Aunt Jackie had warned me to be careful with Trey, the highest ranked male alpaca in her flock. His magical wool is so soft, we tolerate his posturing bullshit. I took the necessary precautions, sending a well worn shirt a week before I would arrive to familiarize the flock with my scent. Two of the higher ranked female alpacas had come from my mother’s farm, so we didn’t anticipate any issues while Aunt Jackie was gone.
Until a cyclist veered too close to the fence line. Trey charged and leapt over the fence. I watched helplessly from the lower pasture’s trough.
By the wool above, when did Trey learn to do that?
I pedalled up the hill to the person sprawled out on the lane with Trey trotting around him, so proud of his prowess.
“Trey! Back!” I set my own bike beside the stranger’s. “Back!” I used my best ‘I am your oldest sister and therefore third parent. You will listen’ voice.
Trey grumbled, then elegantly hopped back over. I’d have to tell Aunt Jackie about her alpaca’s new talent when she returned.
I crouched beside the—oh no, the beekeeper’s son. “Curse your halo, Trey.”
The alpha alpaca trotted to the freshly filled trough as if he hadn’t just tried to kill my friend.
“Liam?” His mother came to my mother’s stall for goat’s milk and mundane wool in our town every couple weeks. If he was there instead of his father, we would fall into conversations that always felt too brief. Earlier this year, I’d pondered his bees and possible magical applications of wax and honey before my mother snapped, “Leave the poor boy to his shopping, JingJing!” He brought me his finest wax to experiment with more durable runes writing.
Liam groaned, his scraped palm tapping a welt on his forehead. With a startle and wince, he squinted at me, “JingJing? What are you—You’re Big Jackie’s niece?!”
“One of many. It’s my turn to watch her farm. Can you stand?”
He pulled up the pant leg on his right ankle, swollen and an angry red.
“I think you need a binding for that. Trey’s making new patients for me.” I laughed nervously. “Come on.”
Liam stood on his good foot and I tucked under his right arm. My arm fit around his waist and his hand tightened on my shoulder.
Liam hopped toward the cottage. “Big Jackie told me to stay off the lane and I remembered yesterday but this morning, muscle memory led me this way and—” He shook his head. “The ribbon she’d put across the lane—last night’s storm must have blown it away.”
“It’s fine. I get to practice my magic on you.”
Liam hesitated. I could feel him struggle between politeness and concern. “Practice?”
I shrugged into his armpit. “Most people want Mom for the complicated healing, but I can manage the limbs. Probably not thighs, though. Mom says my bindings are overenthusiastic. Like a boa constrictor.”
I wished I could have seen Liam’s expression. He had a face like a pond I wanted to skip a rock across, dancing eyebrows and a fidgety mouth.
We eventually reached my aunt’s cottage, its outer walls covered in overgrown, flowering vines. The herb garden and ornate flowers competed for sunlight and space. Mint was, of course, winning.
Liam gritted his teeth as we crossed the threshold. He collapsed into the nearest chair beside the phone.
“You should call someone to come get you and the bike.” I unlocked the medicine cabinet and retrieved the wool for healing broken bones, the appropriate sacred oils.
Liam picked up the phone, earpiece in one hand, mouth piece in the other. I removed his shoe and sock.
“Hello, Operator? Lang Bee Farm, please. Oh hello, Cecelia! … I’m fine, and you? … Thank you! … Eric, is Dad there?”
I started winding the roll around his foot. No visible bone, no blood.
“Is Mom with him?” Liam sighed. “What about Mr. Johnny? … Ok, can you bring the spare wagon with my horse to Big Jackie’s cottage? … Because you’re the only one home!”
He hissed as I reached the swollen ankle. A sprain, definitely not broken.
“Bring some money too. Actually, JingJing, how much?”
I panicked. “Ten?”
“Big Jackie usually charges fifty.”
My aunt charged fairly, but I winced. “It was Trey’s fault though.”
Liam turned back to the phone, “Eric, bring fifty. … Yea, that’s Jackie’s niece. … Because Big Jackie’s out—Eric!”
His foot twitched and I nearly dropped the roll.
“Bring my horse, wagon and money. … Please. … Fine, I owe you one pick up from a location—No! I am not telling you not to tell Mom and Dad. … Honey’s flow, Eric! If I don’t get my ankle fixed, you’ll need to take my chores like load and unload the hives and— … Thank you!” He returned the phone to the table, grimacing. He caught me watching him and shrugged. “Little brothers.”
I nodded. “That’s why you’ve never seen my brother JingYi at Mom’s stall.”
“You have a brother?”
“My point exactly. He’s usually nose-deep in a book, more interested in theory than application of magic. He’s afraid to try new things unless someone else has been doing it for fifteen years first.”
Liam’s shoulders drooped. “Eric’s not even supposed to be home. He told us he would be looking for work across the river. I’m—I’m going to be an uncle at the end of the year.”
“Congratulations?”
Liam shook his head. “Only our families know. Cecelia is so excited. She’s going to be a great mother. I’ve seen her with her younger siblings. I’m hoping Eric will rise to the occasion when the baby arrives, but can a bee change its stripes?” He blew out a breath and rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, please don’t tell anyone. He’s afraid and overwhelmed.”
I nodded and finished bandaging his ankle. I tucked the roll’s end against his calf.
“Squeeze that.” There was a ball on the table. “I can get a clean dish towel if you’re a screamer.”
“I’m not, but—” Liam shuddered. “I hate this part.”
“Everyone does.” I grabbed a towel and a bucket and placed them beside him, just in case. I dripped oil onto my fingertips and drew on the wool. I didn’t need the spellbook. The runes were simple enough to memorize. Besides, people take you less seriously if you’re hemming and hawing over a book while they’re trying not to scream.
My voice dipped low when I started the bone setting spellsong, singing of marrow and stone, of rightful places and true alignment.
These were the moments my mind quieted, too focused on the task to wonder aboutthe next problem I needed to solve. Wool magic required so many things to be in the correct place in order to influence the incorrect, the broken. The world shrank to me and Liam.
He tried to muffle his scream behind his teeth as the wool constricted. Unsettling popping and grinding sounds intensified with his trembling.
He cursed me back to my father’s balls.
I nearly laughed, but did not lose my place in the song.
Once I reached the end, Liam was glistening with sweat and panting. The bucket remained empty, thank the wool. I brought him a basin with water and a cloth.
“Sorry about that.” He washed his face and hands. “I don’t know where that came from.”
“It was creative.” I gave him a glass of water.
“You have a lovely voice.” He sipped. I felt my flush rising and quickly maneuvered into excitement.
“Have you heard Aunt Jackie’s singing? She was going to be a professional singer—”
Trey’s braying alarm call told me someone was approaching long before they actually reached the door. I opened the door and faced the lesser version of Liam. Eric was taller but less sturdy, perhaps having done fewer chores. He had a boy’s face on a man’s body.
I did not like the way he studied me or that he didn’t wait for my permission before entering.
“Here.” He tossed the money onto Liam’s lap, then scrutinized everything in the room. Aunt Jackie’s home was more than the magical alpaca wool: model boats, first edition books, souvenirs from her travels, and art her friends created. I am sure that when she returns, she’ll have something else to point to and say, “Did I tell you about when I sang at the wedding between Pale Cotton Witch and the Lady of the Pond?”
Eric offered his brother a hand to stand, then immediately released him.
“You should hold onto him.” I used my elder sister voice and stared until Eric stood close enough for Liam to lean on his shoulder.
Liam paid me. “Thank you, Miss.” We had returned to the formality of strangers.
“Leave the wool on for three days. Return it to me after that. Do not wash it.”
When Eric helped Liam into their wagon, he craned his neck back, appraising the cottage. I glared back, feeling every inch the wool witch.
Did I expect Eric to try to rob Aunt Jackie?
I’ve worked at my mother’s stall long enough to recognize a thief’s interest. I locked everything in the pantry’s hidden safe before heading out to replace the warning ribbon at the top of the lane and retrieve my bike.
Did I expect Eric that night?
No.
Regardless, at Aunt Jackie’s house, there’s shearing scissors under every bed.
At midday after Eric’s break-in, I was still cleaning up the cottage when someone knocked on the door. Was it the police? By the wool, had Trey hurt Eric that badly?
Instead, it was Liam holding a pie, one hand on a cane.
“On my Queen!” His eyes widened at the scene over my shoulder. The entire silverware drawer was on the counter. Trampled pictures lay in the corner. On the floor were tattered pages, pieces of furniture, and the odd alpaca turd.
“In Eric’s defense,” I said, “a lot of this was Trey and the flock.” I opened the door wider. He hobbled inside.
“The apple pie’s for you.” He pressed it into my hands. The bottom of the pan was still warm. “Baking is how Mom manages her surplus feelings. We’re sorry, but please don’t let us stop you from getting justice.”
“Justice would be him paying for the damage and helping me clean up, but some things are hard to put a price on.” I retrieved implements for eating pie. “I was busy with the flock this morning. Two of the four aborted their fetuses from the stress.”
“I’m so sorry. The flock means a lot to you and your aunt, and the town.” Liam slumped into a chair that somehow survived last night—very early this morning—except for one bite on a top corner. Hepicked up a torn picture of Aunt Jackie and my mom. “Eric is always trying to find the shortest path to money, as long as it doesn’t involve actual work.”
“I don’t even understand why he tried the silverware and wool,” I said. If he had gone for the wool first, I may not have heard him rattling with the silverware. “This town’s so small. He wouldn’t be able to pawn Aunt Jackie’s silverware because all the shops would know she’d been burgled.”
I offered Liam a plate and settled with my own slice on a chair that would need to be reupholstered. The flock had taken their own time inspecting my aunt’s home, trying to sample various furniture and indoor plants. One wall appeared to be their favorite to rub up against, after they had knocked down the family portraits.
Liam stared at the plate. “He told the police he’d planned to set the last roll of wool on fire, so you wouldn’t notice what was missing.”
My forkful of pie stopped before it reached my mouth. “Wool doesn’t burn.” Though I had been experimenting—
“You could have died!” Liam’s concern for my life made me feel warm. Or maybe it was the cinnamon in the pie. This was damn good pie.
I shrugged. “I think Trey would even prevent Death’s harvest. Besides, your brother looked terrified when I surprised him.” With the moonlight through the kitchen window, the shearing scissors blades had glowed. And poor Eric with only the silverware, trying to break into the wool cabinet.
Trey must have heard me yelling at Eric. I didn’t hear him leap over the fence, but I did hear him break down the back door, braying and charging. The rest of the flock followed. Eric menaced Trey with a knife. I feared the alpaca was going to take a bite out of that hand and possibly injury his mouth. I threw my shawl over Eric, screaming the spellsong. It bound his arms to his body. I added layers until he was fully immobilized, cocooned in enchanted wool.
When the authorities arrived, I asked them to wait outside until I returned my aunt’s hellion flock to their pasture. The alpaca did me the courtesy of pretending to obey my commands. They looked so fucking smug.
Eric was sweating through the wool by the time I released him.
I had finished my slice when I realized Liam was still staring at his, half digging his fork into the crust.
“I am alive,” I announced. “And eating your mother’s excellent pie with you.”
“He could have burned you alive,” Liam rasped. “You have every right to throw me out. I brought him to Big Jackie’s house with all the glamor and without Big Jackie to protect it.”
“You aren’t your brother’s keeper. I protected the cottage! The flock protected me!”
“They are fearsome.” Liam chuckled. “You are fearsome.”
Discomfort wound around my legs so I retrieved the wool I had used to bind Eric. “I’ve been experimenting with that wax you gave me, mixed with the oils to write the runes so it sits on top of the wool. It still obeys the spellsong.” I grinned with all my teeth, like a wolf among sheep. “I can’t wait to show Aunt Jackie what I’ve learned.”
Wen Wen Yang is a Chinese American from the Bronx, New York. This story was for all the responsible eldest siblings. A list of all her work can be found at wenwenwrites.com. She won’t want a dog half as smart as Trey the alpaca.
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