Happy Holidays, Noid!

[goe_mod]

Title: Under Your Wing
Rating: G
Summary: Everyone else had been quick to go back to their own lives following the failed Armageddon. Pepper had assumed the American witch would be the same. But maybe they'll get to learn a bit more about how to adapt instead.

It had only been a few days since the air base. Anathema was showing Newt around, acting as guide despite having only been in the village for a week and a half. All of the searching she had done to locate the Antichrist had paid off in that regard, if nothing else. They’d been coming back from the village proper when they caught sight of the Them heading towards it. The boys seemed rather pleased to see her, asking after more magazines with Brian chiming in about candy. Pepper regarded the pair coolly as though surprised to see them. Anathema supposed it made sense; she had only intended to rent Jasmine Cottage while the end of the world got sorted. It would have been a fair assumption to make as well. Nonetheless, she stayed. It made sense to her, especially since the idea of trying to manage a new long distance relationship with an eight hour time difference and with someone as technologically cursed as Newt made her want to start breaking the rest of the pots at the cottage. If she was honest, the Them had also been a deciding factor in that decision. They were endearing tweens and she was pleased they still took lessons from the old New Aquarian magazines to heart. It was always a source of amusement and joy watching the young shame others into caring about the environment after all.

One of the things she had started in her free time was getting the yards set up. Jasmine Cottage had ample space to set up a proper garden. Just because her job was complete, so to speak, didn’t mean she wasn’t still a witch, and getting it going now that she was here was an endeavour. It would likely be a bit before she saw the full results but she had the time. Memories from that day at the end of summer were hazy at best but she was positive it had involved the Them despite a lack of evidence of anything supernatural since then. Nonetheless, she would always make time for them when she was able. They were good kids, all of them and even though Dog spent most visits in the garden terrorising the local wildlife, she didn’t have the heart to turn the terrier away either.

No matter how often the little group passed her, Pepper still seemed suspicious. Personally, Anathema found the blatant distrust a little offensive. None of the children had been so brusque with her before the failed end of the world, so she didn’t know what would have caused the flip. It wasn’t like she’d done anything weird since that day at the airbase either. She turned to tell Newt to go on inside without her, but when she turned back to speak with Pepper, the girl was gone. Just a bright red shape biking away, leaving Anathema feeling decidedly wrong footed about the whole thing.

If she knew kids, she knew Pepper would be back and she could get to the bottom of the strange behaviour then.

—---

Anathema didn’t see any of the children more than in passing for another two weeks.

“Surprised you’re still here.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Anathema asked as she juggled reusable bags to get at her keys. She hadn’t counted on guests, certainly not when she had been out on errands. It also wasn’t like she had made any indication that she was leaving Tadfield either. It hadn’t been that long ago that there was a fuss over the moving vans bringing things in. Just because the apocalypse had been averted didn’t mean she was planning to turn right around and leave again. Moving by itself was a pain; moving to a whole new country was a completely new headache. She wasn’t going to make herself turn right around and go back to California.

In fact, life had been easy enough to settle into a routine developed between herself and Newt when he was there. The grocer’s was always interesting; Tadfield reminded her of small towns back home in some ways. Everyone was definitely nosy, especially that R.P. Tyler who still hadn’t warmed to her and she didn’t think he ever would. She still hadn’t figured out what a ‘fatty spliffer’ was supposed to be either, though she had an idea of what the weird slang was supposed to mean. Thankfully, for everyone else in town, the novelty of her presence had worn off.

“...you’d leave when everyone else did.”

Her hand froze in the bag, fingers around her keys. It didn’t take much to figure out who she meant even if the memories of the day in question were hazy. She definitely remembered the couple, the surly older man with the weird gun and the flamboyantly dressed woman. The preternatural book thieves. She had her theories of course, but she’d kept them to herself so far. Newt had barely believed her about magick as it was, though she suspected that his reticence to talk about it more stemmed from the notes her ancestors had left on the notecard containing the prophecy about them rather than magick itself. He had agreed to be a witchfinder after all, even if it was just to get him out of the house.

“I could have. And I will have to go back eventually once my visa is up but for now I plan to stay.” She left out the part about Newt, for now anyway. While personally, she didn’t think it was a secret that they were trying to see where the relationship went, and living together had always sounded like a good litmus test for how well a pair could work together. Not that she owed anyone an explanation.

For her part, Pepper didn’t look entirely convinced.

—---

It was weeks later when she saw the young girl again, the scowl thunderous as she stomped down the lane alone.

“Everything alright?” Anathema called, putting away the tools she’d been using. There was a collection of gardening tools in the basket beside her, additional implements to help her figure out the best places to plant things.

Pepper whirled to face her with a growl, surprising warring with anger on her face. “We had a sub,” she muttered as she approached the gate, fingers curling tightly over the top of the wood. “He’s a jerk and I just want to shake him.”

“What’d he do?”

Pepper’s expression managed to only get darker somehow at the question. Anathema automatically opened the gate and gestured for her to enter. Any deliberation was over in a blink; the young girl stepping into the front garden with a visible relaxing of tense shoulders. Anathema led the way to the back garden, glad she’d poured so much time and effort into creating a peaceful environment back here. The wrought iron garden table was easily big enough to fit the four chairs around it, large pots hosted various herbs and flowering plants to give the space the feeling it was closed off from the rest of the world. The large cape jasmine shrubs added to that, the large, fragrant blossoms making one feel at ease.

“I was just about to sit down for a late lunch if you wanted to join me,” she offered with a smile. “Just sandwiches and the chips my mom sent me from home.”

She was greeted with narrowed eyes. “British or American chips?”

“American,” she laughed, sure that the homemade chili citrus flavoured chips would go over well. “I don’t think the British version would transport very well given the distance.” And really she didn’t think that would be worth it to mail a bunch of fries anyway. Yes, she was aware that they were generally frozen for transport, but she didn’t think it was going to be that far. Not that she’d researched it. However, she turned to head inside, leaving the sliding glass door open for Pepper to follow should she choose.

It made sense for her to follow behind, having been in the house before. Pepper closed the glass door behind them, shoes absently toed off before stepping further into the house. She’d tromped through enough mud on the way from school and she didn’t want to get yelled at for tracking mud inside by one of the few adults who didn’t seem to get upset. The kitchen looked cleaner than the last time she’d been inside, the table actually clear and not covered in newspapers and books. It was nice for such a compact space, the lack of big cooking implements obvious to her. Her friends’ parents had a whole array of things; here there was only a coffee maker and a blender that she could see. Anathema was already standing at the counter, laying out a variety of ingredients and a good sized plastic container filled with chips.

“You never mentioned what he did to earn a shaking.”

Pepper’s scowl returned. “Perpetuate gender stereotypes. We were doing a project and we were moving our desks. And we’ve done it loads of times before and even though we were clearly doing fine, he stopped only the girls! Said our desks were too heavy for girls to move.”

Anathema’s nose wrinkled in distaste, wondering how things like that were still an issue. She knew what she had done at that age but she highly doubted Pepper was someone that would be comfortable with weaponized incompetence. No, she definitely struck the witch as more of a “malicious compliance” type.

“How long do you have him?” she asked as she started loading up a soft-looking roll. She set things aside as she finished with them in clear invitation for Pepper to start.

It didn’t take long before Pepper was putting together her own, the motion absent as she stared like the veggies in front of her held all of the secrets in the universe. It was a familiar expression to Anathema, one that asked why things were this way. She’d never been able to figure out an answer beyond “because this is how it’s always been done”, something she had always found lacking

“Too long,” Pepper grumbled finally as she topped her sandwich with another slice of bread.

“I’m sure. That was more to see if there was a point in trying to demonstrate how detrimental that is,” she explained before leading them out.

“Doubt it would work. He reminds me of R.P.”

The comparison earned a heavy sigh and a wrinkled nose. Of course. Someone like that was as stubborn as they were outrageously old fashioned. But there were methods suited for school environs that could work. Especially since sometimes, people like that needed their peers shaming them more than children.

—---

“So you are a real witch then?”

“Occultist,” Anathema corrected automatically as she was collecting mason jars. There were a handful of them across the table on the back patio, an array of crystals spread out among them. “But you already know that.” She had been coming back to Jasmine Cottage over the years and was a familiar enough staple in town that this ritual wasn’t an unusual one. It had taken some getting used to with the fences being as short as they were, seeing people meet her eyes as she went about her business.

She was definitely curious about what had brought Pepper to her door at 9 am on the first day of their autumn break. She was sure all the other kids were probably sleeping, after all. And even though it had been a few years, Pepper was still a permanent fixture with the other three so this visit already felt different. Anathema loaded up the basket she brought out to collect the jars of moonwater and crystals before turning to her guest. Maybe Pepper needed time to open up about what was bothering her.

“Want some breakfast?”

—---

There was fresh fruit cut up and chilling in a bowl on the table. There was a plate of sliced king oyster mushrooms that had been dehydrated in the oven with maple syrup, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika. A small tray of roasted potatoes that had been quartered and seasoned cooled beside it. Anathema was standing at the stove, a mixing bowl of batter on the counter beside her and a square griddle on the eye in front of her. On the opposite side of the stove was a plate covered in a dish towel to trap the heat from the other pancakes not currently being eaten.

“It’s celebrating the Earth. Of putting out good,” Anathema explained, pausing to try and get a handle on her thoughts. She didn’t want to sound like she was disparaging it after all. A pancake got flipped, the batter bubbling as it cooked before she continued. “Paganism is an old belief system though Wiccan is a much newer branch of that. A lot of things have changed and adapted over the centuries. Did you have a specific question?”

Pepper was staring at her breakfast pensively, pushing half-eaten pancakes around a sticky puddle of syrup. Anathema turned away briefly to turn the stove off and remove the pan from the eye. She could only imagine how disorienting it had been to learn that the world wasn’t as mundane as they’d been raised to believe, that one of your best friends was the (former) antichrist and had been determined for a time to destroy everything. Had she actually been able to reconcile the ideas? It wasn’t as though they would have had many people to talk to about it. She felt Pepper would have even fewer people she could turn to than the boys, all too familiar with the differences between treatment, how easily things could be dismissed as ‘fanciful’ for young girls that was merely ‘imaginative’ in young boys.

“So with these, we’ll dry the flowers out first. You could use a dehydrator to speed up the process but I prefer the taste doing it the old fashioned way,” Anathema explained as she dumped the basket of flowers on the table. “Also means I didn’t have to sacrifice counter space for another kitchen gadget.”

“Yeah but isn’t the drying rack big too?” Pepper asked as she watched Anathema demonstrate the bundling. Putting the sprigs together was easy enough, though whatever complicated bow and knot the older woman did certainly did seem more complicated than it needed to be.

Anathema hummed softly in consideration. “It can be, but it can be tucked away when it’s not in use. Unlike a dehydrator I’d still have to find a more permanent home for,” she explained after looking at the drying rack that she and Newt had put together some time back. It had been a delightful afternoon and she wondered if that was something Pepper would enjoy, building her own tools and the like. Though she’d have to be careful to keep it on the useful side of things rather than a ‘prepare for all eventualities’ that some people could get. “It’s one of those things where preference comes into play, doing what makes you comfortable.”

Pepper made a low sound of acknowledgement, able to see the wisdom in that. They’d dragged the drying rack out of a closet to unfold it after all. She kind of liked how compact it could be. As simple as it looked, it couldn’t be that hard to build her own, right? She had started a small garden a few years back when she had first started coming around to the cottage. Just little things, some of the herbs and vegetables that Anathema had given her seeds for. Maybe she would be allowed to make something similar.

—---

“Do you have to have magic?”

Anathema paused at the question, placing the chamomile into the basket at her side. She shifted to regard Pepper with a sharp eye before shaking her head.

“Not really. A lot of practitioners don’t actually possess any magickal ability. Not the way that I do anyway. Depending on the discipline, there’s far more emphasis on intent and putting out into the world what you’d want back. Not to say that manifestation and intent don’t count for anything. But you have to be willing to put in the work.”

“Why do you think I got picked to go against War?” she asked one afternoon as they bundled herbs for drying.

“Why do you think?”

Pepper’s grumble told her that answer wasn’t one she wanted. Why ask only to have it be answered with another question?

“Part of me wants to say it’s because we both presented as female but I know Adam’s not like that. The rest…I don’t know.”

“I wasn’t with you guys and I don’t know the other three as well as I now know you, but I imagine it had everything to do with your convictions. From what I figure, you would have been the best against the idea of war,” Anathema commented after a few moments, fingers stilling as she set down the bundle of herbs she’d been taking care of. “What brought that on?”

“I…I’ve honestly….” she trailed off, staring at the twine in her hands. “I’ve thought about it on and off over the years. Sometimes, when I lose my temper with someone I think that’s why. I know that for everyone else the memories are gone but Adam, he didn’t take them from us. I think as an apology, even though he did apologise back then.”

Anathema found herself stopping, hands stilling to rest on the table so she could give Pepper her full attention. She had sort of suspected that the Them had all seemed to maintain more knowledge than the rest of them about what happened that day. This was honestly the first time she could recall any of them bringing it up though, all of them far more content to let it lie in the past where it likely belonged. She didn’t blame them in the slightest, not envying them for their roles either.

“I met the other three when we were kids…even then adults liked to say I was combative.”

Anathema scoffed, “You’re not. You’re passionate about what you believe in and you’re willing to fight for it. Just because you don’t behave the way society expects women and girls to behave, doesn’t mean you’re combative. And even if you were, that’s not a bad thing. There’s nothing wrong with refusing to fold yourself into the little box they want you in, or refusing to make yourself palatable for someone else’s comfort. I think more people on the fringes need that realisation.”

—---

“What’s this?”

Anathema just lifted an eyebrow in a clear ‘open it’ that earned her the best eye roll a fourteen year old girl could muster.

“It’s not even my birthday.”

“I’m aware. This is a just because gift.”

Despite her curiosity, Pepper didn’t tear into the package like one might have expected. The twine was untied and left on the kitchen island, fingers sliding under the edges of the paper carefully. Dark eyes were focused on the movement of her hands, fingertips gliding over a beautiful leather cover. The leather was a worn, deep brown with an ornate tree burned into it. The hardware at the corners was a lovely antique, patina colour that earned a little smile. The paper was rough and slightly uneven in that way that paper made by hand could be. Pepper slid the latch up so she could open the book, surprised by the blank pages that greeted her. There were tiny imperfections that years of helping Anathema told her were bits of plant material that had gone into the process. She looked up, brows furrowed in slight confusion. Obviously it was a book, a blank one like those fancy journals that she’d seen on a field trip to London and they’d stopped in a bookstore.

“What’s this for?” she asked finally, peering up at the older woman curiously.

“I know that most of it isn’t really your thing. Not enough to use a book of shadows the way most would. But I thought, that this would be a good place to start. I’ll teach you how to make more using the same recycled materials if you’d like.”

Pepper stared in a little bit of awe. It was the first time she could really think her preferences, and solely those, were considered. No concessions made for friends, no shortcuts for ease. Just something practical with her tastes and values in mind. Careful fingers ghosted along the tooled leather, a silent apology ringing through her for the animal cut down and a promise to do what she could.

She might have been chosen to go against War all those years ago, might have only met her closest friends because of a fight when they were children, but she wasn’t going to let that define her. Not anymore.