Page 56 of Enchanted Village

Imogen blinked. It clearly wasn’t what she’d been expecting. So far, she’d been nursing one of Margaret’s hot chocolates slowly, occasionally glancing out of the window as she read her book. Margaret hadn’t gotten a good look at the cover, but it appeared to be something about advanced spell work.

“How much?” Imogen asked.

“Order another hot chocolate later, and it’ll be on the house,” Margaret said.

Imogen nodded eagerly. Margaret started on the sandwiches, pulling out the fresh bread she’d bought from the baker this morning. There were snowflakes made of seeds in the middle of each slice that, for reasons entirely unexplainable, made Margaret smile. In the corner, the record player slipped over to Christmas music again, and Imogen raised a brow.

“I thought you hated Christmas,” Imogen said. “Why’d you set the record player on Christmas music?”

“I didn’t,” Margaret said, slathering the bread with a garlic spread of her own making. “It picks what most people in the room want to hear. So, you must like this.”

Imogen pursed her lips but didn’t argue. “What kind of sandwich are you making?”

“Just a BLT,” she said. “What kind would you like?”

“Oh, one of those would be fine,” Imogen said, watching hungrily.

Margaret laughed, then finished making the sandwiches. She passed Imogen hers and took a bite, feeling she’d done a solid job. The lettuce was crispy, and the tomato was juicy, and it all came together perfectly with the flavor of the bread.

“You’re worried about tonight,” Imogen said after a while, when it was quiet save for the jingle bells coming from the record player. “That no one will be here.”

Margaret didn’t say anything. It was one thing to talk about this with Liza or even Silas, but she didn’t know Imogen. Or, rather, she did know Imogen—or girls like her. Girls who judged her and hoarded Margaret’s shortcomings to throw back at her later. She had to tread carefully so as not to lose a customer.

“Business is business,” Margaret said. “We’ve been here a long time.”

Imogen didn’t press. She finished her sandwich, pushed the plate away from herself, and returned to reading her book. Margaret washed the dish and wished for something to dust or mop, but she and Silas had made it so there wasn’t a corner of the pub in need of attention. But she couldn’t very well sit there and watch Imogen read.

She kept thinking about Silas. About him telling her that she refused to see that people in this village loved her. She didn’t know why the idea made her feel so uncomfortable, so unmoored. She’d tried to outrun it by going to her grandmother’s garden, hoping the plants and the dew and the separation from the village would cure her thinking about it, but it didn’t. It ran around and around inside her skull, knocking at the edges, demanding her attention.

It was similar to what Liza had told her, too. That she pushed people away. The words bubbled under her skin, burning hot in her blood. Liza said it as though Margaret had created some kind of fantasy or victim-y nightmare where she told herself something that wasn’t true. But that letter upstairs in her drawer, the one that rejected her from Emberwind Academy, that was a real letter. It had had real consequences. Maybe there were those who wanted and cared about her . . . but Emberwind Academy wasn’t one of them. And because of that rejection, Margaret had had to rearrange everything she had expected her life to be. She wasn’t a witch, but she had grown up with witches and wizards and sorcerers alike. She wasn’t trying to feel sorry for herself by thinking of herself as an outsider. She wasn’t trying to be cool or edgy. She simply was on the outside.

But—and Margaret hated that she was beginning to realize this—there was some truth to the whole pushing-away thing. Wasn’t that why Margaret had been wary of even a friendship with Silas at first? Wasn’t that why she continued to keep him at arm’s length?

After all, there was no other good reason to push Silas away. He was a man born with kind, good intentions. The type of person who walked by you trying to reach a book on a tall shelf and grabbed it for you. The kind of man who carried nervous dogs over puddles because they didn’t want to get wet. Who opened doors for strangers and gave out compliments like candy.

A good man, essentially.

An unfortunately intoxicatingly handsome good man, at that.

He’d been in her dreams last night. Those eyes of his had been staring into hers, the want unmistakable. He didn’t just rest his hand on hers but brought her hand up to his mouth. His tongue had run from her fingertip down her hand, done a circle at her wrist, continued until he was at her neck. He’d kissed the skin there as his hands lifted her up and pressed her back against the wall. He’d said unthinkable, unspeakable things that he wanted to do to her.

But, of course, before he’d been able to in the dream, she’d woken up in a cold sweat, feeling thoroughly guilty and strange because she had to see him tonight and pretend she hadn’t been dreaming about his lips on her skin.

“Uh, are you okay?”

Margaret jumped, realizing she’d been standing there at the bar, staring into space. It was Imogen who’d spoken, and when Margaret turned to the young woman, she caught a half-smile, borderline smirk on Imogen’s face.

“You had a weird look on your face,” Imogen informed her. “And you sort of hadn’t moved in a while, and your cheeks were getting really red. I thought maybe someone had put an immobilization curse on you or something.”

“Just lost in thought,” Margaret said, cheeks burning even harder. “A lot to do before tonight. Let me make that hot chocolate for you.”

Imogen raised her eyebrows, nodding at a letter that had materialized on her coaster. “And that appeared.”

Margaret looked at the letter, snatching it and tucking it in her back pocket.

“Thank you,” she told Imogen, then fixed the promised hot chocolate. She finished and handed it over to Imogen, who took the beverage eagerly and returned to her book.

Margaret made herself a hot chocolate, too. A strong one that she added one of the rare liquors to and threw back. One that she hoped could calm the nerves now rocketing through her.