The nerve.
Heavy knocks kept slamming on the wooden door. "Hello? Is anybody in there?" A pause. A shuffle of feet, some muffled whispering. "Genevieve, I know you're in there. You can't avoid me forever."
That was the problem: she could.
She paced circles around the room, looking down at the starry patterns on her rug until she felt dizzy-headed. The nerve of him. Showing up here each day, acting like everything was the same as it had always been. Acting like nothing had changed. This would not faze her.
"Genevieve, tell me what's wrong! Ginny? Open the door. Please." She stared at her door, although not with the slightest intent of opening it. It looked the same as it always had. She remembered the way her mother had always looked, stepping in through that door after a long day of working in the market, selling produce as she had. All black hair and dark eyes and energy and strength. Her velvet robes, green or purple or red, would swing at her ankles, revealing those unusual shoes she always wore. Crocodile skin shoes, tall and polished black, with laces right up to the knees. She had always told Genevieve to pretend like she had crocodile skin, too, that way she would be tough and thick-skinned and the human world couldn't hurt her. But now she had disobeyed her mother's will. Now the world had hurt her. She didn't plan to let it do so any more.
The young woman shifted her gaze to the other side of the small room. Plants still lined the walls, and little herbs and spices still sat in glass jars on the wooden counter space, as they always had. A mangled broom- for sweeping the floor, not for engaging in any of those stereotypical activities- sat against the wall. No wonder the floor was so dusty: the broom was so old. And then there was the window, small and sad, with red curtains drawn up tight to avoid letting anyone see inside. She didn't open it much anymore.
Eventually, the bangings on the doors came to a halt. Good, she thought, and waited for a moment before stepping quietly over to the small window. Lifting the tiniest corner of the curtains, she peeked out to see if her unwanted visitor was gone.
Staring back at her were two bright blue eyes, wide and confused. She quickly put the curtain back into place. Damn it. He'd known she would look, so he'd waited. She was an idiot for looking.
"Ginny!" He was pounding on the door again. "Just let me in! I'm tired of waiting!"
She stomped quickly over the door and swung it open with all her might. It hit him hard, sending him back a few feet. He stumbled backwards down the front steps and let out a strange whimper. "Get out of here. You're not welcome anymore!"
"I wanted to invite you to the wedding, Ginny!" Choking on tears, he cupped his forehead in his hands. It was already bruising from the impact.
"Of course you wanted to invite me to the wedding! You avoid me for six months, and then you show up at my door banging on it, every day for a week. Do you think I haven't heard things? Do you really think I haven't heard that you're getting married, and you never even told me?"
"I tried to come tell you the news, Ginny, but I--"
"Six months?"
"I've been very busy, Genevieve. I'm sorry I could never be home."
"You sound like my father."
The raggedy young man stood, still clutching at his head. "Ginny, I loved you, I really did."
She was stone cold. "Why did you leave?"
He didn't respond. He stood there, looking like an imbecile. He tried to make his way back up the steps but I stopped him with a glare. "Why did you leave, Barnaby? I don't have a clue what makes you think you should be the one asking questions here."
"Ginny, I am so sorry."
"You left to be with someone else, didn't you, Barnaby?"
He let out an awkwardly loud heaving sob, as if someone had just punched him in the stomach. "I was stupid. I thought I loved you, I really did. But then there was all of this...magic. These spells and potions and confusing books. It was intriguing at first, but it became too much for me. You could do all of these crazy things. You could make anything happen. One snap and you had fixed dinner. You could point your finger and your garden grew. You made a hat, where there never was a hat." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out an odd green cap. She remembered it instantly. How could she have forgotten? "I still wear it, Ginny. I wear it every day."
"I was kind to you, and yet you left me."
"I was confused! How could I ever live up to a woman who could snap her fingers and get whatever she wanted?"
"My powers don't work like that, you know that."
"Ginny, it was too much for me. It just was. You can take my cheap explanation, it's all I have to give you."
The witch's heart dropped. What had she ever expected out of a human? The boy who had always lived next door, who she'd been too afraid to speak to as a young girl. The boy who she had met at 16, who sat with her in her tiny attic and read books. What did she expect? What did she ask of him?
Instead of immediately getting wound up in emotions, she continued to stare at him coldly. "So you've met someone, and you're getting married."
"I'm sorry, Genevieve."
"Is it true?"
"It is true."
"I see." She stepped out onto the front porch and closed the wooden door behind her. She took a deep breath and leaned to rest on it. "What is she like, Barnaby?"
"Anne is a baker, too. She's quite talented." He chuckled sadly, perhaps not sure if he was allowed to smile or not.
"Do you plan for her to join you in your family business?"
"She has agreed to, yes. You are welcome there anytime, Genevieve."
A snarl. "I am not interested in visiting."
Barnaby looked down and once again clutched his head, which was bruising a grayish purple. "I don't know what else to say, but that you are welcome to come to our wedding and that I very much hope you will attend it."
"I will do no such thing."
The young man only nodded, and with a frown he turned around and started down the cobblestone path to the street.