Willa Blythe (she/her) started talking late and telling stories early, and she hasn’t stopped doing either of those things since. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Playwriting and a Master’s in Literature, and she still learned most everything she knows about writing from reading someone else’s. She and her pre-teen son Jack are a dynamic duo when it comes to road trip karaoke and dinner table roleplay, but disagree about minor matters like homework and chores and whether or not you must do those things. When not working at her day job, teaching, parenting, trying to convince herself to write, or talking on the phone for hours to the three people in her life who are still into talking on the phone, Willa enjoys picking up new hobbies that she’ll pursue to excess for two and a half months; downloading 67 mods for a video game she’ll play 4 hours of before abandoning for three years; reading halves and thirds and quarters of books; and playing a lot of Dungeons & Dragons with friends online. She’s still waiting for the lady knight of her dreams to come pick her up from this really boring tower—but at least the view is pretty sweet. Her contribution to Add Magic to Taste will be Willa’s first publication, and she’s both grateful and excited for this opportunity to bring a bit of magic to the mundane.
Links: Twitter
Story Title: Something in the Water
tags: amnesia, bipoc character, depression, fat character, humor, hurt/comfort, love at first sight, mild angst, off-screen death of a parent, water spirits, wlw
Teaser:
“Ah, okay, well— that’s— that’s super unfortunate, I really do feel for you, Thea, but—”
“But what?”
Merrily tried to pull her hand away, gently.
Thea did not let it go.
Oh, no.
“Well…” Merrily shrugged, trying to let her down easy. “I do small magic? The Little Practice, we call it. Good luck charms, help with intentions, dream-reading, stuff like that. Curses, that’s…”
“That’s…?” Thea kept hold of her hand, a prisoner, caught in the limbo of the over-the-counter area that was normally reserved for the passing of currency and drinks.
“Well, that’s Big Magic,” Merrily said. “I don’t do that. I’m sorry. You’ll have to find someone else.”
Thea looked at her. And blinked. And then—to Merrily’s horror—began to cry.
“No no no, don’t do that, please don’t do that,” Merrily begged, trying to pull away to find her a tissue, but Thea held tight to her hand.
“There—is—no—one—else,” Thea said, in a thin, shaking voice on the edge of disaster.
Merrily just couldn’t let this happen. Not with tears. Not if she was never going to get her hand back.
And definitely not to the prettiest girl she’d ever seen.