Bewitched

“That’s it,” Joe yelled. “Final straw—I can’t connect!” He darted from kitchen table to rickety verandah, holding his laptop: the dance of the fading WiFi.

“Hello, sweetheart,” Griselda crooned as she sidled up the path to their cottage. In the distance two ravens cawed and a motorboat hummed across the wide blue lake. A bucket swung on her arm; it held her beloved stinky newts and toads under bunches of noxious herbs. “Were you talking to me, dear?”

Joe averted his eyes quickly—before she could mesmerize him. He forced himself to look only at the dribbling pixels of the laptop screen so that he would continue to speak frankly. Six weeks into his marriage, he realized the only way to resist his wife’s spell was not to look directly at her. “I can’t get any signal! We’re stuck out here in the boondocks!” he ranted. “Why did I let you uproot me from the heart of civilization?”

She supressed the urge to bite off his head. In a voice as placid as a honey swamp, she replied, “But you said you wanted a technology sabbatical.”

“A weekend here and there maybe, but you dragged me out to this crummy shack in the middle of the godforsaken forest!” Joe stopped, panting.

“You wanted to commune with nature,” she replied sweetly. The Grand Wizard had cautioned her about anger management. Oh, if he could see her now.

“There’s no-one interesting to talk to!” Joe said.

“Tut-tut, we’re surrounded by celebrities, dear… trained bears and golden-haired children—and dwarves and princesses …”

Time for a spell… Whooosh—many tiny silver bells trilled…

… and Joe forgot and moved his eyes to her. “Ahhh, but what do I care?” he sighed as he caught sight of her flowing black curls, her sparkling violet eyes and her curvy pink Cupid’s-bow lips. The thought hit him: I married the woman of my dreams. His voice went from angry to neutral to wheedling: “I don’t have decent signal… aw honey… How can I keep my operation going?”

“Come inside, dear,” she purred, using her pointy-toed boot on the skanky black cat. “Time for a drinky-poo.”

Joe put down his laptop and meekly followed. The cottage appeared spacious with its high exposed beams, quaint hand-crafted furniture, and vintage cast-iron woodstove. He inhaled fragrances of pine and woodsmoke. He raked his hand through his hair while she set out glasses and ice from the vintage icebox.

“Have you been out for your health-giving swim today?” she said, causing him to look at the lake while she poured a wee dram of love potion into his glass.

He said, “I’m hoping to go skinny-dipping at nightfall.”

Her pink lips curved upward. “Yes, the lake! There’s so much to love about my cottage!” She handed him his drink and sat across from him with hers.

“I do love the fishing … canoeing...birdwatching…”

“This cottage has been in my family for generations,” she boasted.

“But I really do have to check into the office regularly,” he said, his brow wrinkling. “Sebastian can’t handle things without me.”

“I don’t understand this ‘network’ stuff,” she said with a faint pout. “You say it fades in and out?”

“It’s atrociously unpredictable. I’ve messed up two client files already.” He swirled his mint julep. He was getting used to the aftertaste; she’d explained she was a figure-conscious gal who used artificial sweetener. “The irony is, I’ve got that downtown condo sitting vacant…” He looked at her imploringly.

Griselda gazed into his attractive face: the outsized nose, the gray jagged teeth, the bloodshot eyes. Such a handsome couple they made, with their matching warts and nose-hairs and jagged teeth. Except he was as pale as a fish belly whereas she was the gray-green hue of a moldy orange. She wanted to keep her new man happy. The bewitching worked to a certain extent, but apparently some humans suffered from “work ethic.” Plus there was all the distracting new technology—and what creature, human or fairy-tale, really understood that? She sipped the mint julep. Not bitter enough.

“I’m sure you’d find some devilment somewhere in the city,” he said. “Hedge funds, funeral homes, municipal politics, … At the very least, you could sit on the board of my condo.”

He had a fleeting vision of his luxury condo. Furnished in spare white Nordic style, it was ultra-modern yet comfortable. He loved the window wall where the light of the sky poured in: indigo, turquoise, cornflower blue, depending on the weather and time of day. His sore feet ached to sink into the thick plush carpet—instead of creaking about on dusty bare wood. After a week in the woods, he especially longed for the shiny white bathroom tiles, the gleaming chrome fixtures, and the hyper-efficient stainless-steel kitchen. Throughout was the constant hum of the appliances and heat pump / solar converter.

“But it’s a shame,” she said, straightening a twig broom, “to have my lovely little abode sit idle.”

“Hm, maybe we can have a win-win.” Joe explained the concept of AirBnB to Griselda, then added, “Lots of people would enjoy a holiday retreat—a tech sabbatical just like I’ve had. We could fix up the place together—”

“What, it’s not charming enough already?”

“We-e-ell, there are a couple of things that could use a tap of the hammer.”

They took their drinks outside and strolled around cottage. With eyes averted from her, he pointed out the shaggy moss growing from the roof, the chimney that was basically a pile of stones, and the reeking outhouse. Also, the main door was hanging on one hinge. “Personally, I love the rustic look,” he said gently, “but to a stranger this might look scary and decrepit.”

Ah yes, spell time again… Whooosh—many tiny silver bells trilled…

…and Joe turned to look at his beautiful wife. He chuckled self-consciously and said, “Fortunately, I adore home improvements.” He got his toolkit from the four-wheel-drive and went to tighten some joists. He whistled Paganini’s Witches’ Dance, Griselda’s favorite tune, in that off-key way she loved.

The next day the newlyweds swept up the cobwebs and mouse droppings and scrubbed the sooty hearthstones. (Griselda could have done it in a single spell, but her man loved to work up a sweat.) They summoned Bashful the plumber, who installed a gravity water supply and septic tank system. Happy the carpenter came and built a small shed, where the woodcutter dropped off a cord of wood. A dragon incinerated the old outhouse.

At the end of a busy week, the couple stood in their driveway, arms around each other, proudly looking at their revamped cottage. Nuzzling her, he said, “Babe, it’s time to list.” They took a bunch of photos and headed to the city.

*         *         *

The newlyweds installed themselves in Joe’s condo. A week later, Griselda paced around as she thumbed through a sheaf of printout regarding their AirBnB rental listed as “Your Forest Getaway.” Joe took notes to send to their intern.

“Hmph. This couple, Ant and Grasshopper, wish to rent our cottage this fall,” she said. “They ask if it’s winterized. And here’s a big list of toxins they wish to avoid, starting with DDT. Do you know anything about that?”

She handed it to Joe, who attached a yellow Stickit note on which he wrote: “Ask Merlin’s Magic Cleaning to send their cleaning protocol to Ant and Grasshopper.” He looked up at his darling. “Next?”

“Remember that French couple, Abelard and Heloise?” she said. “They gave it five stars on AirBnB. ‘Nice quiet place to study by candlelight,’ they wrote.”

“Wonderful!”

She flipped a page. “But the Krabbe family from Kapuskasing gave us only two stars. ‘Drab,’ they wrote. And the McCarthys from Moose Jaw gave us only one star. ‘Our dog freaked out,’ they wrote.”

“Not good.” Joe shook his head. “So much competition—a couple of bad ratings could torpedo our share of the market.”

“Bookings are already drying up.” Her pretty pink lips turned down.

Joe studied her, wondering how he could make things right. “Hey, it’s vacant this weekend. Why don’t we head over there and tart the place up a little? Maybe buy a new chintz sofa, do some landscaping, put in a swing for kids?”

Before she could object, he called Sebastian to say he was going back to the boondocks to “brainstorm on how to reposition ourselves in the short-term rental market.”

Joe and Griselda drove the four-wheel-drive to the cottage where, as newlyweds, they spent an acrobatic two days making love indoors and out. Then they scoured the barbecue, swept the splinter-studded floors, and did minor repairs.

“You inspire me, dear,” she cackled. “Why stop at a sofa and swing set? We could make it really inviting.” She threw spell after spell and transformed the old gray shingles to iced wafer cookies, and the walls to sweet, firm gingerbread. She turned the wooden Victorian detailing into lacy loops of white icing and sugared gumdrops. She spritzed the air with cinnamon and licorice and warm maple syrup scents. Joe snapped dozens of new photos.

*         *         *

Back in the city, they uploaded the new pix and retitled their AirBnB listing as Gingerbread House. Joe felt insanely happy. Instead of being a bone of contention, the old cottage was a pair-bonding exercise. They were inundated with bookings—and new queries.

Griselda thumbed through more correspondence. “Here’s a letter from Mrs. Claus,” she said. “She loves the new décor as shown but they travel with reindeer. She asks: Do we have a stable?”

Joe appended a yellow Stickit on which he noted, “Phone Black Beauty Riding Farm – ask to rent stalls.” He smiled. “There’s also that meadow close to the cottage, the one where you and your sorority sometimes meet at midnight? The reindeer could graze there.”

“Fatten up…” cackled Griselda.

“Excuse me?”

“Fancy it up,” she said. “Just thinking aloud, dear.”

Later that week, siblings Hansel and Gretel booked the cottage. “They’re already on Instagram, raving about the décor,” Griselda boasted to Joe while they were enjoying a quiet romantic a dinner of frogs’ legs and mashed rutabaga.

“Huh. Just make sure those kids don’t rip up the place,” Joe said. “Gumdrops are costly.”

“Uh, okay,” she said, grinning as she sawed away at a tasty toad’s thigh. “And should I tell them the oven’s not working?”

“Why bother? Most people use the barbecue.”

After dessert of nightingale flambé, Griselda stood alone at the window wall admiring the view. A blood-red sunset soaked into the velvety blackness of night. “Maybe I should drop by soon, make sure the young folk are fattening up,” she said in a sultry voice. “Ovens are important for evenly roasting …”

She debated whether she needed to trill those silver bells again. Some humans could be rather high maintenance.

*         *         *

“I guess it’s up to you,” Joe said, stifling a belch while looking sideways at his bride. The light was doing strange things to her features—her nose looked distinctly hooked and her skin had a few warty growths. But Joe knew better than to body-shame his partner. After all, the sex was still eye-poppingly good. He nodded to himself. Sure, they had their differences—his workaholism versus her laissez-faire insolence. His tendency to waste food versus her tendency to hoard dried lizards; his love of televised sports versus her hatred of broad daylight and shouty gatherings.

But they had areas of commonality, the things they shared—cocktail hour, funny cat videos, and binge-watching true crime shows, the gorier the better.

A simple girl from the woodland, transplanted to the concrete jungle. She was adapting so well to his urban world. This AirBnB stuff excited her and now they talked about buying other “fix-me-up” properties, like castles in Europe. My wife the entrepreneur, he thought proudly. What had started as the biggest quarrel of their married life was the start of a whole new career direction for her.

They would live happily ever after.

THE END