∴ ∵ ∴
IN the middle of the witch’s hermitage surrounded by the lake, Rose sat cross-legged, rotating the pestle. The mortar held firmly in place by her feet conveyed a slight vibration to her.
“Ah, shoot! I ground it too much.”
The ingredient meant for a witch’s secret potion became smaller than the desired size. Facing such an apparent failure, Rose threw herself on the floor. Dust danced around her.
“How many years has it been since I last…messed up a potion?”
It was extra mortifying because, while she had experienced countless failures right after inheriting the title of Good Witch of the Lake, in recent years she had become capable of results she could be satisfied with.
Rose knew exactly what went wrong.
“As long as we…get married…”
Her thoughts were entirely dominated by the words she’d overheard Harij saying that morning. Just letting her thoughts stray a little, she messed up her daily fieldwork and basic potion-making. This was a first for her, and she didn’t know what to do with herself.
“I want you to marry me.”
Harij had denied Rose’s accusation that he proposed only because he was still under the love potion’s influence. Was there actually still some chance that the potion drew that proposal out of him? Should she question his intentions now, after all this time?
It was fair to say Rose hadn’t once considered that possibility. Living most of her life with little to no interaction with others may have taught her that people lie, without the real-life experience to help her know when she was being lied to.
Rose even surprised herself by how easily she accepted the straitlaced and arrogant Harij’s love confession in earnest. Perhaps she had experienced too much of his kindness to ever think his proposal was just the passing whims of a nobleman.
She believed his words as naturally as a baby duckling does the first person they see.
And that was precisely why Rose absolutely could not believe what he said in the drawing room.
On the other hand, once the doubts crept in, she couldn’t stop viewing her prior wholehearted trust in him as folly. The part of her that had jumped to conclusions turned back around to sneer at the naïve part of her that blindly believed him.
Rose had trusted Harij. She wanted to put her trust in him. It was none other than she who had decided to take that leap of faith—and it was she who had to take responsibility for where that leap landed her.
Should she doubt him? Believe in him? What was right? What was wrong? Rose had lost all confidence in her ability to judge the truth.
“…I should just go home for the day.”
Staying at the hermitage any longer would only end in her wasting precious ingredients. Dust puffed into the air around her as she weakly stood. Too depressed to mind the dust, Rose shuffled out of the hermitage, her robe’s hem powdered gray.
Outside, the sun was about to drop behind the mountains. She hadn’t even accomplished a quarter of what she had set out to do that day. Rose looked from the lake, which had been dyed madder red by the sunset, to her messier-than-usual abode—and her shoulders sank.
She locked up the hermitage and flipped over the sign. With the key hanging from her neck, Rose picked up an oar, and her eyes widened with surprise.
Standing at the border between the dock and forest was Harij. She was shocked to see him there because, while he might travel to the hermitage with her, he never once came to pick her up.
Perhaps something terrible had occurred at the mansion that required him to fetch her. Rose paddled to the beat of her mounting anxiety.
“Did something happen?”
Though she managed to keep the emotion off her face, panic edged into her voice. Catching on to her concern, Harij slowly shook his head.
“I just came to pick you up since I’m off duty today.”
He’d gone out of his way to pick her up. Rose was stupefied stiff. What a fantastic stage she had reached for her to be experiencing her beloved coming to get her. Such a miracle didn’t exist in the future she had vaguely imagined for herself.
Forgetting every doubt she harbored toward him, Rose quickly spoke to hide how terribly shy and delighted his gesture made her feel.
“Then he even forced you to work on your day off,” she said, thinking Harij couldn’t have sent the prince home without escorting him himself.
“No.” Harij shook his head. “He brought knights with him, so he isn’t my concern today.”
So even a man who tripped and fell in chicken poop still knew how to behave like a prince. Harij probably entrusted his friend to his guard detail after enjoying a pleasant chat and then had the rest of the day to himself.
Rose tracked Harij’s fixed gaze down to her feet. He seemed to be staring at her dirty robe hem. She schooled her features and dusted off her clothes as if it were no big deal.
“…Are you good for the day?”
“Good how?”
“Good to go home?”
“Yes. Staying there any longer won’t—”
—be productive. She shut her mouth just short of finishing her sentence. She wasn’t confident she could answer if he asked her why. Harij scowled, drawing perhaps a different conclusion for her awkward pause.
“Yašm said something to you, didn’t he?”
Rose was astonished he was still worried about that. “No, he didn’t do anything,” she reassured him.
“Then it’s something I did?”
She couldn’t give an immediate answer.