Kitchen Witch

1 |Yellow House

Charlotte pulled up to the weathered yellow house and took in her new home for the first time. Her hands still gripped the steering wheel despite having driven for two days. This was the moment; it was all so very real now. She had left behind everything she had known for the last 47 years and moved across the country to what? Start over? Hide? She could barely comprehend opening the door and leaving the car's safety. Her literal home, for the last two days as she travelled three provinces, only stopping for gas. Her washroom use had been carefully calculated to limit exposure, and she even slept in her car overnight at a Quebec campground. She certainly missed the Hilton Diamond Status that night. 

A breeze swept through the open car window, rustling the papers on the passenger seat. The paperwork she so carefully filled out to allow her to enter the province fluttered as if touched by unseen hands. Applications were filled out months ago to allow her to cross her own country's provincial borders, one into New Brunswick and one into Prince Edward Island. Waiting for that email back with approval from Public Safety and her chance to start over was unbearable. Charlotte had crossed the 12 km of the Confederation Bridge, gripping the paperwork that would allow her to enter the island as if her life depended on it. It was such a strange feeling, one of freedom driving over the infinite blue of the open ocean, nerves at the entire strange process of applying to enter a province in your own country and adhering to the isolation rules once she crossed that border and praying that the keys to her new home were waiting for her.

Her old home was officially sold and divided in two, documents signed and notarized outside wearing masks over the trunk of the car and 6ft apart. Could you make a cold-dead marriage seem any more sterile? Her children, whom she loved with all her heart, had moved out years ago, one in grad school and the other in her 2nd year of uni. Her purpose for getting up in the morning had left when her youngest set-off. There was no longer any need to pretend and to protect. Her entire being was exhausted, a shell of the young mother she once was.

When the world turned on its side in March 2020, Charlotte grasped onto a memory. A memory of swaying grasses in the wind, salt air in the breeze, and red sand beneath toes. As a child on vacation with her parents in Prince Edward Island, she had felt a connection to the island. She recalled how the wind seemed to dance around her, playfully tugging at her dress while she searched for sea glass. At the thought of her parents, she felt her heart tighten. Charlotte had grown up loving the Anne of Green Gables movies and books, and a chance to vacation there as a child was met with the most magical squeals. She remembered one particularly vivid day when the wind swirled around her, lifting her spirits and making her feel like she could fly. Her mother had laughed, calling her the wind's favourite child. She grasped onto those memories of happiness; contentment felt so deep that it felt like a warm hug, and she began to dream. A dream of buying a little house overlooking the ocean, of starting her very own business making her teas and compounds, and just breathing for the first time in years. The memory of the wind's playful touch and how it seemed to respond to her moods was both comforting and mysterious. It was as if the island had been calling her back all these years, a place where she had felt truly alive.

Charlotte stared out at the little yellow house, the blue sky behind it blending into the blue water of the ocean and felt a wet nudge on her arm. Charlie, Charlotte's sweet old golden retriever, nudged her arm from the back seat, reminding her that she wasn't completely alone. Her breath shuddered, and she steeled herself, letting go of the steering wheel.

"Come on, old boy, let's go home."