The Music Witch

The Roanstone Harvest Benefit took place beneath white tents on the fairground lawn, because white tents made money feel charitable.

Kath wore the green dress Lizbeth had given her with the tags already removed.

“You need to look decent,” Lizbeth had said.

“For whom?”

“Everyone.”

“That narrows it down.”

Lizbeth had not smiled. “Please.”

The please had done what orders could not.

The dress had belonged to Lizbeth for less than a week.

Kath knew because the receipt was still in the pocket when she tried it on: boutique, downtown Kelowna, too expensive for a garment meant to make someone else presentable. The colour was good on her, dark green with a blue undertone that made her skin look less tired. The cut was wrong. It pulled at the shoulders and gaped slightly where Lizbeth’s body had taught the fabric different expectations.

In the mirror, Kath looked like a woman costumed as the answer to a question she had not heard.

Lizbeth stood behind her in the doorway. “It is the best I can do.”

“For me or for the story?”

“Both.”

Kath turned. “What story are you hoping this dress tells?”

Lizbeth’s mouth tightened. “That you are not being mistreated.”

“Am I?”

“Do not.”

“Do not what?”

“Make me name things when naming them changes nothing.”

Kath looked back at the mirror. “Naming them changes me.”

Lizbeth flinched as if that had been unkind. Perhaps it had.

“Then wear your own clothes,” she said.

Kath thought of the borrowed pants, the work shirts, the wrong labels, every garment that had made her useful before it made her visible.

“No,” she said. “I will wear it. But not because it fits.”

Now Kath stood behind the Jackson Orchard table while the dress pulled across her shoulders and the grass sank under her shoes. Around her, the valley performed generosity: winery families with auction paddles, parents in clean denim, councillors holding plastic glasses, children darting between legs with painted faces. A silent auction displayed pottery, hotel weekends, private tastings, and a six-week youth music scholarship donated in Alex Simpson’s name but presented by the board.

The scholarship display hurt in a precise place.

Someone had framed a photograph of Alex with last year’s youth ensemble. Rowan stood near the back, mandolin tucked under one arm, not smiling exactly but looking as if they had been caught before deciding whether joy was safe. Alex stood beside them with one hand lifted mid-conducting cue. Under the photo, a placard read COMMUNITY THROUGH HARMONY.

Kath wanted to turn the frame face down.

Instead she arranged jam jars until the labels faced forward.

PACKED BY KATE J.

Harmony, she thought, was apparently what people called it when no one played the dissonant note out loud.

Alex was not onstage.

Kath found her near the sound tent, half-hidden by a stack of folding chairs. She wore black trousers and a white shirt with sleeves rolled to the forearms. Her hair was pinned back carelessly, as if care had been needed elsewhere. She checked cables with the focus of someone permitted to make the machinery work but not to speak into the microphone.

Kath looked away before wanting became visible.

Colin took the stage at seven.

Before he spoke, the youth ensemble had been told to wait.

Rowan stood near the side of the stage with the mandolin strap cutting diagonally across their chest, watching Mrs. Gallant rearrange the program cards. Alex stood by the sound table, not on the stage, not with the board, not with the students. The separation had become choreography.

Kath saw Rowan ask Alex something.

Alex shook her head once.

Rowan’s face closed.

Then Colin climbed the steps, and every microphone found him.

He was good. That was the part Kath hated most. He could make himself sound like gravel and honesty. He spoke of weather, risk, family labour, rural resilience. He thanked Tom Menteith’s family for believing in “young futures rooted in old soil.” He thanked Lizbeth, who stood beside Tom near the front, one hand tucked into his arm.

Before Colin reached her name, Kath saw the speech find its audience.

The men nodded at risk. The board members nodded at resilience. The donors nodded at old soil, which cost them nothing and made them feel generous. Tom’s father watched Colin with the calm attention of a man evaluating whether a story could hold investment. Mrs. Gallant watched Alex, not the stage.

Alex stood beside the sound tent with a cable looped over one arm.

Not hidden. Not present.

Kath understood then that absence could be staged as carefully as appearance.

Then Colin looked toward Kath.

“And I want to thank my niece, Kate,” he said, “who came to us at a difficult time and has reminded this family that grace is not always tidy.”

The crowd turned.

Kath did not move.

Colin smiled with wet eyes he could summon when useful. “Families are complicated. We all know that. Sometimes young people carry burdens they are not ready to name. Sometimes those burdens become a household’s burden, and the household does what decent people do. We make room.”

The applause began uncertainly, then warmed.

Kath felt it touch her skin like insects.

Lizbeth had gone white.

Tom looked confused, then carefully sympathetic, which was worse.

Mrs. Gallant put one hand to her chest.

Across the lawn, Alex stepped out from behind the sound tent.

Colin continued. “We ask only privacy, kindness, and support as we move through this season together.”

Privacy. Kindness. Support.

The lie had learned to speak fluent virtue.

Kath set down the jar she was holding. It struck the table too hard and tipped, jam spreading dark red across the white cloth.

People near her noticed. A woman whispered. Someone else said, “Poor thing.”

Kath walked away from the table.

She did not run. Running would become confession.

Behind the cider tent, generator noise swallowed the applause. Kath reached the line of cottonwoods and bent over with both hands on her knees. She was not sick. She wished she could be. A body could expel poison. A story could not.

“Kate?”

Mrs. Gallant had followed her.

Of course she had.

The school board woman stood with a paper napkin in one hand, face composed into concern. “Are you all right, dear?”

“Do not call me dear.”

Mrs. Gallant’s expression tightened. “People are trying to be kind.”

“No. They are trying to enjoy being kind.”

“That is an unfair thing to say.”

Kath straightened. “Yes.”

“You have put Alex in a very difficult position.”

The sentence was so neat that Kath almost admired it.

“I have?”

“I know emotions run high. But she has responsibilities. Children look up to her. Families trust her. When adult relationships become messy, boundaries matter.”

“Adult relationships.”

“No one is judging your lifestyle.”

Kath laughed.

Mrs. Gallant flushed. “That is not what I meant.”

“It is exactly what you meant. You just hoped it would sound newer.”

Footsteps approached. Rowan emerged from the side of the tent carrying a mandolin case. They looked from Kath to Mrs. Gallant and understood too much.

“There you are,” Mrs. Gallant said, switching voices. “The youth ensemble is gathering by the stage.”

Rowan did not move. “Why are you talking to her like that?”

Kath saw the fear then. Not in Rowan’s voice, which was steady enough to fool people who wanted children simpler than they were, but in the hand gripping the mandolin case. Their knuckles were white. The case trembled once against their thigh.

This was not performance courage. This was the expensive kind.

“This is an adult conversation.”

“Then have one.”

Kath closed her eyes. “Rowan, go tune.”

“No.”

Mrs. Gallant drew herself up. “Excuse me?”

Rowan’s face was pale, but their voice held. “You people smile at us during Pride week and then act like Ms. Simpson caught a disease because she cares about somebody messy. Kath is not your cautionary tale.”

For a second no one breathed.

Then Alex was there.

“Rowan,” she said.

The teen turned, devastated and defiant. “Am I wrong?”

Alex looked at Mrs. Gallant, then at Kath.

This was the moment, Kath thought. Not rescue. Not explanation. Just a clean refusal of the terms.

Alex said, “You are not wrong to object. But this is not the place.”

Kath felt the sentence land.

Not the place.

There it was: risk management made human.

For one suspended second, Kath saw the sentence travel through everyone.

Mrs. Gallant heard permission.

Rowan heard abandonment.

Alex heard herself.

Kath heard the door close on every note, every marked page, every careful May I. It did not erase them. That would have been easier. It made them smaller retroactively, as if all that precision had been practice for failing politely.

Rowan’s face shut.

Mrs. Gallant exhaled with relief.

Alex seemed to hear herself too late. “Rowan, I mean–”

“I know what you mean,” Rowan said.

They walked away toward the stage, shoulders rigid.

Kath looked at Alex. “Do you?”

Alex’s mouth parted.

“Kath.”

“Not the place,” Kath said. “Where is the place? Tell me, and I will go stand there quietly while everyone decides whether truth fits the agenda.”

“I am trying to protect Rowan.”

“Then protect them from learning that adults only tell the truth when the minutes allow.”

Mrs. Gallant made a warning sound. “Alex.”

Alex did not look at her. “Kath, please come somewhere private.”

“Private is what Colin calls it.”

Alex went pale.

Kath hated the part of herself that was glad.

“That is not what I mean.”

“I know. That is the problem. Everyone has a better word for the same room.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No,” Kath said again, and the second no found an audience.

People at the edge of the tent had turned. Colin’s speech had ended. Music was supposed to begin. Instead the valley had discovered a better performance.

Colin pushed through the gap, face dark. Lizbeth followed, one hand clenched around Tom’s sleeve.

“What is this?” Colin demanded.

Kath looked at him, at Mrs. Gallant, at Alex, at Lizbeth. So many people frightened of one clear sentence.

She could say it. She could break the agreement, lose the boxes, unleash Colin on the child before Lizbeth had even decided who she meant to become.

Her silence rose up around her like water.

Colin put a hand on her shoulder for the crowd. “Kate is overtired.”

Kath stepped out from under his hand.

The movement made people murmur.

“My name is Kath O’Kane,” she said.

It was not the whole truth.

It was the first truth she could afford.

Colin’s smile froze.

Someone near the auction table whispered, “Music witch.” It might have been a joke. It might have been old valley superstition about women who made people uncomfortable by wanting things out loud.

Rowan heard it. So did Alex.

Kath heard it and found, to her surprise, that it did not wound in the expected place.

Witch meant outside the house. Witch meant named by frightened people. Witch meant someone had noticed power without permission.

“Come home,” Colin said softly.

“No.”

“Now.”

Kath looked at Lizbeth. “Tell him to take his hand off my life.”

Lizbeth opened her mouth.

Tom looked at her. Mrs. Gallant looked at Alex. Alex looked at Kath as if finally understanding that witnessing was an action and inaction had already acted.

Lizbeth said nothing.

Kath nodded once.

Then she walked past them all, through the white tents, across the grass, and out of the benefit lights.

No one followed immediately.

At the parking lot, Rowan caught up.

“I am sorry,” they said breathlessly.

“You did nothing wrong.”

“I made it worse.”

“So did I.”

“Are you safe?”

Kath almost laughed at the echo of Alex’s question. From Rowan, it sounded less like evidence-gathering and more like fear with its hands open.

“Tonight, I don’t know.”

Rowan thrust the mandolin case toward her.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking it is stupid,” Rowan said. “Not taking it is also stupid. It has my spare phone inside. Password is 1138. Grace Gray’s number is in a note because Ms. Simpson told me once if anything got weird at an event, call Grace before calling adults who need committees.”

Kath stared at them.

“You cannot give me your phone.”

“It’s not my main one.”

“Rowan.”

“Take it before I become sensible.”

Kath took the case because refusal would have been cruelty.

Rowan’s eyes shone. “You should play again. In public. Not for them.”

Kath gripped the handle. “Go back before someone blames you.”

“They already do.”

Then they ran toward the tents.

Kath stood alone under the parking lot light with the mandolin case in her hand and her name still ringing in her ears.

Behind her, the benefit resumed. A microphone squealed. Someone laughed too loudly. The youth ensemble began a tune without Alex’s count-in, ragged at first, then steadier.

Kath listened until the tune found its feet.

That steadiness hurt more than the ragged beginning. A bad start could be forgiven as shock. Steadiness meant the world was already practicing how to continue without her. The white tents glowed behind the trees. People would say she had needed air. They would say family was under strain. They would say Alex Simpson had handled a difficult situation professionally. They would say Rowan was spirited, which was how adults made a young person’s courage sound like a scheduling issue.

Kath looked down at the mandolin case.

It was scuffed at the corners, one latch replaced with silver tape, the handle wrapped in black cloth. The stickers made more sense now under the parking lot light: NO TERFS NO FASCISTS NO BAD TEMPO; the lightning-split peach; a small hand-drawn treble clef with teeth. Inside was a phone, Grace’s number, and a form of trust Rowan had no business needing to offer an adult.

“I am sorry,” Kath said to the case.

It did not answer. Sensible object.

Her own phone buzzed in her pocket.

For one wild second she thought Alex.

Lizbeth: Where are you?

Kath stared at the message. Three words. No apology. No explanation. No warning. Behind her, the benefit clapped at the end of the tune, applause rising bright and relieved because music had done what music was so often asked to do: cover the hole and make people grateful for the covering.

Another message appeared.

Lizbeth: Dad is saying you are overwhelmed.

Then:

Lizbeth: Tom is asking questions.

Kath typed: Answer them.

She did not send it.

She typed: I cannot come back in.

She did not send that either, because it sounded like the beginning of a rescue request and she had no right to ask Lizbeth to become braver by text in front of Colin.

At last she wrote: I am outside.

Lizbeth’s reply came after a long minute.

Lizbeth: Stay outside.

It was the nearest thing to protection Lizbeth could manage, and perhaps the nearest thing to confession.

Kath put the phone away.

Across the lot, a car started. A couple walked past laughing, saw her, and lowered their voices too late. She tightened her grip on Rowan’s case and started down the road before anyone could decide she needed bringing back.

Kath walked into the dark.