I break the seal.
The letter is written in Grandmother's precise script, all sharp angles and no nonsense, exactly like the woman herself.
Iris,
I am dead.
If you are reading this, the solicitor has done his job and delivered this letter promptly upon my demise. I have leftyou the cottage and all its contents. This includes certain... responsibilities.
You will need to arrive by the first day of winter. There are matters that require immediate attention. Magical matters. I trust you have not completely squandered your potential on hedge witchery and sentimental plant-whispering.
The solicitor has the key and detailed instructions. Do not dawdle.
Elspeth Ashwood
I read it twice.
Then I set it down very carefully on my workbench, next to the mortar and pestle, and I do something I haven't done since I was sixteen years old and Grandmother told me my magic was "quaint."
I laugh.
It's not a nice laugh. It's a laugh edging toward hysteria, a laugh sending my calendula away from me slightly.
"I am dead," I repeat to my plants, my voice pitching high. "Not 'I regret our estrangement' or 'I hope you are well' or even a basic 'Sorry I spent your entire childhood making you feel inadequate.' Just 'I am dead' and 'Don't dawdle.'"
The plants maintain a diplomatic silence.
I look at the letter again.Certain responsibilities.That's ominous. It means Grandmother has left me something complicated. Something probably involving combat magic or ancient wards or, gods help me, “networking” with other battle-mages.
The thought makes my skin itch.
I should feel sad. Shouldn't I? She was my grandmother. My only living relative, or, well, my only relative, period. I should feelsomethingother than this complicated knot of relief and guilt and old, tired anger.
But I don't.
What I feel is tired. And vindicated in the worst possible way.
Mrs. Hadley's voice calls up the stairs: "Iris, dear? Are you awake? We have someone asking about the rheumatism tincture, and I can't remember if you said two drops or three: ”oh."
She's appeared in my doorway: a plump woman in her sixties with her gray hair already pinned up neatly, though it's barely past seven. She sees my face and the letter and her whole expression softens.
"Oh, love."
"She's dead," I say, and my voice comes out steady. Calm. "Grandmother Elspeth. I've inherited the cottage."
Mrs. Hadley bustles in without invitation, which is one of the many things I love about her. She takes the letter, reads it with her lips pressed thin, and then sets it down with the kind of decisive movement usually reserved for particularly rude customers.
"That woman," she says crisply, "could make a funeral announcement sound like a criticism."
The laugh that escapes me is more genuine this time. "She really could."
"Are you all right?"
Am I? I examine the feeling carefully, the way I'd examine an herb I didn't recognize. The relief is there, shameful but real. She can't hurt me anymore. Can't look at my careful salves and gentle magic and find them wanting. Can't make me feel like I'm failing just by existing.
But underneath that is something else. Something that feels like a very old bruise.
"I don't know," I admit. "I should be sad, shouldn't I? She's my grandmother."
