A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping

by Sangu Mandanna

“If I wanted your advice, I’d ask for it! I am in the twilight of my life! I have earned the right to grow my vegetables, hunt for mushrooms, eat eight meals a day, and sing rousing drinking songs without interruption!”

Theo was fond of wholesome video games in which his character ran farms, tea shops, and inns with little more than a rusty axe and a winning smile. Sera, glancing over his shoulder every now and then, was more than a little bitter that real life wasn’t quite so easy.

Theo wouldn’t let himself be led astray. He’s an angel.” “So was Lucifer,”

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?

“I’m at my wits’ end,” Sera informed her. “My wits, as it were, have ended.”

Sera was, momentarily, at a loss. This wasn’t like him at all. Should she call his parents? Should she handle this on her own? There were a lot of things she wanted to say, but she went with: “You can have an hour and then I’ll be back to make sure you’re okay. I’d really like it if you told me what’s bothering you, but you don’t have to.”

“My feelings got too big,” Sera said simply. It wasn’t an easy thing to talk about, but he deserved a real answer. “Years of small things and big things just added up, and one day, it was like I couldn’t really feel anything except the big, dark space where everything I was missing was supposed to be. I couldn’t deal with it on my own, so eventually, I asked for help.”

“She says it’s because all knowledge is worth having and no magical scholar worth their salt would leave any path unexplored,” Luke said drolly. “What she means is she thinks it’s only a matter of time before someone like Albert Grey decides the already incredible amount of magic he has isn’t enough for him, and she wants to get ahead of it.”

Sera would happily read a good book on the screen of her phone if that was all she had to hand, but there was something about the ink, paper, and dust of an old book that simply couldn’t be beaten.

“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.”

“Why do you find it so easy to be kind to me and so difficult to be kind to yourself?”

“Believe me, I know it’s pointless to resort to random tat off the street, but maybe the wrong answers are useful too. Maybe there’s a clue to where I ought to be looking…”

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.

That, Luke could understand. History was how he made sense of the world, after all, and what was history if not a collection of stories to make the incomprehensible comprehensible?

Theirs was the sort of old, familiar friendship where talking about nothing in particular was the kindest, most comforting thing they could do for each other. The other things, the big things, were understood but went unsaid because sometimes saying things out loud made them hurt that much more.

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.

Theirs was a friendship that did not talk about the things that cut deepest, but it understood that those things were there, and respected them, and gave them space.

Sera tried not to think about those months when things felt like they were at their worst, before medication, before she’d asked for help. She hated that version of her. Hated the fights she’d have with Jasmine, the speed with which she’d lose her temper, the long days of not being able to get out of bed, the dark and terrifying things she’d think about doing. Hated, more than anything, the way it felt like she simply had no control over anything, not even herself. It was one of the sharpest, most crooked things on her memory lane, and she tried not to get too close to it.

And what she saw, for the first time, was not ugliness at all but pain so enormous and consuming that it had felt like dying.

“You made yourself into what you needed to be to survive, Luke. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“If I wasn’t gay and your grandma, I’d be very attracted to you right about now.”

“I don’t understand.” That was Jasmine’s voice, but it was Jasmine’s voice as Sera had never heard it, unsteady and uncertain. She poked her head around the side of the woodshed, worried, and froze when she saw Jasmine and Matilda standing in the shelter of a satsuma tree. Instinctively, she knew this was a conversation she ought not to interrupt, and she ducked back a bit so that she was out of sight. Unlike Jasmine, Matilda sounded completely calm. “What’s not to understand? I’ve fallen quite madly in love with you.” Sera stifled a squeak. She’d finally said it! “But…” Jasmine faltered. “But…” Matilda waited patiently. “I just don’t see how you could possibly have fallen in love with me,” Jasmine tried to explain.

“Aren’t we too old to fall in love?”

You of all people know that we’re never too old for anything.”

handmade blankets with nothing but her nose poking out of it, but then she blinked sleepily at the window and saw the snow, and her heart leapt. Oh, give it a week and she’d be sick of scraping ice off her car and getting slush in her wellies, but for now, it was lovely.

“No, if we were together, I don’t think I’d be able to stand not seeing you all the time, but I’d try to stand it. It couldn’t be worse than not being with you at all.”

Then, before she could fall apart, before she could give in and be selfish and ask him to stay for her, before she could risk feeling the way it would feel when he refused, she walked away.

It’s what you do. Every time he started to let his guard down, every time his mask cracked, he expected to have to go. It was what he’d learned. He, Luke, the real Luke, was not acceptable. Posy, the real Posy, was not acceptable. Sooner or later, they were too much, or not enough, and they had to go. So he’d been expecting it. Waiting for it.

“You got out the only way you knew how. That’s okay.”

Why aren’t you this fired up on your own behalf?”

“I’m so sorry. I was so afraid of how much it would hurt if I asked you to stay and you said no that I never asked. I should have, Luke. I should have told you how much we want you here. Please stay. Stay.”

Everyone knows that when something good happens, something you’ve dreamed of for a long, long time, you’re filled with this wonderful, dizzying, joyful conviction that there’s nothing in the world beyond your reach.

“I’m just a bit sad and a bit tired. I don’t know how long the sad will last, but I promise I’ll get up when I’m not tired anymore.”

“Tired, you say? In the bones or in the brain?” “Both, I think.”

You went up in flames, but you’re still here. You’ll go up in flames again, but that’s okay, you know what to do now. You’ve done it already.

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. So Sera slept. Woke. Unfurled. And got up again.