When she decided to wander through the woods in search of poppy fields and prowling houses, the stepmothers and grandmothers scoffed.

“You’ll be looking for love potions and beauty serums, then. Shallow. I always knew you were an insecure girl.”

“She wants slimmer thighs.”

“She craves wider hips.”

“She knows the boys don’t look twice at her, that she’ll never marry. Sad.”

Their words echoing in her ears, she packed her pockets with almonds and lady apples and pulled hiking boots over woolen socks. She brought an umbrella and a letter she let no one see. It was to her, for her alone.

When she knew they’d finished guessing her reasons—having made up their minds years ago—she walked away.

The men whistled as she left, called her ugly and cold. She needed no love potions to seek their attention, whether they wanted her or not. There’s no spell alive that can keep men from looking. If only there were.

She folded her letter over once, twice, and didn’t look back.

In the woods, no one jeered. No one tsked at her fat ankles and shapeless hips. No one saw her at all.

Under alders and over granite she hunted the home of her dreams (and nightmares, both).

Leaves crackled to dust to color her heels. Burrs climbed up her calves, scratching through the layers she hoped would keep her warm on her search. She walked all day, stopping at last at dusk to examine the empty trees.

Birches twitched, trunks resembling scaled chicken legs. Between true trees, she found what she sought. Tracks too large for anything else. Splitting an almond between her teeth, she followed them deeper.

Broken branches, uprooted moss. From thicket to clearing she tracked the nomadic witch she’d always been told to fear.

Under a rising moon, she found it at last.

The house sensed her coming. It pivoted, windows glowing with unnatural orange light. Smoke rose from the chimney in measured breaths.

No turning back now. She squeezed her hands into fists in her pockets, crumpling her letter into a ball. “I’ve come for a potion,” she said to the house, watching the door. It stood still, as if appraising.

With a creak, the door opened a fraction. “For love?” the witch asked from within.

Its voice was bent, warped as wood left too long in the rain. It didn’t sound old, but it didn’t sound young, either. The overall impression was of someone hollow, alone.

“No,” she said, caught in the light of the windows. “Not love, nor lust. Nor beauty.”

“Then death,” said the voice from within. The house shifted, stretching its clawed feet. “A potion to kill.”

She swallowed. Her saliva tasted bitter, like cyanide. “No, thank you. I want something else.”

“You can’t stay,” the house said with a sigh, smoke rising between the trees. “I hold only myself. No people can live in me.”

She frowned, looking from windows to door, swinging gentle on its hinges. She glimpsed no furniture within. Only a fire, burning like the heart of the world. “They say you’re a witch,” she said, uncertain. “And you’re going to curse me.”

“Witch?” The house straightened, towering over her. Its foundation was cracked and mottled with lichen. “If that’s the word, then they’re not so wrong. But you must understand that no witch lives in me. I am the witch, if that is the name they give me. The witch you seek is me.”

“Oh.” She stared at the house. Windows gazed back. The door waited, ajar.

“So, girl. What is it you’d ask a witch to give you?”

Collecting her thoughts, she pulled the crumpled letter from her pocket, unfolding and unfolding it until she could see her own lopsided handwriting, parsing all she thought she knew about the world.

“I want the anti-dote.”

The house crouched, timbers groaning as its light spilled around her. “Antidote? To what?”

“Anti-dote,” she said, quite firmly. “To keep them from doting. You know. Looking. Whispering. Wanting—or not.”

“Who, girl? Men? Women?”

“Everyone! They won’t leave me alone!”

She balled her letter up and shoved it back in her pocket, glaring at the nearest window. “I just want to live. I just want to be left alone.”

The house lowered its curtains, light dimming as it donned a puzzled look. “You wish to disappear. To escape attention entirely.”

She nodded. The house bent its knobbly knees, its stoop touching the ground before her feet. The door moved slowly. “There are many ways to disappear.”

She wasn’t so dumb as to pretend to not be afraid. Still, she faced those curtained windows, standing tall. Up close, the house smelled of shingles and woodsmoke. She wondered how it kept the fire going without hands.

“What’s one way?” she asked.

The door clicked shut before reopening. It sounded awfully close to a tsk. “You found me without much trouble. Clearly, I do not possess the power to completely disappear.”

“But you do have power. People fear and respect you. They leave you alone.”

The curtains lowered further, narrowing the windows’ glow to a sliver along each sill. “And yet, here you are.”

Before she could reply, the house stood up. It flexed one foot, then the other. “If you wish to vanish, follow me.”

With that, it strode away, smoke trailing behind. She spared a breath to consider the danger—but even that momentary hesitation meant she had to run to catch up. The house’s strides were many times longer than hers. Scrambling across loose stones and twigs, she decided the perils of being alone in the woods at night must be lesser than whatever the house might offer.

Besides, had she not wanted to disappear?

• • • •

It was well into night by the time she glimpsed other lights in the dark. Jogging behind the house, she heard clawed feet shuffling in dry leaves to her right, snapping branches to her left. She was too out of breath to ask where they were going, and only just managed to stumble out of the trees into a clearing, where the house at last stopped.

Petals bounced against her knees, deep purple in the gloom. Cupping one in her hand, she recognized it as a poppy.

“Watch,” the house said. Looking up, she saw the lights approach.

The first house to join them smelled of sugar and soot. Its walls were molded of batter, candies dotting the sills beneath its window-eyes. The second house hardly held together, limping into the field with gaping holes in its walls and roof. The third was made entirely of glass, a shimmering lantern that illuminated them all.

“I had no idea there were more of you,” she gasped, poppy blossom clutched to her chest.

Her house peered down at her. “And why not? Do witches not have covens in your stories?”

She pictured houses riding broomsticks, holding on with oversized chicken feet. It was terrifying, and absurd. She merely shrugged, abandoning the idea for another. “Who makes the potions, then? You don’t have hands . . . do you?” Perhaps more claws hid inside, out of her sight.

Her house shook itself, shingles falling to the ground. “No, we don’t make them. We simply deliver them.”

“But who . . .”

“People,” said the candy house. Its voice was low, thick as treacle. “From where you come from and places you’ve never seen. People all over make them and hide them where they think no one will look.”

“Under pillows and stones,” said the ruined house in a creaking tone.

“They smash them in fireplaces,” said the glass house. “When they leave them—however they leave them—the potions appear in us.”

She stared from house to house. “People? But it’s magic!” She paused, remembering the poppy in her hand. She’d crushed it in distraction. Opening her fist, she let it fall to the ground, a mess of petals and seeds. “Isn’t it?” she asked, turning to her house.

“Have the potions worked?” it countered, curtains rising.

She nodded. Everyone knew the potions worked. That’s what made them dangerous. You never knew for sure what they might do—but you knew they’d do something.

The houses gazed at her, orange and yellow light bathing the poppies in a sunset glow. In their silence, she thought more. She didn’t know anyone personally, as a matter of fact, who’d had a potion from the woods. It was always someone’s cousin, or aunt, or great-grandfather long gone.

But the stories had been right about the houses. Why would something as simple as a love potion be a lie when the creatures around her were real?

“I’m not sure,” she said at last, rubbing pollen from her palm. “Why would you give us potions that don’t work? What’s the point?”

“You tell us,” the candy house said. “It’s your kind that feels so motivated to make them, to fold wishes into bottles.”

She put her hands in her pockets. Her fingers wrapped around her letter. Was it a wish, or a spell? What was the difference?

“Do you mind?” she asked the houses, looking from window to window. “Do you like delivering magic that might not work?”

The glass house bobbed. “Of course.”

She looked at the ruined house. “Don’t you wish you were fixed? Whole?”

The ruined house shook itself, wood keening with strain. “I’ve never been other than this. I woke when the one who made me moved away.”

She turned to her house, windows half-shrouded by curtains. The stories, the murmurs . . . she’d tried to explain them in her letter. Though she’d been wrong, she knew at once she hadn’t been that far from right. “I think I know why we make the potions, and why people seek them from you.”

The house nodded, lowering itself until its door matched her height. “You wish to disappear.”

She thought about this. Being seen, being invisible—they weren’t so different, were they? “We want to be something else. Less visible for our flaws, more visible for our assets. You can disappear by being beautiful, if you do it the right way.”

The houses swayed around her, light rippling across the field. She let go of the paper in her pocket and freed her hands, letting the night air flow between her fingers like water. “Can I stay here? Can I be like you?”

The houses slowed. “You are different,” said the glass house.

“You’re not like us at all,” said the candy house.

“You’re so small,” said the ruined house.

“You’re vulnerable as you are,” said her house, rising to stand over her once more. She swallowed. All trace of bitterness was gone from her tongue.

“I know.”

“You’ll need a place to live,” her house continued. “You have no roof as we do. Can you forage for food? Can you light your own fire?”

She could try. It would be hard, but most things were. “I’ll build a house of my own. Like you.”

The houses stilled, smoke the only motion in the clearing. At last, the candy house spoke. “Your people will come looking. They’ll ask you for things.”

She nodded. “I know.”

“And what will you give them?”

“Stories,” she said. “And advice, if they take it.”

The houses looked at one another. She waited. Finally, her house bent its knees and came to rest on the ground beside her. She faced its windows, now fully bright.

The door creaked open and a phial rolled out onto her boots. She picked it up. The glass was smoky and cool to the touch. The liquid inside glittered with crystals—sugar or quartz, she wasn’t sure.

“Whatever you wish,” her house said. “Drink it, and choose.”

She removed the stopper and tasted the potion. It was sweet, with notes of birch bark and moss. Maybe maple sap, maybe lemon juice. Household ingredients nearly anyone could mix. It might just be well water, but illuminated in the light of the house, it looked like a sunrise over the sea.

Swallowing someone else’s magic, she closed her eyes. She wished.