The Seam Sorceress

Old Superstition, part 2.

She didn't answer.

"It'd be a lot easier to care for your Mama with a little extra scratch," he reminded her.

"Yeah." She stared down into her shopping bag. "And all things considered, eight-to-six weeks might not come fast enough."

"Beg your pardon?"

"Nothing." As the truck reached the top of the hillside, Tilly nodded to the little farmhouse tucked away among a halo shade trees. "Pull over there. That's home."

"It sure is..." GP squinted in thought. "Green."

"It always is. Don't mind the kudzu none, it's friendly," she said. The truck came to a stop just short of the flagstone walkway. The engine ticked in the sudden silence. "Give me a few minutes to get ready, then we'll head on."

He seemed surprised. "You mean you're coming with me?"

"I think every girl wants to run away and join the circus at some point." Tilly smiled dimly. "I don't know any, but a fair seems like the next best thing."

GP gripped the wheel. He stopped and started a few times, never getting more than a word out before he reconsidered, settling instead on a silly, lopsided smile. He didn't look at her.

"Be right back." She opened the door. Booger was the first one out, rolling around on the unkempt grass.

"Wait," he said.

Tilly turned to face him expectantly.

With some hesitation, his fingers curled around her jaw. His eyes roved over her face, appraising or appreciating, she wasn't sure, but she stood stock-still save for her fast-beating heart. He inched across the upholstery, once, then twice, until he was so close again, as close as they were in the Hall of Mirrors, but this time she didn't pull away.

GP kissed her.

Her hands floundered, unsure, flitting from his shoulders—which seemed too much like strangling him—to a knee—which seemed too forward—before they finally found a resting place in her lap. At the very least, she had the sense to keep her eyes closed.

As their lips parted, Tilly tried to commit her first kiss to memory, but she'd spent so much of it wondering exactly what to do that most of it had escaped her. She wasn't even sure if it had been an especially good kiss, but GP seemed pleased enough.

"Okay, now you can go," he said with a smile.

She climbed from the truck, moving as though in a dream.

Booger sat up in the grass, a single ear perked. "You really gonna go through with this?"

"I figure an audition can't hurt." Tilly climbed the front porch steps two at a time. "And if what GP says is right, we might have more luck finding the spell components for Mama's dress in the capitol."

"We?" Booger's tail straightened from its casual wag. "What's this 'we' business?"

"Oh." Tilly paused, screen door propped open on her hip. She eyed a barren nest she'd never noticed before, tucked into one of the eaves of the porch. "I kinda thought you'd be coming with me."

"You never asked."

The door clapped behind them. "Well, would you?"

"'Course I would," the dog said matter-of-factly, trotting up the stairs. "But you can't just go assumptuating stuff like that. Next thing you know, you'll be asking me to fetch your slippers and roll over."

"Right, of course," Tilly said between bouts of muffled laughter, following just behind. "I'll do better next time."

Upstairs, the bedroom window was open to allow a climbing vine, covered in wickedly sharp thorns, to snake inside. It blossomed in small roses with sunrise-colored petals around the bedside, like a garland in a casket. Sprout sat on the trunk, watching Mama who was fast in feverish sleep.