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She glanced away and let out a breath. “Old habits die hard. I’m used to doing this alone. Some help might be kind of nice. Maybe I can avoid any side-effects next time.”

“Why don’t you show me what you’ve done so far? Maybe I can offer some insight. It’s okay to take a leap of faith sometimes.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding along as if the vigorous head movement would give her the courage to start walking again.

“I’d also love to know more about your curse.” I figured I may as well put it all out there. She seemed to appreciate my honesty.

“You know what...” she said. I could see the exact moment something shifted in her eyes. She’d made up her mind. “Fine.”

She turned on her heel and strode down the road, taking her pizza out of the box and biting it with fervor. As she chewed on the greasy pizza with resolve in her eyes, I didn’t think I’d seen anything quite so perfect.

She was chaos incarnate and I was desperate for a life full of adventure and spontaneity. This was a perfect match.

I followed her into the antique shop. She paused long enough to flip the sign to ‘closed’ before leading me back to the room I’d wandered into earlier.

“This is just one of my work areas. I try not to experiment with anything bigger in the center of town,” she explained, looking excited instead of nervous now. Even if she had an antique store this girl was made for alchemy and research. I could sense it.

“So, where do you experiment?” My grin had her chuckling. She had to be questioning my sanity by now.

“You know that clearing I ran to?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “There’s a little cabin out there. Nobody claimed it, so I kind of turned it into a lab.”

“So, why are we in your backup lab instead of there?”

“I can’t give away all my secrets already, can I?” she teased. It was nice to see her personality coming out again after her outburst earlier. The little witch had regained some of her confidence.

She dug around on the desk for a moment before pulling out a folded sheet of paper and handing it over.

“These are the things I need.”

I slowly scanned the list of ingredients, letting out a low whistle. Each item was more rare than the last.

“None of this is going to be easy to find.”

“Now you know my pain,” she said with a huff. “I can only gather what they’ll allow me to ship in. I can only find the herbs if I can forage them around here. Otherwise I have to sneak ou⁠—”

She cut herself off, looking up at me with wide eyes.

I couldn’t help but grin.

“Oh, little witch... have you been up to no good?”

“Are you just now realizing that? The chickens didn’t give it away?” she shot back. I couldn’t tell if she was flirting now, but I hoped she was.

“You’re going to have to stop blaming everything on the chickens. It seems you were living a life of crime long before them.”

“You caught me,” she said as she glanced around, pride shining in her expression. “I think, at some point over the years, I realized people were going to think what they wanted no matter what I did. So, I decided to stop giving a fuck. If I can find a cure for this awful curse, and maybe some of my friends’ curses, too, then all the sneaking around and deceit will be worth it.”

“It’s a noble cause,” I said, my words genuine. I respected the hell out of this witch for fighting back against the circumstances she’d found herself in.

No one asked to be cursed, and I’d seen enough to know she had nothing but good intentions.

“And now,” I said with a smile, “you have a secret weapon.”

“What’s that?” she asked, skeptical again.

Oh, little witch. You aren’t the only one with a plan and no fucks to give.

“Me.”