EmmaLee sighed as she rolled her luggage down the corridor of the train to the very last car, stowed her midnight blue luggage under the seat, she was still infuriatingly too short to haul it into the above compartment on her own, although she had finally grown to 5 foot by now, and flopped into the seat next to the window. She figured that at least it being under the seat made it more accessible.

She placed Minx's carrier on the seat next to her and the animal mewed fervently to get out. The only times EmmaLee ever put her in the carrier was to board and leave the train and when they were inside the vet's office. Otherwise, the large, fluffy white creature was allowed to roam free and follow along with her girl with her own four feet. "Don't be so whiny. You know I can let you out once the train starts moving." EmmaLee said, wrinkling her nose playfully at her cat and turning to look out the window. Minx gave an indignant snort and flopped onto the floor of the carrier dramatically.

As if bidden by her words, the train whistled its departure and started to chug out of the station. EmmaLee turned and clicked the carrier open to release the cat and Minx trotted out almost triumphantly, as if she had undone the latch herself, and leaped onto the seat across from EmmaLee. The fluffy mass turned a few times on the seat, fluffed the cushion with her paws a bit, and curled into a circle with her head tucked under her tail before promptly falling into a cat nap. Anyone passing by would think she was a great, furry, round pillow. Hopefully, no one would sit on her.

EmmaLee giggled a little, forever amused by her cat's personality, and turned once more back to the window. This year, oddly, they would be going home for two weeks before summer camp, staying in the London Stadium again for four weeks, and then returning home for two weeks before it was off to school again. Really, it would be nice to see her family for a bit between school and camp. It was just a change of pace.

Change was a thing that EmmaLee was slowly getting used to. Her own life seemed to be ever-changing now with no real settling anymore. She was always going from one place to the next, school, Glasgow, camp, New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, France. Almost every holiday was mainly spent somewhere other than "home". She didn't really know where her problem with change had come from. Maybe it wasn't the change, but the loss. She had lived her whole life with loss, with very present loss, and the idea of losing anyone else and having their loss be just as present as her father's was as heavy as holding up the whole world.

Come to think of it, her school days were rather stagnant at this point, with the same predictable schedule, wake up, class, lunch, class, dinner, cello, dueling, homework, bed, and her childhood had been very stable itself. For five years she had roamed the countryside of Castelmoron-d'Albret with not a care in the world. Her days with her mother and the small group of people in town were predictable, if slightly different every day.

EmmaLee's mind wandered to the first day Victor LaChance appeared in their tiny little town and shook their world.

Castelmoron-d'Albret is just southeast of Bordeaux and is surrounded on all sides by French wine country, not that EmmaLee had much wine between three and eight years old. The town of her childhood has really only been important to France during wartime, being a fortified town on top of a large hill with a high strategic advantage. Therefore, during wartime the population booms, and during peacetime it wanes to almost nothing.

While the town sits on the main traveling road, it is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of town. Go too fast and you'll drive right by. Off of the main road, at the bottom of town is a cute little cafe with a green fabric awning and if you continue south down the road you will eventually come to a fork where the road splits off away from town into vineyards and countryside. If you take the road left, continuing south and heading east, it will eventually lead you to a wooden gate as the road narrows. Over the gate is a wooden trellis that looks like it has been standing for decades, but it still holds up a beautiful array of ivy and roses in various colors, including red, pink, yellow, white, and purple.



On either side of the lane as it continues past the gate are vast gardens of every herb you could possibly name: ashwagandha, chamomile, echinacea, garlic, ginger, ginseng, lavender, St. John’s Wort, turmeric, and so many others. What another herbalist would note and a layperson would not is that the gardens are divided into types of plants and growing seasons, with the trees closest to the fences, almost creating a second, denser fence around the outer edge of the gardens.

If you keep walking down the drive past this acre garden, you come to a quaint little cottage made of stone and wood. A tall chimney rises up from the middle of the pointed roof with a consistent, small tendril of smoke pouring out. The stone house is surrounded by potted plants of various kinds and small trellises holding even more young plants. The fence around the garden on either side of the lane neatly branches off to enclose the house in a medium-sized little yard. On one side of the little yard hangs a full line of laundry and in a back corner of the yard, under a tall, old oak tree is a little, dark green, metal garden table with six little, dark green, metal chairs.



To the right of the house and around the back, another, larger field is enclosed in more of the fence that surrounds the garden and the house. At the far west of this field stands a medium-sized, red barn with stables, and on the other side, where the fence comes closest to the house, is a large, sky-blue chicken coop. The coop is fenced completely around and on top with a small yard. Inside this coop fence, you can usually see about five chickens and a rooster. In the field, especially on sunny days, one can pick out an auburn and white Montbéliarde cow and three horses: a young, black Camargue mare with flecks of white beginning in her coat, a much older but not old, black Percheron male, and a chestnut French Trotter mare that seems about as old as the Percheron.

The part of the fence around the whole three-acre property is lined with trees in such a way that the house and land cannot be seen from the road, creating a calm patch of privacy for the LeDames women who live there. The far south side of the property is covered in half an acre of dense forest with a small creek running through it, if you can get to it. The other half of this acre, closer to the herb field and house, holds various fruit trees and a vegetable garden.

Exiting the cottage is a tall, slender young woman with long black hair loose down her back and fair skin. One side of the curtain bangs that frame her face is snow white. The woman is carrying a large basket over her shoulder and is wearing a modest red sundress and sandals.

Behind her, a tiny girl with long snow-white hair hops out of the front doorway, hop, hop, hop, until she is out of the house and the door closes behind her. No one locks their doors in Castelmoron-d'Albret, and the LeDames women especially don't. Anyone who passes the Rose Trellis with ill intentions seems to have a string of ill fate long afterward.

The woman, Celeste LeDames, laughs as her daughter, seven-year-old, EmmaLee, hops her way along the path to the fence where the horses stand, expectantly. Each horse leans over the fence to take a carrot from the girl and be gingerly petted on the nose before EmmaLee turns to chase her mother down the lane and take hold of her hand.

The Saturday Summer Market in Castelmoron-d'Albret was not the busiest event in a village that small, but it was probably the liveliest for miles around. The market was held in the small square at the end of the Grand Rue or High Street with a flowing fountain in the middle. There were a few market stalls around the edge of the square selling homegrown vegetables and fruits, handmade pottery, and trinkets of various kinds. The smells of freshly baked breads, cakes, and pastries, and freshly made food fill the air.

In front of the fountain is a small group of people laughing and playing many different instruments including a violin, a cello, an accordion, and a guitar. Sometimes a new instrument will come and play for a while and leave as the player gets tired or an old one will fall away for the same reason, but music fills the air and drifts down the winding, narrow streets of the village for most of the day.



On this Saturday, Celeste LeDames is purposefully wandering the stalls, making purchases, and putting them in her basket as she chit-chats with the people selling things and the other adults buying things. The adults chat about the weather, and ailments each other is having, the politics in Paris, and various sports outcomes. Celeste invites a few people to meet her at the Rose Trellis later to see what she can do for them, as she never sells her herbs and medicines at the market, only personally in her home. She has no formal name for her business, but everyone in town knows where her rose trellis is.

The few children in the village join EmmaLee near the musicians to dance and play tag among the stalls. They also have a good time pretending to jump into or throw each other into the fountain before a group of mothers threatens them with chores to stop.

Overall, it is a lovely Saturday morning in a lovely little village.

While Castelmoron-d'Albret is not exactly tourist destination number one, quite a few travelers make a stop to enjoy a quick walk around an authentic, old French village and the little town has more than enough charm to entertain for an hour or so. One such tourist who heard the music drifting from the town as he and his associates drove by, and decided to stop and see what could be seen was Victor LaChance. Why he was in France in the first place is not the most important detail. What is important is that he was on his way out of the country and by the end of today his stay would be unexpectedly extended.

At this time, Victor was one of the most eligible bachelors in Wizarding New York City and one of the most resistant to changing that status. He was a talented businessman, bringing up his parents' small batch, Lenape-Native-American-made herbal remedy company from a tiny shop in the Inwood area of New York to a large business, still small batch, that served most of New York state and, hopefully, soon, the world. He was also undeniably attractive, kind, considerate, and gracious. What more could any eligible witch want?

Well, it didn't really matter what any eligible witch could want, because Victor wanted love, and he had yet to find it. His parents had found love when they were young and had struggled hard to build their little shop and their little life and Victor would settle for nothing less.

Victor pulled off the main road on Rue de la République and found a parking space before leading his associates up Grand Rue and into the lively little square. The three were as charmed as anyone would be by the scene and eventually found themselves wandering the stalls themselves and sampling all that Castelmoron-d'Albret had to offer them.



After an hour or so of enjoying the music and the food, Victor found himself at a little stall selling ceramics: tea cups, wool bowls, planters, egg cups. As he reached for a panda figurine, his hand bumped another, which pulled back with a laugh like a bell.

"Desole, Monsieur. C'est à toi. I'm sorry, sir. It is yours." The woman said as he turned to look at her. She was thin and not too much shorter than him, with long, wavy black hair the color of amethyst basil except for one inexplicable streak of white hair through her bangs. Her bluebell eyes shone as she looked up at him and, for a moment, Victor was too stunned by her beauty to speak.

"I ah... Excuse me." He stammered, swiftly picking up the panda they had both reached for and offering it to her. "I don't need it if you want it." He said, a little firmer in finding his voice on the next try to speak. The woman took the figurine gingerly from his hands.

"Ah. You are an American, yes?" The woman said with a small, happy smirk. "Welcomb to France. I 'ope you enjoy your veezit." She closed her eyes, tipped her head, sending her shining hair bouncing forward over her shoulders, and turned to the vendor of the stall as she pushed one side of her locks back over her shoulder. Victor stared openly as she conversed with the vendor in French, laughing again and shaking her head as the older lady seemed to refuse her money. The younger woman rolled her money up, put it into the arms of a small figurine of Frida Kalho, and turned away from the old woman with another ringing laugh and a wave. The old lady put her hands on her hips and shook her head as the woman walked away.

"Leeve heir be, Monsieur Touriste Mr. Tourist." The woman warned as Victor completely ignored her and trotted after the younger woman.

"Ah. Mademoiselle!" Victor called, coming up next to her.

"Madame." The woman corrected, not unkindly. "Yes? What ghan I do for you?" If Victor had known the contextual difference between Madame and Mademoiselle, he might have backed off like many a touriste tourist before him, but he was almost painfully ignorant of French culture and the language. Therefore, the intrepid American plowed on.

"Ah, Madame, may I have your name?" He asked, a bit sheepishly, rubbing the back of his medium-length, ginger hair with his large hand.

"Celeste." She said, simply, before continuing to walk towards the fountain and the musicians gathered together. Victor followed.

"Ah, Celeste. That is a beautiful name. May I walk with you?" He asked, coming up next to her. Celeste did not respond but also made no move to shoo him away. "Do you live here? In this town?" Victor plowed on, attempting to start any conversation with the woman he found so enchanting.

"In Castelmoron-d'Albret, yes." Celeste replied, continuing to walk. She hefted her basket more fully onto her shoulder and kept watch on the fountain ahead of her.

"Ah. It is a charming little town. Do you work here?" Victor commented as he walked with her. "I could carry your basket for you if you'd like." Celeste's lips turned up ever so slightly at the suggestion, but she remained stoically polite.

"I am al-right, thank you." She said, turning to him for the first time since before and nodding her head again before turning back to her progress towards the fountain. "I woodn't say that I work 'ere, but I provide thee townspeople weeth remedies wheen they need them."

"Oh! Do you mean herbal remedies? I do that a bit as well. My family owns a shop where we sell them in New York." Victor said, grinning at finding a commonality. Celeste paused for the most fraction of a second in her pace before continuing onwards and finally reaching the fountain.

A woman was sitting, not far from where she stopped, on the ledge of the fountain and playing a cello with the other musicians. The woman was about Celeste's age with long brown hair in a French twist and tanned skin. As Celeste approached and Victor lingered, the woman looked over with a raised eyebrow and lowered her bow, but a raised hand from Celeste brought the bow back to the strings and the woman continued to play.

"My name is Victor. Would it be intrusive if I walked you home, Madame Celeste?" He asked, holding his right hand out to her, folding his left hand behind his back, and bowing slightly, ironically lowering his face to her height. Celeste paused, for a moment, staring at his outstretched hand with a raised eyebrow, before shaking her head and setting the basket on the ledge of the fountain.

"It 'as been a nice conversation, Monsieur Victor, but non. I am a weedow and it would be improper pour a strange man to walk me 'ome." She said with no emotion as she turned towards her daughter, who was running out from behind a building with two of the other village children. "VITE, VITE, MON ETOILE! Quickly, quickly, My Star!" She called.

Victor put his hands in his pockets, looking everything like a rejected stray dog, and raised his own ginger eyebrow as a little girl, she couldn't have been older than five or six, with long white hair approached Celeste and started chattering to her in fast French and pointing to her friends. Victor found the child just as charming as her mother and he smiled as the display warmed his heart in a way that reminded him of his younger cousins interacting with each other at the powwows.

"Adieu Goodbye for life, Monsieur Victor." Celeste said, nodding to Victor, taking the hand of her child and her basket, and walking away. Celeste and the little girl chattered away happily as Victor watched them until they turned a corner and were out of sight.

Over the next two weeks, Victor spent most of his time in the square of Castelmoron-d'Albret, hoping that he would see Celeste again. While he became rather friendly with many of the villagers, they seemed very protective of their herbalist and her daughter, whom he did find out was seven, a very short seven, and named EmmaLee. The villagers would talk with him about everything under the sun, but when he tried to talk about Celeste and EmmaLee, they became tight-lipped, even the rambunctious children that EmmaLee played with could not be moved to talk by any means of toy or sweet food bribery.

Only the pottery vendor, Agnes, would tell him anything. Namely, that Celeste was a widow and should be left alone by Monsieur Touriste, which is what everyone had taken to calling him. He laughed it off in his good-natured way and stayed. Nothing would deter him but Celeste's own dismissal, which he hadn't received in their last three meetings. Just a small conversation as he followed her about her business and an abrupt "Adieu" as she took EmmaLee's hand and walked away each time.

The first two times, being the next Saturday after their first meeting and the following Wednesday after that, as Celeste entered the village, EmmaLee took off to find her friends and curiously appeared at her mother's side just as Celeste was ready to leave, but this Saturday, EmmaLee lingered to interrogate this strange man who had been following her mother around at every opportunity. The child had a decent grasp of English already, and Victor had almost no grasp of French, so the conversation was quite interesting and entertaining, especially the parts where Celeste, who didn't seem to be paying attention as she browsed the stalls and selected merchandise, corrected either of them out of the blue.



"Where do you come?" EmmaLee asked abruptly as Victor approached the pair. He had been sitting on the water fountain since early morning, expecting that Celeste and EmmaLee would arrive at some point as they had the last two Saturdays. Victor laughed.

"What?" He asked, not sure how literal she was being. Did she mean where he was visiting from or where he was staying while he was here?

"Where do you come....from?" EmmaLee said carefully, looking to her mother for confirmation. Celeste nodded, though she was looking at a pile of apples.

"I'm from America." He said, crouching down to her level, though his crouch was still almost a head taller than the little girl. "Where are you from?" He asked with a wide smile. EmmaLee wrinkled her nose in confusion.

"Where are you from?" She parroted, apparently realizing that this was the truly correct way to word her question. "'Eere?" She said with a raised eyebrow as if she found the man's question silly. "Why do you not go to there?" Victor laughed again, amused at the blunt interrogation. He made a thinking sound and rubbed his beard in thought. How honest should he be? Frankly, he had stayed 100% to get to know her mother but was that wise to reveal when Celeste was standing right there. Would she find it endearing, or creepy? Victor decided that honesty was probably the best policy.

"Well, I like your mother and I would like to be her friend. I would also like to be your friend. What do you think?" He asked, offering his hand to shake. The girl looked at him hard, one part processing his words and another part clearly judging his worth. She looked from his hand, to his face, to her mother, and back to his hand before taking it and giving it one shake.

"A friend is a good thing to do," EmmaLee said.

"It is good to make a friend." Celeste corrected as she put various fruits in her basket. EmmaLee nodded and turned back to Victor seriously.

"It is good to make a friend," EmmaLee repeated as if quoting a proverb. "You like 'eere?" Victor nodded at EmmaLee's assertion and her question. The little town was beautiful and the people were generally friendly and easy to get along with. "Do you play?" EmmaLee asked next.

"I can. What would you like to play?" Victor said with a wide smile and a raised eyebrow. Had he won her over this easily?

"Tag is fun. I like to run." EmmaLee said, gesturing to the children she regularly played with, who had finally succeeded in throwing one of their own in the fountain. EmmaLee giggled at the spectacle as a mother came to scold them and the children scattered, their own laughter filling the air. The woman put her hands on her hips, shook her head, and turned back to whatever she had been doing before turning to scold the children.

Celeste turned to move on to the next stall and EmmaLee and Victor followed. After another few minutes of conversation, EmmaLee seemed to have done whatever assessment she had wanted to and took off towards the children who had regathered around the fountain, leaving the American man alone with her mother. "Adieu, Monsieur Touriste."

Victor chuckled and turned back to Celeste, who looked embarrassed that her daughter had called him the village nickname.

"She is very cute," He said, unoffended, casually putting his hands in his pockets.

"I know," Celeste said, with a small smirk, adding some carrots and green beans to her basket. "She is very friendly as well." She continued in a tone that suggested that her daughter might be too friendly. Celeste turned abruptly to Victor and stared him down, not in a hostile way, but more of a boldly curious way and also in a way that expected an honest answer to what she was about to say.

"Why do you stay, Monsieur Victor? I am sure that you 'ave very important things to get back to, considering that your associates left weeks ago." She asked calmly with a raised eyebrow.

"I find you interesting, Madame Celeste, and beautiful, but mostly interesting, and I would like to get to know you. No more and no less. We have common interests, and I feel like we might be looking for the same thing. If I'm wrong, and you really would like me to leave, I will, but otherwise, is there harm in becoming friends?" He said, sincerely, staring into her blue eyes and looking for a positive answer. Celeste stared back at him calmly, seeming to search his own brown eyes for something before nodding.

"Alright." She said after a long moment that seemed to Victor to stretch on for hours.

"Would it be appropriate for me to hold your basket now, since we're friends?" He asked, nodding his head towards the item on her arm. Celeste laughed and paused for a moment in thought before handing it to him.

"Alright."



Over by the fountain, the group of children watched the pair of adults.

"Est-ce que ta mère va l'épouser?" Is your mother going to marry him? One of the girls asked EmmaLee, who shook her head.

"Non, ce sont juste des amis. Les amis ne se marient pas.No, they're just friends. Friends don't get married." She replied with a shrug, then tagged the girl and turned to run away down an alley laughing.