The Wizard Who Opened a Laundrette

How it begins

The stain survived three washes and one thunderstorm.

Orrin respected it.

He had spent fifty years removing curses from royal furniture. This was the first time a patch of jam had made him reconsider his qualifications.

Hana waited beside the folding table.

"Is it worse?"

"No."

She looked at the cloak.

"It has branches."

"Only a small one."

The red mark had spread from the cuff toward the shoulder in a pattern resembling an apple tree.

Outside, rain tapped the laundrette window.

Orrin had opened the shop because people always needed clean clothes and almost nobody needed another wizard announcing that the age of darkness was approaching.

The sign promised careful washing.

It did not promise explanations.

He held the cloak beneath the work lamp.

A voice came from the fabric.

Next autumn. I promise.

Hana stopped folding her hands.

Orrin switched off the machine.

"Do you recognize that?"

"Yes."

He waited.

The cloak smelled of rain, soap and something sweet that had been left too long in a warm room.

"My sister wanted to plant a tree," Hana said.

"And did you?"

"No."

"Can you still?"

"That isn't a washing question."

She was right.

Orrin hung the cloak on the rail.

He knew a spell that could make it spotless. He also knew what would disappear with the stain.

For most of his career, nobody had asked him to consider whether spotless was what a person needed.

"I can remove it," he said.

Hana looked at him.

"Will I remember why it was there?"

Orrin did not answer quickly enough.

She took the cloak from the rail.

At the window, two neighbors paused to inspect the machines.

Orrin turned the sign from CLOSED to OPEN.

"Would you like tea," he asked, "while we decide what careful means?"

Hana sat down.

The little red branch stopped growing.