Aspen Fahey is a non-binary aspiring community witch and failed witchfluencer living in downtown Toronto. When their aunt dies and leaves them her house and witching practice on beautiful, idyllic Vancouver Island, their life unexpectedly turns into a Lifetime movie: early thirties enby leaves the big city (including their toxic partner and the job they hate) to move to a beautiful small town, has meet cute with beautiful stranger before running into The One That Got Away.

- - - -

Part 1: Inheritance
Chapter 1

Good morning, Pamela.

Aspen stared blankly at their computer as they considered and discarded several possible responses to the new support ticket. Feeling decidedly undercaffeinated for this level of stupidity, they took a large swig of their coffee, grimacing when they discovered it contained cold remnants of coffee from yesterday. “Ugh. Gross,” they grumbled, questioning every life decision that had led them to accept a magical support job at HexaTech – the largest magical services provider in Canada.

Back when they’d done their witch apprenticeship, they’d had big dreams of doing community work and using their magical talents to make a difference, not knowing that the public sector in Ontario was both massively underfunded and next-to-impossible to enter. Gig work had sucked because they often spent more time networking and looking for clients than they did working. They’d tried to make a name as a witchfluencer™ (and had even had some modest success) but even though it felt like success was always just around the corner, witching as a stable career remained perpetually out of reach.

Unfortunately, since running away to a start a new life as a swamp witch wasn’t an option, they were going to have to find a way to respond to this latest ticket while keeping the implied ‘you fucking idiot’ from being too obvious in their response.

Good morning Pamela.
Despite the name, cursed memes are not actual curses. Someone sending you a cursed meme does not mean that you have been cursed.
Hope that helps.

~Aspen Fahey

They hit send before they could add anything they’d regret later and headed to the kitchen. Tariq was there, dutifully emptying the coffee pot of its last few dregs. Unsurprisingly, the previous person had left just enough to spare themselves the responsibility of putting on a new pot.

“Morning, Tariq,” they said, sighing grumpily as they opened the coffee maker.

Tariq looked up from rinsing the pot. “Not a good morning, I take it?”

“S. H. I. T,” Aspen said with a bright corporate smile. “So happy it’s Thursday!”

“That bad?”

“Pamela.”

Tariq chuckled. “You’ll have to tell me about it over lunch.” He paused and looked a bit guilty. “Look, I have to make a quick phone call, do you mind…?”

“Babysitting the coffee? No prob. Go do the thing, friendo.”

“Amazing, thanks, pal.” Tariq ducked out of the kitchen and into the nearby stairwell that provided the closest thing to privacy on this floor.

As leaving the coffee unattended would be a mistake (in the cutthroat world of corporate magical services, coffee was an ‘every witch for themselves’ kind of situation), Aspen leaned against the counter and pulled out their phone and saw that their sister, Becks, had sent a photo of herself and her wife with their two dogs out for their morning walk.

Becks
Try to get SOME sunlight today, siblet.

Smiling affectionately, Aspen opened their camera, turned it to forward facing, and considered their look – which was appropriately ‘business magical’. Medium-long lavender hair hung over storm-grey eyes rimmed with dark eyeliner – tastefully winged – and set off by dark purple lipstick. Their (appropriately conservative) dress (it has pockets!) was navy blue with silver stars, worn over black tights and galaxy-print boots (flats. At 6’2”, Aspen always felt self-conscious in heels).

They fussed a few stray hairs into place before raising their mug - “I survived another meeting that should have been an email” - in an ironic salute and sending a return selfie.

Aspen
You know that sunlight would ruin the professional pallor I strive to maintain. ;p
(Also, don’t call me siblet.)

Aspen was pleased when they immediately saw three dancing dots.

Becks
ASPEN.

Aspen
Don’t start, Becks. We can’t all be the picture of disgusting lesbian domestic bliss.

Becks
Rude. I know you don’t mean it because there’s no way you could call these faces disgusting.
(and how else am I supposed to lord my status as eldest over you? in a way that's gender neutral, no less?)

Aspen smiled at the closeup photo that followed of Harley and Ivy, their two golden retrievers, giving the camera big doggie grins.

Aspen
(Ugh. Fine.)
I mean, it is a little disgusting that you’re so successful and financially stable. We’re
millennials, aren’t we supposed to be unhappy and poor forever?

Becks
You wouldn’t have to live in a shoe box if you’d come out to Alberta.

Aspen
LISTEN.
William’s new job is going so well we might splurge and get an entire closet.
But we don’t want to go too crazy.
Also I refuse to live anywhere it can snow in June.

Becks
You’re a terrible Canadian.

Aspen
So I hear.
Sorry.

Behind them, the coffee maker gurgled as it finished its cycle. Aspen poured coffee for themself and Tariq and did their best not to glare at the two coworkers who ‘just happened’ to come into the kitchen as soon as the coffee was finished. Vultures.

Aspen
Caffeine has been acquired, so it’s back to being a good little worker bee for me.
Give Rachel my love.

Becks
<3 <3

Aspen ran into Tariq exiting the stairwell as they trudged back to their desk. “My savior!” he exclaimed, gingerly accepting the hot mug.

✯ ✯ ✯

The rest of the day dragged with the usual mix of boredom and stupidity. After closing out a few more support requests, Aspen found themself enlisting Tariq and a few others to chase imps around the executive boardroom when a ward meant to repel demonic influence ended up summoning it instead. When that was finished, it took Aspen and Tariq nearly another hour of poring over the baseboards with hand-held UV lights to discover where two of the ward’s spell sigils had been scuffed – probably by the cleaners. And after that, Aspen spent half an hour trying to explain basic spreadsheet functions to Angelo, their incompetent manbaby of a boss, before they finally gave up and formatted the spreadsheet for him.

Finally, at 4:50, Aspen packed their laptop up early and slunk out of the office and into the wet, grey slush that was downtown Toronto in late February. The streets were jammed with people and cars all trying to escape downtown, and Aspen ended up getting a soaker when they stepped into a puddle trying to avoid a kamikaze electric scooter. Then it was only seven stops on an overcrowded subway, a transfer through heaving crowds, and six more stops on another equally overcrowded train. Three blocks on foot to reach their disappointing postage stamp of an apartment, finally stumbling through their door at six, only to find the apartment dark and empty.

Dammit.

Sure enough, there was a message from William, sent eleven minutes ago.

Working overtime. Eat without me.

Aspen resisted the urge to call Becks to complain, as that would inevitably lead to one of Becks’ lectures about William.

Even if he'd complained about Aspen's inconsistent contributions to their shared finances during the years their witch career failed to launch, they wouldn't have been able to chase their dream at all without his support. Which meant that Aspen felt obligated to defend William when Becks started tearing into him, even though they both knew that things with William weren’t great and hadn’t been great for a long time.
Aspen and William had met at a protest ten years ago, when Aspen had been finishing their second year of classwork for their apprenticeship and William had been in the first year of his undergraduate degree. Aspen had been captivated by William’s passion for magical law and his eloquence about the need for laws reflecting the magical traditions of Canada’s sizeable immigrant population. They’d started dating shortly after and were living together a year later.

William was also a big part of why Aspen had taken the job at HexaTech in the first place. Even though he’d never said anything, they’d felt obligated to do more to pull their weight as their witching career continued to falter and bills from law school continued to accrue interest. Giving up their dream to work at HexaTech was a sacrifice Aspen still felt keenly, but it felt like William didn’t even notice Aspen’s unhappiness. He was still absorbed in the triumph of getting a permanent offer from the firm he’d articled with. Worse, in two years since he'd passed the Bar, he’d slowly been transforming into the soulless management dickheads that Aspen hated at work. Getting ahead in his career had become the most important thing in his life, with Aspen a very distant second.

Leaving them stuck in a city of three million people and somehow still profoundly alone.

Aspen was trapped. Even if they could find a place, they couldn’t make rent on their own. And as much as they hated Toronto, they weren’t keen on the transphobia that would come with moving to Alberta or some other similarly rural province where it was still possible for millennials to afford decent housing. Their only other option would be to admit defeat and move back to live with their mum in the nearby Rust Belt suburb of Oshawa.

Hard pass.

Aspen’s stomach growled, asserting that William was a problem for Not-Now Aspen, whereas Now Aspen still needed to solve the problem of food.

They stared blankly at the contents of the fridge for a least a minute before giving up and pulling out a few slices of processed cheese. “Depression meal it is,” they sighed, putting on a kettle of water for ramen.

✯ ✯ ✯

At two o’clock the next afternoon, Aspen’s phone vibrated insistently across their desk. The call was from Becks, which was concerning, as she was just as much of a phone-hating millennial stereotype as they were. With trepidation, Aspen answered the call.

“Hey, Becks,” they said quietly. “Give me a second to get somewhere I can talk.”

“No prob,” Becks said, sounding decidedly off.

“Okay,” they said once they’d slunk into the dubious safety of the stairwell. “You wouldn’t call first unless it was an emergency, so what’s going on?”

“Aspen…” Becks sounded like she’d been crying. “Aunt Marcy’s dead.”

The words hit like a hammer to the center of their chest. “I. What? How?”

“Aneurysm. This morning. No warning, no nothing. Just. Gone.” There was a long moment of shocked silence during which Becks sniffled. “Mom’s a mess, so I’m calling everyone.”

Aspen stared at the wall, trying to connect with the sadness they should be feeling about the sudden death of their favorite aunt, the witch – and only other magic practitioner in the family – who had encouraged Aspen’s interest in magic, given them their first lessons (and later career advice), and was now gone. But all they felt was numb.

“Thanks for doing that,” they finally managed.

“Mom is executor, apparently. She said she’s going to fly out tomorrow to start making arrangements and that she could pay for your ticket if you wanted to fly out with her.” Becks tactfully didn’t mention William, which saved Aspen from saying that they’d check if he could come – they already knew that William wasn’t going to take any time off for something as trivial as a dead aunt. “I’ll come out and help as soon as I can, since. You know.”

“It’s the only way to keep her from doing literally everything by herself? Yeah. I remember.” They blinked, trying to think through what felt like a brain full of mud. “Uh, tell mum not to book a red-eye. This whole thing is awful enough without getting up at three in the morning to get to Pearson, you know? Tell her I give her permission to not get the absolute cheapest flight.”

Becks laughed weakly. “Sure thing. I’ll get her to message you with details.”

There was another moment of uncomfortable silence before Aspen cleared their throat. “I should let you make those other calls,” they said softly.

“Yeah.”

“Love you, Becks.”

“Love you too, Aspen”

Aspen hung up, then stared at the wall for several minutes trying to figure out what to do next.

Why couldn’t they cry? Aunt Marcy had been the first family member Aspen had come out to, and one of the only ones (besides mum and Becks) who had quickly started using their new name and pronouns without any need for correction or explanation. Not to mention that without Aunt Marcy, they might never have worked up the nerve to deal with their gender feelings on their own.

They were in shock. Obviously.

Okay. So what next?

Go home. Early Twenties Aspen would have worked the rest of the day before going home, unwilling to let personal problems affect their work performance, but thankfully Thirties Aspen had more self-respect.

They drifted back to their desk, feeling distantly confused that their coworkers didn’t stop and stare as they passed. Surely a tragedy of this magnitude would have left some visible sign? And yet, their passage went unobserved and unremarked.

It took only a moment to pack up their laptop and grab their purse. On the way out, they stopped by Tariq’s desk, knocking quietly on top of the cubicle divider to get his attention.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I’m not feeling well,” Aspen answered quietly. “So I’m going home.”

“Oof. That sucks – I hope you feel better soon. Any work stuff that needs taking care of?”

“Maybe? Like. It definitely won’t happen, since month-end is Monday and he never turns these in on time, but if Angelo decides he wants to do the month-end report early can you fill it out for him? The template is in the shared Reports directory, you’ll just have to pull the numbers out of his email.” Aspen grimaced. “Sorry, I know it’s a pain in the ass…”

Tariq grinned and shook his head. “Seriously, don’t sweat it. Like you said, it won’t happen, so go home and get some rest.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. See you Monday.”

Aspen nodded guiltily, then made their escape.

The feeling of floating detachment persisted long enough for Aspen to trudge past the gleaming, sharp-edged monuments to finance that surrounded Bay Street station, board the subway, and ride the several stops to their transfer. However, they could feel the terrible grief starting to claw its way into their chest as they exited at Bloor-Yonge to change lines. They did their best to keep that awful feeling at bay as they navigated the crowds, but the tears escaped anyway – hot and painful and humiliating.

When the train arrived, Aspen slumped into one of the few available seats, feeling that if they had to be That Weirdo Crying On The Train, better sitting than looming over people and possibly crying on them. They turned toward the window, letting their hair hang forward to obscure their face as the tears kept coming, their shoulders shaking with the effort of remaining silent.

Getting off the subway and into their apartment was another series of small humiliations. Running into someone sprinting for the train, strange looks from people on the street, uncomfortable awkward silence in the elevator. By the time they were turning the key in the lock, Aspen was desperate for a few hours’ peace in an empty apartment so they could really fall apart before William came home.

It was a rude surprise to discover, instead, that William was home already, still wearing the too-expensive slacks and tailored shirt he’d worn to work that morning, his short blond hair still immaculately coiffed. Even worse, he had a podcast on – something with two insufferably pedantic men whose names Aspen’s brain deleted every time they heard them – while he cooked loudly with every light in their tiny apartment on.

“You’re home. Why are you home?” they blurted out.

William didn’t look up from cooking as he tipped a cutting board of chopped vegetables into the large stir fry pan. “Making you a nice dinner,” he said, pouring in some sauce and mixing everything together. “I know I’ve been doing a lot of overtime lately, and I wanted to make it up to you.”

“Oh.”

Somehow this made Aspen feel even worse.

William shot Aspen a smile, an expression that quickly turned to concern as he took a second longer look and apparently didn’t like what he saw. “Hey,” he said quietly, blue eyes darkening with concern as he moved the pan off the burner and turned off the stove. “What’s up? What’s wrong?”

This wasn’t what they’d wanted. They hated being a mess in front of William, which is why they’d wanted time to fall apart alone before he got home. Instead, William was guiding them to the couch, his hand warm on their back, and there was nothing in the universe that could stop them from absolutely losing their shit.

“Babe. Babe, talk to me,” he urged softly.

“Aunt Marcy died,” Aspen choked out. “She had an aneurysm in her kitchen this morning. She’s gone.”

Speaking what had happened shattered the last of their control, releasing horrible wracking sobs that were all the more violent for having been suppressed. And even though they hadn’t wanted it to happen this way, it wasn’t terrible when William wrapped them in his strong arms and held them without saying anything further. They clung to his shirt, burying their face in his shoulder, and cried until there were no more tears to cry.

Finally, Aspen pulled away and went to the bathroom to clean up, grimacing at the haggard-looking red-eyed lunatic that goggled back at them from the mirror.

“What now?” William asked, leaning on the doorway.

“Mum is executor on the estate. They were always really close and Aunt Marcy never married or had kids. I’ll be flying out to BC to help her with planning and arrangements, and Becks will be joining us as soon as she can.”

Aspen had left the question of William’s involvement unspoken, not wanting to put pressure on him, but he heard it anyway. “Things are too busy at work for me to take more than a day, and it takes most of a day just to get out there.” He sighed gustily. “I can fly out for the funeral if it’s on a weekend,” William said, his tone matter-of-fact.

Aspen felt stung by the complete lack of apology but did their best to swallow their disappointment. It felt stupid to be disappointed about something they’d known would happen. “I understand,” they lied, scrubbing their face with a cold washcloth as much to hide their expression as to avoid seeing his reaction.

“What do you want right now?” William asked softly. Aspen was surprised at the surge of anger they felt when they recognized what they’d come to think of as his Performative Ally Voice – which they couldn’t ever remember being directed at them before.

Aspen had to clench their teeth against the first several replies that almost escaped their mouth. They wanted some show of genuine emotion, not some manipulative parroting of Positive Masculinity TokTik. They wanted him to take time off work and fly out with them. They wanted him to be willing to accept literally any level of personal inconvenience to support them and their family.

Finally, when they were sure they had their voice under control, “space.”

William’s smile was both picture-perfect and completely insincere. “No problem. I’ve got some errands that need running, I can do those now.” He returned to the kitchen long enough to put a lid on the stir fry and check that the stove was off, then grabbed his keys. “Be back in about an hour,” he said before closing the door.

Mechanically, Aspen went around the apartment and turned off all the lights, then staggered to the bedroom to collapse onto the bed, feeling crushed by the enormity of how completely and agonizingly terrible their life had become. They were trapped in a dead-end job they hated, working for a company that chewed people up and spit them out. Just like they were trapped in a broken relationship with a man they no longer loved and barely even recognized anymore. And now Aunt Marcy, the woman who had introduced them to their love of witchcraft and supported them through every step of their journey, was gone.

✯ ✯ ✯

Aspen’s heart was in their mouth as they walked down the ferry ramp at the Victoria terminal to meet their Aunt Marcy, who had invited them out early for Christmas before the rest of the family showed up. Traveling a week before Christmas was unpleasant enough without the added stress of getting deadnamed and misgendered (they hadn’t yet found the energy to tackle the monumental task of updating any of their documentation), which had left them feeling nervous about how cool their Boomer aunt would be about respecting their new name and pronouns.

As it turned out, they needn’t have worried.

“Aspen! Sweetheart! You made it!” Aunt Marcy pulled them into a crushing hug before holding them at arm’s length. “You look good,” she pronounced.

Aspen couldn’t help frowning at their old clothes and running their fingers through their short brown hair – which was currently in the “complete bullshit” stage of growing out. “Uh. Thanks.”

Aunt Marcy took their suitcase and tossed it into the trunk of her car with her usual brisk efficiency. “Come on, then. I know you just got here, but we’re on a bit of a schedule,” she said cryptically.

Aspen assumed that she had just made reservations somewhere for a late lunch. They absolutely were not expecting to be dragged in for a fitting appointment at a wig shop. Or the appointment to get their makeup done that came after that. Or then getting dragged to four different stores at the mall to try on clothes.

Which is how they had ended up standing in a fitting room trying not to cry at the person who looked back at them. Still tall, yes, but elegantly tall - with long lavender hair, impeccable silver and purple eyeshadow with matching purple lipstick, and a simple long-sleeved black dress. It felt like such a fucking trans stereotype to say that they felt like they were seeing themself for the first time but. Well.

There they were.

“Everything okay in there, sweetheart?”

“Just. Just give me a sec,” Aspen said, blinking rapidly to clear their eyes, not wanting to ruin their makeup.

They had to fight down tears again at the way their aunt’s face lit up when they stepped out of the dressing room. “You look marvelous, darling! How do you feel?”

“Like… me?” Aspen twirled and laughed at the way the skirt flared out around them. “I just wish my feet weren’t so damned big, because everything else is perfect.”

“Hold that thought,” Aunt Marcy said, eyes twinkling, before rummaging in her bag and pulling out a pair of dressy black flats and handing them over. “I got your mother to tell me your shoe size and ordered these online.”

Aspen gave their aunt a stunned look as they accepted the shoes, which fit perfectly. “I can’t… you… when you said you wanted to help me with my magic, I had no idea…,” they flapped their hands, too overwhelmed to know how to finish that sentence.

“You would have gotten here on your own. I just helped you get here a little faster.”

Aspen beamed. “It would have taken me months… maybe years to have the nerve to do all this on my own.”

“I know.” Aunt Marcy winked. “Merry Christmas.”

✯ ✯ ✯

Aspen didn’t realize they had fallen asleep until they woke up to William returning and promptly turning on all the lights and his damned podcast before he resumed cooking. Muzzily, they picked up their phone to text Aunt Marcy about the day they were having, then dropped it when they remembered that she was gone. For a moment, it felt like their lungs were full of broken glass.
When the moment passed, they started a group chat with their mum and sister.

Crashed for a bit but I’m awake now. What’s the story on flights?

✯ ✯ ✯

Flying out wasn’t as terrible as Aspen had expected, but previous history with Pearson – Canada’s largest and busiest airport - set the bar pretty low. By mutual agreement, Aspen and their mum avoided all topics related to Aunt Marcy while they were traveling. Becks didn’t roll into the TravelBNB they’d rented in Victoria – none of them were up to dealing with Aunt Marcy’s empty house just yet – until late Sunday night, after catching the last ferry of the night to the Island.

Which is how Aspen found themself awake at the unholy hour of 6:30AM Monday morning (the Ontarians were still on Eastern time), blearily drinking coffee and trying to ignore their anxiety about William not having texted since they left as the three of them settled in to make funeral arrangements.

“So. As you know, your aunt made me executor on her will.” Their mum looked decidedly guilty as she shuffled awkwardly through a thick file folder of papers. “And. Uh. There are some things we need to talk about.”

Becks looked up from her laptop and raised an eyebrow. “Spit it out, Mum.”

“Well.” Aspen shared a sardonic look with Becks as Mum delayed by taking a large sip of coffee. “The main asset was the house, which Marcy has left to… Aspen. With some conditions. Sorry, Rebecca.”

For a moment, Aspen felt as if the room had suddenly tipped sideways.

Their shock must not have shown, because Becks just snorted and rolled her eyes at their mother. “Why are you apologizing, Mum? I already have a house, in a different province no less. What am I going to do with a second house? Obviously, Aspen should take the house if they want it.” Both women turned to look at Aspen. “Do you want it?”

Yes? Obviously.

“What are the conditions?” Aspen asked weakly. As their mum flipped through the folder, Aspen’s phone lit up with an unwelcome number. “Oh hell. It’s my dumbass boss. Give me two minutes? If I don’t take this now, things will be a lot worse later. Sorry.”

Their mum waved her assent and continued to look through the folder while Becks shrugged and returned to writing the first draft of the obituary.

“Good morning, Angelo. What’s going on?”

“I’ve sent three texts and two emails,” Angelo huffed, clearly already In A Mood. “Why haven’t you answered?”

Aspen rolled their eyes and invoked their best Being Polite To Idiots voice. “Time zones. I sent an email Friday evening that I would be in BC this week because my aunt died.”

“But what about the month-end report?” Angelo asked, sounding aggrieved.

“Tariq told me he’d asked about it on Friday.”

“And I told him that I’d get you the numbers this morning.” Translation: at 12:30, and Aspen would have been expected to skip lunch to get it in before the 1pm deadline. “So who’s going to finish the report?”

“I don’t know, but I am taking the five days of unpaid bereavement leave allowed by company policy after giving the required notice in writing. So I’m afraid I can’t help you with that.”

Angelo grumbled some insincere condolences and hung up.

Aspen rolled their eyes again. “Okay, I have to square away a thing really quick, or my boss will keep being a man-baby about it.”

“You’re not seriously going to help him, are you?” Becks called after them as they went to the bedroom to retrieve their laptop.

“Oh hell no.” Aspen sat back down, logged into their laptop, and made a disgusted noise at the three emails and five Stack messages from Angelo. “I’m sending him an email summarizing our conversation and copying HR.”

“Can we get back to the house now?” Mum asked pointedly once they were done, arching an eyebrow over the top of her bifocals.

“Oh. Um. Yes?”

“So according to Marcy’s lawyer…” their mum started reading directly from a print-out of an email. “Marcy has left the house to Aspen on the condition that they relocate to Parksville full-time and open a witching practice within sixty days. Because of the family relation and because she registered Aspen as her apprentice with the BC College of Witches before they turned eighteen, a simplified process exists to transfer her witching practice to Aspen, as long they’ve kept up their certification with the Ontario College of Witches.” Mum looked up from the email to give Aspen an inquiring look. “You have kept up your certification, haven’t you?”

Aspen blinked. “Yeah, I have to for my job.”

“Good.” Mum looked back down and started to read from the email again. “Once the transfer has been processed, you’ll be paid a salary by the BC College of Witches according to several options. Your Aunt had opted for population-based compensation over fee-for-service, but you can change that later if you like. This compensation only covers service to residents and local businesses, so you can and are encouraged to charge tourists or other non-residents, at your discretion.

“If you decide not to accept, the house is to be sold and funds used toward living accommodations for a new witch to be selected by the BC College of Witches.”

“So the free house comes with a job I’m utterly unqualified for,” Becks joked. “Can’t imagine why Aunt Marcy didn’t leave it to me.”
Mum ignored Becks and gave Aspen a piercing look. “Do you want to accept?”

Again, Aspen felt the strange lurch of their entire world shifting sideways. Forty-eight hours ago, they’d had the worst day of their entire life, and now they were being presented with the solution to literally all their problems. Or at least everything except…

“Maybe?” Aspen took a gulp of their coffee in a futile attempt to avoid eye contact with Becks, who was watching them judgmentally over the rim of her mug.

“Did you want to go call your partner and talk about that?” Mum asked a little too casually.

The prospect of having that conversation before tackling any of the million decisions they’d be making that day seemed impossibly daunting. What happened if (when) everything went wrong and they still had decisions about obituary, burial arrangements, and funeral to make?

“William’s always very busy at work,” Aspen lied. “I’ll call him when he's done for the day.”

“Yes. Well.” Their mum sniffed, her expression ostensibly neutral but still managing to convey disapproval. “Thankfully that’s earlier here.”

Aspen hadn’t realized just how many decisions had to be made in planning a funeral. They’d been in their last year of high school when their father had died after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer, and their only memory of the funeral planning was of their mother refusing to let anyone help, to the point that she nearly worked herself into a state of nervous collapse.

Aspen was under no illusion that their mother, who was taking the role of executor very seriously, would yield control of any of the most important decisions. Instead, Aspen and their sister simply concentrated on the myriad of small, tedious tasks that needed doing – such as writing the obituary and putting together photos for a slide show at the funeral home – before their mother had time to stress about them not getting done.

They found the appointment to peruse the funeral home’s showroom of coffin and urn options (which they had no real opinions about) particularly surreal, and Becks clearly felt the same way. At one point while their mother was dithering between two nearly identical urns that would hold their aunt’s “cremains”, Becks and Aspen walked over to boggle at the most “deluxe” coffin on display, which was larger than the last car Aspen had owned.

“Unbelievable,” Aspen muttered. “If this was in Toronto, someone would be trying to charge a thousand bucks a month in rent for it.”
Becks grinned and assumed her best imitation of the pose from the car salesman meme as she slapped the top of the coffin. “This bad boy can fit so many corpses in it.”

It was a terrible joke, but the inappropriate setting made it ten times funnier. The two siblings ended up crying from trying and failing to laugh quietly, and Aspen couldn’t help but be relieved when mum threw them both out into the waiting room.

“Remember how Dad would always get us in trouble by telling us jokes in church?” Becks asked with a grin as she flopped into a monstrous armchair upholstered in a hideous pastel floral print.

“And how Mum always got mad at us for laughing, and not at Dad for telling jokes in the first place?” Aspen grinned and sat next to their sister. “Some things never change, I guess.”

“Right? Dad was always such a shit-disturber. It never seemed fair that we got in trouble and he didn’t.”

“Maybe Mum just knew it was pointless to try to get him to stop.”

“Maybe.” Becks sighed.

There were several moments of morose silence as they both contemplated their surroundings. “It's not fair,” Aspen finally said in a small voice.

“Yeah.” Becks sniffled and reached for one of the omnipresent boxes of tissues.

✯ ✯ ✯

Aspen and Becks forced their mother to take a break for lunch before diving back into planning for the funeral and visitation decisions that had to be made that day, since it seemed that pretty much everyone in the family was arriving on the Island either today or tomorrow.

“Can you blame them?” Becks had quipped. “It’s an ironclad excuse to take off work and escape winter before tourist season starts.”

Still, it seemed like they made about three million calls that afternoon getting everyone in their large family on the same page – an exercise made even more irritating given that their aunts and uncles would only respond to phone calls, the Millennial cousins would answer literally anything but a phone call, and the youngest cousins would only answer to Snaptalk.

By the end of the day, Aspen was so overwhelmed and exhausted that they crawled into their bed at the TravelBNB as soon as they were finished with dinner, in a futile attempt to beat back the migraine that was boring into their eye sockets.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Becks asked sweetly from the doorway.

Aspen refused to rise to the bait. “No. Absolutely not. I am not making any more decisions today. I will call him tomorrow.”

Becks gave them an inscrutable look. “Noted,” was all she said.

✯ ✯ ✯

Aspen slept terribly and woke already feeling anxious – a feeling exacerbated by the fact that William hadn’t so much as asked them if they had arrived safely, let alone asked how things were going. Or even messaged at all.

Becks barred their entry to the kitchen, where she and Mum had started folding programs, her expression severe as she handed Aspen a large mug of freshly brewed coffee. “Call. Him.”

Any protest Aspen wanted to make was cut off by the equally severe look their mother gave them. “Okay fine,” they huffed before going back upstairs.

The phone only rang twice before William picked up. “Hey, babe. What’s up?”

“Hey.” Aspen’s stomach lurched unpleasantly. They took a sip of coffee to steady themself, forgetting that it was fresh, and immediately burned their tongue. “Fuck that’s hot.”

William chuckled. “You called to tell me your coffee was hot?”

“No. Obviously.” Aspen sighed. “We need to talk about something that came up in my aunt’s will.” There was a pause during which William could have said something and didn't. Ordinarily, Aspen would have approached the situation with more delicacy, but the sound of William typing in the background and his refusal to even try to carry his half of the conversation annoyed them into being direct. “Aunt Marcy left me her house. There’s some paperwork hoops to jump through, but I can have it if I relocate to BC within two months and open my own witching practice. Otherwise, it’s getting sold and the money will go to the BC College of Witches.”

“Wow.” There was a brief pause, but the sound of typing continued. “Unfortunately, the firm doesn’t have a BC office, so relocating isn’t an option. I’d have to job hunt and start over at a new firm.”

It was exactly what they’d known he would say, so why did they feel so upset?

“I’m aware of that.” Aspen clamped down on a surge of anger and did not give in to the urge to ask how much progress toward partner he could have made in two years of working at his current firm. “I get it.” They didn’t. “But I need you to take this seriously, because this is a house that comes with the job I’ve always wanted – being a real community witch and really helping people. No strings attached, no having to worry about networking or side-hustles or making rent.”

Finally, the sound of typing stopped. “Wait. You want to take it?” William’s voice was disapproving. “You already have a job. You have seniority in your department and your boss is a moron. If you wanted, you could be running your team within six months.”

“Why would I want that?”

“Why wouldn’t you? Why throw away a career that’s about to take off just to go live in the middle of nowhere to, what, reprise your failed attempt at being a witchfluencer by being even more basic and cottagecore than last time?

Aspen was briefly shocked into silence, unable to believe that he was being so callous when they were talking about a chance to live their dream, the thing that they had been trying and failing to make happen for years. And then, with a sudden, painful shift in perspective – like a dislocated joint snapping back into place – they could believe it. They’d known for a long time that William had changed into someone they no longer loved or even wanted to spend time with, they just hadn’t been able to face it.

“Well, I’m going to take it,” Aspen said firmly. “I’m not walking away from my dream job and a free house to go back to a job that I hate and never wanted in the first place.”

“What about me?” William asked peevishly. “You can’t seriously expect to make a long-distance relationship work across three time zones.”

For a moment Aspen couldn’t breathe. It took them a few tries to find their voice. “I don’t.”

There was a long uncomfortable silence. “You don’t what?” William finally asked, sounding genuinely confused.

Aspen took a deep breath to steady themself against the pit of churning misery in their stomach. “Look. We’ve been on different paths for a long time, and this is just the thing that’s finally making us deal with the fact that we want fundamentally different things from life.”

Another pause. “What are you saying?”

Of course he was going to make them be the one to actually say it. “That I think it’s best if we… That I think we should break up.”

“I don’t agree.”

“This isn’t—”

“You’re not making any sense, Aspen,” William continued, cutting them off. “You’re obviously upset about your aunt’s death and shouldn’t be making any major life decisions while you’re still in shock.”

“I’m not, though!” Aspen felt a surge of cold fury as William actually scoffed, but continued speaking, refusing to let him cut them off again. “I mean, obviously I’m a bit in shock, but that’s not the point. My feelings deserve to be part of this equation, even if you don’t agree with them.”

“Can’t you just come home and talk this through with me?” William asked, his tone long-suffering. “You owe me that much.”

“Owe you?” Aspen sputtered. “For what exactly?”

“For the years that I carried you and let you live with me while you were making a go of the witch thing.”
Aspen felt as if they’d been dipped in molten lead. Carried them? Let them live with him? The witch thing? What about the years that they had taken care of William during law school? Or that final semester, when they helped him pay rent so he could quit his job to prepare for the Bar? What about the fact that it had been William’s idea that they move in together? That he’d been insistent that it didn’t make sense to pay rent on separate apartments? What about the fact that Aspen had told him it was their dream to be a professional witch the first time they’d met?

“Aspen.”

“No. I don’t owe you anything, and I especially don’t owe you this.”

“Aspen.”

“Goodbye, William. We’re done.”

“Wait—”

“Best of luck in your career,” they snapped, indulging in a cheap parting shot before they hung up.

The enormity of what they’d done hit them right after. They’d just blown up their entire life.

Knowing that their mum wouldn’t see or respond for a while, Aspen embraced the millennial stereotype for texting as a method of avoidance and sent their mum a short text.

I’ll take the house.
Please don’t ask me to talk about it.

- - - - - -

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- - - -

It was ten minutes before Aspen convinced their suddenly uncooperative limbs to wobble them downstairs.

The breakup must have been written all over their face because Becks put down her phone and enfolded them in a tight hug. “Oh, Aspen. I’m so sorry.”

Aspen rested their chin on top of Becks’ head, which Becks usually hated. It was a measure of her concern that she confined her reaction to a small annoyed grunt.

“You knew this would happen, though,” Aspen mumbled miserably.

“I didn’t.”

Aspen snorted.

“I mean, I’m not surprised, but I hoped it wouldn’t go down like this and I’m really sorry he hurt you.” At Aspen’s squeeze, Becks let go and retreated to a comfortable distance for eye contact. “Also, you’re too tall.”

Aspen sighed and flopped into a kitchen chair. “Where’s Mum?”

“She went to go pick up Uncle Robert and Uncle John from the ferry terminal.”

“Mm. When’s Rachel getting in?”

Becks raised an eyebrow but played along. “Her flight got delayed. It looks like she might miss part of the visitation.”

Aspen stared at their sister blankly as they wracked their brain for more ways to deflect and came up empty.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Becks asked softly.

“Maybe? Except I honestly don’t know how I feel about it.” Aspen sighed gustily. “You know I hate my job, and that things with William weren’t great. I’ve been miserable for a long time and couldn’t deal with it because of how trapped I was. And now everything I’ve ever wanted has just been, like, handed to me on a silver platter! Free house! Dream job! No more living in a postage stamp in a city I hate! No more being shackled to a man who objectively sucks!

“Except it only happened because Aunt Marcy is dead, which is fucked.” Aspen sniffled miserably. “And not walking away from what she’s giving me cost me my relationship. And yeah, it was broken, but now I don’t even have that anymore.”

“Oh, siblet.” Becks sat down next to them and placed a hand on their shoulder. “That’s a lot, and I’m sorry. But you’re not alone.”

Aspen inhaled shakily, hating how close Becks’ kindness had them to falling apart again. “Except I sort of am? I’ll be starting over. And I don’t know anyone out here.”

Becks shrugged. “You needed a fresh start anyway. And you know that Rachel and I are only a video call away.”

“I know. And thank you. I just.” This time Aspen couldn’t prevent the tears from bubbling up. “I keep wishing I could talk to Aunt Marcy about it.”

Becks scooted closer and lay her head on their shoulder. “I know,” she sniffed. “Me too.”

Aspen had to admit that it felt much nicer to cry with Becks – who cried along with them – than it had with William.

Quite a while later, when they were both cried out, Aspen glanced at the clock and grimaced, realizing that they still looked like they’d been dragged face-down out of bed and their mum would be back shortly. “I should go get cleaned up before Mum and the uncles get here.”

“Are you sure? I’ll keep Mum off your back if you want to go back to bed.”

“No, I’m fine,” they lied.

Becks gave them a flat look that said they weren’t fooling anyone.

Aspen rolled their eyes. “Okay, I’m not, but having Mum fuss at me would be worse, and I don’t think I could deal with that right now.”

Becks nodded understandingly. “Then go, and I’ll keep her occupied until you’re ready.”

Aspen gave Becks one last quick squeeze. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“I know,” she chuckled.

✯ ✯ ✯

Despite emerging from that conversation looking like a feverish maniac, Aspen managed to erase all the obvious signs of their emotional turmoil after getting cleaned up, though they ended up with a smokier eye than intended after breaking down again halfway through applying their makeup. True to her word, Becks successfully ran interference with their mum – who Aspen could tell wanted to fuss over them as soon as she walked in the door – until it was time for them all to head to the funeral home.

After two days of preparation, it still felt decidedly surreal when the family descended en masse at the funeral home for the visitation – their aunts, uncles, and cousins (half of whom had their own partners in tow) made quite the crowd. Overwhelmed by the loud babble of multiple conversations, Aspen ducked out to the washroom not long after the initial round of too-loud greetings and hugs for a moment of quiet.

When Aspen’s conscience forced them out of hiding, they had just walked around the corner when they heard Uncle Robert ask “Rebecca” where “her brother went”. Uncle Robert’s gaze shifted, and Aspen froze as there was a moment of horrible eye contact that made retreat back to the washroom impossible.

“DAD!” The response from Megan, their oldest cousin, was almost instantaneous.

“I need Aspen’s help carrying in that big flower arrangement from the car,” someone else loudly proclaimed from the opposite corner of the room. Aspen looked to see their youngest cousin, Deanna – whom they had last seen as a long-haired sulky teenage girl, freshly rocking short blue hair, with baby queer” written over every inch of her.

“Oh, uh. Sure,” Aspen stammered. “Excuse me.”

Gratefully, they followed Deanna out to the entryway, where their cousin flopped bonelessly into one of the overstuffed armchairs closest to the entrance. “Ryan already carried it in, actually,” she said, her tone matter-of-fact. “I just wanted to get you away from Uncle Robert so the cousins could yell at him without making it weirder for you.”

“Thanks, Deanna,” Aspen said weakly.

“Dee.”

Dee very clearly Did Not Want To Talk About It, a feeling Aspen could definitely understand. “Dee.”

Dee nodded, then very solemnly asked an unexpected question. “Do you want to see pictures of our new class snake?”

“Uh, of course I do. What kind of question is that?”

Dee spent the next several minutes showing Aspen pictures and telling them about how her biology teacher had agreed to adopt a corn snake from a friend moving to a place with a strict no-pets policy, only to find out that her husband was terrified of snakes - which is how he’d become a classroom snake. Dee gleefully informed Aspen that she’d won the contest to name him – Cuddles – and that she hadn’t gotten to feed him yet (frozen mice) but had gotten to hold him several times.

Afterwards, when Aspen re-entered the room, mum was with the aunts and uncles in a cluster by the coffin.

Megan came over, looking apologetic. “Sorry about Dad,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“It’s okay,” Aspen stammered.

“I mean, it’s not,” her younger brother Aiden said grimly (or was it Tyler? Aspen didn’t see them often enough to know the tricks for telling the identical twins apart). “And you shouldn’t have to say that it is.”

“We’ll keep yelling at him until he gets it right,” the other identical twin added.

“Honestly, it’s kind of embarrassing,” Megan added. “Like, our dads are gay, so he should really know better.”

Aspen laughed uncomfortably. “Thank you.”

Dee’s mother, Aunt Marg, called for her, and Dee trotted over obligingly, giving Aspen the opening they’d been hoping for.

“Pronoun check?” Aspen asked in a low voice, nodding over at their young cousin.

“Ryan says she/her?” Megan shrugged, the question adding an implied ‘for now’.

“Cool. Thanks.”

The visitation opened up to the public half an hour later, which is when things got really crazy - it seemed like half of the town filed through to offer their condolences. (Unsurprisingly, as town witch, Aunt Marcy’s absence was apparently being keenly felt.) As overwhelming as the throng of well-wishers was, it at least made it easy for Aspen to avoid their mother – who kept watching them with a worried expression when she thought they weren’t looking.

When it was finally over, Aspen was slightly horrified when their hopes of being able to have some time to themself were dashed by their mother inviting the entire family over to the rental for pizza. Upon arrival, they were immediately ambushed by Uncle Robert, whose apology for the earlier misgendering was accompanied with an uncomfortable amount of self-flagellation. As brief as it was, the conversation made Aspen want to peel off their skin, and they were beyond grateful when Becks and Rachel – who had arrived toward the end of the visitation - came to their rescue by ‘stealing’ them to go pick up pizzas. “You are a literal angel,” they muttered to Becks. “I owe you big time.”

“Belated repayment for you keeping Aunt Marg off my back about not having a boyfriend all those years,” Becks laughed.

After dinner, when the older relatives started exchanging nostalgic stories about events far before their time, Aspen used cleaning up as an excuse to duck out of the conversation, figuring they could sneak away to their room once the detritus of the meal was cleared away. However, when they went upstairs, they were surprised to see their room bustling with unexpected activity.

“Excuse me,” Ryan, Dee’s older brother, said, squeezing past them with the enormous TV from downstairs.

Right behind him were Aiden and Tyler, arms full of off-brand convenience store chips and two-liters of pop. And inside the room, Rachel and Becks were overseeing the construction of a pillow fort using what looked to be every cushion in the house.

“What’s going on here?”

Becks grinned, looking very pleased with herself. “I mean, tell me if I’m wrong and we’ll go away, but you were going to come up here and sulk by yourself, when what you really need right now is to be around people.”

Aspen blinked, then laughed sheepishly. “I feel both seen and called out. But no, you’re not wrong.”

“Of course I’m not! Now. What movie are we going to watch?”

After a minimum of bickering (Aspen called dibs on the movie choice because it was their room), they settled in to watch their favorite Ghibli movie.

“This is much nicer than sulking by yourself, is it?” Becks asked smugly during a pause in the movie.

“Shut up,” Aspen grumbled. “Or I’ll hit you with a pillow.”

Becks just laughed.

The cousins dispersed to their various accommodations after the first movie was over. Rachel and Becks bullied Aspen into their pajamas before selecting a second movie – one of Becks’ favorite nostalgia romcoms. Exhausted by the day’s emotional turmoil, Aspen fell asleep halfway through.

✯ ✯ ✯

Aspen woke up the next morning to a text novel from William that had been sent at 3:00AM his time. “Gross,” they muttered, not bothering to read it before deleting the conversation and blocking his number.

The funeral was exactly as terrible as Aspen had expected. The previous evening’s conviviality was gone, replaced by red-eyed misery from everyone in the family. In deference to Aunt Marcy’s profession, the service was ostensibly non-religious (which meant secular Christian). However, the rest of the family being Catholic (at least culturally speaking – Aspen had quit attending church when Becks came out as gay) was probably to blame for the inclusion of a violin quartet, the saddest of all musical groupings, and a heartbreakingly poignant rendition of Schubert’s Ave Maria.

Between the occasion and the music, Aspen sobbed through the entire service and looked like such a wreck afterward that they were glad that attendance had been limited by the small size of the venue. When it was over, most of the family drifted back to rental for one final evening together before traveling home.

Aspen was washing dishes in the kitchen – locals had kept showing up throughout the afternoon with food – when mum and Becks came to “help”, effectively cornering them.

“What happens next?” Becks asked as she rooted through the drawers for dish towels. “Why do rentals always put the basic stuff in weird places?”

Aspen wrinkled their nose in confusion. “Next? And I think I saw them in the drawer under the oven.”

Becks flashed a thumbs up, pulled out a towel, and started drying.

Meanwhile, their mum was scraping leftover food into cheap containers someone had picked up at the store. “Next with the big move,” she said.

Aspen sighed and bent over the dishes a bit more than necessary, letting their long hair flop in front of their face. “Fuck, I don’t know. I still have to quit my job, which means giving notice after I get back, I guess. And I don’t even know what to do about my stuff, or where to stay until then. Two weeks in a hotel would be outrageously expensive, but I don’t know anyone local that could put me up that long.”

“Fuck your job,” Becks snorted. “You don’t owe them anything.”

Surprisingly, Mum nodded in agreement even as she gave Becks a small disapproving glance for the swearing. “The notice is only if you want a good reference for your next job, which you don’t need. And it certainly sounds like they haven’t done anything to earn your loyalty.”

“Exactly. They suck. They’re not even giving you paid leave.”

“Technically there’s no such thing as mandated bereavement leave for aunts,” Aspen corrected automatically.

“Who cares? They still suck. Tell those fuckwits you quit tomorrow effective immediately and let them twist in the wind. Your boss definitely deserves it.”

“You should probably word it a bit more professionally than that,” Mum said. “But I agree with your sister.”

Aspen felt something unknot in their chest as they looked for flaws with that plan and couldn’t find any. “That… makes a lot of sense. And solves a lot of problems. But.” They scrubbed at some caked-on lasagna a bit harder than necessary. “What about William? And my stuff?”

“Not having second thoughts, are we?” Mum asked archly.

“Hardly. But.” Aspen blew out a sigh of frustration between pursed lips. “He said I ‘owed’ him an in-person ‘discussion’ about breaking up. There’s no way he won’t make a scene, or, like, force me to ‘debate’ him about my mental health.” Becks and mum exchanged a speaking glance, and Aspen resisted the urge to flick dishwater at the two of them. “You’ve been talking about me behind my back again,” they whined.

“Only because you insist on trying to solve all your problems by yourself,” Mum said, unphased by Aspen’s glare.

Becks shrugged. “Aunt Marcy’s house is fully furnished, for white Boomer values of ‘furnished’ – no offense, Mum.”

“None taken,” she said wryly.

“So you just need to get your clothes, witch stuff, and computer, yeah? Rachel and I could come out with you. Let us deal with William while you get yourself sorted.”

“Oh my god, that would be amazing,” Aspen stammered. “And Rachel’s okay with it?”

“Okay with it?” Becks laughed. “It was her idea! She wants to punch William in his stupid smug face, and I had to be the grown-up and remind her that backpfeifengesicht is not a legal defense.

Aspen pulled Becks into a hug, ignoring her protests about their wet, soapy hands. “You’re the best sister ever.”

“Meaningless in a sample size of one. I’m also your worst sister.”

Aspen relented and released her from the hug, grinning when Becks immediately retreated to stand next to their mother on the other side of the kitchen island.

“When we’re done here, I’ll buy your plane tickets back,” Mum said, continuing quickly before Aspen could speak. “It’s insurance money. So shut up and take it. Also, there’s an email from the lawyer I forwarded to you with the forms you need to register with the BC College of Witches and transfer Marcy’s practice. You should fill them out tonight so we can mail them tomorrow – we can pay for expedited processing, but it will still take thirty days to process before you can start getting paid.”

“Seems like the two of you got everything figured out.” Aspen’s eyes prickled as they remembered exactly why they were making this cross-country move in the first place. “Too bad I’m too big a screw-up to fix my own life.”

Aspen’s mother laid a gentle hand on their shoulder. “No one is an island, sweetheart.”

“Yeah,” Becks said, shooting them a look that clearly said 'don’t be any dumber than you have to be'.

Aspen forced a smile and allowed the conversation to shift to logistics but couldn’t shake the feeling that they wouldn’t have needed this much help if they hadn’t been such a failure in the first place.

✯ ✯ ✯

Angelo was furious about Aspen’s resignation and sent more than a dozen alternately begging and threatening texts before Aspen finally blocked his number, then wiped their history and personal files from the laptop before having it shipped back to HexaTech’s IT department.
Meanwhile, Mum and Becks had helped them find a reputable cross-country mover. The total cost of a last-minute Toronto-to-Vancouver Island move had given Aspen a small anxiety attack, but their anxiety was mostly alleviated when mum had shown them how much Aunt Marcy’s life insurance policy covered for final expenses and “related costs”.

Friday morning, Becks, Aspen, and Rachel flew back to Toronto.

On the plane, Becks ordered Aspen to sign into their social media on her laptop. “I’m not going to post anything embarrassing, and I’ll make sure your login isn’t saved,” she explained. “I just want to ask your friends for help since you won’t.”

Since asking for help would have required telling everyone about the complete and total upheaval of their life circumstances - the idea of which Aspen found profoundly exhausting - they did as Becks asked, and pretended not to notice when Becks closed a message from William. After a few minutes of scrolling through their friends list and identifying the Toronto friends likely to want to help – which was a depressing reminder of how few friends they had in the city – they spent the rest of the flight trying to stave off their anxiety by watching garbage 2000s romcoms.

Their heart was in their throat from the moment they touched down at Pearson, the prospect of a final in-person confrontation with William seeming both inevitable and completely overwhelming. When their rideshare pulled into a visitor spot outside of their apartment building, Aspen’s anxiety ratcheted up into full-blown panic.

“I can’t do this,” they gasped as soon as the car had pulled away, leaving the three of them on the curb with their baggage. “I thought I could see him, but I can’t. I can’t.” To their horror and embarrassment, they started gasping for air as their legs began to shake uncontrollably. “I know he’s wrong, I know I’m making the right decision. But he’ll make me feel so stupid. He always does.”

Becks took one look at their face and immediately pulled them over to sit on a concrete planter a few feet away. After a very brief whispered conference with Rachel, Becks took their keys and their unlocked phone, in case William wasn’t there and she needed to call him. “Leave it to me,” Becks said grimly.

Aspen nodded gratefully and let Rachel escort them across the street to the locally-owned coffee shop, where they got a terrible vegan muffin and a pretty decent latte. Once they had their orders, they settled down at a table in the back of the café. Aspen nibbled at the too-dry bran muffin and tried to will their legs to stop shaking. “I’m sorry for being terrible company.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Rachel said firmly. “Becks went instead of me because I wouldn’t promise not to punch him.”
Aspen chuckled at that. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, but I would like to see it,” they admitted.

Rachel scooted her chair around the small table to be closer to Aspen and started showing off pictures of Harley and Ivy, sharing the amusing anecdotes that often accompanied living with two large and very active dogs. Aspen was feeling a bit calmer when Rachel’s phone rang with a call from Becks.

She refused to give any details about her interaction with William, saying only, “he’s promised not to be there tomorrow after 9.”

✯ ✯ ✯

The next morning, they checked out of their hotel and walked over to the apartment building. Aspen was profoundly relieved not to encounter William on their way in, noting with distant amusement that Rachel looked disappointed.

The single red rose and handwritten note on the kitchen counter were still an unwelcome surprise.

Becks furiously tore the note into tiny pieces before Aspen could read it and threw both the pieces and the rose into the compost, muttering about William playing ‘fast and loose’ with what they’d agreed to.

“I mean, he is a lawyer,” Aspen said with a rueful shrug.

“You should have let me punch him,” Rachel said.

Looking around the apartment, Aspen belatedly realized their complete lack of moving supplies. “What are we going to pack things in?” they fretted.

“Taken care of,” Becks said with a grin. “Now. Show me where you keep your coffee?”

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Tariq showed up with two stacks of moving boxes and several rolls of packing tape. Aspen was surprised how emotional they felt when Tariq dropped everything just inside the door to sweep them up in a big hug. “You traitor! I’ll never forgive you for getting out of HexaTech before I could.”

“It had nothing to do with me! I just won the millennial lottery.”

Tariq gave Aspen a final squeeze before letting go. “Is that like the regular lottery, only someone close to you has to die for you to win it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Oof. That’s a fucking mood.” Tariq said with a grimace. “Now. What all needs doing?”

Before long, Aspen’s apartment was full of people cheerfully offering hugs and whatever assistance they could provide. Many hands made for light work, especially since all the furniture and contents of the kitchen were staying behind. Of course, it also helped that their shoebox apartment strictly limited the amount of stuff they could own.

By early afternoon, all of Aspen’s belongings were neatly packed away in boxes stacked in the tiny “eating nook” (it was too tiny to deserve to be called a dining room), neatly labeled and ready for the movers to pick up the next morning.

While Rachel was taking care of ordering the traditional thank you pizzas, Becks declared that she didn’t trust William not to sabotage Aspen’s stuff and went out in the hallway to call him – ordering him not to come back until after the movers were gone.

Aspen was almost able to allow Becks' confidence that he would stay away to convince them that everything would be fine. But that night, as the three of them were settling down to sleep, Aspen reflected they were still very glad that they weren’t spending the night here alone.

✯ ✯ ✯

To Aspen’s surprise, the movers arrived precisely on time. Becks was less surprised, reminding Aspen that their mother had paid them a lot of money.

With so few boxes, packing the truck took remarkably little time. “I gotta say, I’d hire people to do stuff for me more often if I had more money,” Aspen said as the last box was carried out. “I threw my back out when we moved into this place and spent two weeks mainlining Ibuprofen.”
Removing the apartment and mailbox keys from their key ring was surreal, especially since it left the key to the house – their house – as their only key.

William was waiting with flowers on the sidewalk next to the moving van.

Aspen turned on one heel and walked back into the building lobby, leaving Rachel and Becks to chase him off.

He was gone fifteen minutes later when they came back out to do a final inspection of the truck and sign their approval.

“Please tell me you didn’t punch him,” Aspen said to Rachel, torn between the equally desirable outcomes of William getting punched and their sister-in-law not getting sued.

“I didn’t punch him,” Rachel said, her expression suspiciously gleeful.

Becks shrugged and gave them a long-suffering look.

“Oh my god. What did you do?”

“I spilled coffee on him,” Rachel said innocently. “Entirely by accident of course.”

“That’s—you spilled hot coffee on him?” Aspen sputtered in horror. “That’s assault!”

“It was iced coffee,” Becks corrected, giving her wife a disapproving glare.

Aspen wasn’t terribly reassured. “I mean, early March in Toronto… iced coffee is almost as bad.”

“I got them to remove the ice,” Rachel replied with a frightening gleam in her eye.

“Wait.” Aspen blinked several times as they attempted to process. “You went to the coffee shop, got a non-iced iced coffee, came back, and poured it on him.”

“Spilled. Accidentally.” When Aspen glared at her, Rachel shrugged unrepentently. “I might have read up on what temperature of liquids probably wouldn’t count as assault.”

“Jesus Christ.” Aspen turned their glare on their sister. “How could you let this happen?”

“I was busy yelling at William! Also.” Becks shot her wife a look of reluctant admiration. “Rachel got him right in the crotch, so you’re welcome.”

“Thanks, babe,” Rachel murmured, leaning over to give her wife a kiss.

Aspen had to admit that William getting lukewarm coffee to the crotch after his weird stalkery behavior did make them feel a bit better. It wasn’t until they all arrived back at the airport, however, that they felt the last of the bands of constriction around their chest loosen.

“I can’t ever pay you back for this,” Aspen said, giving both Rachel and Becks a teary hug.

“I know,” Becks joked, then dodged Aspen’s mimed punch.

“Sorry,” Rachel said. “She’s the worst.”

Becks’ face grew uncharacteristically serious. “Listen. I know our family is bad at feelings, but we’d do anything for you. Okay?”

Aspen laughed shakily. “Okay.”

“Keep us updated,” Rachel said fiercely. “You can call us any time.”

“I will. I promise.”

- - - -

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After too many hours of travel, Aspen stood in the gathering gloom at the end of their driveway – and that would never stop being weird – suddenly reluctant to take the last few steps that would make everything real.

Everything looked just as they had last seen it – save for the missing sign out front (“Magick Marcy’s”) that Mum must have had removed. The modest-sized cottage - by local standards, it was easily three times the size of their Toronto apartment if you included the finished basement - sat on nearly an acre of land that backed onto a wood lot, with a large pollinator garden beside the house.

Finally, Aspen shook off their hesitation and rolled their bag up the path to the private entrance at the back of the house, where a portion of the patio had been converted to a small sun porch and mud room that also served as an entry way off the kitchen. While the usual pile of shoes for various occasions had been cleared away, they felt a sharp pang at the sight of Aunt Marcy’s jacket still hanging on a hook by the door.

Overwhelmed by memories, Aspen made their way slowly through the house.

Walking into the kitchen was like stepping back in time. All of Aunt Marcy’s kitschy potholders and hand towels still hung from hooks by the stove. The dark, dated cabinets and linoleum floor only made the large, modern-looking island – complete with a sink and bar-style seating - seem even more out of place. But Aunt Marcy had always cared more about function than form.

On the fridge, still festooned with tacky witch-themed fridge magnets, was a note from mum.

Cleaned out the fridge for you. Love,
Mum

Aspen smiled and made a vague salute in the direction of Ontario. “Thanks, Mum.”

The rest of the house felt similarly full of ghosts. The dining room walls had long since been knocked out to make the first floor semi-open concept. On the dining room table was a half-finished puzzle that Aspen supposed their mother hadn’t been able to put away. They couldn’t bring themself to touch it either.

In the living room, Aspen half expected to see Aunt Marcy curled up in her favorite chair – an elderly overstuffed armchair that was possibly the most comfortable thing Aspen had ever sat on. A sharp pang of memory assaulted them as they thought of all the family holidays and Christmases Aunt Marcy had hosted from that chair.

Aspen walked back toward the kitchen, turned right past the stairs to the basement, and went into the master bedroom, which shared a wall with the kitchen. Next to the queen-sized bed stood a bedside table with a stack of presumably unread books. On the far wall there was a small library with several shelves full of books – half books about magic and half… fantasy bodice-ripper romance novels? They chuckled at that, bemused.

The outside wall was dominated by a large bay window with a window seat that had been converted into an altar, which still held several candle holders and various other ritual tools and items. Aspen closed their eyes against the stab of pain that accompanied the reminder that they wouldn’t be able to turn to their aunt for advice about magic anymore. Even though they had been practicing magic since their teenage years, the knowledge made them feel strangely untethered.

When Aspen had first started having their gender crisis, they had done what any good Irish Catholic would have done, which was bury their gender feelings as deep as possible and refuse to acknowledge them, let alone think about what those feelings meant. Predictably, that deep denial of self had spilled over into their magic, which became increasingly difficult and unreliable.

Convinced that the problem was something they were doing wrong, Aspen meditated on it and did countless divinations but was unable to get a handle on the problem. Finally, they’d called Aunt Marcy on the phone and talked for more than an hour – about everything but their gender.

A few days later, an express envelope had arrived from Aunt Marcy containing only a single tarot card, the Empress, with a question mark added in permanent marker. It was such a small gesture, but it had pierced through Aspen’s denial, making them feel both seen and accepted before they were even able to see or accept themself. Nor had she allowed them to self-sabotage by not acting on those feelings once they had acknowledged them – hence that fateful pre-Christmas shopping trip.

With shaking hands, Aspen pulled the frame with the tarot card out of their bag and set it on the altar, feeling very much as if they had come full circle.

“I miss you, Aunt Marcy,” they whispered. “I promise I won’t screw this up.”

✯ ✯ ✯

Aspen woke up far too early to the sound of raucous bird song outside their window, spent another hour tossing and turning, and finally gave up and got out of bed at half past six. After rummaging through the cupboards, they made themself a coffee - which they took out to the sun room to enjoy the sunrise. The three-season sunroom wasn’t enough to keep out the early spring chill, but the heavy blanket left on the small wicker loveseat was enough to keep them warm. Struck by the vast contrast to their previous early morning routines, Aspen couldn’t help taking a selfie to send to Becks.

Aspen
Enjoying sunrise in my sunroom - which is the size of my entire kitchen at the last place.
What even is my life???

Their things weren’t set to arrive for several more days, but Aspen was restless with the need to do something productive. So rather than lounge in bed, they pulled some clothes out of their suitcase at random and got dressed. They peeked into the bathroom on their way past, which was between the main bedroom and the client reception and waiting area at the front of the house and saw that their mother had clearly removed their aunt’s sprawling collection of cosmetics.

The reception area, for clients who preferred to discuss their problems in-person, was in what had once been a second bedroom, and the front door – which had once opened into the living room – had been moved to open into the client area instead. Against the front wall was a small seating area with a low table and several comfortable chairs. Along the back wall, a counter had been installed to serve as storage and a place to ring up purchases for tourists. (Aunt Marcy had kept a number of pre-made charms and other tacky souvenirs specifically for that purpose.)

It was only as Aspen surveyed the front room that they noticed the small box of business cards – freshly updated with their name, address, and the email that they’d used for magical gig work – that had been left on the counter in the front hall where Aunt Marcy had served customers. Beside the box was another note.

I also ordered an ad in next week’s paper, and in the local chamber of commerce. Social media and a website is your problem. Love,
Mum

Aspen smiled fondly at the note, wondering how many such notes they would find scattered around the house before they were fully settled in, tucking it into a pocket.

Aunt Marcy had kept common spell supplies, like jars and pouches, in neatly organized boxes on shelving built into the counter – though they knew from experience that most of her potion making supplies were in the kitchen. And at some point, they’d have to find their aunt’s most recent grimoire, in case she’d been in the middle of working on potion or spell for someone. Unfortunately, since their aunt had been running her practice by herself from her own home, nothing was labeled and they’d have no idea of what supplies there were on hand or where they were kept until they’d done a thorough search of the house.

“Okay,” they muttered. “Let’s start with inventory, then.”

Aspen had just finished counting the various supplies under the counter and started going through the “witch kitsch” Aunt Marcy had made to sell to tourists when there came a knock at the door.

“Come in!” they called out, making a careful note of where they’d been in their count before looking up to see… an astonishingly beautiful man who made them uncomfortably aware of the fact that they were wearing tattered jeggings and no makeup.

Warm brown eyes crinkled into a nervous smile that was framed by long black hair that hung several inches below his shoulders and set off by cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. “Sorry, I saw the lights were on, but I wasn’t sure if you were open for business yet.” The man was dressed in what Aspen tended to think of ‘hipster chic’ – a dark hoodie underneath a lined denim jacket and skinny jeans that showed off a trim figure.

It took Aspen a moment to find their voice. “Oh. Ah. Yes,” they stammered. “Still getting settled in, but. Yes.” They stood and were obscurely pleased to note that they were actually the same height.

The beautiful stranger extended a hand. “Ravindra Singh. Most people call me Rav.”

Aspen throttled down the urge to run their fingers through his gorgeously thick hair and shook his (soft, warm) hand. “Aspen Fahey. They/them.” They smiled, grateful for the practice their job at HexaTech had given in faking composure. “Do you have a preference? Between Ravindra and Rav?”

Rav shrugged. “Not really? Whichever’s easiest. And, uh. He/him.”

“Okay. So, what can I help you with?”

Rav rocked back on his heels as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t have a lot of experience with this kind of stuff,” he admitted. “But I’m pretty sure my studio is haunted. And it’s making it hard to work.”

Aspen smiled, suddenly feeling on much more solid ground. “Great! I mean, not great. But haunted is easy. Much better than cursed. I’ve got lots of experience with haunted.”

Rav looked confused. “Experience?”

“I mean,” Aspen shrugged, desperately attempting to feign a nonchalance they did not in any way feel. “My previous gig was magical support at HexaTech. They’re pretty evil, so people mail haunted stuff to the corporate offices all the time. When I started, we had an intern just for opening the most obviously haunted stuff.”

“Whoa, for real?”

“Yup. Paid! But not enough, obviously. Anyway, I can definitely help.” After several false starts, they found a pen that worked and flipped open their working notebook to a blank page. “So. Your studio is haunted. Tell me about that. When did it start? What’s been happening?”

Rav frowned thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t know when it started, but I moved into the studio four months ago. Things seemed normal at first, but things started getting a bit weird a few weeks later, and then really weird the last few weeks. I was just about to call your…” his voice trailed off and he made an awkward gesture encompassing the house.

“Aunt,” Aspen supplied.

“Your aunt. But then, uh. My condolences, by the way.”

“Thank you. Now when you say weird, weird how? What kind of things have been happening?”

“Mostly stuff moving around. At first it was just small stuff once in a while, and always when I wasn’t around. But then it happened more and more frequently. And then it wasn’t just one or two things, but lots of things. And lately, stuff has been moving when I’m looking right at it.”

“Okay. Is anything getting broken or being thrown at you?”

“Not really.” Rav crossed his arms, clearly re-examining his memories. “It broke a glass yesterday, but that might not have been on purpose.”

“That’s good! And this has only been in your studio, not anywhere else?”

Rav nodded again.

“So, it’s probably the studio that's haunted, not you personally.” Aspen paused to scribble a few notes. “Sounds like a poltergeist, but not a super malevolent one. Easy-peasy… except.” Aspen chewed their lip thoughtfully. “Most of my witch stuff isn’t here yet, and I haven’t sorted through my aunt’s stuff yet so it might take a few days to get what I need together. But I could come out and have a look, so I know what I’m dealing with?”

Aspen felt slightly dizzy when Rav gave them a dazzling smile, relief written all over his face. “That would be great,” he enthused.

“Cool, so. Uh.” Aspen flushed as they realized they hadn’t put any thought into how they were going to get around in the town they were now living in. “I… don’t have a car. Yet. Actually.” Aspen’s cheeks were so warm that their face must have been beet red.

“That’s okay. I could give you a ride…?” Rav’s voice trailed off as he gestured uncertainly out toward the street. Weirdly, it was the uncertainty that made Aspen’s heart skip a beat. How was it that this insanely beautiful man was as socially anxious as they were?

“I mean, if you don’t mind. Thanks.” Aspen ducked their head, hiding behind their long hair as much as they could. “Just give me a minute to grab some things.”

“No prob.”

Aspen ducked into the bedroom – ostensibly to grab a sweater, but in actuality so they could detour to the bathroom long enough to splash cold water on their cheeks and pull themself together. (Figuratively speaking – they figured it would be weird to change or put on makeup at this point.) “Just. Be. Cool,” they muttered to themself. “Okay, brain? Just. Be cool.”

✯ ✯ ✯

The ride over wasn’t as awkward as Aspen had feared. Without any prompting on their part, Rav took the long way through town (“since you’re new here”) and pointed out some local sights, including some local hidden gems (a small locally-owned café, an independently-owned bookstore, various local restaurants), as well as places to avoid during tourist season. His recommendations were enthusiastic enough to reassure them that he had no ulterior motives, and Aspen found themself unexpectedly moved by the small act of kindness.

The studio itself was a small building on the other side of town. The entrance opened onto a small gallery store filled with framed and matted prints of beautifully rendered nature scenes. “These are beautiful!” Aspen exclaimed, bending close to examine the detail of a lovely bayside sunset scene. “How did you make them?”

Rav grinned, his nervousness gone now that he was on familiar ground. “Watercolor.”

“Amazing…” Aspen stopped themself, holding up their hands apologetically. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get distracted.”

“No need to apologize,” Rav said with a flustered smile.

Aspen glanced around the space but couldn’t identify anything strange. Neither were they able to sense any obvious malevolence. “Does anything here look out of place to you?”

Rav looked around, then shook his head. “Not here. But mostly it stays back in the studio.” He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door behind the register. “Which is back here.”

Aspen, who had hung out with a lot of artists in university, had expected chaos and mess. They were surprised to instead see a studio that was so immaculate and neatly organized that it barely looked as if it were in use. Even more surprising was Rav’s sudden inarticulate cry of anguish as he strode over to a painting in progress on an easel. “I wasn’t done with that!” he yelled in frustration at the ceiling.

“I take it something was moved?” Aspen asked mildly from the doorway.

“It put my paints away! And the brushes I was using!” Rav gestured in frustration at the large unit of pull-out drawers. “I left out the colors I was using so I’d be able to match them!”

“And… the ghost put them away?”

Rav held up a finger, clearly mistaking their confusion for skepticism. “I know this sounds crazy, but look.” He opened one of the drawers and started tossing tubes of paint on the floor.
Not more than a second later, the tubes lifted themselves off the floor and floated back into the drawer, which then slammed shut.

Aspen blinked in shock. “Well there’s something I’ve never seen before. You have a poltergeist that cleans!”

“And it’s the worst!” Rav snapped, then winced. “Sorry. I shouldn’t snap at you. It’s just that I’m super ADHD and even if it doesn’t look like it, I have a system. Look at what it keeps doing to my desk.” He walked over to a desk so perfect it looked like something out of an interior design blog, opened the top drawer, and pulled out a handful of sticky notes with notes on them. “I need these reminders where I can see them.”

Aspen nodded. “Because when you can’t see them, it’s like they don’t exist.”

Rav looked relieved that they understood. “Exactly. Now look.” He started re-attaching the sticky notes to his monitor, the keyboard, and other locations around his desk. Just as with the paint, the sticky notes detached themselves almost immediately. This time Rav grabbed for them, and they floated toward the ceiling, just out of the frustrated artist’s reach.

“Whoa! Okay.” Aspen had no idea how Rav felt about being touched, but suspected that something larger than a glass was about to get broken if they didn’t intervene. So they stepped forward, grabbed the edge of Rav’s sleeve, and pulled him gently away from the desk. “Let’s just step away for a second.”

Rav seemed to take the redirection as judgment and crumpled in on himself. “Sorry.” He glanced down at their hand on his sleeve and Aspen hastily let go. “I don’t mean to be so crazy. I just…”

“Hey, I am absolutely not judging here,” Aspen said with as much sincerity as they could muster. “I can see why this is a problem, and I do want to help you.” Aspen glanced back over at the desk where the sticky notes were putting themselves back in the drawer. Something about the movement seemed almost… belligerent? “Look, do you mind giving me a minute here by myself?”

Rav sighed, then nodded. “I’ll. I’ll be outside.”

When he was gone, Aspen turned back to the empty studio. With a poltergeist this reactive, it wouldn’t require any magic to work out a basic system of communication. “Okay. One thump for yes, two thumps for no. Do you understand?”

There was a pause, then the sound of a bang from inside a metal supply cabinet. Yes.

“Are you unhappy here? Do you want to move on?”

Two bangs. No.

“Do you have unfinished business?”

Two bangs.No.

“Encouraging.” Aspen thought for a moment, then switched tacks. “Do you like living around people?”

One bang.

“Do you like living with Rav?”

One bang. Two bangs. One bang. Yes… and no?

“Do you have to clean so much?”

One very loud bang. YES.

“Huh. So. You like living with people because you… need to be helpful?”

One bang.

Aspen thought of all the organizing that would have to be done to make Aunt Marcy’s house into their home, and about how much they hated cleaning. “Do you maybe want to come live with me instead? I’m the new witch in town, and I could use the help. Cleaning is usually challenging for me.”

The pause that followed was long enough that Aspen briefly thought they must have offended the poltergeist by asking, but finally there was one small bang.

“Yes? Are you sure?”

One bang. A pause. One more bang.

“Okay.” Aspen smiled. “Are you tied to the studio?”

One bang.

“It might be a few days before I have the tools I need for a spell to move you. Do you think you could leave Rav’s things alone until then?”

Two bangs.

Aspen snorted. “Look, it’s only for a few days and life will be easier for everyone if you compromise.”

Another long silence. Two bangs. Then one bang.

“Okay. How about… you leave Rav’s paints and brushes alone?”

The longest silence yet.

Aspen crossed their arms and tapped their foot.

Finally, one bang.

“Thank you for being reasonable. I’ll be back in a few days.”

When Aspen stepped outside, Rav was pacing nervously in the tiny parking lot in front of the building. “Good news,” they said cheerfully. “The ghost isn’t malevolent, you just got caught in an incompatible roommates situation. It’ll take me a couple days to get things in order, but I’ll move the ghost out of your studio as soon as I can.”

Rav’s face was almost pathetically grateful. “Oh my god, thank you.”

“I mean.” Aspen laughed. “Maybe don’t thank me yet. I convinced the ghost to leave your painting supplies alone, but you’re going to have to put up with it tidying everything else until I can relocate it.”

Rav smiled, and Aspen’s breath caught in their throat at how much it lit up his face. “Hey, I’ll take it.”

✯ ✯ ✯

Rav dropped them back off at the house. As soon as he was gone, Aspen pulled out their phone to text Becks.

Aspen
Becks I’ve been here less than 24 hours and I met the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in my entire fucking life.

Almost immediately, they got a video call from Becks. “It’s a sign,” she declared without preamble. “Tell me more.”

“He came to the house to get me to help him with a ghost.”

“Not that, dummy. You said he was beautiful. Give me details.”

“He’s… flawless. Athletic hipster, my height, cheekbones that could kill a man… he looks like he just stepped out of a Bollywood movie. Plus, his hair is incredible and he smells amazing.”

“Did this beautiful stranger give you his name?”

“Rav.”

Becks’ eyes narrowed. She brought the phone close to her face. “You’re not telling me something. What aren’t you telling me?”

How did she always know? “I have his number. And we’re getting coffee next week. But.” They cut off Becks’ whoop of celebration. “It’s not a date.”

“Not a date,” Becks scoffed. “He’s beautiful, has incredible hair, and smells amazing. And you just met, and you have his number, and you’ll be getting coffee. How is that not a date?”

“It’s not a date!” Aspen rolled their eyes. “I have his number because I have to call him about a spell I’m doing. And coffee… he’s an artist with his own studio. And Aunt Marcy always made crafty witch kitsch to sell to the tourists, but it’s not really my vibe. So I suggested we collaborate. Maybe make some prints with his art and some witchy blessings or something.”

“Aspen.” Becks gave a long-suffering sigh. “You are your own worst enemy."

Aspen blew a raspberry and hung up.

- - - -
Thanks for Reading!

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Otherwise, follow here for chapters 6, coming July 15!

Thanks to another note from Mum, Aspen discovered that the freezer was full of individual portions of food locals had brought over after Aunt Marcy’s funeral. They were still trying to decide which of the leftovers they wanted to eat when another knock came at the front door.

“No rest for the wicked,” they sighed as they closed the freezer and went to open the door.

Standing on the front step was a lanky man several inches shorter than them with blond hair and one of those round faces that might have been anywhere from mid-twenties to late thirties. He twisted his hands, looking extremely nervous. “Can I come in?” he asked softly.

Aspen smiled encouragingly and stepped back. “By all means. What can I help you with?”

“It’s a, uh, potion,” the man stammered, fidgeting uncertainly. “That Marcy always used to make for me. I’m almost out and. Uh. I really need it.”

Aspen nodded. “I can see how that would be concerning. Why don’t you take off your shoes and sit down? I’ll need to search through my aunt’s records.”

He nodded and kicked off his shoes before taking a seat while Aspen dragged a box out from behind the counter and carried it over to the table. “I’m Aspen. They/them. What’s your name?”

“Jake,” the man all but whispered, clearly struggling to get that much out.

“Nice to meet you, Jake.” Aspen opened the box containing their aunt’s records, which was really nothing more than about ten different notebooks and several file folders crammed full of loose papers. “Can you tell me what the potion was for?”

Jake paled, which took his complexion from ‘about as pale as Aspen’ to ‘corpse-like’. “Uh.”

Once again, Aspen found themself grateful for their time at HexaTech as they assumed their best Neutral Listening Face and waited their visitor out.

Finally, he gave in. “It’s a potion of seeming,” he mumbled. “To disguise my demon features and make me look human. I’ve only got a couple of days left and. I’m not. You know. Out at work.”

Well. That was certainly unexpected. “When did she start brewing the potion for you?”

“About two years ago.”

“Hmm.” Aspen eyeballed the stack of notebooks, then grabbed the third one down. They were able to confirm almost immediately that they had the right time period, but it took several minutes of flipping before Aspen finally found something that looked promising. “Does this look familiar?” they asked, holding out a scrap of paper with a spell sigil that had been paper-clipped to the likely-looking entry.

“Yes!” Jake exclaimed, his relief palpable.

“Okay, give me a minute here.” Aspen carefully reviewed the entry, relieved to see that while their aunt’s organizational system left a lot to be desired, she had kept meticulous notes that included details about the potion’s effects, required ingredients, instructions for preparation, and even dosage. They were relieved to see nothing that would prevent them from getting started.

“I can get this started right now and have some ready for you by tomorrow morning,” they said slowly. “But you may need to take more of it than usual since I won’t be brewing at the optimal time of the month, which is…” they checked the notes, then thumbed open the moon phase app on their phone. “In a week and a half.”

Jake scrambled up from the table. “I’ll get out of your way then,” he said hurriedly. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

Aspen smiled. “Come by any time after nine.”

Thankfully, Aunt Marcy’s potion ingredients were all sensibly organized. With the detailed instructions their aunt had left, it didn’t take Aspen long to prepare Jake’s potion and set it to brewing. Once that was done, they returned to the task of doing an inventory – since they still hadn’t located their aunt’s stash of candles, which were a key component in the spell they’d need to move Rav’s ghost.

Aspen finally found them in a tiny closet just off the kitchen - various lengths in a rainbow of different colors fully filled the top three shelves. With a pleased noise, they went to pull out the white candle that Rav’s spell would require. However, the thought of Rav prompted their traitor fingers to pull out a pink candle instead. Once it was in their hand, they found it impossible to put down, captivated by the possibilities.

Obviously, a love spell targeting Rav would be an incredibly unethical abuse of power. But, a small traitorous voice whispered, there was nothing wrong in casting an open-ended love spell for themself to remove obstacles to future romantic relationships that might come their way. The idea was tempting, so tempting. But could they really trust themself and their decisions about relationships after how colossally they’d screwed up their life to get to this point?

Aspen’s hand twitched toward their phone, the urge to call Becks warring with the feeling that they were being ridiculous. Ultimately, it was mistrust in their own thinking that won out – Becks was a (mostly) objective third party that could be trusted to tell them if they were considering something foolish.

With a sigh, Aspen slumped against the wall and slid to the floor as they opted for a voice call, not up to dealing with Becks’ extensive vocabulary of sarcastic facial expressions.

“Sorry for calling first. Also, you have to promise not to make fun of me or I’m hanging up.”

To her credit, Becks’ response wasn’t sarcastic. “Okay. So what’s the crisis you’re having, siblet?”

Aspen made a small indignant noise. “Crisis?”

“You wouldn’t call twice in one day if you weren’t having a crisis.”

“I texted and you called me. Also, I think that after everything that has happened in the last two weeks,” they responded crisply. “That I am fully entitled to have a crisis.”

Becks chuckled ruefully. “Yeah, that checks out. I apologize. Please go ahead.”

Aspen stared at the pink candle in their hand. “Is it too early for me to date someone?”

“No,” Becks said decisively. “Next question.”

“Becks, I’m serious!”

There was a pause in which Becks didn’t make the expected cutting response. “Okay. What makes you feel like you shouldn’t be dating, then?”

“I just got out of a ten-year relationship.”

“Okay. A. Quantity does not equal quality,” their sister shot back. “And I think we’ve established that William was a piece of shit. And B, you’ve had one foot out the door for at least a year now. It’s not like you’re on the rebound.”

Aspen sighed, thinking of the number of conversations they’d had where they’d talked circles around their lack of feelings for William, unable to confront that the relationship had been damaged beyond repair for a long time. Looking back at how it had all fallen apart anyway made them feel even more stupid. “What if I’m not ready? To be dating people. What if I’m still too fucked up?”

“I don’t know,” Becks said archly. “Are you too fucked up about William to be dating right now?” They heard the subtext of their sister’s question loud and clear – practicing self-awareness was critical for any magician, but especially for a practicing community witch. Much as they hated it, Becks couldn’t tell them if they should or shouldn’t be dating.

Aspen sighed. “Okay. I hear you. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Becks said, mercifully refraining from teasing them.

Aspen hung up the phone, annoyed that they were right back where they had started. Part of them remained convinced that it was too soon, that opening themself to new relationships was a bad idea and they’d only screw things up. After all, they’d been so bad at running their own life that it had taken the death of a beloved relative and nuking their entire life from orbit, including their relationship with William, to get a fresh start.

Then again, maybe it hadn’t been entirely their fault their life had blown up. Maybe William had been a bigger part of the problem than they had allowed themself to realize.

“You know what, he was a piece of shit,” they muttered.

Decision made, they moved quickly and with resolve, assembling the ingredients they needed to cast this simple spell quickly, so as to not give themself time to second-guess the decision. Love spells like these had been among the most frequently requested when they were still freelancing, and it took them very little time and effort to make and charge the spell candle, which they left burning on the altar in the bedroom.

✯ ✯ ✯

After a full day of meeting people, getting acquainted with the house and its contents, and doing magic, Aspen spent the evening watching comfort reality television.

After seeing the potion safely in Jake’s hands at ten the next morning, it took them another full day to make the preparations needed to tackle Rav’s poltergeist. Banishing a ghost was a lot more straightforward than capturing and moving it would be and was something that would require a great deal of trust on the ghost’s part. As such, when making the ghost jar Aspen cast a number of spells designed to protect the contents from outside influence - rather than the other way around - to convince the ghost that Aspen truly meant it no harm.

By the time the work was done it was late in the afternoon and Aspen reluctantly concluded that as eager as they were to see Rav again, they were truthfully too tired for any more magic that day.

Instead, they snapped a quick picture of the ghost jar they had created and sent it to Rav.

Aspen
The Ghost U-Haul you ordered is ready.
When’s a good time for you tomorrow?

Rav
[confetti emoji]
Pick you up at 11? If that’s not too early?

Aspen
[thumbs up][ghost]
See you then.

✯ ✯ ✯

Upon arriving, Aspen had Rav let them into the back area – he was more than happy to wait in the gallery while they worked. They were pleased to see that the area around Rav’s easel was looking a bit more normally disheveled, as it spoke to a willingness on the ghost’s part to compromise, and hopefully a more productive cohabiting relationship between it and Aspen. (Aspen wasn’t against the general idea of tidying - they just tended to get too overwhelmed by the inevitable futility of fighting entropy to do so very often.) The process of moving the ghost was anticlimactic, requiring only that they open the jar, light the small spell candle inside, and set a timer for the length of time the candle would burn.

While they waited, Rav gave them a proper tour of the gallery. Aspen was even more impressed than they had been on their first visit, blown away by the saturation of the colors and the quiet, still beauty in his paintings. Rav, for his part, was happy to have an interested audience, and the time passed agreeably as they chatted about Rav’s art.

The artist’s easy-going nature gave Aspen the courage to ask a potentially awkward question. “If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?”

“Thirty-two…?” Rav answered, obviously confused about the purpose of the question.

Aspen flapped their hands awkwardly. “Sorry, I just. I was pretty sure you were about my age – thirty, by the way – which begs the question - how did you afford all this? The studio and the gallery?”

Rav blinked, then laughed comprehendingly. “My uncle works in real estate,” he admitted sheepishly. “He bought the place and I’m repaying the loan to him directly.”

“Ah. A very millennial origin story.” Aspen grimaced. “Still. I’m glad you got the place.”

Rav smiled. “Yeah. Me too.”

Aspen cursed inwardly as their timer chose that moment to go off and excused themself to go and screw the lid back on the ghost jar, carrying it out more gingerly than was probably necessary. “Done and done. Let’s get your unwanted house guest out of here.”

When they pulled into Aspen’s driveway, Rav turned off the car but didn’t seem in a hurry to see them off. “I can’t even begin to thank you enough.”

“Thank me if it works.” Aspen shrugged. “And let me know if anything else weird happens.”

Rav nodded. “See you next week, I suppose?”

“Yeah. See you then.”

Reluctantly, Aspen climbed out and walked up to the house, pausing when they saw a same-day package on their doorstep. “Perfect timing,” they exclaimed.

Once inside, they opened the ghost jar and set it down on the kitchen counter. They then opened the package, which contained three alphabets worth of small magnetic letters and a small magnetic whiteboard. Aspen made a show of putting the letters on the bottom door of the fridge. “Better than ‘once for yes, two for no, I hope. But I also got you this,” they said, indicating the whiteboard they were affixing to the freezer door. “In case that’s your preference.”

Aspen stared at the setup thoughtfully, then penned a message on the whiteboard with the included dry-erase marker. “Do you mind if I call you Dennis? Y or N?”

Satisfied with their handiwork, Aspen capped the marker and set it on top of the fridge. “I’ll just leave you to get settled then,” they said cheerfully. “Take your time.”

✯ ✯ ✯

Dennis did not, in fact, mind the appellation, apparently not having any strong feelings about names or pronouns one way or the other. Aspen had decided on masculine pronouns, since they had privately decided that his full proper name would be Dennis the Menace – for how frustrating he had been for Rav.

Unfortunately, with Dennis settled and the agreed-upon coffee with Rav not until next week, that left Aspen entirely at loose ends, without even unpacking to attend to. Worse, the cold February rain kept them from going anywhere, as their only mode of transportation was the bicycle they had unearthed (thankfully still in good repair) in the garage. They wouldn’t have a source of income until their registration with the College was processed, and they preferred not to eat any further into the insurance payout sitting in their bank account than they had to. So instead, they rattled around the house in a gloomy mood for the next two days, barely managing to take more than a cursory glance at their aunt’s more recent files.

Unfortunately, they were enough of an extrovert to find the solitude extremely draining. And after ten years of being in a relationship, being alone was not something they had any practice at, even if it had been a long time since they actually enjoyed William’s company. And now that he was gone, their brain insisted on dredging up the few positive qualities they did miss and dwelling on them. Combined with the freshness of their grief for their aunt, it was easy to get caught up in feeling sorry for themself.

Finally, when the third day dawned clear and dry, Aspen made an effort to shake off the gloom. “Enough moping,” they scolded themself. “Time to go meet some people.”

They forced themself to get dressed, and took extra care with their makeup - knowing that they’d feel better when it was done. They dressed for the weather which while disagreeable was still far warmer at 7C than Toronto’s current windchill of -23C, putting on their favorite black sweater over a medium short black skirt (no sense in wearing anything that would get caught while biking) and a warm pair of thick silver leggings. Over top of all this, they wore a medium weight purple pea coat with a heavy silver scarf and tucked their hair (which needed recoloring) under a black toque.

Pleased that they were suitably attired for introducing themself as the new town witch, they pulled on their galaxy-print boots. “All right, Dennis,” they said as they tucked the box of business cards mum had left into their bag. “I’m going out to hand out business cards.”

The cupboard above the fridge rattled and Aspen looked up to see magnets reading GOOD LUCK. MAKE FRIENDS. (Dennis had an easier time with the magnets than the white board.)

Aspen smiled, feeling strangely encouraged. “Thanks, buddy. I’ll try.”

As they were locking the house, movement caught their eye. They turned to see a lanky goth teenager standing indecisively at the end of the driveway. As soon as they were spotted, however, the teenager panicked, hopped back on their bicycle, and sped off, leaving Aspen to wonder what had just happened.

✯ ✯ ✯

Figuring they might as well start with the local business owners, Aspen biked into downtown (such as it was in a town of not-quite-twenty thousand), planning to make their way down the main drag.

It was, at least, not as horrible as they had feared. Everyone they talked to was very friendly – they imagined it helped that no one was going to be rude to the new witch. Less optimal, however, was having the same conversation with well-meaning locals over and over. Yes, they were living in Aunt Marcy’s old house. Yes, it was very sad that she was gone. Yes, they were here full time now.

By the time Aspen had worked their way up one side of the block and down the other, they were feeling overwhelmed and tired enough that they almost skipped their last stop, a small locally-owned gym, before thinking better of it.

“Okay. Last one, and then we’re getting a fancy coffee,” they muttered to themself as they pushed open the door.

Unsurprisingly, the gym was fairly empty at two in the afternoon on a weekday, with only a couple of die-hards lifting weights near the back. At the front counter was an athletic woman with long dark brown hair pulled into a tight ponytail, her close-fitting crop top and matching high-waisted grey leggings emphasizing her muscular build. She looked up as they came in and did a double-take, her warm brown eyes going wide in shock. “Oh my god!” She visibly stopped herself from using a name that was no longer correct. “Fahey?’

Completely unprepared to run into someone from far enough in their past to have known them pre-transition, it took a second to process their surprise. “Oh. Uh, it’s Aspen now,” they stammered.

The woman, who was maddeningly familiar, and yet wholly unknown to them, grinned and rushed out from behind the counter to give them a bone-crushing hug. Aspen frantically wracked their brain, distantly noting that she was a good half-head shorter than they were. “I can’t believe you’re here!”

It wasn’t until she released them and stepped back that they finally recognized their old high school friend. “Holy shit! Castillo? It’s so good to see you!”

“Got it in one,” she laughed. “I’m Nat now.”

“I feel so stupid, how did I not recognize you?”

“It might have something to do with the completely different look and entirely new gender,” Nat said with a grin and a hair toss.

Aspen grimaced. “Still, we were only, like, best friends…”

Nat’s smile widened. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

Aspen grinned. “You should! You look great. Uh, they/them, by the way.”

“Got it. She/her for me. And.” Aspen found themself flushing as Nat gave them an appraising look and apparently liked what she saw. “Honestly, so do you.” Nat’s smile faded a bit. “Also, I’m so sorry about your aunt. I missed the funeral because I was visiting friends in Whistler. I had no idea you’d be coming out here, though, or I would have come and found you when I got back!”

“I mean. Thanks? But also. What are you doing here?”

Nat made a face just as the door behind them opened. “Listen, I’ve got back-to-back-to-back clients coming in. Do you want to catch up when I’m done at five?”

“Uh, yeah. Of course. That would be amazing.”

Before Aspen quite knew what was happening, Nat stood on tiptoes to give them a quick kiss on the cheek. “See you soon,” she said with a wink, then moved to greet the newcomer, who was apparently the first of her three clients.

Aspen awkwardly ducked back outside, only becoming aware as they stepped outside into the cold early March air that their face was extremely warm, and their heart was pounding.

✯ ✯ ✯

The twenty-minute ride home was more than enough time for Aspen to tie themself in knots over the encounter.

The first thing they did after arriving back at the house and pulling off their boots was stomp into the bedroom, where they made a series of emphatically bewildered gestures at the pink candle stub on their altar. “Very funny!” they shouted impotently. “Absolutely hilarious!"

Realizing that yelling at a candle was going to get them nowhere fast, Aspen fumbled their phone out of their pocket.

Aspen
I’m so sorry to be such a disaster, but can I call?
In full on Bisexual Panic here.

Becks called ten minutes later. “Aspen, hey. What’s up?”

“My life has turned into a Lifemark movie,” Aspen groaned, flopping dramatically onto their bed. “Thirty year old enby leaves the big city, including their terrible partner and the job they hate, to move to a beautiful small town, has meet cute with beautiful stranger before running into The One That Got Away.”

There was a choking sound on the other end of the line.

“You’re allowed to laugh,” Aspen grumbled. “Even I think it’s ridiculous, and I’m living it.”

Becks didn’t laugh, but Aspen could hear the grin in her voice. “I assume the beautiful stranger is Rav, but who is The One That Got Away?”

“Remember that guy I was hopelessly in love with in high school? The wholesome football player?”

“Maybe?”

“My best friend? The one that was over all the time?”

“Oh my god, that himbo you tutored, then pined for the rest of high school? The one you wanted to smash from orbit?”

“Not a himbo,” Aspen bristled, unable to argue with the rest of Becks’ description. “Anyway. Especially not she’s Nat now. I ran into her at the gym just now when I was dropping off cards around town. And we’re going to catch up when she’s done with work.”

This time, Becks did laugh – gleeful peals that made Aspen smile despite themself.

“It gets worse,” they groaned.

“I’m on the edge of my seat. Continue.”

Aspen’s cheeks flushed as they thought of how Nat had looked in her form-fitting gym wear. “She’s even hotter post-transition, somehow? I don’t even know how it’s possible, but she is.”

“How is that worse, though? I’m not seeing how that’s a bad thing.”

“It’s bad because. You know. I mean.” Aspen blew out a gusty sigh and struggled to collect their thoughts. “Seeing her made me realize all those old feelings are still there, you know?”

“You poor baby.”

Aspen snorted. “What am I even going to do about tonight? I don’t know that it’s a date, but if it is… what do I do about coffee with Rav next week?”

Becks’ answering sigh was a mix of fond and exasperated. “First, it’s coffee, not a betrothal. Second, por qué no los dos?”

“What?”

“It means ‘why not both’.”

“I know perfectly well what it means. But--”

Becks cut Aspen off. “You can date more than one person.”

Aspen scoffed. “I’m still not convinced I’m not too much of a disaster for one relationship, let alone two.”

“Look. Stop being a weirdo and go get dinner with the hot jock, okay?” Aspen heard Rachel yell something in the background, which Becks then repeated for Aspen’s benefit. “And send photos.”

“I will not,” Aspen said firmly, then hung up.

- - - -
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- - -

When it was finally time to go back out and meet Nat, Dennis rattled the cupboard again. This time, the magnets just read KISS GIRL.

“Et tu, Dennis?” Aspen asked sourly as they left.

After a year of living in downtown Toronto, Aspen still found it unnerving how extremely dark the Island got at night and opted to grab a ride share back to Nat’s gym rather than risk biking unfamiliar roads in the pitch black to get back home.

Their ride pulled up just as Nat came outside. Somehow, Aspen found Nat’s cold weather attire – a leather jacket and oversized grey sweater over black leggings – just as distracting as her gym wear had been. “Hey! Perfect timing!” Nat said brightly. “Sorry you had to get a ride in. If I’d known, I would have offered to pick you up.”

“Oh. Uh. Yeah,” Aspen hesitated over whether to go for a hug, then cursed themself when the moment passed. “Aunt Marcy didn’t have a car so,” they said with an embarrassed shrug. “Neither do I.”

Nat smiled. “I’m pretty hungry, and I was thinking we could go to this great little taqueria around the corner? They’ve got amazing carnitas.”

Aspen smiled. “Sounds perfect.”

The carnitas was every bit as good as promised, but the tiny storefront obliged them to eat quickly and move on. Nat was apologetic as they were leaving. “Sorry. Maybe not the best spot for catching up, but I really wanted tacos. We could go for a walk if it’s not too cold for you?”

Aspen grinned. “It’s okay. The tacos were delicious, and single digits in March is balmy by Toronto standards. I’m okay if you are.”

“Grand.” Nat gestured down the street and the two of them easily fell into step beside one another.

“So help me out here. How did you end up on the Island when the last I heard, you were off to study Engineering in Alberta?”

Nat groaned. “Yeah, that ended up being a complete disaster. Being away from my family and my church for the first time meant I got to meet and hang out with actual queer people for the first time, which accelerated me headfirst into getting my egg cracked. Plus, I hated engineering – I only picked it to make my family happy. I was so miserable that I spent more time skiing than studying and failed half my exams at the end of first year, so I dropped out of the program.”

“Oh no.” Aspen grimaced sympathetically. “That sounds awful.”

“My parents were furious,” Nat admitted.

“I’m sorry,” Aspen said after an uncomfortable moment of silence. “I didn’t mean to bring up something difficult.”

“It was more than ten years ago and I’m mostly over it now.” Nat said with a shrug. “Anyway, tl;dr: my family cut me off when I came out. So I stayed in Calgary and worked several seasons as a ski instructor, then relocated to Whistler after I went to a friend’s wedding and fell in love with this part of the world.

“By the time I got tired of the seasonal employment life, I’d made friends with my boss. He offered to hire me on permanently as a personal trainer, so I got my certification and came out here to put down roots. I’ve been in Parksville almost three years now.”

Aspen whistled. “Wow. You must have had some crazy adventures along the way.” Aspen hesitated, then added, “I’m sorry about your family, though. That sucks.”

“It is what it is,” Nat said, clearly trying to be philosophical about it. She paused and pointed inquiringly at the sign that marked the trail down to the beach, and Aspen nodded their assent. “So what about you? There’s obviously more to how you ended up moving out here than your aunt dying?”

“Well. I went to school for witching, obviously, and finished, and for a long time I honestly wished I hadn’t bothered. It’s impossible to get public sector jobs in Ontario, and I was never able to get enough work to go full time with freelancing. So finally, I gave up trying and took a job in corporate magical support to support my partner through his last year of law school and studying for the Bar.”

“Your partner’s a lawyer?”

Was it Aspen’s imagination or did Nat look worried? They found themself flustered by the implications. “Was. I mean. Is.” They made a noise of frustration, then tried again. “William was my partner, still is a lawyer.”

“Oh. So you’re not…”

“God no. When Aunt Marcy died and left me her house, it was contingent on relocating here and opening my own practice. Except for the part about my aunt dying, it was my dream come true, and the first thing William said when he heard was that I shouldn’t take it because his firm didn’t have any offices in Vancouver.”

Nat wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Gross.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, that was pretty typical. He, uh. Didn’t take me breaking up with him very well, so Becks and her wife, Rachel—”

“Oh my god!” Nat exclaimed delightedly. “Your sister’s gay?”

“Oh yeah. The gayest.” Aspen grinned. “She moved to Alberta to be a farm lesbian.”

Nat squeaked in excitement and gestured for Aspen to continue. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Um. So, Becks and Rachel flew back to Ontario with me, helped organize the move, and kept him away from me. My stuff arrives tomorrow, actually.”

Nat’s eyes were wide with dismay as she placed a sympathetic hand on their shoulder, causing Aspen to flush embarrassingly as their heart skipped a beat. “I’m sorry. That’s so much, and you’re still right in the middle of it.”

Aspen suppressed the urge to shrug, not wanting Nat to think that they didn’t want to be touched... because they very much did. “It’s okay. I hadn’t been in love with William for a long time, so coming out here got me away from him and my job.” Their delivery was casual, but Nat’s expression grew even more intense. “So I think it’s for the best,” they finished weakly.

“That’s awful,” Nat said softly. “Could I – I don’t know if you do hugs. Do you? Could I give you one?”

Aspen nodded, unable to find their voice.

Nat wrapped her arms around Aspen’s waist and tucked her face against their shoulder as she held Aspen closely, if not quite as crushingly as before. After a moment’s hesitation, Aspen wrapped their arms around Nat’s shoulders and leaned into the hug, distressingly, blissfully aware of every point of contact.

When she finally let go, Aspen’s brain was too full of static to manage anything intelligible. They looked away in an effort to hide their blush and found themself arrested by the glorious sunset - a riot of pinks, oranges, and purples which silhouetted the dramatic rises of distant islands. “Oh wow. What an incredible view.”

“I never get tired of it,” Nat said softly.

They stood in silence for a long moment, taking in the sound of the waves hitting the shore. “I hated living in downtown Toronto,” Aspen finally said. “It was crowded and ugly, and it took forever to get anywhere that actually felt like nature. But this…” They shook their head, too overwhelmed by how much their life had changed in such a short span to know how to finish that sentence.

Thankfully, Nat took this as her cue to change the subject. “So. Tell me about Becks’ wife! Rachel, you said?”

Aspen seized on the new topic with relief. They told Nat about Rachel and the small farm they lived on just outside of Calgary. An off-handed mention of Rachel’s insistence that William was the definition of ‘a face in need of a fist’ prompted a full re-telling of The Coffee Incident. Nat’s uproarious laughter was so infectious that Aspen found themself relating their more humorous funeral misadventures, from getting kicked out of the coffin showroom to Uncle Robert to their photo introduction to Cuddles the corn snake. Nat was a gratifyingly appreciative audience, and bit by bit Aspen’s worries that they wouldn’t know how to talk to her anymore began to fade. Finally, not wanting to monopolize the conversation, Aspen asked Nat what it had been like working as a ski instructor, which led to the two of them swapping their craziest job stories.

They talked for hours, wandering aimlessly through town once it got too cold to stay on the beach. Aspen could have suggested adjourning to somewhere indoors, but Nat had slipped her arm through theirs shortly after turning back from the water and they would have endured just about any discomfort to prevent her from removing it - and not just because they were extremely attracted to her. Nat’s easy affection soothed a wild and restless hunger, making them realize how long it had been since William had been physically affectionate as a matter of routine.

When a face-splitting yawn prompted Aspen to check the time, they were shocked to see that it was nearly nine o’clock. “Sorry,” they said sheepishly. “I’m still not fully on BC time, I guess.”

“Then I’ll get you home so you can get some sleep.” Nat smiled and turned the two of them around but made no move to withdraw her arm until they arrived back at the gym and Nat’s car – a small blue hatchback with a roof rack – parked out front.

All too soon, they were pulling into Aspen’s driveway. They put a reluctant hand on the door handle, suddenly unsure of what came next.

Either unaware or unbothered by their confusion, Nat smiled and put a hand on Aspen’s knee, causing their stomach to give a lurch. “I’m so glad we ran into each other. This was really fun.”

Aspen’s chest felt as though it might burst trying to contain the welter of feelings they were having. “It was,” they managed.

“Do you want to get coffee later this week?”

The combination of Nat’s warm hand on their knee and the prospect of getting to see her again on possibly-a-real-date made Aspen feel like they might explode. They smiled, hoping the expression looked like a normal human smile, and reminded themself that if they could be polite to their idiot HexaTech co-workers every day they could fake being a functional human for a few more seconds. “I would love that.”

Nat beamed at Aspen before opening her contacts and handing them her phone. “I’ll text you tomorrow after I check my work calendar to figure out a time.”

Aspen added their number and handed it back. “Looking forward to it,” they said, grinning like an idiot.

Their heart was pounding as they got out of the car and watched Nat drive off, the cold night air extra crisp against cheeks that were nearly feverishly warm. They could still feel the burning imprint of Nat’s hand on their knee, which summoned the even more inflammatory memory of holding her in their arms and being held by her in return.

“I’m in trouble,” Aspen sighed, confronted with the undeniability of their feelings, which burned just as bright as they had before their decade apart. They could feel the fear that they were doomed to repeat those years of tortured pining lurking in the corners of their mind, but they were too full of luminous hope for it to find any real purchase.

They stumbled into the house, their movements made clumsy by a combination of giddiness and fatigue. Once inside, they pulled out their phone by habit, opened the Messages app, and snorted at a message from their mother.

Your sister tells me you met someone?

Aspen rolled their eyes and dropped their phone back in their pocket, deciding to keep their mother and sister in the dark a little longer.

They went through their bedtime ablutions in a haze before dropping gratefully into bed. However, sleep eluded them as they fell into an obsessive interrogation of their feelings. Was coffee with Nat a date? They very much wanted it to be a date, but did Nat? And what about Rav? As overwhelming as the resurgence of their feelings for Nat was, thinking about Rav still evoked the same feelings of attraction. Maybe Rav wasn’t interested, but maybe he was, or would be. What would they do then?

The questions chased themselves in seemingly endless circles until finally exhaustion overcame anxiety.

✯ ✯ ✯

The following morning saw the arrival of the moving van with their things. As the van was only half-full, it took less than half an hour for the movers to unload the van into the house.

“Well, Dennis,” Aspen said thoughtfully, looking at the pile of boxes in the reception area. “It’s okay if the answer is no, but do you want to help?”

From the kitchen, one cupboard slam. Yes.

“Great. We’ll start with the kitchen then.”

Becks and Rachel had kept the contents of the boxes well-organized and labeled, unlike previous moves when Aspen’s belongings had ended up haphazardly shoved wherever they would fit. This made it easy for them to locate the several boxes of magical tools and spell ingredients, which they hauled into the kitchen and set on the counter. However, they were only halfway through emptying the first box when they were completely overwhelmed by the number of decisions they would need to make about how to merge their supplies with Aunt Marcy’s pre-existing storage system.

“Do you have any opinions about this stuff, Dennis?”

One cupboard slam, then magnets rearranging themselves. ME KITCHEN. YOU BEDROOM?

Aspen blinked in surprise. “Really? You sure?”

One slam.

“Thanks, buddy.” Aspen happily left Dennis to deal with the kitchen and dragged the several boxes of clothing and shoes into the bedroom. It was arguably the more laborious of the two tasks, as there was a full closet and chest of drawers to go through before they could put away their own clothing. But as Aunt Marcy had been quite petite, there was no question of needing to make decisions about what they might be interested in. After unpacking their own clothing onto every available flat surface, they packed all of Aunt Marcy’s clothing neatly into the boxes their own clothes had arrived in – setting aside only a few particularly sentimental pieces for Mum and Becks.

When their own clothing was finally put away, there were no signs of activity from the kitchen, so Aspen decided to investigate. “All done, buddy?”

One cupboard slam. Yes.

“Amazing! Let me see.”

Dennis gave them a tour by opening each door and drawer in turn. By the time they were done, Aspen was extremely impressed with the poltergeist’s organizational skills.

“Dennis, this is incredible. Thank you so much,” they enthused. “Every other time I moved, the kitchen stayed packed for weeks. This is such a help.”

WELCOME.

“What are these?” Aspen asked, indicating the small pile of magical implements that had been left on the table.

There was an uncertain flurry of magnets, as though Dennis didn’t have enough magnets for what he wanted to say. POTIONS IN KITCHEN. The magnets froze for a moment to Aspen to read them, then rearranged themselves again. RITUAL TOOLS ON ALTAR.

Aspen grinned. “Dennis, I’m super impressed. I didn’t think you’d know so much about magic!”

THANK YOU. HAPPY TO HELP. Then, unexpectedly. DOOR?

“Door?”

GO LOOK.

Curious, Aspen did as directed and went to the front window. There, they saw the same teenage goth they had seen before. By the time they opened the front door to invite them in, however, they had already fled.

“Well thanks for the warning, at least, Dennis.” They sighed, eyeing the remaining boxes reluctantly.

Two emphatic slams. No. SIT. EAT.

“Called out,” Aspen laughed. “But you’re not wrong.”

They cheerfully ate a quick lunch, then drifted into the living room, wanting a more comfortable spot to catch up on notifications before getting back to work. Phone already in one hand, they flopped onto the couch, careful to avoid the spot in the middle where the elderly springs sagged badly - only for the front leg to snap off with a loud crack and dump Aspen onto the floor.

“Rude!” Aspen said to no one in particular, surveying the ruins of the couch - which looked well and truly dead. Not only had the leg snapped, but the frame had cracked in the middle. For a moment they had to fight down a surge of panic until they remembered that William wasn’t there to be mad about a large, unexpected expense.

How did you buy a new couch? Aspen was over thirty and had never bought furniture that hadn’t come from a thrift store - William had made all of the furniture decisions for their Toronto apartment.

Before Aspen got to Oogling, they took a rueful selfie and sent it to Nat.

Aspen
My couch just died rather dramatically.

Aspen’s heart jumped as three dots started dancing immediately.

Nat
Thoughts and prayers.
My condolences in this difficult time.

Aspen
It had a long fulfilling life.

- - - -

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- - - -

The next two days passed in a blur of house-related tasks. There had been more unpacking, as well as going through the contents of the basement – a large portion of which had been Aunt Marcy’s unconscionably large collection of Christmas decorations. After unexpectedly sobbing over a box of the tackiest decorative snowmen known to man, Aspen had called their mother and told her to put out the word that they would still host Christmas. The family had always celebrated Christmas on the Island, and Aspen couldn’t bear the thought of ending that tradition.

Couch shopping was both less sad and something they were able to do locally, and the fact that they were essentially spending someone else’s money made it easier for Aspen to navigate the sticker shock (a month’s rent in Toronto!). They ended up selecting a large sectional, thinking that additional seating would be welcome when the family invaded over the holidays. Delivery wouldn’t be for two weeks, but it wasn’t as if the house was bustling social hub.

When the day of their coffee date with Rav arrived, Aspen spent more time than was strictly necessary on their makeup and agonizing over an outfit that would read as ‘cute for something that’s not a date’. Finally, they opted for jeggings and a purple flannel and absolutely weren’t still second-guessing that choice when Rav pulled in to pick them up. (Once again, on account of the miserable rainy weather, he had offered a ride without them having to ask.)

At the café, Aspen was amused to discover that Rav was one of those weirdos whose primary source of liquid was astonishing quantities of coffee. He ordered a dark roast in a size so large it was practically American and took it completely black. Aspen confined themself to a small latte, and felt weirdly reassured that Rav wasn’t entirely perfect.

Once they had their orders, Rav confirmed their suspicions that this was Not A Date by getting out his sketchbook and showing them some quick sketches he’d done since they had proposed working together - several rough pencils as well as one small watercolor study. They so perfectly matched what Aspen had been thinking that they almost didn’t feel disappointed about the Not Date status of the outing. And that small disappointment was easily forgotten once they set out the samples they’d brought of their aunt’s “witch kitsch” – sigils for prosperity, love and the like with cutesy hand-embroidered floral borders.

The next hour passed quite agreeably as they chatted about directions the collaboration could take. Aspen got to admire Rav’s skill firsthand as he sketched out a few possibilities as they talked, his fingers moving with a practiced economy of motion that belied the vital energy of the lines he set down on the page.

When Rav closed his sketchbook and pronounced himself satisfied that he had enough to get started on a few test pieces, Aspen figured that would be their signal to leave. Instead, conversation drifted to other topics for a while until Aspen worked up the nerve to ask a more personal question.

“Can I—I mean, I understand if the answer is no, but could I look at your sketchbook?” they asked shyly. Rav’s eyebrows shot up in surprise and they found themself twisting their fingers nervously as they clarified. “I really liked the sketches you did just now, and I was curious.”

Rav’s surprise gave way to a slow self-conscious smile. He nudged the sketchbook, which was still sitting on the table, toward them and gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Go nuts?”

Aspen hesitated, but curiosity ultimately overpowered their self-consciousness. They angled the sketchbook so it was facing them and flipped it open to a random page, exclaiming softly in surprise at a pen drawing of a single tree in a lonely looking field. As with his pencil sketches, the lines were energetic without ever crossing into messy. Aspen glanced up at Rav to see that he had slumped in his chair and shoved his hands in his pockets even as he looked pleased by Aspen’s reaction. Since he didn’t look like he wanted them to stop, Aspen started flipping through the pages, which were a mix of pen and pencil drawings of landscapes in various stages of refinement.

“Rav, these are beautiful,” they said softly, looking up from a particularly lovely rendering of what looked to be the cathedral forest – a destination Aspen had heard much about but had yet to visit.

Rav’s answering grin was a mix of pride and embarrassment as a light blush crept across his face. “I mean, landscapes are easy out here. You can’t throw a rock on the Island without hitting a piece of amazing scenery.”

Aspen rolled their eyes, emboldened by his obvious pleasure at their reaction. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but you’re a professional artist. Which means lots of people give you money for your art.”

“Yeah, but.” Rav’s grin widened. “What if everyone finds out I’ve actually been faking it all along?” he joked, tapping the side of his head.

“Rav.”

“I know.” He shrugged again. “What can I say? Anxiety is an asshole.”

“I don’t know what that’s like at all,” Aspen deadpanned.

“Go Team Anxiety.” Rav quipped, doing sarcastic jazz hands.

Aspen looked back down at the sketchbook, whose contents had filled them with a strange restlessness. “I’ve barely made it out of my house since I’ve been here, but… I don’t suppose you have any recommendations for good hiking spots?”

“I can do you one better and show you if you want. Some of the best spots are harder to get to without a car.”

The invitation soothed an anxiety Aspen hadn’t noticed until it was removed – as it provided them with an excellent excuse to spend more time with Rav, who they were discovering was not just extremely attractive but also very likable. “I would love that!”

Just then, Rav’s watch vibrated loudly, interrupting whatever response he had been about to make.

“Damn. Sorry,” he apologized with an expressive grimace. “I’m too good at not looking at my phone, so I got a smartwatch to help me stop missing appointments. But then it’s always a rude surprise when it reminds me about stuff.”

“I’m a big fan of technological accessibility hacks. My whole brain is in here,” Aspen said, waving their phone.

Rav nodded sympathetically as he thumbed open his calendar, then sighed. “I’ve got an appointment with my accountant to go over tax stuff, since that’s coming up.”

Aspen blinked as they realized taxes were yet another Important Adult Thing that William had always handled. “Oh shit. I hadn’t even thought about taxes.”

“Your email’s on your website, yeah?” He smiled when Aspen nodded. “I can email you her info if you like?”

“That would be fantastic, thank you.”

Rav shrugged as he packed his sketchbook into a battered-looking messenger bag with lots of pins on it. “I can still give you a ride back if we leave now.”

“You’re sure it’s no trouble? I wouldn’t want to make you late.”

“It’s on my way,” he assured them.

“Great. Then I accept.”

✯ ✯ ✯

Rav had just turned onto Aspen’s street when they caught sight of the surly goth teen once again lurking indecisively in their driveway, and once again too hidden in their hoodie to determine anything beyond that. “Hey, do me a favor and block the driveway when you pull up?”

Rav quirked his eyebrow inquisitively even as he obliged.

“This kid keeps showing up in my driveway, then running off before I can ask what they need.” Aspen sighed. “And they obviously need something, or they wouldn’t keep coming back.”

Rav smiled. “Got it.”

Aspen rolled down their window and addressed the teen before they could run off again. “Hi there,” they said, carefully keeping their tone light and friendly. “I keep seeing you here. I expect you’d better come in so we can talk about how I can help you?”

The teen hunched even deeper into their hood, then surprised them by nodding shyly.

Aspen climbed out of Rav’s car, giving him a wave as he pulled away, and gestured for the teen to follow them toward the house. “Come on in then. We’ll do introductions where it’s less soggy. You can leave your bike on the porch, where it’ll be out of the rain.”

Since the rest of the house was still a disaster, and this was undoubtedly a witch-related inquiry, Aspen showed their guest in through the front entrance. The teen reluctantly sat in one of the waiting room chairs, looking as if they expected something to bite them. To give them space, Aspen opted to lean against the counter instead of sitting and was rewarded with a minute relaxation of tension.

“Aspen. They/them.”

“Corey. Uh. He/him.” Corey, who looked to be sixteen or seventeen, reached up and pulled back the hood of his soggy black sweatshirt, giving Aspen their first clear look of his face. Wary eyeliner-rimmed eyes in a dusky brown face regarded them suspiciously under neat short locs.

“Nice to meet you.” Aspen smiled. “So, based on how many times I’ve seen you, it seems like you need something but don’t know how to ask?”

Corey’s leg immediately started jiggling as he mumbled something too soft for Aspen to hear.

“Come again?”

“I need to do a supervised volunteer project for school,” he repeated, looking everywhere but at Aspen.

“Okay. And you want to volunteer… with me?”

Corey shrugged, pulled out a much-folded piece of paper, and handed it to Aspen, who didn’t miss the fact that his leg-jiggling had increased in intensity and that he was surreptitiously tapping his fingers against the chair.

Right. Ragingly neurodivergent, in addition to being Black and goth. It was no wonder he was so suspicious - he was clearly used to getting a hard time from adults.

Aspen kept that observation to themself and unfolded the paper, which was an agreement form. “What do you need to meet the requirement?”

“I need fifty volunteer hours by May 30th.” His jaw clenched and unclenched several times before he added, “or I get held back.”

Aspen’s first impulse - to ask why he’d left it so long – was so obviously incorrect that they discarded it immediately. Instead, they opened their calendar and counted weeks. “So that’s… at least five hours a week then.”

Corey just nodded and hunched further in on himself.

Aspen sighed. He seemed like a good kid who was having a hard time, and they weren’t about to turn him away if they could help it. However, they didn’t know what they would have the kid do for an entire fifty hours.

Then, suddenly, they did. “Are you good with computers?”

Corey nodded again.

“You could burn through a lot of volunteer hours pretty quickly if you’re willing to help me convert my aunt’s old paper files into electronic records.”

The speed of Corey’s leg went back down a notch, which Aspen took as a positive sign. “I could help with that,” he agreed, his voice a surprisingly deep baritone when he wasn’t mumbling.

“I haven’t made any decisions about what kind of system to use, other than I’d need to be able to access it from my phone or laptop. So if you wanted to do some research and run options past me, that would be a big help too.”

Corey’s expression was still guarded but now the finger tapping had stopped. “Yeah.” He swallowed. “Yeah, I could do that too.”

“Great,” Aspen said brightly. “Hold that thought.”

Aspen went to retrieve their laptop from the living room, returned, and sat down – leaving a chair in between them as a buffer. It took a few minutes for them to navigate through the BC College’s website to find the correct form – with Corey waiting in stressed-out silence the entire time. After downloading the form, they switched tabs to start a new email and handed the laptop to Corey.

“Put your email in there. You’ll have to sign an apprenticeship form for privacy purposes before you can get started working with the actual records, since those are strictly confidential. That’s not to say you’re committing to anything beyond the fifty hours, though. You’re just agreeing to not share any of the information in those records.

“Because you’re a minor, your… an adult will need to sign this as well – electronic signatures are fine. When that’s done, send it back to me and I’ll fill out my portion and submit it.”

Corey nodded his assent and entered his email while Aspen went hunting for a pen to complete their part of the volunteering agreement form, which they signed with a flourish and handed it back. The teen accepted the paper with mute gratitude, refolding it more carefully than it appeared to have been previously before tucking it into an inside pocket of his bag.

“If you get that form to me tonight, you can come back… tomorrow afternoon? And I can show you my aunt’s files so you can see what we’re working with.”

Corey nodded as he unfolded himself awkwardly from his chair, then surprised Aspen with a quiet, “thank you” before he fled.

Aspen chuckled and made their way to the kitchen to make some tea. “Well, Dennis. What do you think?”

GOOD PUPPY.

They laughed.

✯ ✯ ✯

Aspen had made it nearly a week without talking to Becks about their dating dilemma, but they were so keyed-up before their coffee date with Nat that they finally cracked and sent her a text.

Aspen
Update.
But if you tell Mum any of this I’ll find someone else to talk to.

Becks
Would I do something like that?

Aspen
Given that Mum said she’d “heard I met someone”, yes. Absolutely.

Becks
How dare you bring facts into this.
Very well, I promise.

Aspen
Coffee with Rav = not a date.
Coffee with Nat = might be a date…?

Aspen snapped a nervous selfie of their outfit and sent it – their favorite witchy black dress and matching black boots. They’d pulled their hair into a low-effort up-do (fancy without being formal) and were wearing matching silver moon earrings and necklace.

Becks
Love the look. But what do you mean “might be” a date?

Aspen
The word “date” was never said but… she had her hand on my knee when she asked to do coffee.

Becks
EARTH TO ASPEN. IT’S A DATE, DUMMY.

Aspen
Look. I pined for Nat for YEARS and nothing happened. And now the second time I’ve seen her after twelve years we’re getting coffee? It feels too easy.
Like, if she wasn’t interested then, why would she be now?

Becks
1. She hadn’t come out as trans yet, yeah? Maybe she was in the closet about that too, since you were both still pretending to be boys.

2. Maybe you weren’t her type then, but you are now.

Aspen
… ….. .. …… … …. holy shit

Becks
I am very smart. Also, I might have a little experience with being closeted.

The sound of a knock at the front door made Aspen jump in surprise.

Aspen
She’s here. Wish me luck.

Aspen’s heart was in their throat as they answered the door. They promptly blue screened on seeing Nat’s look – a grey lace crop top, high-waisted black jeans, and a black leather jacket, with a heavy grey scarf her only concession to the chilly March weather.

“I like the new hair color!”

Aspen blinked, belatedly remembering that they’d spent half the day bleaching their roots and recoloring their hair to a purple that would fade over the next week to their preferred lavender. “Thanks. I. Um. You look great too.”

“Shall we?” Nat grinned.

Something in her expression reminded Aspen of Becks’ intriguing hypothesis that they hadn’t been Nat’s type before but were now. And were they imagining it, or had she spent a longer-than-friends amount of time checking out their look?

Shit. They’d taken too long to say something, hadn’t they?

They nodded with what they hoped wasn’t a weird smile. “Absolutely.”

- - - -

Thanks for Reading!

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(Posting a day early. Enjoy!)

- - - -

Nat took Aspen to a small locally-owned café called Spill the Tea – which was pretty much exactly what you’d expect from any Not A Moonbucks in BC. Given the name, it wasn’t surprising to see a Progress Pride sticker in the front window.

Their anxiety quietly ratcheted up a notch when they looked around and observed several queer couples flirting. Another tally in the date column, then.

Aspen stepped up to the counter to place their order and had a nervous moment as the man at the register, a short, dark and slightly scruffy man with a no-nonsense attitude and green nail polish, pinned them with a sharp look. “You’re the new witch in town, right?” The maybe-trans vibe they got from him was strengthened when his gaze flicked to the pronoun pin on the lapel of their jacket and back.

Aspen blinked, then shot Nat an apologetic look. “Yes?”

“I don’t want to interrupt what you’ve got going on,” he said, the ghost of a knowing smile on his lips. “But I’ve got something I need help with. Do you mind stopping by later when you’re free?”
“Oh. Uh. Sure.” They fumbled in their purse and pulled out a card. “Let me know when would be a good time.”

Once the two of them had their orders, Nat led them to one of the small round tables and pulled her chair… not exactly next to Aspen’s, but not across from them either, causing their heart to give a hopeful lurch in their chest.

Aspen had been so afraid that their previous encounter had been a fluke, a one-time stroke of lightning never to be reproduced. But reconnecting with Nat proved to be as easy as fitting a missing puzzle piece back into place. They had both gone through a tremendous amount of change in the past twelve years, but Nat was even easier to talk to now that they weren’t both keeping important pieces of themself secret. Aspen found that they liked this new and improved version of Nat an awful lot, and – shockingly – it seemed like she felt the same way about them.

Their anxiety might still have been able to stand against that realization, but was completely undone by Nat’s easy affection, which seeped into places long left unwatered by William’s indifference. As a result, Aspen’s fear was replaced by the expansion of something scintillating and luminous in their chest, an intoxicating impossible something that grew every time they were able to make Nat laugh, and every time she playfully laid a hand on their knee, on their arm, on their shoulder. Given how good Aspen was at self-sabotage, they should have found the strength of these feelings overwhelming. But somehow, they managed to let go, exist in the moment, and enjoy being… happy.

Finally, as closing time approached and the café started to empty out, Aspen guiltily looked at their phone, then at the barista who was pointedly cleaning a nearby table. “I guess we should get going,” they said reluctantly.

Nat grimaced at the time, sounding just as reluctant when she said, “maybe for the best. I’ve got an early morning client tomorrow.”

As they drifted back to Nat’s car, the anxiety beast clawed its way back with a vengeance, keeping Aspen from working up the nerve to take Nat’s hand. What if they had misread Nat’s interest? What if all she wanted was to be friends? Surely it couldn’t be this easy the second time around? It was only when they pulled up in front of their house that Aspen managed to wrestle their anxiety down enough to blurt out the question that had been burning in their mind the entire night.

“Was this a date?”

Nat smiled, as calmly unflappable as ever, and cocked her head. “Did you want it to be?” she asked softly.

Aspen felt their face grow suddenly, painfully warm and nodded, unwilling to trust their voice.

Nat’s smile grew, and Aspen’s breath hitched as she slowly took their hand and stroked their palm with her thumb. “Then yes, it was a date.” She leaned forward slowly, looked down at their lips, then back up into their eyes. “Can I kiss you goodnight?”

This time, Aspen wasn’t able to prevent the embarrassing sound that escaped as they tilted forward to close the small distance between them.

Nat’s kiss was tentative, as if she wasn’t sure how far to take it. Aspen surprised them both by tilting their head and deepening the kiss, which had the delightful effect of provoking a small gasp from Nat. The kiss was slow, with the promise of so much more. Aspen’s blood burned, and they felt as if they might crack open, unable to contain the excess of sensation.

When Nat broke the kiss a moment, a week, a year later, she looked as flushed as Aspen felt. That visible proof of her very real interest caused something to shift painfully inside them as the previously pleasant jumble of feelings became suddenly sharp and overwhelming.

“Good night,” they whispered, half-afraid that she would be upset.

They needn’t have worried. Nat’s answering smile was unworried, her expression so, so soft. “Good night, Aspen.”

Torn between the need to escape a potential meltdown and their need for certainty, Aspen paused with their hand on the door handle. “Can we do this again?”

Nat nodded. "I'd like that," she said, though Aspen's brain was too overloaded to derive any meaning from her face other than the fact that she was still smiling.

Aspen let themself out of the car and wobbled their way into the house where they staggered into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed. Their feelings were at such a fever pitch that it was physically painful, feeling as if their chest was full of light while their brain was full of bees. Finally, with a shock that felt like a joint snapping back into place, they were able to name the fear-beast trying to devour them.

William was wrong. They were desirable. They were lovable.

Aspen felt a surge of relief so profound that they burst into tears.

They’d gone on a date with Nat, and it had gone well enough that she wanted to do it again. Furthermore, Nat had asked to kiss them. Aspen forced themself to remember the naked hope in her eyes as she’d leaned in, the delightful noise she’d made when they’d licked into her mouth, the look of stunned enjoyment on her face when she’d pulled away…

Ten years of his dismissive disinterest in their feelings had made it feel impossible that anyone else would ever – could ever – find them interesting, let alone desirable. A conviction that had been entirely invisible to Aspen until Nat had broken through the wall he had left around their heart.

Aspen cried in great, wracking sobs of relief, the tears healing something inside them, until they ultimately cried themself to sleep.

✯ ✯ ✯

They didn’t wake until morning and immediately regretted it once they had. The violence of their emotions the previous night had left them with what felt like an epic hangover, one of their least favorite anxiety side effects.

With a groan, Aspen picked up their phone and checked their messages and couldn’t help smiling goofily when they saw a message from Nat, though they opened their sister’s messages first.

Becks
HAVE A NICE DATE.
Well?
????!???

Aspen laughed. They struggled for a response but found themself completely unable to capture any of what had happened last night in words and finally settled for a message whose brevity they knew they would get razzed for later.

Aspen
Date.
She kissed me.

Thumbing over to the message from Nat, they saw that she had sent a selfie from the gym at the unholy hour of six that morning. In it, she was wearing another crop top – sleeveless – that highlighted her muscular arms and shoulders.

Nat
Thinking of you.
[kiss face emoji]

Aspen
Same.
…I’m getting the feeling you like crop tops.
NOT a complaint lol [heart eye emoji]

Nat
Since you’re not complaining, there’s more where that came from.

Nat attached a link to her Insta profile, which seemed to consist largely of gym selfies in equally enticing outfits.

Aspen
BRB creeping all your socials

Was that coming on too strong? However, Nat’s immediate response made it clear she was in on the joke.

Nat
[devil face][kiss mark][bicep]

As tempting as it was to stay in bed scrolling Nat’s profile, Aspen felt compelled by a nagging sense of duty, knowing they’d feel marginally less terrible if they ate something. Dennis must have thought so too, as Aspen heard the tell-tale sound of the coffee maker gurgling to life.

With a groan, Aspen levered themself out of bed and shuffled into the kitchen.
KISS GIRL?

“She kissed me, yes.” Aspen chuckled as they added cream and sweetener to their favorite mug. “I might have kissed back.”

HAPPY?

The brain fog that usually accompanied an anxiety hangover made the answer to that question less obvious than it should have been. Aspen took a moment to probe their feelings and was relieved when that introspection revealed the simple and uncomplicated truth. “Yeah. I am. Really happy.”

✯ ✯ ✯

Corey had sent back the completed form as promised, which meant they were obligated to follow through on their promise to let him help with their aunt’s records, no matter how awful they felt. Grudgingly, Aspen completed their portion and submitted it. By the time Corey returned, Aspen had managed to not only get dressed and make themself somewhat presentable but also to eat an actual breakfast, well aware that Corey needed them functional at this meeting so he could start getting caught up on his volunteer project.

Still, they weren’t entirely themself when they answered the front door, which Corey seemed to pick up on right away – as his shoulders immediately ended up by his ears.

“Bad brain day,” Aspen said shortly.

Corey relaxed, then nodded, as though that was the only explanation he needed. And maybe it was.

“Next time you can take the path up past the house to the back door. For now, just leave your shoes on the mat and come in.”

Corey followed Aspen into the kitchen, where they put on a new pot of coffee. Meanwhile, Corey got out his own laptop and pulled up a surprisingly polished-looking slideshow, which he launched into once Aspen had their coffee – giving a lengthy and very cogent explanation of the four best-reviewed options for systems that were searchable and could sync across multiple devices. They were more surprised than they perhaps should have been to learn that he didn’t have any trouble speaking when infodumping to an interested audience as he spoke clearly and precisely, in stark contrast to his earlier taciturn mumbling. Aspen was extremely impressed – both the depth of his research and the polished presentation.

When he had finished, they dug out what they considered to be the worst offender among Aunt Marcy’s folders of loose papers and slid it across the kitchen table. “So. This is what my aunt left me to work with. Does that help make things clearer?”

Corey glanced at them for permission, then started flipping through the contents of the folder while Aspen sat quietly and sipped their coffee, both out of a desire to avoid pressuring him and because they weren’t up to the task themself. After only a few minutes, however, Corey surprised them again.

“Okay, yeah,” he said, going back to his second slide, which laid out the four options side by side. “A lot of these have notes about moon phases. Which. I guess it doesn’t always make sense to work on something right when someone asks for it?”

Aspen nodded. “Correct.”

“So, yeah. That eliminates two of these right off the bat, because you need something that comes with task management and calendar reminders.”

Aspen blinked in surprise. “Huh. Okay then.” They looked speculatively at the box full of records, which for the first time didn’t make them feel like they needed to lie down. “So. Next steps… I need to decide between these two and set up an account. I’ll also need a document scanner, I guess.” They drummed their fingers on the table. “Today’s Tuesday so... want to come back Thursday afternoon? I should be able to get something sorted by then.”
“Sure.”

“Do you have anything you need me to sign for today for your hours?”

Corey nodded and handed over a form which looked to be in much better shape than the last paper he’d had them sign. Amused, Aspen filled in the date. “That was about forty minutes plus… how long did you spend putting this together?”

Corey blinked at them as though he hadn’t expected to be asked. “I mean, I didn’t. It wasn’t… You didn’t see me do it.”

Aspen snorted. “You obviously worked hard on it and should get credit for that time, which was…?”

“Three hours.”

Aspen wrote ‘4’ in the hours column and signed without further comment. Corey looked stunned to have gotten their approval without having to justify his work, which provoked a pang of sympathy for the obvious lack of understanding or support he was getting from his teachers for his (also very obvious) neurodivergence - the poor kid was clearly used to arguing with his teachers about his special interests. “See you Thursday,” they said, voice and expression carefully light as they handed the form back.

Corey nodded, packed up his things, and slunk out the front door.

Aspen was surprised when the knock at the door thirty seconds later turned out to be… Corey, holding what first appeared to be a small bundle of wet, bedraggled black fur. It was only when the bundle squirmed and turned large golden eyes toward them that they realized he was holding a scrawny black kitten that couldn’t have been more than four months old. “Your cat got out,” he said. “I found him crying by the door.”

Aspen looked down at the cat, then back at Corey, stunned. “I don’t have a cat.”

✯ ✯ ✯

“You’re not getting volunteer credit for this,” Aspen cracked as they threw a towel in the dryer.

Corey stunned them by actually laughing. “That’s okay,” he said, beaming at the skinny kitten trying to burrow into his sleeve.

Aspen grabbed a second towel and began trying to dry the kitten, which was soaked to the skin – a task which ended up requiring both of them as the squirmy kitten was not at all interested in having its fur rubbed in all different directions.

By the time they were done, the towel in the dryer was warm. The kitten stopped trying to escape as soon as it was transferred to the new towel, and in short order they had a bundle of warm, contentedly peeping golden eyes.

Aspen laughed and conceded defeat. “Okay. I guess I have a cat now. Corey, can you find me a vet that’s open? I’ll see about finding us a ride.”

“Sure.”

While Corey got to searching, Aspen took a selfie of themself holding the towel-wrapped kitten and sent it to Nat.

Aspen
Uh. Car emergency? Found this stray kitten, no sign of mama. You free to take us to the vet?

Nat
OMG BRT

Nat arrived just as Aspen got off the phone with a vet’s office that had promised to squeeze them in before the end of the day. Any fears that Aspen may have had about imposing dissolved the moment Nat squealed in delight over Corey giving the kitten cream out of a teaspoon.

“Hashtag blessed,” she whispered when the kitten licked her outstretched finger. “Best end to a workday ever.”

Aspen grinned. “Nat, this is my new volunteer, Corey. He found the kitten on my porch. Corey this is. Uh.” Aspen paused, wondering how they should introduce Nat. (They were definitely more than friends, but ‘girlfriend’ felt awfully presumptuous.) “Nat,” they finished awkwardly. “She’s going to help me get this little guy to the vet, and I’m sure your mum will want you home before we’re done.”

Corey nodded reluctantly and gave the kitten one last skritch between his ears before departing.
The next hour was a blur of activity. Thankfully, there was nothing seriously wrong with the kitten, that they had named Lucifer, aside from being underweight. Once Lucifer had been checked over and gotten his shots and a chip, Nat took them to a nearby pet store where Aspen stocked up on the necessary supplies, including a soft-sided carrier that Lucifer didn’t care for in the least.

“Thank you so much for your help,” Aspen said when they arrived back home. “And, like, sorry for being so awkward introducing you to Corey. I didn’t want to seem like I was ashamed to be dating you, but also does one and a half dates count as dating? And. I…”

“Hey,” Nat smiled and put a hand on Aspen’s knee. “It’s okay. We’re okay. But if it helps your anxiety, the fact that we have previously dated and have also agreed to do it again does mean that the present tense of that verb applies if you want it to.”

“Thank you,” Aspen said softly, daring to lay their hand over top of Nat’s. Whatever they might have said next, however, was interrupted by a series of furious peeps from Lucifer. “Sorry. I’d invite you in but. I. It’s.”

Nat gave their knee a squeeze. “It’s okay,” she repeated.

“I just. I want to,” Aspen said, their words coming out in a jumble. “But it’s also been a bad brain day and I’m. Just. Really tired.” At Nat’s concerned look, they shook their head. “Nothing about you, or our date. Just. Brain not braining well.”

“Then thank you for taking care of Aspen, who I like an awful lot.”

They stared at Nat for a long moment in mute shock, then floundered for an explanation when Nat’s expression grew concerned. “No one—I’ve never been thanked for asserting a boundary before, like, romantically.”

Nat’s expression sharpened into one of fierce protectiveness, and Aspen had the sudden uncomfortable sensation of being in the same situation they had been in earlier with Corey, only this time the roles were reversed and Nat wasn’t trying to hide how dismayed she felt. “Then it must have taken a lot of courage for you to say something,” she finally said.

Nat seemed to understand that they weren’t up to expressing any of the feelings that accompanied that revelation and didn’t press for further conversation as she helped Aspen carry the new supplies to the side porch, then left with a final admonishment to Lucifer to behave himself.

After setting out food and water in the kitchen, they then set up the litter box in the laundry room and made sure Lucifer knew where it was. These two basic tasks accomplished, they felt an overwhelming urge to lie down and, since the old couch was out of commission, headed for the bedroom, where they promptly fell asleep.

At some point during the night, they woke up briefly to Lucifer settling himself between their knees as they slept on their stomach. The kitten’s purring promptly put Aspen back to sleep.