Boss Authority was up to something, and I didn’t like it. So far his story was better than mine, and that was a fact. I was hoping whatever card he played against me next gave me more to work with than the Sleepy Town had.

Boss Authority drew his Journey card and plopped the Dolly Witch down on the table.

The Dolly Witch? What was I supposed to say about her?

I took a close look at that card, searching for clues. Because his Dolly Witch was different than Pop’s. In fact, there was something awful familiar about the witch on this card. The black hair, no speck of gray, the eyes light and silver. The smile that always looked like it was hiding something, like it was two steps ahead of you. And then it hit me. That was my mom there, that Dolly Witch, just younger, a lot younger, like how she was when she and Pop first met. Boss Authority’s Dolly Witch was my mom.

Okay. I could say a little something about the Dolly Witch. I could say something about my mom. I shut my eyes and gave it my best.

“Every morning the Fish Boy wakes up right at dawn,” I said, “because he’s got himself some chores to do. His mom, she runs that bakery you see right there on the Sleepy Town card, the one chimney puffing smoke. You know why it’s puffing smoke so early in the morning? Because the Fish Boy was up to get the fires going, he was, that was his number one job. A baker in a small town has to hustle same as everybody else, maybe even harder. Folks can make their own bread, can they not? But there’s something special about his mom’s cooking, and he knows it. There’s something extra in it. It ain’t quite occurred to him yet that it’s magic in that bread, it’s magic in those pastries and pies, that it’s big heart magic that makes all that food worth eating, that makes even poor families shell out an extra coin or two just for a taste. His mom bakes it all, all by herself. Sure, the Fish Boy helps where he can, but nothing ever quite goes right if he helps too much. The bread gets burned, or the dough doesn’t rise, or maybe a soufflé just flattens itself right then and there. No, he does what he can, cleaning and chopping wood and feeding the fire, but it’s his mom that does all the work. Morning till sunset, his mom, working harder than anyone ever worked in their whole life, trying to make a living, trying to make a good world for her boy. For her Fish Boy.”

I didn’t know what was coming over me. I saw Mom, hands calloused and burned, little scars on her arms, shoving dough in the ovens so hot you got to squint when you’re near them. I saw Mom bone-tired and lonely every night, asleep before she even gets her boots off. Mom with no friends, Mom hurt and lonesome, Mom missing Pop, crying about it when she thought I wasn’t looking. I never understood it until I tried to tell the story. I never understood just how hard her life was, just how lonely.