Eliot Voss, 61, leans against the rough-hewn oak side of the hard cider booth at the Madison County Fall Harvest Festival, swirling spiced cider in a paper cup. The crisp October air stings his cheeks a little, smells like burning hickory, caramel drizzle from the apple stand three booths over, and the faint sickly-sweet tang of kettle corn. He just sold two fully restored 1960s Shasta trailers to a couple from Miami, cash in his jacket pocket, no haggling, so he’s in a better mood than he’s been in weeks.
He’s just about to head back to his truck when he spots her. Marisol, his next door neighbor of three months, the one the local retiree gossip circle swears is a practicing witch, who sells smudge sticks and tarot readings off her front porch for $20 a pop. She’s wearing a frayed burgundy flannel rolled to the elbows, high-waisted work jeans caked in garden mud, scuffed steel-toe boots, her thick dark hair pulled back with a worn leather thong, a smudge of pale sage ash streaked across her left cheekbone. He’s avoided her since she moved in, ducking behind his garage when she brings over jars of blackberry jam, pretending he’s not home when she knocks to ask if he has an extra socket wrench. He told himself it’s because her whole new age schtick is a scam, that the rumors she cursed the former mayor’s pickup after he tried to fine her for an unpermitted porch sign are just dumb small town luck. But the truth is, every time he’s been within 10 feet of her, his chest gets tight, like he’s 16 again talking to a girl he’s scared to ask out.
She catches his eye across the crowd, holds it, smirks like she can read exactly what he’s thinking. She weaves through the cluster of families chasing toddlers and tourists carrying pumpkins, stopping so close when she reaches him that their shoulders brush. He can smell cedar oil and wild honey on her skin, the sharp bright scent of dried peppermint from the canvas pouch tucked in her flannel pocket. “You know,” she says, her voice low and rough, like she smokes one cigarette a day after dinner, “if you keep hiding from me, I’m gonna start assuming you think I put a hex on that fancy drill press you drag out every Saturday.”
He flusters, takes a too-big sip of cider that burns going down his throat. “I’m not hiding,” he mumbles, wiping cider off his chin with the back of his hand. “Just busy with work.”
She laughs, loud and unselfconscious, and a group of older ladies at the next booth glance over, muttering to each other. She doesn’t even notice. She reaches out, first brushing his forearm by accident when she points to the frayed seam coming loose on the cuff of his work flannel, then wraps her fingers around his wrist to turn his arm so she can get a better look. The contact sends a jolt up his arm, warm and sharp, and he realizes it’s been over a year since anyone who wasn’t his vet touched him that casually. “I can fix that for you, if you want,” she says, her thumb brushing the edge of the frayed fabric for half a second before she lets go of his wrist. “Sewing’s not just for witchcraft, you know.”
The conflict tugs at him, half irritation, half something he’s not ready to name. He’s spent a decade writing off anyone the town side-eyes, convinced getting close to anyone is just begging to get burned, to lose more of the things he cares about. But she’s not looking at him like she wants anything from him, not like she’s judging him for being a recluse, not like she feels sorry for him for being alone. She’s just grinning, like she’s enjoying messing with him, and he finds he doesn’t mind it.
She asks him if he can help her fix the rotted back step on her porch, says she tried to cut the replacement plank herself and measured wrong, ended up with a piece of wood that’s three inches too short. He almost says no, almost makes up an excuse about having a trailer to finish by the end of the week, but then she tilts her head a little, the sun catching the silver streaks in her dark hair, and he says yes before he can think better of it. They agree he’ll come over at 9 the next morning, she offers to buy him another cider, he accepts. They stand there for 20 minutes, talking over the noise of the festival, she tells him she moved here from Santa Fe to get away from a toxic ex, that her mom was a curandera, the tarot readings are just for fun, most of the witch gossip comes from the time she told the local Baptist minister his sermons were putting her to sleep. He tells her about his ex-wife, about the custom tool set she took half of when she left, why he’s so closed off. She doesn’t coo or pity him, just nods, takes a sip of her cider, says “That sucks. People are garbage sometimes.”
He gets to her house the next morning right at 9, toolbox in the bed of his truck, Gus the beagle trotting beside him, and he even brought an extra cedar plank for the step, because he noticed she’s got cedar planters all over her porch. She’s waiting for him on the front steps, holding two mugs of black coffee, wearing a faded white tank top even though the temperature’s hovering at 50 degrees, a black ink coyote tattoo wrapping around her left shoulder. The step takes him an hour to fix, she sits on the porch the whole time, talking to him while he works, passing him screws when he needs them, no awkward silences. When he’s done, he steps back to test it, bounces his weight on it a few times, it’s solid as a rock.
She stands up, steps down onto the new step with him, reaches up to wipe a smudge of sawdust off his cheek, her thumb lingering on the edge of his jaw for half a second. He doesn’t pull away. She asks him if he wants to stay for lunch, says she’s got a pot of green chili on the stove that she made last night, still hot. He says yes. He sets his toolbox down by the front door, and for the first time in 12 years, he doesn’t double-check that all his wrenches are still inside before he follows her into the kitchen.
