A moment passed before the weight of her words fully settled. I thought of the wild light in Auden’s eyes that reeked of desperation. There was his strange insistence once he pulled out the bag. I thought of the pressure I had suddenly felt from the air around me and the seriousness with which he’d spoken. Bad luck or good luck, I’d already known I had done something irrevocable when I’d dropped my stone into it. It was just easier to pretend otherwise.

“Tricked?” It was my turn to sound desperate as I hoped she’d meant something else entirely. 

When she let go of the bag, it felt like a pendulum knocked back into my chest. 

“What did he say when he told you to put this into the bag?” Maggie asked with a genuine curiosity glittering in her eyes. It somehow made her look younger. 

“He said,” I began. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I didn’t know where to look. The toad, of course, when I felt the most tension, had stopped talking entirely. The bag felt heavier and heavier, and I wanted to rip it right off. “That you’d need a token that meant something.” When Auden had said all the melodramatic things about tokens and good intentions, it sounded like poetry or theater. But when I was about to say it, it just seemed like the stupid meanderings of a girl who had been tricked. 

Maggie gave a motion of her head. I didn’t bother being disgusted as Humphrey used his tongue to pull out the chair next to me, then the one on the other side of the table as well. He gave a croak of annoyance as she took the flask from him. Only once she sat down, did I sit down as well. I waited for the context, for whatever punishment I was about to be dealt for believing a strange man. Before she could be bothered to deal me the relief of answers, she used her teeth to pull out the flask’s stopper. A sickly sweet smell followed it. It was such a strong scent that I gagged in disbelief as she took a hearty swig.

“A cowardly guardian has hoisted his duties onto you.” 

Even though I had absolutely zero inkling of what sort of horrible sentence she was going to clap me with, that wasn’t even a little like what I imagined she’d say. I felt like I was experiencing a physical whiplash. Humphrey just laughed.

“Coward,” he repeated with a chuckle. I tried to blink away the jolt I felt had shot through me. Was I beginning to see spots or was that just shock?

“I don’t catch your meaning.” I did my best impression of someone calm, cool, and collected. 

“A guardian,” she repeated, likely because I just sounded like an idiot. 

“I understand the word, ma’am.” Most of the time, I actually considered myself rather well-read. I often had to do accounts and the like for my mother. With the exception of the toad being obnoxious, I knew just about all of the words the two used. 

“Storytime,” Humphrey mused out loud. Maggie set her fingers down on top of Humphrey’s head with her free hand. It made a wet, meaty sound and I thought she’d struck him. But when he made that odd purring noise again, I saw that she was petting him. 

“Are you familiar with the bridge that connects this village to the main road?”

Oh, no. The toad meant that literally. I didn’t want a story in terms of an answer. I just wanted an answer. But sitting down with a flask of dubious alcohol in her hand, she was even more intimidating than when she’d been wielding a knife. So I gave her a brief nod. If I stayed silent, maybe she’d explain even faster. 

“Then you know it is only that bridge and road that leads us to others.”

If someone were to look down at our little village on a map, they would see it nestled onto a little peninsula. No one had ever settled along the ocean’s water because it was all cliffs along the coast. Ours was the southernmost one that had found success farming on the freshwater rivers that broke into the mainland from the cliffs. It was only connected to the main roads by a stone bridge over the central river. That road led up to the more northern villages and, of course, the castle’s city. The journey had been more dangerous when the rivers had flowed with height and strength. Now, many wagons could ford it without the need for the bridge, so I couldn’t say it was the only way to other settlements. 

“When the rivers were still strong, a troll lived beneath the bridge—”

“Handsome chap,” Humphrey interrupted.

“Shh!” I hissed. Maggie ignored us both, thankfully.

“It demanded anything it could from any who wished to cross it. While, at that time, your village had little in the way of trade, it was the quickest access to the ocean. So it grew fat-” I glanced at Humphrey. “-With power. Eventually, its reputation spread to those ruling. A witch was sent by the king to vanquish it. But it had collected too many magical items in its life. Too many for it to be defeated without serious consequences. So, instead of killing, the witch sent it where many of excessive powers are sent. Into its own reflection.” For the first few sentences, I was following. But it was at that point that she lost me. 

“Into… its own reflection?” I expected an unkind reaction. She just smiled instead. I would even say with patience. 

“Reflections are their own world, in a sense. When we walk away from them, they vanish and wait. But with proper magic and the right instrument, someone with the knowledge can make the being into the reflection. Removing them from the here, and keeping them in the there.” She sort of lost me again. “And it was safer to simply keep the troll there.”

“So a witch put a troll in his reflection?” Maggie nodded. 

“Those with power rarely rest with ease, however. As he would demand a tithe from any who wished to cross the bridge. His greed lives on, though; every few decades, he still demands a toll, or he’ll take his due in other ways.”

The way she said other ways sounded so ominous. 

“In fact,” Maggie started as she hummed and took another sip from the flask. “I believe it has been long enough now that he is already taking his due. Probably for the last ten years or so. Though it’s probably beginning to peak now.”

The last ten years and beginning to peak now?

“Surely not… the water?” The rivers? I hadn’t given any of it much thought. Nevertheless connected Auden’s arrival with the subsequent messenger. I’d only wanted a little magic for a royal ball. Just enough to be a fairy godmother? And I understood that title had never made much sense to me, as I was neither a fairy nor Ella’s godmother. But she was the one who had attached it to me; I was simply going along with it for effect. Didn’t it sound so much better when to say a fairy godmother granted a happy ending? Maggie sipped hard enough from the flask that it made a thick slurping noise. 

“A thirst for riches is still a thirst. Something had to quench it.” 

I, for the most part, understood a witch sending a troll away. I (almost) understood a strange reflection world. I even understood the troll needed pittances. But…

“What do you mean by guardian?” 

“Something of true value must be offered to him. Something that can’t be replaced. A guardian of sure talent must go to the troll and soothe his greed.” Maggie sighed and settled into her chair as she looked off, somewhere far away. “I suppose he didn’t want to risk a token. Stupid boy.” I was stupid, too. All Auden’s grand words, all of Maggie’s storytelling, all of it was enough for me to put the pieces together. I’d read enough fairy tales to know how stories like this tended to be written. 

There was a thought that had been occurring to me since I first talked to Auden. 

“I think I’m outside my depth,” I whimpered. It was a pathetic sound. But I was pathetic, so what else could I do? So I did as pathetic girls did and I cried. I cried because I was scared. A deep shivering fear of if I didn’t stop running forward, towards some unbelievable ending like in a story, what would I see when I looked back? This had started with stubbornness, maybe a hint of bravery, but mostly dread. The dread that came with year following after year. If I sewed, and made fantastical deals, and did something for Ella, maybe I could live the rest of my life satisfied. I’d only ever seen adolescence end in misery. Adulthood came only with bitterness and regret. What remarkable and unprecedented act would it take? What did I have to do so that I could look in the mirror and know I made Ella’s life better? I felt cheated by that dream now. All I had to do was make a beautiful dress and work myself ragged, and then it would be over. It wasn’t supposed to get this complicated. I was never supposed to sit across from a witch. 

It all felt too raw. Too real. And not something I could handle. And the thought of it being something I suddenly couldn’t escape? That new reality spilled out as tears on my cheek. I didn’t even care that Old Maggie and her blasted toad were seeing this girl they didn’t know loudly cry her eyes out at the table. 

But when I finally calmed down, a cup of tea was sitting in front of me. It smelled like rose hips and I wrapped my hands around it without complaint. Nothing else in life was making sense at the moment, why shouldn’t a witch be a little kind too. 

“For what wish did you want magic?” 

My eyes ached as I looked upwards over the steam of the tea. 

“What?”