Inside the cottage, which was decorated with bug-filled bottles, boiling cauldrons, and gingerbread trim, Maggie’s mother pulled Rob close to her rheumy-red eyes.

“Little mouse, let me look at you,” she said in a dry, crackling voice. Her face was deeply lined, and the old woman’s salt-and-pepper hair flew out from beneath her pointy hat like it was trying to escape. She wore a woolen shawl over a dark, tattered gown that trailed behind her on the dirt floor, hiding her feet entirely. 

And although she might once have been as tall as Maggie, now the old woman stooped so severely that she had to crane her neck just to look straight ahead. Rob guessed multiple compression fractures of the spine caused by adult-onset osteoporosis, but he worried that taking a medical history might lead to discussions of heredity, which might lead to a discussion of grandchildren, which Maggie had warned him against in no uncertain terms, so he held his tongue.

Plus, he couldn’t trust himself not to ask her about being a witch.

“Daughter,” Maggie’s mother said, still holding Rob close. She twitched her nose a few times, almost as if she were sniffing him. “This man you’ve brought home. A foreigner, if I’m not mistaken. What religion might he be?”

“Mother!” Maggie said. “He’s the new doctor in town I told you about. I’m helping him on his medical rounds.”

“Pah!” Releasing Rob, she fumbled backwards and plunked down on a stool next to a cavernous stone oven whose metal door had been torn off its hinges. “I understand. You’re his muscle. That’s hardly work for a lady, daughter mine. No way to win a man’s heart.”

“I’m not trying win anybody’s heart.”

“You’re succeeding very nicely, then. Little mouse, what do you think of my daughter? Is she too old for marriage? Perhaps she could land a widower in his dotage with a little spark left in his stick.”

“Moth-er!”

“Can you blame an old woman for wanting grandchildren? Married twice, I was, to wonderful men, yet I’ll never hold a grandchild to my drooping bosom.”

“Forget about grandchildren for a moment,” Maggie said. “The reason we’re here—”

“The reason you’re here is less important than why my only daughter never visits me. Can’t you come more often?”

“I was here a week ago, mother.”

“Pah!” her mother said. “I could be dead in a week. This maybe will be our last conversation, how would you like that?”

Maggie tensed her broad shoulders, then lowered them again. “Robert,” she said through clenched teeth. “Could you give us a moment, please?”

The last thing Rob heard upon exiting the cottage was Maggie saying, “We’re not staying for dinner,” and then he was back outside. A pair of goats looked up at him expectantly, as if he might have some food scraps to share, but they soon went back to munching grass.

Rob wandered to the edge of the clearing, hiked up the front of his tunic, and enjoyed a good, long piss. Rob smiled at how comfortable he’d become doing various business in the out-of-doors. Previously, his idea of roughing it was spending the weekend at a Holiday Inn Express.

That was okay; medical school didn’t leave much time for non-medical activities, and a surgical residency left even fewer. Still, it was good to be reminded how much he liked the forest’s earthy smell, the panoramic vistas of blue-sky days, and the sensation of fresh air bumping up against one’s private parts.

The cottage door banged open, breaking Rob’s reverie. Quickly tucking himself back into his pants, Rob turned to find Maggie stomping toward him with resignation dripping from her face.

“Well, it looks like we’re staying for dinner,” she said. “We might not make it home tonight, but at least we saw all of your patients. And we’ll eat within the hour, just as soon as my mother whips up an ointment for your crazy shoemaker.”

“He’s not crazy. He has dementia.”

Maggie’s thin eyebrows rose to form an incredulous arch. “He believes elves are making shoes. That’s crazy.”

“Trust me, there’s a difference. You said your mother was making an ointment? That’s good news. So. Dinner, and then we’ll go to an inn or something?”

Maggie nodded. “If she tries to keep us any longer, I’ll knock over an oil lamp as a distraction. While the cottage burns down, you make a run for it.”

“Let’s save that for a last resort. What’s on the menu?”

“God only knows,” Maggie said. “A stew, or some other one-pot wonder? I’m not certain she knows how to cook anything else. I did get her to promise to use a clean cauldron, but if you bite into any lizard tails, it’s perfectly acceptable to spit them out. She’s used to it by now.”

“Lizard tails?”

“Believe me, I’ve eaten worse. Right now, I’m going to chop some firewood while you entertain Mother. You did say you wanted to talk to her, right?”

Rob knocked on the cottage door before entering. “Hello?”

Maggie’s mother was moving her nose from bottle to bottle, sniffing at each one as she drifted along the shelf and grabbing those that met her approval.

“Little mouse, little mouse, won’t you come in,” she said without looking up. Given the gunky state of her eyes and the way she moved around the cottage by touch, Rob wasn’t sure looking up would have provided her with any additional information. Decades of cooking up vile potions without adequate ventilation had taken its toll.

“Can I help you find anything?”

She grinned a nearly toothless grin. Her front teeth were missing, but Rob noted that she still had most of her molars. “No, little mouse. I may not see as well as I used to, but I know where everything is. Sit and keep me company while I mix this ointment for you.”

Rob settled onto a wooden bench while Maggie’s mother dumped ingredients into a stone bowl and began mashing them rock. “Elderberry to calm the humors,” she said. “Rose hips for fluid balance. And sage to keep it all smelling nice. People like their medicines foul and their ointments sweet, don’t you agree?”

Rob laughed. “I suppose that’s true, even where I come from.”

“Once everything is ground to the proper consistency,” she said, dipping a bony finger into the bowl to check, “I’ll boil this in butter with red nettles until it thickens. You can strain it through a cloth or apply directly, either way will work just as well.”

“And this will help my patient’s sores?”

“Yes, yes. And if the stars are right, cured, even. Now tell me, little mouse, about your intentions.”

“My intentions?”

“Please. What wise woman would I be if I couldn’t tell my own daughter was with child?” Maggie’s mother dragged a bowl filled with crushed herbs across her work table, bumping and scraping as she went. At the end of the table, she gathered the bowl in both hands and dumped the contents into a pot simmering over a charcoal brazier next to the hearth. Half of the smoke went up the chimney, while the other half curled along the cottage’s roof beams. “I assume you’re the father, given the easy way you banter and stand close to each other. Am I right, little mouse?”

“Ah . . . yes, on all counts. But I don’t think Maggie—”

“Pah!” she said, cutting him off. “She doesn’t know what’s good for her, like sharing with her mother such important news. But we will keep this between us, little mouse, until even the biggest tunic can’t hide the truth, all right?”

“I guess that’s all right. But I want you to know that this isn’t a casual fling. Maggie and I are . . . well, a real couple. I’m not going away.”

“You are very brave, then. Now let me ask you another question. What are your intentions toward me?”

Taken aback, Rob stared at the old woman in her pointy hat and long, ratty gown. “Toward you? I don’t understand.”

She stirred the bubbling pot, the charcoal smoke and ointment steam nearly enveloping her face, although if it bothered her, she didn’t show it. “I’ll speak plainly, then. Have you come to steal my secrets, little mouse? I know I’m old—the woman as old as the hills, they call me—but my herbal lore is precious to me. I’ve lost my youth, my strength and my eyesight. But if I lose my herbal lore to you, I won’t be left with anything. No way to earn coin. No way to live.”

The room was silent for a moment apart from the bubbling pot and the faint ‘chop, chop’ sounds of Maggie splitting wood.

“Unless,” she said, hefting the pot from the brazier and plunking it down on the table where it sizzled against the wooden surface. “Unless you were to marry my daughter. Then I could pass the lore onto you, or your offspring. I’ve got a few teaching years left in me. What do you say to that, little mouse?”

Rob took a deep breath upon hearing the word ‘marry’ again, sucked in too much smoke, and coughed his lungs clear before speaking. “Look, I have no designs on your herbalism practice. The way I see it, we complement each other more than we compete. I don’t want to take over your business.”

“People would buy cures from you,” she said, scowling. “Even if you didn’t have the knowledge, people would buy a doctor’s cures.”

“Okay, but like I said, I don’t want to get into that line of work. What this place needs is more health care providers, not fewer. I’m already running myself ragged trying to see everybody who wants to be seen. Does it have to be one of us, or a grandchild? The Godmother might know of some out-of-work apprentices who need a profession.”

She stirred the pot, setting off a new round of smoke and steam. “The guilds don’t reach this far into the forest, and I wouldn’t want anything to do with their rules if they did. Teaching outside of the family? Pah! That’s not the way things are done.”

Rob shrugged. “Maybe we could start something new.”

Maggie’s mother waved a hand in front of her face to clear away the smoke. “Do I look like someone who starts new things? Not at my age.”

“But who’s going to carry on after you?”

“Nobody. Unless I have grandchildren soon—”

“Moth-er!” Maggie bellowed through the narrow cottage window. “You promised!”

Maggie’s mother dumped the still-steaming contents of the pot into a cup. “Here’s the ointment, little mouse, but give it a moment to cool before you touch. I’m curious to hear if it helps your patient. Daughter, I’m sorry to talk about grandchildren, but he started it, not me. Doctor, I like you. Come back and visit anytime. Now, both of you go away while I prepare dinner. All this shouting, it’s giving me agida.”

Outside, Rob helped Maggie stack the firewood she’d just cut. Her face was frozen in a scowl, but it was also slicked with sweat from cutting firewood in an earthy-sexy sort of way. “You two really hit it off. What did you talk about?”

“Ah. You know. Nothing, really,” Rob said, shuffling his feet. “Ointments and stuff. Maybe a little marriage chat. Look, Maggie, we’ve never really discussed this, but everyone else seems to be asking me about it. Do you, you know, ever think about getting married? Is this even, maybe, something you want?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” she said, dropping her load of firewood onto the pile. “You told her, didn’t you?”