A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping

by Sangu Mandanna

“Marvellous work,” Clemmie said to Sera. “I was just thinking this morning that what we really needed in our lives was not a new fireplace or a nice car but, in fact, a resurrected fucking rooster.”

Albert, it seemed, had forgotten that his history might be a legacy of power, but hers was a legacy of resistance.

“Stop calling them peculiar habits,” Luke would reply. “She’s autistic.”

Meanwhile, across the country, a certain innkeeper was about to discover that when you hold tight to the little magic you find, when years go by and the world loses much of its colour and still you refuse to forget the magic, magic will go out of its way to show you that it remembers you too.

He sounded tired, like it wasn’t the first, second, or even hundredth time he’d had to explain his sister. Justify her. Sera’s wrath kindled and she was suddenly, utterly furious for both of them.

“The point,” Sera pressed, “is that if my spell invited you in, you get to stay. See you round the front.”

Amusement sparked in his eyes. “You’re not really selling this, you know.” “You’re only here for one night, remember? I don’t need to sell it.” She smiled angelically. “Also, I hope you have an umbrella. It rains apple blossom tea in this room every Sunday.”

Adorable

You have a way about you. It makes us want to stay.” “The inn tends to do that,” Sera said without thinking. “No,” Nicholas said earnestly. “Not the inn. You.”

“Well. Well. Did it hurt? When you fell out of whichever Norse myth you came from?”

When I put it on, it felt like I was saying fuck you, I can still fly.”

“Yes, yes, I’m an intolerable grump. A belligerent harpy. A cantankerous shrew. Well, too bad. If you wanted someone warm and welcoming and snuggly, you should really have had this conversation with Jasmine instead.”

Sera drank her tea in wrathful silence.

Nothing better

“Stop decapitating the resurrected rooster,” Sera said crossly. “It’s impolite.”

“I think we all deserve our favourite dinner when we’ve had a bit of a low day.”

Can I get back to work now, or do you need something else first? A kidney, maybe? My firstborn?” “I mean, if you’re offering…”

There was a part of him that wanted to, that wanted to believe it was possible for somebody’s life to be nothing but this: the work he loved, his sister tearing around a wild, overgrown garden in bare feet with a smudge of jam on her chin, hot cups of strong tea and scones that crumbled in his mouth, and fairy-tale evenings by the fire with a book.

Same, Luke

It seemed at first glance like ridiculous theatre, unnecessary and a bit silly, but at the heart of it, weren’t they just a handful of people trying to be good to one another?

“It’s not a knight’s place to question the workings of his lady’s household,” Nicholas said earnestly.

“Your foot’s not ugly. It’s never been ugly. It’s held you up all your life, even when it hurt. Maybe it’s just me, but I think there’s so much strength and beauty in that.”

As if the house could sense her delight, wildflowers burst out of the dishwasher, the scent of warm scones drifted out of an oven that wasn’t even turned on, and soft orbs of light sprang to life along the old wood beams in the ceiling.

Your magic knew exactly who you were. That’s why your spell was a shield, not a sword.”

the undead rooster was constantly underfoot (and had taken to sleeping at the foot of Luke’s bed every now and then, which was by no means a comfortable experience), and the (living) inhabitants of the inn were categorically and unapologetically weird as hell.

Nobody ever looked out for me either. This is the first place I’ve ever felt sheltered. This is the first place I’ve ever had space to be exactly what I am. It could be that for you, too,

Firelight, hot tea, buttery toast, and a cranky innkeeper.

And yet, for some reason, it felt like that was exactly where they were supposed to be. Like this was a thing that had, somehow, become important. Like his lonely and her lonely fit perfectly into the empty spaces at the other’s side, saying nothing, asking nothing, just keeping each other company.

Theirs was a friendship built on the unspoken, shared understanding that you can love the home you’ve made with the whole of your heart and still know the land it’s built on will never claim you.

He didn’t say a word. He just sat down on the floor, shoulder to shoulder with a ghost, keeping her company.

Well damn im gonna cry

I’m sorry, she said silently to her past self. I’m sorry I hated you. I’m sorry I wasn’t kinder.

“You don’t look at me like that very often. I’m making the most of it.” That made him laugh. “God, you’re a menace.”

Teeeeheeeee giggling

It’s like the world gets just a little less magical each time, and I get a little smaller.

“I KNEW IT!” Matilda cried. “I mean, no, I didn’t know there was a moment, per se, but there’s positively a crackle in the air when the two of you are in the same room!”

“How dare you? I was precious. A true girl next door.” “Only if that door belonged to Beelzebub.”

“Love does have a way of creeping up on you,” Sera admitted. Clemmie nodded. “Like black mould.”

“I,” said Matilda momentously, extending her hand like she’d read one too many historical romances, “am Fortuna.”

Slay

“Well, that was fun.” “It was, in every possible way, the literal opposite of fun,” Luke said emphatically. “Uptight prig,” she teased. His eyes twinkled. “Quarrelsome gargoyle.”

“Is this what it takes to beguile the stoic, icy historian? A corset?” “It helps.” He smiled back. “That’s not the real answer, though. It’s you. You’re what it takes.”

“I think now’s a good time to get ourselves out of here, don’t you?” And that, of course, was when it all went to hell in a handbasket.

I love that phase so much

“That was inspiring,” Matilda said admiringly. “If I wasn’t gay and your grandma, I’d be very attracted to you right about now.”

“You were over forty when your life really started. You of all people know that we’re never too old for anything.”

“Imagine, then, how impossibly lucky I feel that not only have I found the life I always dreamed of, but I’ve found you too.”

“AHHH! Posy! You’re brilliant! OF COURSE! It’s so obvious! Sunset!” “Sunset,” Posy agreed smugly. Theo grinned at Sera and Luke. “Posy and I’d better get extra cinnamon buns for this.”

They are so heckin CUTE

Here, at last, was the season of hot chocolate topped generously with whipped cream and mulled wine laced with cloves and satsuma slices. The season of curling up on the sofa under the weighted electric blanket, with a piece of perfectly sugared shortbread in one hand and a cup of boozy coffee in the other, while the fairy lights twinkled soft and gold across the mantelpiece and along the curtain rods.

The undead rooster was in the snow too, just a few feet away from Jasmine and Matilda, kicking gentle flurries into the air.

Luke was quiet for a long time before saying, “You’ve built a beautiful world, Sera Swan.”

The familiar, comforting routines of casting heat spells, hitting old pipes with a hammer to make them behave, tripping over the undead rooster, baking loaves of crusty bread, drinking sugary tea and boozy coffee.

A creature of the sky and the stars, burning, dying, once, twice, a hundred times, only to come back, stubborn and persistent, to rise out of the ashes, to be resurrected, to live.

It was like sitting quietly and contentedly in the company of a dear friend. It had been a long, twisty road, but she and her magic had never given up on each other.

Sera, who took pride in being able to contain multitudes, was easily able to be annoyed and sympathetic at the same time.

Magic for family. Magic for home. Wasn’t she really just trading one kind of magic for another?

The dying wasn’t what mattered. Unfurling your scorched feathers from the ashes and getting up again. Growing. Staying. That was the part that really mattered.