Rough Around the Hedges Snippet (Patreon)

I'm currently working on the new BTLN chapter, but I'm behind. I already had a massive workload the last few months, and all of the smoke really isn't helping matters. Not only does it make me ill, but today my son is home because he was coughing too much at school. Since Bigs just had covid, and because it's protocol at Smalls' school, I gave permission for a covid test. So far, negative, but he gets to go to the doctor tomorrow just incase his cough isn't from smoke. 

The downside of working from home is that any hiccup cuts into your work time. Today I had to figure out how to get Smalls home since I didn't have a car, then make a doctor's appointment, and then since he's home, I've been interrupted by him 800 times. So it's like work for five minutes, then get a lozenge, tea, a snack, explain once again that I do not know how to do anything in Minecraft, and so on and so forth.

Since you've all been so wonderfully patient with me, and as a special shout out to bookseller Sara (Sarah? I know too many Sarah's and I can't remember if yours was an H or not, despite writing your name down several times) that I chatted with at the signing last weekend, here's a snippet of Rough Around the Hedges.

(This scene is from Van's POV. Her niece, Savvy, is teething, for context.)

I would have loved to say that Savvy was magically happy after that, but that would have been a filthy lie. Despite Will’s magical powers, she was still uncomfortable and grumbly. We had to dose her with tylenol and use some of the frozen stuff he brought. Eventually she fell asleep and we deposited her on my bed, tucked in carefully with Kodo and Podo on watch. They curled up around my niece, happily snuggling in. If she so much as twitched, they’d let me know.

Familiars beat baby monitors hands down.

Before I could tip toe out of the room, I found Will frowning at papers on my desk. Papers that I’d meant to hide away. It wasn’t that I was ashamed about them it was…well, I just wasn’t sure how I was feeling about the whole thing.

He looked up, searching my face. “You didn’t tell me you were trying to get your hedge witchery license.”

There was no accusation in his tone, no hurt, but I still bristled. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not getting it.”

His eyebrows scrunched down in an adorable scowl. I know some people find Will intimidating. He’s huge—built on sturdy lines, the kind of person who has to duck under things on a frequent basis. I wasn’t short, but I rarely needed to duck. Will had visible tattoos on his neck, his arms, and when he reached up to grab something, a bright flash of the wildflowers on his belly. The way he was standing now, dressed all in black, shoulders squared, scowling, would probably make a lot of people nervous.

People who didn’t know his blonde hair had been spiked up by Savvy’s hands. Who’d never seen him giggling on the floor with two bouncy ferrets. People who didn’t know that when he hugged you, he gave all of himself.

He held up the papers. “This filled out application suggests otherwise.”

I snatched them out of his hands. “I was thinking about it, okay?” I pulled open a drawer and shoved the papers inside. “I changed my mind.”

Will examined my face carefully, the hard lines of his mouth softening as he blew out a sigh. “That so?”

I crossed my arms. “Yeah.”

“Any chance this has something to do with your father?” Will said the words gently, but that didn’t keep them from scalding me.

Mostly because he was right.

When I didn’t answer, he rubbed a hand over his face. “Nessa, you usually tell me this stuff. Why keep this hidden?” His eyes were so gentle it actually hurt to look at him. “I’m safe.”

Oh no. He’d pulled out the “Nessa.” Everyone else—Will included—called me Van. Except when we were alone. Then Will called me Nessa. No idea why. I just knew that I liked it. A secret name, just for us. I didn’t have a good answer for his question. Embarrassment, maybe? Like this was the final thing to make Will see me for the awful fucking mess I really was. I shrugged.

“Okay.” He put his hands on my arms, rubbing them with his thumbs. “Tell me now?”

“None of your business, Willhardt.”

He winced. That’s right, buddy. If you’re going to pull out the Nessa, then I’m going to pull out the Willhardt. Which was Will’s actual name. Like on his birth certificate. It was, apparently, the last name of some distant ancestor and his dad had liked it. Made him sound like a knight. You can bet it went over real well in school.

“Don’t be mean.” He kept rubbing my arms, waiting. Patient. Will could wait forever, which meant I might as well tell him now.

“Fine,” I said, more than a little petulant. “I wanted to take a bigger hand in business at Wicked Brews. See about becoming a partner.”

He smiled and at it was like the sun coming out. Which I know is cliche and boring, but it wasn’t just because the world got brighter when Will smiled. The sun came up every day—it was expected, routine. But it was also a tiny daily miracle, one that we counted on. Will’s smiles were like that—a tiny, daily miracle that I needed to live.

Even when he was annoying the shit out of me.

“That’s great. I had no idea you were considering it.” That stupid sunshine smile grew brighter, then suddenly eclipsed. “What crushed your dream?”

“My father.”

He sighed. “I should have expected that.”

To get a hedge witch certification, you needed a degree. Which was no problem. But to get into the degree program, you needed copies of your training certification in magical studies. Because my father didn’t trust anyone to teach us that stuff “properly” he’d done the training himself. Well, him and a selection of graduate assistants.

He’d assumed we’d follow in his footsteps as arcanists. We didn’t. Cue my father’s massive disappointment in us.

Juliet was almost done getting her license to work as a transitional therapist with her Uncanny clients. I was so, so proud of her. My dad was mortified. If he was dismissive of that, you can sure as hell guess how he’d feel about my choices. To him, hedgewitchery was the magical studies equivalent of a fast food job. Which was ridiculous, but what can I say, what my dad lacks in warmth and redeeming features, he makes up for in classicist, mysoginist fuckery.

I explained all this to Will, who understood the problem immediately.

“Your dad will never sign off on your forms, will he? Not if you’re not using them to become an arcanist.”

“Got it in one,” I said, hugging myself tighter.

Will looked thoughtful for a moment, his hands still on my shoulders. “Can you recertify? Get someone else to sign off on them? Retake the courses?”

I laughed and it sounded terrible, even to me. “To recertify, I’d have to explain why. They’ll contact my dad.” Who would do everything in his power to block the process. “His former grad students could maybe sign off, but they’re all too in awe or afraid of him. Retaking the courses would take three years and more money than I could scrape up.”

As it was, I was going to have to get scholarships and things to take my hedgewitch classes. It was doable, as long as I never did anything, went anywhere, or ate actual food. But beyond the money, time was an issue. If I took summer classes and doubled up in classwork, I could get my hedgewitch certification in three years. If I had to retake all the training certification I’d already done? I was looking at least six years.

I couldn’t reasonably ask my bosses to wait that long to start training me as a partner. I was fucked. My dad had once again taken something I wanted and smashed it to pieces and he hadn’t even known he was doing it. He was truly gifted at being an asshat.

Will grabbed my chin with one hand and tipped it up so I was looking at him. “So I guess we go ask your dad.”

I laughed again, even though it wasn’t really funny. “So he can tell me no to my face?”

“Your dad must want something. Surely we can figure out what we can leverage to get his signature?”

I let out a shuddery breath. I could, but it was never that straight forward. My dad liked to use the stick and the carrot simultaneously and just for fun he sometimes threw out the carrot right when you were about to grab it. I wouldn’t be able to trust anything he said, and said so.

Will shrugged. “We’ll try. If he offers something, I’ll be there to witness. You won’t be alone, Nessa.” He wrapped me into a hug and I snuggled into it.

“What if he says no?”

“Then he says no and we move onto the next step.”

I hiccuped and realized I’d started crying. “What if he says yes?”

He squeezed tighter. “Then we get it in writing and notarize the fuck out of it.”

“What does that even mean?” I said, laughing for real this time.

He smiled down at me, a shy smile this time. “I don’t know. But it sounded good, didn’t it?”

New chapter soon! 

-Lish