The Isadora Interviews (2 page)

Sensing her thoughts, Bronwyn shot her a narrow look. Of all the children, she was the most sensitive over the family poverty.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

“Oh really?”

“You’re thinking about how poor we are, and you’re worried that whatever happened has something to do with you going to Miss Mabel’s.”

Hearing Bronwyn say it like that made Leda’s insides tighten with shame, but she didn’t deny it because it was true. The sight of Papa walking up the back path flashed through her eyes, followed by a wave of certainty that told her he had returned.

“Papa’s here.”

A few seconds later the door swung open. Papa looked up, his blonde hair pasted to his face, fatigued eyes drawn into low angles. His smile took great effort and didn’t reach his eyes.

“Hello, girls.”

Bronwyn immediately rushed to help him out of his wet coat. Leda placed the stack of dried plates in the cupboard, watching Papa closely from the corner of her eyes.

“Are you all right Papa? You’re late,” Bronwyn said.

“Yes, just held back for a little meeting is all.”

A little meeting that decides my future,
Leda wanted to add.

Mama and three of the children emerged from the bedrooms. The kids squealed with excitement, throwing themselves into Papa’s wet body and climbing up his leg.

“Oh, Reginald, you’re soaking wet,” Mama said. “You’d better change before you get sick.”

He ruffled heads and kissed a few cheeks, dutifully listening to the reports of all the childish adventures of the day. Then Mama herded the children into their respective beds after they told Papa good night. Within minutes the kitchen was empty again. Bronwyn sighed and returned to the dirty dishes, that relentless master which never seemed to end.

Papa came back just as Leda and Bronwyn finished drying the last dish. Bronwyn grabbed the bowl of stew from its place by the fire and set it in front of him.

“Oh, what a long day! This smells like a fine stew, Bronwyn. Thank you.”

She smiled in adoration and sat down across from him. Mama settled into the rocking chair nearby, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes with her hands on her round belly.

“Why were you late, Papa?” Leda asked. She stood across from him, gripping a chair in her hands, seeking balance.

Don’t say they won’t pay you early. Don’t say they won’t pay you early.

He didn’t look at her but paused in thought, staring at his bowl with a frown.

“I had a few things to clear up.”

“Is everything all right?” Mama asked, opening her eyes when Papa hesitated. He paused, thinking, and then turned to Leda.

“No. It’s not.”

Leda’s heart plummeted into her stomach.
This can’t be happening. Attending Miss Mabel’s has been my only dream, my only request.

Don’t take this away from me.

Papa took a drink of water and then continued. “I spoke with the other witches at work today about getting the sacrans in advance to pay for Miss Mabel’s, but they said no. Even if they had, the cost is more than we have saved, what with the new baby coming.”

His gaze softened and he looked right at her. “We can’t afford to send you, Leda. Not this year, anyway.”

Her heart started to crinkle, pulling from the inside out. Her chest felt like a wall of rock, unable to expand so she could breathe.

We can’t afford to send you.

The curse took over, sending her mind into a nonsensical blur of overwhelming images and possibilities. She let it take her away. An escape. An alternate kind of reality. The thick plug of tears in her throat and the sound of her desperate gasp brought Leda out of it. Bronwyn stared at her lap, playing with the edge of her apron, unable to meet her eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Leda,” Papa continued. “I know how much this means to you.”

No, you don’t. You could never know.

She stepped away from the table with a shaky breath, her eyes averted.

“Leda, please stop.”

But she didn’t. She turned, walked calmly to her bedroom, and closed the door behind her. Outside, rain dropped down the windowpane in liquid shadows. She drew a deep breath and lowered herself onto the makeshift bed. The whirling future abated a little.

“No tears,” she chanted. “No tears.”

Her mother’s voice filtered through the door.

“Just leave her, Reginald. Give her a few moments.”

“I want to—”

“An explanation won’t help. Not right now. Trust me. Let her be.”

Yes,
Leda thought.
An explanation will only take away all hope. At least this way I can pretend. I can still imagine that I’ll attend Miss Mabel’s, that I’ll be someone, that I won’t be stuck in the cycle of my family, drowning because no one knows who I am.

Even as she thought it, she knew it was a lie. With eight mouths to feed, and another on the way, the sacrans were already stretched further than they could go. Her heart filled her throat as a lone tear fell off her cheek and landed on the back of her hand.

•••

Leda woke to a pale pink sky and a numb left arm. She stared out the window, and with a bitter sigh wished it would be ugly weather instead.

The soft sounds of Mama moving about reminded her that the day had to begin. The sight of Mama in the kitchen flapped through Leda’s head, bringing with it hundreds of other possibilities. All of the visuals were of the same familiar routine. Bread. Sweeping. Chasing a sibling. Hunkering down in the cupboard. Walking to the village to run an errand for Mama.

Leda had cried herself to sleep in her work dress, so she crept out of bed and made her way straight to the kitchen without a sound. The fire in the grate snapped and popped, heating a cauldron of breakfast mash. Leda walked away from the unappealing gray mass, her hunger stricken. What she wouldn’t have given for a fresh handful of strawberries!

“Hey Leedee,” Mama said, taking a blob of dough from where it had been rising near the fire and carried it to the table. Flour speckled her apron and arms.

“Do you need help?”

“No.”

Startled, Leda looked up in question. Mama motioned towards the chair beside her workspace. Her hands kneaded into the ball of dough, occasionally slapping a bit of flour onto it, leaving dustings on her arms and cheeks.

“You help with every meal, Leda. You deserve a break. Why don’t you sit and talk to me?”

“I don’t want to talk about—”

“I know. But we’re going to talk about it anyway.”

Leda sat down and stared at the floor, but Mama grabbed her chin with a gentle touch and turned her face upwards. Leda could feel the soft grit of the flour on her jawline.

“I’m sorry about the news you had last night.”

“I know.”

“I also know that you’re scared that not attending Miss Mabel’s will mean you’ll end up like me.”

Leda’s eyes widened with both shock and fear. A rush of future images came from her sudden emotions. Mama crying. The baby born. Bronwyn wearing an unfamiliar uniform. Leda took in a deep breath and forced herself to calm. The visions retreated, granting her room to think.

“Don’t try to tell me it isn’t true,” Mama said before Leda could get a word in. “I can see it in your eyes. You think I’m trapped in this life. You think I’m strapped to raising children and living a life of poverty, and you don’t want that for yourself. Am I right?”

The pictures started whistling past again. Foraging through the forest. Talking to Bronwyn. Leda raked a hand through her hair in frustration. The curse was so much stronger than her! It took several long minutes to get her mind back. Mama waited, understanding, like no one else ever did.

“Yes Mama,” she finally whispered.

“Just because I got married at a very young age and started my family right away doesn’t mean that you have to take the same path. You have very different strengths and talents than me.”

Leda was afraid to look at her, worried Mama’d take it all back and verify her biggest fear.

“Really?” she finally managed to ask.

Mama laughed. It was a low, quiet sound that wrapped Leda’s heart in comfort. She crouched down and put a floury arm around Leda’s shoulder. A part of Leda’s heart repaired itself.

“Of course not, Leda! You’re destined for far greater things than I wanted to do. You have too much talent, and too much drive, to stay in this little village.”

Leda’s momentary joy and spark of hope began to deflate.

“But that’s impossible now.”

“Is it?”

Mama’s voice rose with her question. For a split second Leda doubted her own resolve; was her dream impossible?

“You could earn the money,” Mama suggested.

Leda scoffed. “Right. It’s spring. School starts in the fall.”

Mama remained uncowed by her skeptical display and simply pressed her lips together. She straightened up, brushing the flour off Leda’s worn dress.

“I know there’s a few ideas that have been percolating in your head for a while now. A couple of challenging potions?”

With a gasp, Leda’s mind flashed to the the Forgotten Potion. Would it be possible?

“But I don’t have the ingredients,” she said slowly, “or a place to make it. We could never do it here. Not with all the kids.”

“Make it happen.”

Mama returned to the bread, humming under her breath, and left Leda to her thoughts, which churned in wild abandon.

Make it happen.

Her mind slipped into the ready images flashing through it, sending her down twenty different paths. A library at an unfamiliar school, a uniform she didn’t recognize. Standing in the kitchen, children surrounding her. Working at the grocers’ in Hansham. None of them were connected completely, and all of them were hazy.

But the fact that she saw them meant there was a chance.

She shot off the chair, kissed her mother on the cheek, grabbed her threadbare cloak, and ran for the village.

•••

Three days later, Leda stared at her bubbling brew with an upturned lip.

“Hey Leda!” her best friend Camille called, hopping up into the shack with a jaunty hop. She instantly reared back.

“Whoa! What ith that thmell?” Camille asked, plugging her nose with one hand while fanning the air with the other. “Ith that yer pothun?”

“Yes,” Leda said with a frustrated sigh. “It’s the Forgotten Potion.”

“The one you’re going to thell to earn money for thcool? Are you thure anyone will buy it? It thmells like rotten cheese.”

“Yes.”

“Could you get a bigger cauldron? Jikes, Leda, that’s mathive,” Camille said, peering in over the top and grimacing again.

“It’s the only one I could find,” Leda mumbled, embarrassed. In truth, the cauldron was quite large for such a small brew. The potion simmered on the bottom, barely visible, lost to the grand blackness. “Anyway, the size of the cauldron doesn’t matter. The only thing I’m worried about is finishing before Isadora comes for the interview. If I don’t have the potion, I have no proof that we can afford it.”

Camille rolled her eyes.

“You’ll be accthepted, Leda,” she said, taking another step back, eyes watering. “Whew. That really thtinks!”

“For now.” Right then, Leda was willing to endure just about anything. “It’ll smell like juniper once it’s done.”

Camille gazed around the small shed Leda had talked the grocer into letting her borrow. The trees and vines of Letum Wood had all but consumed the forgotten shack, making it a perfect spot to leave a potion to brew, unseen by prying eyes.

“Nice place,” Camille muttered with another step back, eyeing the questionable integrity of the rotting boards and unplugging her nose in the safer air outside. “Sure it’s not going to fall in on you?”

Leda ignored the question, although she’d had that same thought herself. But the visions in Leda’s head didn’t show a collapsed shack, so she felt confident it would hold up. All the images she saw had narrowed considerably in the past three days of potion work, and so far the brew was right on track.

“Anyway,” Camille sang, “I just wanted to stop by and see if you got the letter from Isadora.”

Leda froze.

“What letter?”

“Telling us that she had to change the date. She’ll be here tomorrow.” Camille’s expression dropped into sudden concern. “Oh, wait. Is the potion going to be ready by then?”

Leda whirled around.

“What?” she screeched. “Isadora will be here tomorrow?”

Startled, Camille’s hazel eyes widened.

“Y-yes,” she said, pulling a small envelope from her pocket. “Here’s the letter.”

Leda nearly tore it in half trying to take the bit of parchment from the envelope. To her horror, it confirmed Camille’s announcement.

I will arrive tomorrow morning for the interviews. Please have Leda and Camille meet me at the apothecary.