“She’s a witch?!” Seymour blurted out.

“Well. Sort of. She’s not aware of it.” Gretta scratched her nose. “When she came to me for help, I had other solutions… A few herbs to coax her family into a kinder mood… A dress for the ball, some pumpkins to take her there. She took the pumpkin and dress, but the shoes, they appeared on their own when she started crying. Of course, she thought I did it and insisted that I was like a kind fairy godmother for giving them to her for free. Free. Urgh. I mean, I’m a witch, but I won’t take payment for magic I didn’t perform, you know?”

Linh was too stunned to form a coherent thought. Were there really people out there with untrained magic who could just wish things into being? Why were they not given guidance? They were like walking weapons that could act out at any moment.

[Why didn’t you tell her? And try to teach her afterwards?]

“My craft must be something one wants  to learn. Miss Ella denied her gift over and over. She wanted nothing to do with witchcraft so I let her be. Now I have to clean up her mess, oh bother…”

[…Does this happen often? People with the potential for magic causing accidents like this?]

Gretta huffed and chuckled darkly. “Why do you think there are so many unmentionables? The untrained give us witches a bad name. Most unmentionables are cursed very uncreatively.”

Odd, how paper can feel cold sometimes. The only thing Linh could do in the winter was fold more paper to wrap around herself. But this cold felt different.

[Uncreative?]

“Oh yes. Changing someone’s body into another form—a beast, grass, insects—is rather petty. It comes from inexperience.”

[What a comfort it is, knowing someone inexperienced cursed me.] Linh felt each blot of ink stab into her hands like nails.

“Isn’t it?” Gretta grinned, unable to read Linh’s mood. How frustrating, to be limited to written words and childish inked faces. Xuan used to say that Linh was too emotional, that her emotions were like an open book. If her mother could see her now…

“Linh wasn’t cursed by an amateur. A trained Eastern practitioner did this to her. He meant for this to happen,” Seymour snapped, “so don’t belittle that.”

“I… I’m sorry,” Gretta’s eyes were wide and glassy. Unbearable to look at. “I didn’t mean to—”

[It’s fine.]

It wasn’t, not when Linh thought about that day.

[Let’s move on to Lady Ella.]

Gretta looked like she wanted to say more, but she nodded. “This kind of magic is tricky, usually connected to the original source’s emotional state. We need to find out what’s troubling Lady Ella, only then can we solve her shoe problem.”

Both Seymour and Linh nodded.

“I propose we invite her to stay the night. We’ll watch over her as she sleeps and we’ll observe what her shoes do. We can find clues then. Consider it your first job with me, Miss Page, Mister Bodyguard.”

“Not a bodyguard,” Seymour muttered again.

“Then leave already.”

Seymour only glared.

::

“Are you sure? You’ll be with me the whole night?” Lady Ella demanded.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Gretta said, tossing more golden dust onto the floor, to ‘read the magic.’

“What if you fall asleep? What if the shoes only move when I’m awake and no one else—”

Hesitantly, Linh put her hand in front of Lady Ella.

[Since I’m made of paper, I don’t need to sleep. I won’t miss anything. Besides, I doubt I count as a human being, according to this magic. It will awaken even if I’m here.]

“Oh. Alright then…” the Lady paused awkwardly. “Thank you.”

Linh gave her a smooth ink smile. She understood the fear of the unknown. Hadn’t she once been afraid of the cursed herself?

::

By the evening, Gretta set up the bedroom upstairs for Lady Ella. Her room looked quite ordinary for a witch. Just a bed with a colourful quilt of mismatched dragon designs and several dragon posters. Linh wondered if the dragons were a Gretta quirk or a witch quirk, something to ask later.

Seymour would take a post by the door. He grumbled briefly about the discomfort of sitting against the wall all night but otherwise did as he was told. Gretta decided to sleep by the foot of the bed while Linh insisted she was fine just standing.

She walked over to Seymour, as Gretta attempted to sing Lady Ella to sleep with garbled discordant lullabies.

Seymour was staring off into space and looked up when she crouched next to him.

“What is it?”

Linh hesitated. For so many years, she had lived in the same house as Seymour and Marie but she had never had any deep conversations with him. She always assumed Seymour hated her with the dark glares and avoidant behavior. Seymour and her brother Quang had been the close ones. For all she knew, they still were.

[Thank you for defending me.]  The ink trailed carefully on her palms, as if the slightest wobble would give away her discomfort.

Seymour looked away. “You don’t need to thank me. I should have done that long ago.”

For a moment, Linh felt confused. Then she remembered every moment a customer at the bar would try to splash her with beer, every moment a customer called her despicable and a demon. Seymour never said a word.

[I thought you didn’t care,]  Linh admitted. She always thought that Seymour considered her baggage that weighed down his family.

He didn’t reply.