. She didn’t think it would be enough to make it worthwhile for anyone to rob him, and a little money might make his life easier.

  She hated that she didn’t trust him enough to let him sleep in the house, but she couldn’t stand having him on the street either, so her next stop was a carpenter, one of the small shops in the square that she passed all the time but had never been inside.

  A wiry man in canvas overalls, the carpenter, shook his head. “Eh, we can do next week.”

  “I just want a garden shed, not a cathedral, nothing fancy,” she countered.

  “It still takes time to build.”

  “What about that one?” She pointed to a rough wooden shed sitting out in front of the store.

  “That one’s for a customer.”

  “Well, I’m a customer. Sell it to me and then go make them another. I’ve got more money than them, whoever they are.”

  The man stopped and looked at the shed, then back at Eliza. “How ‘bout double?”

  “Done.”

  “Triple?” The man’s brow raised optimistically.

  “No.” She glowered. “But I will give you half in advance.”

  “That’s standard, but fine. Where do you want it?”

  “Wellwood, near Youngs Road.”

  The man tensed up.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “That’s near Witch Scraggsies, ain’t it?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  The man glanced over his shoulder. “Begging your pardon ma’am. I’s heard stories, and I’s might look for another residence if I’s was you.”

  Letting a groan out under her breath, Eliza tried to keep her aggravation to herself. “Don’t you think the stories are a bit… exaggerated? I mean I’ve never heard any of the neighbors complain.”

  “They’s probably too scared. I’s heard it… I’s heard it from a friend of mine, well he had a friend, and some fella wanted his wife, so he went to old Scraggsies, and she sent ghosts to murder him.”

  She remembered that one. She’d done it last year, but she had not killed anyone, and the ghosts, of course, had not been real. “Did the friend of your friend die?” she asked wryly.

  “Well, no,” the man confessed.

  “Then isn’t it possible that ‘old Scraggsies’ simply frightened that man off before either could murder the other? And the way I heard it, the wife had been receiving unwelcome advances from their neighbor, and the husband hired Scaggs to scare this would-be adulterer off… and that the adulterer then moved and is no longer a bother to them… and that the adulterer was, relatively, unaffected by the ordeal, having become a fishmonger on the west end?”

  “Well, I guess that’s possible.” He scratched his head. “You do seem to know more about it, being from the neighborhood and all.”

  “I assure you that ‘old hideously ugly Witch Scraggsies’ makes it a point to never cross paths with anyone who doesn’t cross paths with her first.”

  “Did that man do something to offend her?” the carpenter asked.

  “No, but that was for a client. I’m sure he had it coming.”

  “But… you’ve seen her? Are the stories true?”

  “What do you mean? What stories?” she stammered out.

  “You know, that a pact with the darkness left her deformed… less than human.”

  “I’ve seen her often, yes.” As Eliza’s face flushed, her speech quickened. “And that’s just talk from some drunken idiot who saw a cat at midnight or something. She’s really quite pleasant looking.”

  The carpenter raised a finger. “Don’t be fooled. She might look like your grandmother, all kindly and whatnot, but that’s just during the day.”

  She huffed. “She’s not that old! And she’s tired of everyone saying she is, just because she’s got a little gray in her hair. And her name is Scaggs not ‘Scraggsies.’ You’ve been mispronouncing it this entire time.”

  His face went aghast. “Wait, you a friend a’ hers? You’ve actually spoken to her?”

  “Well, yes. And now so have you.” She glared at him, pausing to let him process that.

  Eyeing the gray streak in her hair, he gulped. “So, that’ll just be regular price then. Pay whenever you want?”

  “Yes, thank you. It’s been a pleasure,” she grumbled.

  ? ? ?

  When she got back, there was a posh couple waiting on her front stoop.

  “We were here first,” said the man, a stout gentleman in his early thirties. He wore a smart green tailcoat and stood between her and the door.

  “What?” Eliza asked.

  “The young man inside, he said the ‘wizardess’ was busy with something dangerous, and to wait outside.”

  “We’re next,” the woman added in faux apology. She was wearing a green dress, the exact same color as the gentleman’s suit, and a feathered hat.

  Eliza muttered under her breath, “What is it about today?”

  “Excuse me?” said the man.

  Looking them over, Eliza saw the woman had a silver pendant, the man a gold pocket watch. If she did get roped into whatever it was they wanted, at least it wouldn’t be pro bono. “Why are you here to see the… ‘wizardess’ was it?”

  “Our friend is sick—”

  “Then take him to a doctor.” Eliza shrugged.

  “Her, it’s my wife’s cousin.”

  “Then take her to a doctor.”

  “We did, but he didn’t find anything wrong with her, and she’s not getting any better,” said the woman.

  “Well, what is wrong with her?”

  “She has no strength, she’s quite pale, and she doesn’t eat.”

  Eliza perked up. She’d heard this one before. “And ah… what color is her hair?”

  “And we found two scarlet marks on her neck,” added the woman.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “And her hair?” Eliza repeated, a little more forcefully, but the couple wasn’t listening. Hopefully, the answer wasn’t going to be red. Reuben had seemed perfectly reasonable the last time, when he swore he would stop hunting people, and not like a bloodthirsty monster at all, and she hoped things would stay that way.

  The man’s face grew grim. “And last night I saw a-a shadow looming over her bed. I fired at it, point blank, but didn’t hit a thing, like it wasn’t there. So you see, our matter is really quite urgent.”

  “I’m sure it is.” Eliza ground her teeth, not sure if she should be worried he hadn’t hit ‘it’ or relieved ‘it’ wasn’t dead. She moved for the door again.

  The woman stepped in front, repeating, “We were here first.”

  “And you are?” Eliza asked in a drone, no longer hiding her annoyance.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Elijah Underhill.”

  Then, raising her hand, Eliza commanded the door to fling itself open. She shooed the couple back, stepped through, and slammed the door behind her. “Hey, boy! Get cleaned up. We have clients.”

  While Oliver was changing into his good clothes, she splashed water on her face and collected herself. She would solve their little problem, and she would get paid damn well to do so.

  Eliza cracked the front door open, the couple was still outside. “Can you pay?” she asked.

  “Yes, I think so,” said the man, examining his wallet.

  “And, What. Color. Is. Her. Hair?”

  “Ginger,” the man replied, with more urgency than before.

  “A very red ginger,” added the woman, looking uncertain.

  “Yes, of course it is…” Clicking her tongue, Eliza glared at them. She let the door swing open then motioned them inside. “What weapon did you fire at the shadow?” she asked.

  “A pistol.”

  “A revolver?”

  “Well, yes,” said the man.

  “May I see it?”

  He pulled a heavy silver gun out from his pocket and handed it to her. “What difference does that make?”

  “I’m just curious. I’ve never seen one before,” Eliza said, turning the device over. “Did you get it from Thelemule?”

  “Yes. I only bought it last week, but I’ve been a marksman for years.”

  “Care to show me?” she asked.

  “You have it right there.”

  “I want to see you fire it.”

  “The ammunition is really quite expensive,” said the man.

  “You say that now, but you haven’t seen my bill.”

  She led the couple to the back garden and had Oliver set up a row of empty bottles.

  “Are you sure your neighbors won’t call the police?” asked the man. “It is rather loud.”

  “Nobody calls the cops on a ‘wizardess.’” Eliza smirked, nodding to Oliver.

  The man cocked the weapon, leveled it at the first bottle, and pulled the trigger. A crack, like lightning, sounded as arcs of electricity shot from the barrel. They stopped an arm’s length away, and a bottle, ten paces farther, shattered instantly.

  The man repeated the process five more times, shattering two more bottles. He looked disappointed with his performance. “I shot at the shadow six times. I must have hit it at least once.”

  “I don’t really care.” Eliza shook her head.

  “Then why did you want to see it fired?”

  “I was just curious what old Thelemule is selling these days. He is a competitor after all. But I think I can take care of your little problem.” While that was true, any shots fired at bottles would be one less fired at anything, or anyone, else.

  “Can you come tonight?” asked the man.

  Eliza cocked an eyebrow. “Hells no. You want me to go after that thing at night? Let’s go now.”

  ? ? ?

  She followed the couple back to their brick townhouse while the boy trailed behind, strapped with satchels. Once they arrived, they led her up to a cozy room on the second floor where a woman was lying in bed, pale as a ghost.

  Eliza pointed to the room’s lone window. “I don’t suppose you’ve tried nailing that shut?”

  Mrs. Underhill answered, “The doctor said fresh air would do her good.”

  “Of course he did.” Eliza shook her head. “All right, get out.”

  “But… wait, what are you going to do?” the husband asked.

  “Aren’t you going to even examine her?” Mrs. Underhill pointed to the woman in bed. She had a freckled face with ginger hair, and did seem sickly.

  “I don’t really do that sort of thing… doctoring,” said Eliza. Then, taking a step toward the bed, she saw a distinct bite mark on the woman’s neck. Well, distinct to her, to anyone else it might look like a couple of sores. She turned to the Underhills. “Push the bed to the other side of the room, away from the window, then get out.”

  The couple hesitated, but Eliza locked eyes with them until it became uncomfortable, and they each grabbed a bedpost. When Oliver rushed to help, she stopped him with a hand to his shoulder.

  Then with considerable effort, the two pushed the bed, the floor splintering beneath it, leaving a trail of four very noticeable scratches. Bed in position, Eliza shooed them out of the room.

  “Candles.” She held her hand out to the boy.

  He searched through a satchel and handed her half a dozen long white ones.

  “Knife.”

  He handed her a small carving knife.

  “Do you have the spikes and hammer?” she asked and he nodded back. “Good, drive them into the wall, just far enough below the window so that they can’t be seen from outside.”

  The boy lifted one of the iron spikes, examining it. The end was connected to a disc with a ring in the middle, made to serve as a candle holder. He looked at her reluctantly, afraid of damaging the wall.

  “Well, get to it,” she said and began carving runes into the candles.

  Wincing at each crack of wood, the boy pounded the first in. He was surprisingly adept with a hammer given how meek he appeared, but she was used to that by now.

  The man stuck his head in, eyes wide, and thinking it best not to waste time arguing, Eliza pushed him right back out, kicking the door shut.

  Once the boy had finished all six spikes, she asked, “So, do you have any idea what we’re doing?”

  “I guess you want to put candles under the window,” he said.

  “Yes, but to what end?”

  “You don’t want them visible from the outside…” he said, half in question, and she did her best stoneface to signify that this answer did not suffice.

  He continued, “So, you’re not trying to scare ‘it’ off… you must be setting some sort of trap?”

  “We are.” She nodded and set to work placing candles in each of the holders.

  “And you’re doing something to the candles, magical I mean, and well, you do like fire, so the trap must be fire?”

  “And what is ‘it’, our intruder? Reason it out.”

  “A… vampire? Maybe? The bite marks and all.” He looked unsure. “But I didn’t think there were any left, or that they were even real… and I don’t get the red hair?”

  “I wouldn’t get ‘it’ either, not all of it.” She waved her hand, and five of the candles flickered to life, leaving one unlit.

  Then, dabbing her finger against her tongue, Eliza snuffed out each in turn.

  “Why did you leave that one?” the boy asked, examining the unlit candle.

  “Because you’re going to do it.” She grinned, nudging him into position.

  The boy leaned forward, closing his eyes, and his eyebrows scrunched.

  “Don’t try so hard. Relax,” she said, watching the candle as it did not burst into flame, all the while the boy’s eyebrows were twisting more and more, until it became awkward.

  “Practice,” she whispered, trying not to sound too disappointed, then waved the candle to life and snuffed it out again in a single motion.

  He looked at her like he was in trouble. He wasn’t, not by her… but that was the problem, wasn’t it? Magic simply did not work by wanting or wishing hard enough, and it certainly didn’t care about her approval.

  Maybe a different tact would help? “Try to feel what I’m doing.”

  Turning her attention to the woman in bed, and slowly, deliberately, trying to make her spark easy to follow, Eliza reached out with it and laid a charm on the woman.

  “Did you feel anything?” she asked.

  “No,” he groaned.

  Well, she really didn’t know if he should have been able to sense that or not. It was easy for her, but that did not necessarily mean a thing.

  Finally, she opened the door and found the couple standing motionless, like they’d been holding their breaths the entire time. “Lock the room tonight and whatever you do, do not go inside.”

  “For how long?” asked the woman. “I’ll need to check on her.”

  “All night.”

  “Are you… not staying?”

  Eliza shrugged. Reuben was not usually dangerous, unless provoked. “She’ll be safer in there alone, trust me, but if you want to hire someone to get themselves killed, you know where Thelemule lives. Look, if you really want to help, dye her hair.”

  “What color?”

  “Anything but red.”

  ? ? ?

  They passed the carpenter’s cart on their way home, and Eliza waited for him out front, trying to seem as friendly and unwitchlike as possible. She waved him around to the back and showed him through the gate.

  The man did a double take when he saw the garden, and as though for the first time, she noticed how barren it really was, just dirt with a few weeds and a pile of obsidian gravel in one corner.

  “Where d-do you want it?” he stammered, obviously frightened.

  “As close to the gate as possible. How about with the door facing it? What do you think?”

  Shifting uncomfortably, he glanced from the back of the house to the gate. “That would block the view from the house? Seems like a ba-bad idea, err… I wouldn’t advise it.”

  But that was the point: not to catch ‘anyone’ sneaking in. It’s just she couldn’t say that, not when the boy might hear. So after a back-and-forth, they settled on ten feet inside the gate, just to the side of the path from the house, facing perpendicular to it.

  That evening when it was time for Oliver to go, she held out a coin. He shrunk back.

  “Take it. Go ahead.” She nodded. “You’ll get one each day. Use it to buy cleaning supplies if you like. You seem to know more about that than I do, and if there’s any left over, I won’t fret over loose change. You may keep it.”

  He examined the coin suspiciously before putting it in his pocket.

  “Now come along and let me show you to your supply shed.” She led him outside.

  Maybe he was sleeping behind her back gate because he didn’t have anywhere else to go, or maybe he really was a spy, but whatever the reason, it would not be her fault, not anymore.

  The plank door opened onto a bare wood floor about the length of a full-grown man. “I don’t want all those sooty rags in the house. You’re to stow your supplies in here each night before you leave. In fact, I don’t want to know they even exist, so you can expect I will never go or ever look in here.” Hopefully, he’d get the hint.

  Then leading him just outside the gate, she said, “And I cannot have you hanging around my front door all morning. You’ll scare off clients, so here you go.” She handed him a brass key. “It’s to the garden, not to the house. You can wait there, perhaps using your time to organize the supply shed?”

  She continued, “The lock on the gate has two parts. First, insert the key and turn it clockwise.” She waited for him to do so before pointing to a pictogram. “Then touch the bird, then the eye, and then the tree with your spark.”

  His eyebrows were scrunching together the same way they had when he’d failed to ignite that candle.

  “Don’t worry. This isn’t a test. It would respond to the spark from a baby.”

  With an uncertain hand, the boy touched the symbols, and the lock clunked open.

  “Good,” she said. “Now, if you think you’re going somewhere you might lose it, leave the key and wait outside the front door as you have been, or if you need to, I suggest you hide it in your shoe.” This wasn’t ideal, potentially leaving him out in the cold, but she was still working that out.

  When the boy walked through the gate to leave, she turned to go back inside.

  “Eliza?” his voice called from behind.

  She shuddered. The only one who ever called her ‘Eliza’ was Thelemule, and that was more in mockery than anything.

  “Sorry, Ms. Scaggs,” he corrected.

  “It’s okay. What is it?” She turned to see the boy, Oliver, looking unsettled.

  “Why didn’t we stay? At the Underhills,” he asked.

  “They’d expect me to do something tonight, something rash, to fight it.”

  “But what’s going to happen to that woman? It might kill her?”

  What could she say? That she might have to kill someone, something, not a friend exactly, but still…

  “No, she’ll be all right.” It felt like a lie not to add ‘probably’ to the end of that, but the way he was looking at her. “I promise,” she said, and Oliver seemed to relax.

  Later, on her nightly walk, she sighed when she saw him sleeping up against the wall.

  “Sleep in the shed, boy,” she grumbled to herself.

  He was clutching a crude, yellow candle in one hand, the type one could get from the market for next to nothing. Its wick was still coated in fresh wax, unlit.

  Returning to the foyer, she took note of a row of unlit candles lined up to greet her. She tried to overthink lighting one, just to see if she could make it difficult, or better yet, to fail. It sparked to life instantly.

  She sighed, not having felt this powerless in a long, long time, and instead of staying up all night, hopped up on rot brew, working on the flame bloom, she stayed up all night, in bed, staring at the ceiling.