Fairy Godmother

did become involved, and you used your strong emotions to help you focus. But Godmothers and Wizards did not remain so utterly apart from people as the Sorcerers and Sorceresses did — they needed to have some contact with people, to remain anchored in humanity and keep their own emotions alive. It was a difficult balance to maintain — but it wasn't boring.

In all of the magical work she was doing, Elena was constantly concerned that at some point, that store of magical power that The Tradition had surrounded her with would run dry, and finally one day during the haying, when she had made half a dozen charms against cutting (a little talisman made of tiny leaden scythe with no edge at all, a sprig of High John, and a bit of cloth with the person's blood on it) she voiced that concern to Madame.

Bella was out in the garden, deciding, with Lily's help, just which herbs would be cut that night in the light of the full moon. When Elena stammered out her worry, Madame gave her a long and considering look.

'It is true that with nearly anyone else, I would have taught you how to harvest power by now,' she said at last. 'The reason I haven't is that you arrived with so much you haven't yet expended half of it. But something could happen to me — ' she paused at the sight of Elena's stricken look, and laughed ' — no, no, I'm not anticipating anything! No premonitions, no predictions, I assure you, just the common sense that things can happen that no one foresees. So, since those talismans and a few other things have to go to the village anyway, you might as well come along with me, and I'll show you how it's done.'

'I'll harness Dobbin,' said Lily instantly.

'You go change your apron and get your hat,' Bella told Elena. 'I'll have Rose make up the basket.'

So by the time Elena had changed her apron for a clean one, tied a kerchief over her hair to keep the dust out and placed her wide-brimmed, flat-crowned straw hat over that and was down the stair again, the donkey and cart were at the front gate, and Madame was already on the driver's bench.

Although he wasn't nearly as fast as the Little Humpback Horse, the donkey could keep a surprisingly quick pace for one so old and small. A pleasant hour brought them to the village of Louvain, and Madame was hardly over the little stone bridge before the women who had commissioned those charms came running to meet them.

'You're just in time,' said the first of them, a cheery, round-faced woman who had three happily grubby little children trailing along behind her. 'Haying begins tomorrow! I don't know what we'd have done if you hadn't come today.'

'Tell those dolts to be extra careful, that's what we'd have done,' said another, thin and careworn, with a grimace. 'Still, they're men! You never can depend on them not to play the fool when there's a lot of them together!'

The last of the women, a sweet-faced girl with a furrowed brow, took her talisman but whispered to Madame when the others were just out of earshot, 'Madame Bella, it's — can you — '

'That's why I came today,' Madame whispered back. 'Just let me leave my simples with Brother Tyne, and I'll see you before I leave.'

Elena had expected from the name that Brother Tyne was a priest — but in fact, he was an apothecary with a little shop on the village square, the sign of his trade — a large, round-bottomed bottle — hanging above his door. When they drew up to his shop, he came out and took the basket from Madame, handing her down afterwards as if he was a footman. 'Come along, Apprentice,' Madame called over her shoulder. 'You'll be doing this eventually, so you might as well see our arrangement.'

They didn't stay long in the tiny shop; Brother Tyne counted what they'd brought and apparently there was a set price already for Madame's goods, for there was no haggling. They emerged with a little purse of copper and silver and an empty basket, and a paper with the prices that the Apothecary would pay for each potion on a little slip of paper in Elena's pocket. And on the way out of town, Madame pulled the donkey up beside the gate of a tiny, rose-covered cottage with the prettiest yard Elena had ever seen. The entire place was as cheerful as you could ask, and Elena was struck by the notion that not that long ago, she would have been happy living in such a place. 'Rosalie!' Madame called. 'Have you got that butter I wanted?'

The same young woman who had whispered so urgently to Madame appeared at the door of the cottage. 'I have, and please come and choose the pats for yourself,' she replied. Madame hopped down off the cart, and Elena tied up the donkey to the hedge at the front of the yard and followed her.

Once inside the cottage, it was clear that butter had been nothing more than an excuse to come inside, away from the prying eyes of the neighbors. 'I feel that hemmed in, it's like I can't breathe sometimes,' the young woman was saying, as Elena joined them in the tiny kitchen. 'I can't imagine why it's got so bad, so quickly this time.'

It was then that Elena noticed what she had not before; that the young woman was just beginning to show her pregnancy. Ah, this must be something to do with that, Elena thought — but then wondered. She knew this village had a midwife, and a good one. Why ask Madame Bella for help?

'Well, this should be the last time it's this hard, my dear,' Madame soothed. 'Now just you remember, if you get a craving for anything out-of-season, you send straight to me, that minute, and I'll make a special trip here or send my Apprentice. I don't think you will, once I've done with you today, but it's still possible. Now, Elena, watch and listen.'

When Madame said 'watch' in that tone of voice, it meant magic.

Elena blinked, and saw the whirls of magical power swirling tightly around the young woman, so thick that her features were blurred, as if she wore a veil.

'Rosalie, do you surrender your power to me, freely and of your own will?' Madame asked, slowly, carefully, and clearly. She held her wand just over the crown of the young woman's head. 'Do you renounce this power, not only for yourself, but for the sake of your unborn child?'

'I do,' Rosalie replied, bowing her head slightly. 'I renounce it for the life I have chosen, for the sake of my unborn child, and for the love that I bear my husband.'

With each word that the young woman spoke, the power slowed, and somehow relaxed, until it no longer bound her like coils of wire, but lay about her like loose hay.

'Then I assume it, for the pledge I have made, for the sake of those who will need it, and my duty to those who call upon me,' Madame said, circling young Rosalie's head three times with the tip of her wand — and the power followed it, flowing around and upwards, vanishing into the wand, as if it was somehow sucking it up. That was the only analogy that Elena could make —