Coven? As in witches? The timing of this interaction feels serendipitous.
“Not officially,” I say, sticking out my hand. “You asked Dominic to watch your kids in the parking lot after he drove me to my car. Nice to meet you.”
“Um, yes, nice to meet you too,” Camilla says. “Are you truly offering to take over for my caterer? Because I’d understand if that’s not how you want to spend your weekend.”
“How big is the party?” I’ve made this kind of food before. Depending on the guest list, it wouldn’t be that hard to do it again. I didn’t have any official plans for the weekend anyway other than hanging out here.
“Eleven kids and probably,” she pauses, thinking, “seventeen parents are expected to come.”
It’s a lot of people, but these are relatively easy foods to make. There’s only one snag. “Nat, can I use your oven? Is it working right now?”
“Yeah, that’d be totally fine.”
Though, if it gives me trouble––which it always has––I might have to start over, which would waste a lot of time.
Natalie tilts her head to the side. “We made lasagna last week, and it was mostly, definitely cooked all the way through. But the stove is completely fine.”
That inspires very little confidence. “I’m staying at the B&B, so I could probably just make everything there. I’d just need to ask the owner if I can use her kitchen, but––”
“You can make them here,” Dominic interjects. “I’ve got a huge kitchen, and we have a limited menu. It’s mostly fried food. You can make the stuff today or tomorrow morning and leave it in the big fridge until the party.”
“Are you sure?” I ask Dominic at the same time Camilla asks me.
Dominic nods with a bright smile. “Yeah, no problem at all.”
“And obviously, I’ll pay you for your time,” Camilla adds.
I have other ideas, though. “How about instead of payment, you teach me some witchcraft 101? I’m realizing that my great-grandmother might’ve been a kitchen witch, and I’m curious to see if I have any talent in that area.”
“Wow, really?” she asks, intrigued. “I’d love to.”
“At the very least, I want to have a better understanding of my roots, you know?”
“Absolutely. We could always use more members.”
I show Camilla my great-grandmother’s journal, and she quickly confirms that she was indeed a kitchen witch. She even opens her grimoire to show me some of the most basic kitchen spells she learned when she was trying to determine her discipline.
“I’m a green witch, which is close enough in practice to kitchen witchcraft that I kept trying in the kitchen and couldn’t figure out why I was failing miserably. But just because youmanipulate food that came from a plant doesn’t mean you have any business trying to prepare a meal with it.” She chuckles softly, and I admire her candidness.
It’s clear that her past struggles to figure out what kind of witch she is aren’t clouded with shame. She’s fond of the journey that led her to plant witchery. Envy hits me so hard in the gut that I almost bend at the waist.
It feels like this is coming out of left field––this desire to suddenly dabble in the dark arts. But ever since Natalie helped me realize that the reason Nonna Penny was able to live here in the first place is because of the magic in her blood, there’s been a flicker of curiosity about my ancestors that’s growing into a wild flame.
I’m not about to quit my day job and join the coven full-time––if they’d even let me––but I do want to explore it. It’d be nice to have something that I’m naturally good at, that I’m meant to be good at, and eager to practice in order to get better.
“Here, I’m sending you some screenshots.” Camilla says. They’re all from her grimoire. “Consider it homework. When you’re cooking, try them out. See how you feel, if you sense a pull to a deeper layer of your process in preparing food, and let me know what shows up for you.”
“Wow, thank you so much.” I don’t know much about witches, but I know their grimoires are private, sacred journals they carry with them at all times, and the fact that Camilla is so open to sharing hers with me means a lot.
She texts me a list of food allergies and how many guests will need to be accommodated, and I work on putting a shopping list together based on the recipes I’ll be using. The party is at one o’clock tomorrow afternoon, and will run until four, so I decide to prepare the food in the bar kitchen in the morning, and drop off the food around noon. Once I add up the proper quantities of each ingredient I’ll need, I drive down to the main square andpark in front of Local Harvest, Mapletown’s only grocery store. I’ve been here many times in the past and have always been pleasantly surprised by the selection, despite the small size of the store.
Dominic is waiting outside without a coat when I return to the bar. He doesn’t even look cold. I assume it’s a zombie thing, since it’s only twenty-two degrees out, but who knows. “Look at all these goodies.” His grin is lopsided, and his eyes are sparkling amid the dreary gray sky. My heart squeezes just looking at him.
Somehow, he’s able to get five bags in one hand, and six in the other, leaving me nothing to carry inside. I urge him to let me carry something, but he ignores me.
Natalie breezes into the kitchen while we’re putting things in the walk-in fridge and lets Dominic know her shift is over. “Are you guys free tonight?”
Dominic and I exchange a confused look.
