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Just made an update to 'A Witch and her Cookbook', a fantasy story I haven't touched in almost 2 years. Excited to finally finish it. The following is a chapter excerpt:

On the top of a mountain in the very center of the forest, there was a garden. Surrounding that garden was a fence of very tall brambles. Inside it was a magnificent assortment of herbs and poison plants living in harmony. An odd fruit tree or two lived amongst them.

Very odd fruit trees, in fact. Some days they grew pears. Others they grew apples. It was whatever happened to take their fancy. They’d been planted long ago by a young witch who was no longer young at all. Not on purpose, mind you. She just so happened to have dropped her lunch and several clippings for her apothecary work. This was before she knew she was a witch.

Her name was Gertrudis, and much like Rachel, she had never wanted to come to Dreadforest in the first place. Neither did the seeds or clippings of anything in the garden, but here it was today. Tended by magic left behind on a strange afternoon when Gertrudis had decided to have a picnic at the top of a mountain.

At the very center of the garden, a small pond had formed, defying any form of reason nature attempted to apply to it. Dreadforest was funny like that. Over time, the pond had grown. Not outwards, but down. It ate away at clumps of rock and earth. Seeped happily through cracks. The magic that nurtured the garden over the decades concentrated itself in that water.

Gave it purpose.

Gave it will.

 Max stood at the kitchen counter just beside the window, scowling. Something peculiar about that wind. He didn’t cease calling out to the Frog brothers, but he did use a little extra effort to mentally probe outside. Were the boys home?

No. He couldn’t feel them. They were still gone. Not dead, though. He’d have felt that, he reasoned. Max had lost more than his fair share of failed children long before he’d perfected the skill of siring with David and the boys.