“S-s-sir, please!” Malcolm hunkers low in his chair, hiding behind his notebook. “We’ve talked about this! You have to remain calm—”

Fire spews through the hollow eyes of my pumpkin head as I tower over him. “I am completely calm, Malcolm!”

My butler, currently acting as my therapist, cowers deeper into his chair.

“Irving, control yourself.”

Mrs. Donnelly’s voice cuts through my torrential thoughts, and I take a step back, smoke still steaming from my nostrils. My housekeeper has never feared me, still treating me like the rowdy boy she’d watched grow up. Perhaps that’s why Malcolm asked her to join us this session—these days she seems to be the only one with a will strong enough to match my own.

Well, her and Katrina, of course.

“Irving, you’re never going to master your emotions if you don’t take this seriously.” Mrs. Donnelly is the very picture of calm, her wrinkled hands folded in her lap, dark dress neatly arranged.

“I do take them seriously!” I whirl on her. “I can’t help that I have a piss-poor therapist.”

Malcolm adjusts his spectacles and sniffs, straightening up in his armchair. “You’re the one who asked me to manage these sessions.”

Magical fire bubbles within my gourd chest and I pace to try and dispel the heat. It’s really hard to stamp around when your feet are made of vines. A dissatisfying pat-pat is the best I can manage. “Therapy isn’t working,” I growl. “We’re wasting time! The leaves have already begun to change, and if winter comes before I break the curse—”

“All the more reason for you to complete these sessions,” Mrs. Donnelly interrupts. “Or do you want to be a walking vegetable for the rest of your life?”

I come to a halt in front of her.

“They aren’t helping,” I repeat, breathing heavily as the heat continues to rise. “Find me another option.”

Mrs. Donnelly’s sharp face is impassible. “This is the only option. There is no magic cure for your temper. If there was, you wouldn’t have been cursed as a gourd-head in the first place!”

The fire becomes too much, and I scream at the ceiling, letting the flames loose. Malcolm shrieks and dives behind his armchair as sparks shower dangerously close to his face. Mrs. Donnelly doesn’t even flinch.

“Please don’t scorch another piece of furniture, Irving.” She picks at a loose thread in her skirt and flicks an imaginary speck of dust.

“I’m sick of this!”

“So, you’re just going to give up on Katrina?”

The fire sputters in my gourd chest, its power an uneven heartbeat. Her rosy smile flickers behind my eyes, and the heat bubbling within me cools slightly. “No, I…” My voice drops an octave. “Of course not…”

I spin away from them both, peering instead out the window, and I focus on the blue of the sky.

“Do you know what Katrina is doing right now?” Mrs. Donnelly asks.

“I…” I cough to clear the wobble from my voice. “I imagine she’s working with her father.” Baking the most tantalizingly delicious bread and cakes and pastries that this cursed body can never taste…

Malcolm pokes his head around the chair, an amused smile on his face, and I send a warning flame in his direction. I’m rewarded with a squeak.

Mrs. Donnelly sighs.

“No, Irving. Katrina is visiting the seamstress today.” Mrs. Donnelly’s eyebrows raise pointedly. “She’s having a new dress fitted for the harvest festival.”

My gut flutters, and my fire smolders down. In truth, my rage hasn’t been about the curse for a while now. Being more or less unkillable, breathing fire, and having the ability to remove my own head kind of has its perks. I’d almost managed to come to terms with being a walking vegetable.

Almost.

But then I’d met Katrina.

Wonderful, kind, funny, brilliant Katrina, the baker’s daughter, who looked at me and saw the lonely man beneath the pumpkin head… who reads too many books and has a tongue as sharp as a whip…

Who asked me to the harvest festival because she knew I was too nervous to ask her.

“You love her, right?” Mrs. Donnelly asks.

This feeling in my chest is very different from the angry flames. It smolders and swells, and I’m afraid it will cause me to burst. I nod emphatically. “Very much so.”

Mrs. Donnelly pierces me with her gaze. “Then you must take care of this, Irving. If you don’t overcome this issue now, it will only grow worse over time, and both of you will be burned.”

Malcom risks peering around the chair again. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time you lost your temper in front of Katrina?”

My pumpkinesque gut churns. The look on her face will haunt me forever, and I can’t bear the thought of seeing it again. She forgave me after I apologized, which was more than I deserved, but I don’t want her to feel scared in my presence ever again.

I want her to feel safe.

I want her to be happy.

“Can you do that, Irving?” Mrs. Donnelly’s voice has grown soft. “If not for your sake, then for Katrina’s?”

Her words make me pause. Because that’s the whole the reason I’m here, right? I never cared enough to change my ways… not for my servants, not even for myself. But I care about Katrina. And somehow, beyond all comprehension, she’s come to care about me too. And that’s reason enough to want to change.

Slowly, but surely, the flames die down, fading to smoldering embers. I take a deep breath, then exhale, clearing my head.

If I still had lips, I would have attempted a smile. “Alright. I… I will overcome this.” For Katrina.

Mrs. Donnelly smiles for me.

“Right then!” Malcolm’s irritating voice cuts through the air as he hurries back into his armchair. He raises his notebook. “And how do you feel about that?”