A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping

by Sangu Mandanna

“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.”

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.

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. I’m sorry, she said silently to her past self. I’m sorry I hated you. I’m sorry I wasn’t kinder. All the shame that had been tangled up in the memory was annihilated, leaving only compassion and regret in its place.