The house wakes from its somnolence as the witch trudges up the path made of tarts. Through its rock-candy windows, the house scans her figure for any signs of hurt. The witch’s errands in the city make her nervous. And the house, being made of her magic and therefore of the witch, worries along with her that the wrong person might recognize her, or simply think they do. “They say Creoles all look alike,” she’s said, bitter.

It astounds the house, that the witch could be mistaken for any other but herself. That someone could fail to identify her tightly coiling black hair, her agate eyes, her russet skin as the witch’s, and the witch’s alone.

Her hair remains neatly tucked under her wrap. In a basket, balanced against her hip, she carries a basket full of linen bags. Flour and sugar. Though her steps are weary, she’s not limping. A successful outing, then.

Pleased she’s safe, the house opens its front door and rolls out a rug of pie pastry.

“Thank you, House,” the witch says, and walks in, letting the house close its door behind her.

Despite the muggy heat that makes the house’s pecan praline shingles stick together, the witch doesn’t roll up her sleeves till she’s set her basket on the single molasses-cake table. With a groan, she lifts her skirt to perch on a stool made of brioche. She pulls off her boots, wriggles her toes in their stockings, and frowns.

The house flares its brazier in question.

“Ran into someone I knew once, while I was in the city. Got a decision to make, now.” She grimaces. “I keep thinking we oughta leave New Orleans.” She doesn’t go into why, but from the witch’s dreams, the house already knows. She presses a hand flat to the brioche wall. “Hide for now, yes?”

It does. It’s made of sugar and magic, after all; and like sugar in a glass of water, it appears to dissolve into nothing, but it’s still there, just too fine to see.

• • • •

When the house wakes next, the witch is on its roof, prizing off a pecan praline shingle. Once it’s loose, rum jelly oozes, filling in the naked spot. Though another praline will grow back by morning, the house rattles its tartelette shutters and puffs a clot of meringue from the chimney.

“Hush, now. I’ve decided.” The witch gives it a pat and plucks a few more pralines. “We’re gonna have some company.”

Displeased, the house blows out more meringue.

“Never you mind.”

The witch scurries down the brioche siding, then strides toward the swamp, where towering cypress trees grow, where sometimes the witch has to hiss the secret words to send away an alligator or cottonmouth. The only words she whispers now are those directing the river where to take the pralines and what they should say when they arrive.

The house watches anxiously as the witch returns. It knows she can take care of herself—she wouldn’t have been able to create it if she couldn’t—but she also created it to keep her safe.

And now, she’s inviting strangers to come.

It could rattle its praline shingles and let some fall on her head, but considering what she’s just taken, the house thinks that’d rather miss the point.

As she goes inside, the witch pulls calas from the doorframe. Petulant, the house tries to hold it fast, but more rum jelly strings out as it comes free.

Alternating nibbles and hums, the witch stokes the fire for the oven. “Gonna need something special for our guests. Molasses cake, maybe?”

Beignets fall from the ceiling.

“Stop, House,” the witch says, sharp. “I know you’d like to keep me all to yourself, but I’m needed.” Yet her lips pucker, like she’s tasted spoiled jelly.

• • • •

It’s a bad night for the witch.

The house usually rests when the witch is away and when she sleeps. But now, it resists the pull of her slumber to keep vigil on her fitful dreams. The witch kicks off her blankets and cries out. The house struggles not to let the witch’s sleeping magic work its will. It fails. Sugarcane stalks erupt from the nougat floors.

In the morning, the witch wakes grim-faced, unshed tears pooling in her eyes. She hacks and yanks the stalks with such violence the rum jelly takes hours to stop flowing.

• • • •

The guests arrive by raft three nights later, a shuttered lantern lighting their way. The witch stands in the doorway as they come: one man as old as the witch, wearing a straw hat, his skin a couple shades darker than hers, and a young woman carrying a sleeping child. To judge from the tendrils slipping free of her wrap, the woman has dark brown hair in curls looser than the witch’s. Her skin is of a similar tone to the witch’s, as is her child’s.

Eyeing the calas and the nougat and the brioche with trepidation, the woman heads into the house with her child. Intending to corner the strangers, the house expands its brioche walls as if they were dough left to overrise.

Subtle-like, the witch kicks the doorframe. Mind your manners. “If you’re hungry, help yourself. House doesn’t bite.”

For the first time, it wishes it had teeth.

The woman nibbles handfuls of nougat and brioche. Her eyes widen, and with a smile she jostles her child. Yawning and rubbing her eyes, the girl eats some solemnly.

Though the girl scoops up rum jelly to suck off her fingers, the house keeps its attention mainly upon the witch and the older man, who, curiously, opens his arms for an embrace.

More curiously, the witch accepts.

“Very kind of you to do this,” the man says. “It’s just a night, then I’ll take ’em to the next station, and they’ll switch conductors.” A pause. “Will I find you again?”

The witch pauses longer. “Still deciding. A body gets used to being safe.”

The man—conductor—keeps his expression shuttered. “Well, we ’preciate whatever help you give, even if this’s the last.”

The witch remains silent. The house can’t help itself; it sighs out a satisfactory meringue.

A cough. “But—meaning no disrespect, Agnes—why’s your house like this?” The conductor gestures to the nougat, the beignets, some petite fours arrayed on a tray. In irritation, the house lets its nougat around the conductor’s feet melt. Grimacing, he lifts his feet to a less-sticky spot. “You made it. Couldn’t it be . . . different?”

Affronted, the house allows a stale beignet to fall on the conductor’s head. They’re a little harder than the fresh ones.

The man lets out a quiet oof while the witch purses her lips. She does not apologize for the beignet. “True, House could be anything I got a mind to cook or bake. Then maybe the sugarcanes—” She exhales, cheeks puffing out like popovers. “It might go easier on me, if I’d made House of something else. Cornbread and gator fritters, maybe.”

Her back straightens, and though the conductor is more than a foot taller than the witch, he slouches back. “But then I think, No. They took my home and my family from me. Everything. But this food, I made it mine, like House is mine. Stayed mine even when they made me go cut cane instead of cooking.” She lifts her chin as remembered fury, and fear, shadow her dark eyes into black. “They don’t get to take it, too.”

She relaxes, and the power that’d been crackling under the surface, set to grow like air bubbles in yeasted dough, relaxes with her. “’Sides, ain’t no pralines like mine this side of the Mississippi, or on the other either. You gonna tell me different?”

With a flash of white teeth, the conductor tips his hat. “Tastiest message I ever got. So, no, ma’am. I sure ain’t.”

• • • •

Yet for all her bravado, the witch’s conversation with the conductor must’ve shaken her. For it’s another sugarcane night.

The witch thrashes alone on her nougat bed while the stalks rise around her, forming a cage. The house thrashes with her, best it can. Nougat goes runny and beignets fall from the ceiling in a shower the house hopes will knock down the stalks. It’s forced to stop for fear of burying the witch.

The conductor scrambles up from the corner near the stove, where he’d been sleeping. “Agnes!” Trampling beignets underfoot, he shoves through the sugarcane, and does what the house could never do: he wakes the witch.

She’s weeping, and where her tears hit the nougat, they pearl into caramel. The man waves at the young woman and child, peering down from the loft where they slept. “I got this.”

He helps the witch out of the sugarcane cage, and together they remove the stalks. “I still dream about it too, sometimes,” he says when they’ve finished. “Habitation Haydel.”

The witch says nothing, but she squeezes his hand.

• • • •

Soon as nightfall comes again, the conductor and his passengers are on their way. The witch watches the swamp long after the light of their shuttered lantern fades from view.

The house considers.

It shimmies from its tartelette shutters, to its brioche siding, and finally to its roof.

The witch catches the praline in midair. “You know, I was thinking the same thing.”

The broadness of her smile makes the house’s fire blaze.

“Little company might be nice.”