Chapter 16: 16: Carol and Junie

Both of the people in the little building turned to face Wren, who gave a little wave in greeting.

The taller woman was obviously a tandrast, Wren realised now she could see her face clearly: lean and stub-horned with an eruption of black hair, skin the colour of a dying ember, and eyes like magma bubbling up out of scorched rocks. Wren had met a few tandrast in Din, of varying colours and temperaments.

The shorter one was clad in overalls and gloves that swallowed her small frame. She pushed the pair of clear goggles she was wearing up onto her forehead; her dark hair was tied up in a lilac ribbon, and the upper part of one ear bore two small silver rings. She was perhaps twenty - a little younger than Mercie, Wren guessed.

“Well, hi,” said the tandrast. “You, uh, looking for something?”

For some reason, the phrasing of the question hit Wren hard. She’d been dwelling too much on life in general, probably. “I don’t really know,” she replied.

The two women exchanged glances.

“Uh,” said the tandrast. “I mean, I figured you were probably looking for the distillery. Kinda rhetorical.”

“Oh.” Wren cleared her throat, trying to ignore the unpleasant warmth that had just flooded her cheeks. “Yeah, Myrinna sent me to find… Barley, I think she said?”

“That's my dad,” said the human woman. “He's Barley Clair, runs the distillery.” She took off her gloves and tossed them on a table. “You're working for Myrinna?”

“Ehhhhhhh…” Wren held up a hand, palm down and fingers spread, and tilted it from side to side. “It's sort of complicated.”

“Well, I guess that makes us colleagues,” said the young woman, giving Wren a small but genuine smile. “I'm Juniper - I work at the Hilarious Misunderstanding a few hours a week. And we're a supplier, too, since the shop sells Clair gin.”

“Sounds like a conflict of interest to me,” muttered the tandrast. Then she gave a disinterested wave and told Wren her name.

"Nice to meet you, Juniper, Carol. I'm Wren.”

"No,” said the tandrast with the air of someone very used to having that exact interaction, “not like - it's -" and she spelled it.

"Karrhael," Wren tried.

"Yeah, that's more like - but it sounds more, y'know, like Carol."

"Carol," Wren said again.

"Karrhael," she corrected.

"Karrhael," said Wren, pronouncing it almost exactly like "Carol".

"Close enough. Anyway, I'm helping Junie out today ‘cause she's a treasure, but most of the time I'm a blue witch.”

“Oh,” said Wren.

One of Karrhael’s eyebrows rose. “Surprised?”

“I don't know if I've ever met an actual blue witch,” Wren said truthfully. “I'm not even sure what that is - sorry. I don't mean to be, um, ignorant, or…”

“You know the rhyme, right?” Juniper asked.

Wren did:

Red for flesh, and green for earth and air.

Yellow masters light and flame and force.

Black can twist the space from here to there.

Purple mangles time, a risky course.

Grey perceives what's there and what is not.

Pink's a friend to all that nature's grown.

Blue crafts wonders from the things they've got.

Forbidden white is death, like ash and bone.

“I never really knew what the line about blue meant, though,” Wren admitted. “It's… a bit vague.”

“Yeah, well.” Karrhael gave a low grumble. “I once heard it used to be different: Grey may bend the minds of men with ease / Blue devises wondrous recipes. Then they changed the line for grey a few Crowns ago, try to make it sound less, y’know, creepy. And recip-ees didn't exactly scan well anyway.”

“And that's not even getting into when they tried to add lines explaining the difference between mages and witches,” Juniper contributed.

“Oh, yeah,” Karrhael snorted. “Never mind squeezing something about enchanters in there. Or warlocks. Cultivators, even - stormclouds know where you’d put them.” She huffed, then turned a friendlier expression to Wren. “Look, come see me some time, I'll show you. Good?”

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Wren nodded. “Good.” Then, because curiosity finally got the better of her: “What was it you were talking about? Something being impossible or not?”

Juniper and Karrhael exchanged what Wren thought were mildly embarrassed glances.

“There's a village newsletter,” Juniper said after a moment of sheepish silence. “Goes out twice a month. A few months ago, they added a section - there's a story in there now, like a novel but published one chapter at a time.”

“Weird,” said Wren.

“Well, lots of the classics were originally published that way,” Juniper noted. “Anyway, nobody knows who's writing it, but it's…” She shared another look with Karrhael, this one almost giddily thrilled, then leaned forwards as if she couldn't help sharing. “It’s called Look Out, Pigeon! and it’s set in this fairytale world, but there’s so much going on, and, well, it's good. It's really good. It's got drama and mystery and romance, all that, and I think this character called Catfoot must be the daughter of Wing and Meander-yonder - there are all these hints they loved each other once, and probably do again, but there are all these reasons it can't work between them, but it totally could anyway, and the dates we know they were together line up with Catfoot's age - but Karrhael here says no, can't be.” She turned to her companion, arms folded in challenge, slightly flushed.

“I just don't think it's necessary,” said the tandrast, shrugging. “Let Catfoot be Catfoot, y'know, not Catfoot's Parents Junior.”

“But,” said Juniper, “but-but-but, it'd mean it's her birthright to claim -”

“I know,” Karrhael groaned, “but she's obviously gonna get it anyway, stick a big middle finger to the whole idea that you have to be born into anything -” She broke off, shaking her head with an amused grumble of laughter. “Sorry,” she said to Wren. “It might be kinda silly, being this invested in something like that, but… it matters to us, y'know.”

“It's not silly,” Wren said immediately. “I… don't know whether there's a lot that matters to me that much.”

It would be nice, she thought, to care that deeply about something relatively small. For the Big Overwhelming Life Stuff not to be the only stuff that mattered.

“Hey,” said Karrhael, “what's your deal?”

“My deal?”

“Yeah, y'know. You got this thing going on where you look like you ain't sure where you're at or where you're going. And I'm guessing you just left somewhere else, ‘cause you weren't here before.”

Wren hung her head. “It's that obvious, I guess.”

“Well, yeah,” said Karrhael, “but it's okay, kid. You’re here now. Hopefully that's good enough to be getting on with.”

Wren had nothing to say to that. Maybe it is. I don’t know. Why does everyone in this village keep striking right at the heart of my existential insecurities?

“You were here for my dad?” Juniper said, mercifully giving something Wren to latch on to beyond the awkward silence.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Myrinna said he would know what her order was.”

“Ah, right.” Juniper held up one finger in a just be a second gesture and disappeared into the main house, leaving Wren and Karrhael each staring somewhere at the floor between them.

“What… were you two working on?” Wren asked when the pause became too long to bear, which was not very long at all.

“Ah.” Karrhael’s face lit up; she beckoned Wren over, turning to the table and the assortment of equipment upon it. “Some of this stuff is the distillery’s standard kit, but some of it we borrowed from Nina - Nina Vyel, that is, runs the apothecary, sells stuff from bigger suppliers but dabbles in experimental chemistry herself, and I’ll be buried in ice if Alacrity’s not doing some pretty unconventional pharmaceutical work too. Anyway, means we’ve got a bunch of stuff here, everything we need for making spirits the normal way plus some extras. Junie’s been thinking there must be a whole ton of things you could make out of the ingredients they already have here, and I’ve been looking for a project to just play around with, so we’re… what would Nina say? We’re in the discovery phase.”

Wren peered at the assembled tubes and containers, and learned absolutely nothing in the process. “What kind of stuff is the ‘normal’ stuff?”

“Gin, mostly,” said Karrhael, poking a long, thin tube with clear droplets of something slowly plopping off the end into a glass flask. “Everyone and their dogs can make cider in their sheds around here, but spirits are a bit tougher to come by. More, y’know, exclusive.”

“I could use a drink,” said Wren without really thinking about it.

Karrhael patted her on the shoulder. “Spoken like someone who actually could,” she said. “Some people say things like that ‘cause they think it’s the thing to say, and those people usually end up drinking too much… I’ll get you a bottle on me, consider it a welcome gift. Don’t go drinking straight from any of this stuff here, though, it’s either dangerously pure alcohol or we’ve been messing with it in ways we don’t totally understand.”

Wren, who would never have admitted it but was a few seconds and one bad impulse away from sticking her finger under the dripping tube and giving it a good lick, assumed her most sensible and responsible expression and gave a solemn nod.

Juniper returned, hefting a crate of clear bottles that looked far too heavy for any one person to carry, let alone someone with such slim arms, and that was big enough to entirely obscure her face from view. She poked her head out around her burden. “Karrhael, the trolley?”

“You got it,” said the tandrast, zipping over to where a wheeled metal contraption leant against a wall. A hand truck, Wren thought it might have been called: one of those things with handles and a single low platform on which parcels and boxes could be rested. Karrhael brought it over and helped Juniper set the crate on its ledge.

“I’ll help you take them back,” Juniper said to Wren. “I need to talk to Myrinna anyway.” To Karrhael, she said, “You can keep trying for the imbued flavour thing if you want, but don’t start testing the explosive one without me, okay?”

Karrhael waved a hand and went “eh” in a way that Wren interpreted as absolutely not committing to be at all cautious or responsible, but was apparently good enough for Juniper.

“Let’s go,” said Juniper, waving Wren along with one hand and grabbing the handle of the hand truck with the other.

“Oh!” Karrhael exclaimed, just as Wren was about to follow Juniper out of the gate. “Junie - one of those bottles is for Wren, on me. ‘Kay?”

“No, it’s not,” Juniper said, “‘cause all of these are for Myrinna.” She grinned. “But I bet I can get Myrinna to buy one so you don’t have to.”

Karrhael grinned back, then turned to the table of distilling equipment and immediately set something on fire.

“Is that normal?” Wren asked, following Juniper as they headed off the Clair property and back onto the path.

Juniper’s face was screwed up in focus as she manoeuvred her delivery over the rough ground, but she spared a glance back. “Oh, yeah. She’s put it out already, don’t worry.”

“That’s alright, then,” Wren muttered.