Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 209: Convenience Market

“Stop.”

Irene froze the dagger mid-stroke.

“He’s your foster father,” May said. “You’ve decided to kill him, but you haven’t decided that you should. There’s supposed to be hesitation in the arm — a pull — and then resolution. Right now you look like someone killing a spider.” She clapped her hands once. “Again.”

“Yes.” Irene turned back to her mark.

Half a month since Cinderella’s first performance, and May was still here. She was not sure, when she examined the question, exactly why that was. She had stayed for the second performance because she had questions about one scene’s blocking. She had stayed for the rehearsals of The Rooster Crows at Midnight because the script warranted it — any company that was going to perform that piece needed proper direction, and the talent in the room was sufficient but needed shaping. She had stayed for The Diary of a Witch because the moment she read the script she understood it was going to outlast her.

The Diary of a Witch was unlike anything she had seen in thirty years of professional theater. Three POVs, three different relationships to the same events, and the central figure — the witch herself — never explained, never justified, only shown, only present in the scenes as a fact the narrative placed beside the audience and let them see. No romance between the princess and the stable boy, no court intrigue, no convenient resolution. Only courage and friendship and the ordinary people who chose to see the truth when it was put in front of them.

May had read it twice and wanted to applaud and had, privately, applauded.

This was also the reason she was still here. The script was the reason. That was the reason.

Irene came down with the dagger again. This time there was hesitation in the arm — real hesitation, the kind that came from understanding the scene rather than executing it. Sam, in the role of the foster father, registered the blow with appropriate immediacy and let his body follow the mechanics of it correctly: chest wound, fast, no time for the operatic death speech. He crumpled at the right moment.

“Better,” May said. “The pause worked. You landed the expression — that relief with grief underneath it, peace at a cost. That’s the scene.” She glanced at the light coming through the rehearsal room window. “We’ll end here.”

Irene bowed with the company, and May received it without feeling the need to comment on the courtliness of it. An instructor’s courtesy. She had become, she noticed, the instructor.

“Miss May —” Rosia started, her hand over her mouth in the gesture that meant she was already suppressing a smile, ”— isn’t it true that the rehearsal ends early because Sir Carter is waiting?”

“Because the light is poor,” May said.

“Sir Carter keeps the most predictable schedule,” Tina added, joining in with the enthusiasm of someone who has found an amusement and intends to spend it completely. “He arrives at the rehearsal building at the same hour every afternoon —”

“And Miss May always seems to know exactly what time that is,” Rosia finished.

Irene raised one hand and the pair fell quiet. “Miss May has not accepted Sir Carter’s invitation,” she said. “And you’ve both had very productive afternoons. I suggest you maintain the standard.”

May did not thank her. She nodded, adjusted her jacket, and left.

The parasol trees cast their shade in long strips across the main avenue. Under them, the afternoon felt almost bearable — the dust that had been a constant presence two weeks ago was largely gone, suppressed by Leaves’ growth and the steady wetting-down the residents had taken on as a shared task. The town moved differently than it had the first day she arrived. More settled, less improvised.

Carter was standing under the third tree from the corner at exactly the time she had not been expecting him.

“You didn’t wait long,” he said.

“I wasn’t waiting,” she said. “Let’s go.”

The first time he had asked, she had refused. He had returned. The second time, she had declined less emphatically, and he had taken this as something he could build on, which was either confidence or obtuseness and she had not yet decided which. What she had decided was that he did not perform interest — he was simply interested, with the straightforward character of a man who had learned to want simple things and was willing to say so.

She found this confusing in a way she could not entirely account for.

The convenience market was a ten-minute walk. Along the way, the town changed around them — the older parts with their stone buildings and packed-earth lanes giving way to the newer district with its broad straight streets, the brick houses with their surprising symmetry, the market square that Irene had described to her before she arrived and which she had not quite believed until she saw it. Hundreds of stalls under wooden roofs, goods sorted by category, prices marked on parchment tags, a separate boutique area in a ring of brick walls with proper walls and a single entrance.

She had thought, that first morning, that it looked designed. It was. Every part of it.

The boutique area’s interior was unusual in a way that still surprised her after two visits: shelves you browsed yourself, no merchants calling, no negotiation, no performance of value. You took what you wanted and paid at the door. The prices were fixed and accurate and there was something unnerving about a commerce that did not expect to be argued with.

Carter led her to the third shelf on the right.

“This is the new product,” he said.

She looked at five or six rectangular objects the color of old cream, each about the size of a large palm. The parchment tag read: Perfumed Soap.

She picked one up and held it near her face. Roses. Distinctly roses — not the synthetic sweetness of cheap scent water but something fuller, with a depth to it. She weighed it in her hand. Firm, not waxy.

“You bathe with it,” Carter said. “The witches — the Prince’s attendants — they’ve all been using it. You stand under the shower and —” He was aware of her expression. “You haven’t been to the castle bathroom.”

“I haven’t been to the castle bathroom.”

“Well. It lathers. You wash with it. Afterward everything is clean and you smell like this.” He gestured at the block she was holding, as if to indicate that the soap itself was sufficient demonstration.

May looked at the price. Twenty-five silver royals. A month’s wage for a skilled artisan. Cheaper than the cheapest bottle of actual perfume she had ever purchased, by a wide margin.

“The perfume in this,” she said. “Do you know what it’s made from?”

“His Highness added it himself,” Carter said. “Something about sugar cane — a plant from the Fjords, a sweet stalk you bite and get juice from. He mentioned it was the base for the fragrance.”

“Sugar cane.” She held the soap closer. “Carter. Sugar cane. Listen to me: if this fragrance can be extracted from a crop plant and added to soap at this volume and this price, you are looking at the death of King’s City’s entire perfume guild.” She paused. “Every alchemist in the country would buy this formula. Are you telling me he’s selling it for twenty-five silver?”

“He set the price himself,” Carter said, looking slightly alarmed.

“Then he doesn’t know what he has.” She turned the soap over in her hands. “Or he knows and doesn’t care. Which is a different kind of problem.” She set it down, then picked it up again. “Don’t ask him about the formula. Don’t mention you saw it. Don’t let anyone from Longsong near this shelf.”

“All right,” Carter said.

He was already picking up a second block and wrapping both in his handkerchief, then a third, then a fourth.

“The limit is two per person,” May said.

“Then we’ll buy them separately and I’ll give you my two outside.” He was already moving to the door. “Come on, before you start disagreeing.”

She stood there for a moment, looking at the space where the soap had been and at Carter’s retreating back. Then she followed him.

The afternoon was golden through the parasol trees when they parted at the avenue, and she carried four bars of perfumed soap and a question she had not decided how to answer.

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