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“Finch! I got more of that special wood you told me about,” the man calls, unsure where the lady of the house is exactly. He places his tools down and steps further inside the cozy space. A little cardinal chirps and flits on his shoulder, happy to be home again.
“In the workroom, straw boy!” She calls to him from deeper in the quaint hut of a house. This earns a chuckle from the man, a nickname that is a cheap shot at the color and usual disarrayed state of his hair.
He finds her quickly, sitting peacefully on her favorite pillow as she lovingly carves a still indistinct shape into a block of the same blue wood he had just gathered for her outside. He leans in the doorway, watching her affectionately for as long as she allows him. It is a familiar routine for the two of them.
Knowing exactly where he is, the woman turns, smiling wryly over her shoulder at him before returning to the delicate work of her carving.
“My sister sent a letter today,” she says as he lowers himself to sit by her on the floor.
“And what did she say, Finch?” he asks. He watches briefly as the little red bird flew off his shoulder and plays a game of tag with a blue jay in the rafters and shelves of the room.
The woman looks up with bright eyes. “I’m going to be an aunt!”
The man smiles brightly back at her, hugging her when he was sure he would not jostle the sharp tools she was working with in any dangerous way. “That’s wonderful, love! When?”
“Quite a ways away, unfortunately. She’s excited though.”
He lets go of her but keeps an arm around her, pulling her comfortably into his side. “Any idea who the baby will be?”
The woman smiles at his phrasing, pleased that he did not ask the human, gendered version of the question. Over the course of their relationship, they had discovered many differences between human and witch cultures. Focusing on the gender of the baby was not a tradition practiced on the Boiling Isles.
But she answers the spirit of what he wanted to know all the same, a loving concession to the different culture he grew up in. After all, there was no harm meant by it.
“She’s not sure. But she’s hoping for a son.”
The man hums contentedly, pulling her in even closer. He takes her hand, which has abandoned her carving anyway, and studies it.
In thought, he says, “what do you think you would want?”
“Hmm?”
“If we had a child, what do you think you would want?”
She hums a little laugh and considers this. “A little trouble maker, that’s for sure.”
He laughs as well, “hoping they’d take after their mother, do you?
“Of course,” she laughs, “who else!”
He laughs and kisses her in several places on her face, wherever he can reach, as she giggles and attempts vainly to push him away.
“Caleb!” she snorts, “stop it!”
“Of course, Evelyn, dearest,” he says breathily between fervent kisses, “as soon as I’m satisfied.”
After a few more kisses he stops, offering her a lopsided grin. “Though, I suppose, that would take forever.”
She scoffs and he laughs. They resume their seated cuddling position and hold loving silence for a time.
Finally, the man speaks. “I’d want him to be happy. To have more love in his life than just us.”
The sweetness of the desire for this nonexistent child is broken just slightly when the witch says, “you said ‘he.’ You want a son.”
He rolls his eyes and kisses her cheek between his next sentences. “I would be happy with anything.” Kiss. “As long as they are ours.” Kiss. “As long as they are healthy.” Kiss. “And as long as they can be whatever it is they wish to be.” One final, sweet kiss to her lips.
The witch hums as he lets her go. “I think they’ll look like you.”
“Really?” he says, expecting a joke, but he pauses when he sees the look in her eyes. They’re a little glassy, ever so slightly far away, like she’s seeing something somewhere else. Some-when else.
“Yes,” she comes a little more back to herself when she adds, “and he’ll have my magic!”
If she expects a returning taunt, she does not get one. She gets lovesick grin in response. “Naturally.”
She smiles up at him and says, as their palismen float gently to the ground in front of them, “and I’ll carve a palisman for him.”
“Only the best for our little one,” the man agrees.
The cardinal chirps happily forward, stumbling a step in front of his human and the witch that made him.
“That’s right, Flapjack,” she says, tapping his beak, “just like you.”