FOUR MONTHS LATER
Kiela stirred what was supposed to be apple jam and wondered if she’d mashed it too much. Can’t mash it less now. Caz peered into the pot. “It looks like applesauce,” he said.
“I guess we could sell applesauce.”
“It’s a jam shop,” he pointed out. “Says so on the sign.”
“Maybe it will transform into jam soon.” She kept stirring. Outside, Larran was working in the cottage garden again. It had taken a lot of effort to tame the yard into anything reasonable after what Caz dubbed the Great Brambling. Occasionally the members of the Pine Cone Coven had pitched in, along with Larran. Sometimes with Ivor but always with Bryn, Eadie, Ulina, and Radane, they met twice a week to assemble more remedies and learn new spells for healthier plants and trees, kinder weather, and better fishing—Caz would take copious notes for the spellbook that he, Kiela, and Meep were writing, a compilation of the spells of Caltrey. Afterward, the coven would help out a bit in the garden. Kiela always gifted them with extra jam as thanks. It seemed most people in Caltrey were quite fond of jam, especially when combined with Bryn’s pastries. Once word got out about the extra jam, Tobin frequently joined them too. Ulina and Caz took turns playing the harp while the others worked.
Caz swung down from the counter and then up onto the table where he’d left his harp. Using his leaves, he began plucking out a melody. A few more leaves, he added another harmony. Kiela swayed to the music as she stirred. Their newest addition to the family, the tabby cat with green feathers, purred on the hearth along with the music. He’d moved in shortly after the day of the flower storm, and since then he’d become nicely plump and his coat glossy, thanks in part to a steady supply of fish from Larran.
Hearing voices rising above the harp, she glanced out the front window to see the core members of the Pine Cone Coven coming out of the greenery: Bryn, followed by Eadie, Ulina, and Radane. They were carrying baskets of ingredients that they’d gathered, and talking and laughing as they walked.
Larran came inside through the back door. As he removed his gardening gloves, he kissed Kiela’s cheek. He peered into the pot. “Delicious-looking applesauce.”
She sighed. “Thanks.” Moving the pot off the stove, she wondered whether to bother pouring it into jars or just start over. Spooning a bit out, she tested the viscosity. Edible, but it was much closer to applesauce than jam. Tomorrow I’ll try another batch. “The coven’s here. Caz and I were thinking of experimenting with a new water-desalinating remedy. If it works, we can give the fisherfolk and boaters the ability to create as much drinkable water as they need.”
“Sounds useful.”
“Do you want to stick around or—”
“Not today,” Larran said, with an apology in his voice. “I’m going to go down to the cove and check on Sian and the others.” Six of his merhorses were pregnant with foals, and Larran had been hovering as if he were the father. He’d brought them to Kiela’s cove so they could be sheltered from the wind and waves as they neared birthing.
“Who’s with them this morning?” Kiela asked.
Before he could answer, a high-pitched shriek cut through the air. Abandoning the applesauce, Kiela rushed to the door. Larran made it out first.
“Meeeeeeeeeeep!”
Without pausing, Larran barreled past the cactus and down the steps.
“Is it the mares?” Kiela asked. “Is one of them giving birth?”
The cactus bobbed their top half so hard in a clear nod that they fell over. Caz helped them steady themself on their roots, while Kiela dashed back inside to the bookshelves. She pulled out the notebook where she’d compiled notes on how to help with merhorse births. She’d studied it backward and forward already, but now wasn’t the time for error.
“Caz, ingredients!” she called.
“On it!”
She and the plants had set the ingredients aside in a basket, ready to go at any moment, enough for all the mares. Caz retrieved the basket from the cabinet beside the sink, while she got out the pestle and mortar. He dumped in the carefully selected leaves, berries, and seeds.
At the window, Eadie stuck her head in over the counter. “How can we help?”
“Which one of them is giving birth?” Kiela asked Meep.
“Meep, meep, meep,” they said. And then: “Meep.”
Kiela froze in the middle of mashing the ingredients. “Four? Four of them at once? Okay, yes, definitely need help. Thank you, Eadie. Caz, please show the coven the spell.”
Bryn claimed the spellbook from Caz. “We’ll practice.”
“I have never seen a merhorse give birth,” Radane said.
“It’s wet,” Eadie said. “Very wet.”
Outside, the women sat in a circle and began to memorize the syllables. Kiela called out corrections on pronunciation while she prepared the paste. It had to be fresh or she would have had it premixed. She hoped they were quick enough.
As soon as the paste was ready, she rushed outside. Everyone in the coven got to their feet (and hooves), and they all hurried down to the cove.
Larran was hip-deep in the water already, switching from merhorse to merhorse, trying his best to soothe them as they flailed and whinnied in pain. “Kiela!”
“We’re here!” Without bothering to kick off her shoes or undress, she waded directly into the water. It was, thankfully, warm today. Seaweed brushed against her ankles, and the bottom of the cove clung to her shoes. “Help me rub this on them. Anywhere on their scales. They just need to absorb it through their skin into their bloodstream.” She reached for the nearest merhorse, but the mare bit at the air and slapped her tail against the water.
“I’ll steady them. You smear the stuff.” Larran caught the mare’s torso against his chest and began to rub her neck, making soothing crooning noises.
The merhorse’s kicking slowed, and Kiela was able to move in closer. She applied the paste as quickly as she could. “Start the spell,” Kiela ordered Eadie, Bryn, Ulina, Radane, and Caz. Meep held the paper with the spell aloft with his needles.
Together on the dock, the Pine Cone Coven began to chant as Kiela and Larran moved on to the next merhorse. When they got to the end of the spell, Kiela said, “Again.”
Restarting the chant, they continued to cycle through the spell as Kiela applied the paste to all four of the merhorses. The other two mares who were not yet in labor treaded water in the deeper part of the cove, watching with wild eyes. At the mouth to the cove, several mermaids and mermen had gathered. The merbaby that Kiela had once saved hoisted himself onto a rock for a better view. He’d grown over the past four months, and his tail sparkled with new flecks of gold and silver.
The horse-fish with teal scales—her name was Amarin, Kiela knew; she’d learned all of their names—twisted and cried out. Larran positioned himself beside her. “Shh, shh, that’s it, mama, you’re doing great. You can do this. Breathe.” He stroked her throat slowly and steadily until her breathing matched his strokes. She flailed less. “That’s it.”
As he calmed her, he positioned himself behind her.
In the same soft, soothing voice, he said, “Kiela, stroke her neck and keep her calm. Watch for her teeth. She may try to bite. She won’t mean it, but it’ll still hurt.”
The coven kept chanting as Kiela crooned to the mare.
“Contraction coming,” Larran warned.
She dodged in time to avoid the mare swiping at her with her teeth.
Three more contractions, and a foal with an emerald fish tail slipped out into Larran’s arms. “Good job, mama!” He rinsed the foal off in the water and guided him toward his mother. The foal immediately latched on and began to drink, and Larran turned to the next mare.
“Oh, that is amazing!” Radane said, after the last syllable of the spell.
She and the others started immediately into the next recitation as the second merhorse, Marri, gave birth to a little filly. Sian was third with a colt.
In the space of a single chaotic hour, all four babies were born. Larran cut the umbilical cords, helped the mothers pass the afterbirth, and checked over each mare and child to ensure they were all healthy—all were. By the time Kiela and Larran climbed out of the water, all four newborn foals had nursed for the first time and were now resting close to their mothers. Cooing and crooning, the mermaids and mermen swam around the mares, delivering seaweed for them to eat once they’d recovered enough and marveling at the foals without disturbing them.
Kiela flopped onto the dock. Her friends were all drenched from the amount of splashing. Caz and Meep had kept clear of the splash zone, she was happy to see.
“Rest,” Eadie ordered. “We’ll make dinner.”
“That’s okay,” Kiela said. “You don’t have to—”
Eadie snorted. “Of course we don’t have to. We choose to. Don’t argue. Unless you mind us using your kitchen and ingredients? May we?”
She waved her hand. “It’s fine. But thanks for asking.” It felt like a lifetime ago that she’d snapped at Larran for cooking with her stuff without permission, but she still liked to be asked. It was her kitchen, even though it was filled with memories of her parents—or perhaps because it was filled with them.
“I’ll bake dessert,” Bryn offered as they climbed the stairs out of the cove. “Radane, I’ll mix the batter if you make the cream. Strawberry flavored?”
“Strawberry and honey, I think,” Radane said. She’d been working at the bakery with Bryn, and Bryn insisted she was a genius with flavors. Apparently, their customers agreed—they’d even had a few orders from nearby islands. One batch featured Kiela’s jam.
“I’ll do a salad,” Ulina volunteered.
Caz offered to help her, insisting it was self-preservation, not altruism.
After a few minutes they were gone, leaving just Kiela and Larran with the sleepy merhorses and the delighted merfolk. Kiela lay where she’d flopped after coming out of the water, on her back looking up at the clear blue sky.
“Four babies,” Larran marveled. “Four healthy babies with healthy mamas, thanks to you.” He turned his head and smiled at her as if she’d gifted him with the sun, the moon, and all the stars.
“It was everyone,” Kiela said. She, Caz, and Radane had perfected the birthing spell; she, Caz, and Meep had located the ingredients; and the full coven had made it possible for her to apply the ingredients while the spell was cast. And of course Larran had been midwife to the mares. It wouldn’t have been possible without him coaxing the mares through it, catching the foals, and cutting the cords.
Larran lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “It was you. You, caring enough to make things better, brave enough to try. You brought hope with you in that library scow. You, Kiela. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Kiela said. She searched for the words to say exactly how he’d changed her life. She’d come to Caltrey with a plan to hide in her parents’ cottage, seeing no one and befriending no one, and then Larran had showed up with his ridiculous scythe and a cinnamon roll . . . and suddenly it wasn’t about escaping or hiding anymore. Find someone who will be there for you, her father had once told her. Someone who will laugh with you through the years. Someone who makes you happy day-to-day. “You built me bookshelves.”
“And jam shelves.”
“Can’t forget the jam shelves,” Kiela agreed.
“Will you marry me?”
Kiela propped herself up on her elbow and stared at him. He was looking at her with the most vulnerable expression in his beautiful eyes. “I’m not leaving my cottage. It has my jam shop and my library and my garden.” Plus it was Caz and Meep’s home. And the chicken. “And you can’t leave your house by the shore. Your merhorses need you.”
“So?” he asked. “I’m not asking our houses to marry. I’m asking you to be my wife. If you’d like to. If you don’t want to, I love you just as much. You can forget that I asked, and I’ll pretend I didn’t, and we can continue on exactly as we were. Either way, we can sleep and eat and live wherever, whenever we want, together when we want or not. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or push before you—”
“Yes,” Kiela said.
“Yes?”
“Yes, I’ll marry you.”
“Oh. Yes.” He smiled like the sunrise, bright and unstoppable. “Good.”
Kiela scooted closer to him. Both of them were still sopping wet and exhausted, but he wrapped his arm around her, and she curled against him. One of the merhorse foals drifted toward their feet, which were dangling off the end of the dock. He nuzzled against their toes.
“You’re a miracle,” Larran said.
She wasn’t certain whether he was talking about her or the foal, but it didn’t matter. It was all equally wonderful. They lay in each other’s arms as the merhorse mares and foals floated in the cove, and the sunset spread across the sky above.
“What are you thinking?” Larran asked her.
She kissed him and then said, “I’m happy I’m home.”