Chapter 117: A Witch’s Brew
Never mind, I thought, a resolve settling in. I’ll just pour a little and see what happens. I pulled the wooden cork and began to tip the bottle of brandy. With my pot being so pitifully small, I had more than enough of the other ingredients. I could afford to fail. With the remaining honeypot ants, I could make four more attempts.
I prayed I wouldn’t fail four times in a row. This first time would be a trial run, a sacrifice to ignorance. Just then, a sudden, reckless impulse surged through me, a whisper from the darker parts of my mind. Pour the whole bottle in.
All in? Just like that? The little pot couldn’t possibly hold an entire bottle. It would surely overflow.
And yet, my intuition, that strange new guide, told me that even this wasn’t enough. It whispered that I should add another bottle, something with a higher proof, a fiercer spirit. What the hell? I wasn’t a drunkard. I hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol in my past life.
But I followed the impulse, tilting the bottle until the last drop of brandy was gone. The liquor immediately overflowed, a dark, fragrant tide spilling down the sides of the bucket. It hissed as it hit the hot coals below, sending up a plume of ghostly blue smoke.
“Ah! Parula, why did you use it all?” Jared cried out, his voice sharp with alarm. “We only have one bottle! Didn’t you say you wanted to save some for a few tries?”
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s just go with it,” I said, my voice strangely calm. “If it fails, we’ll buy another bottle tomorrow. The wine is the cheapest part, anyway.” We could even afford a proper high-proof spirit next time. With the fortune I was spending on the other materials, what was one more expense?
The liquor came to a boil with startling speed, its rich, sweet fragrance filling our dismal hovel. According to the witch’s notes, I should now add a little chopped sage.
How much was “a little”? I wanted to scream. In my past life, I had despised the vague imprecision of recipes—"a suitable amount," "a pinch," "to taste." And yet, this grimoire, this book of forbidden knowledge, was filled with the same maddening ambiguity.
As I picked up the sprig of sage, the intuition came again, sharp and clear. No. Not now. Wait another two minutes. And don’t chop it. Chew it.
“Huh!” The thought was so bizarre, so viscerally disgusting, that I almost dropped the herb. Chew it? Put it in my mouth, grind it to a paste with my own teeth, and then spit the foul, green slurry into the pot? No. That was a line I could not cross. I would have to compromise.
Following the strange inner voice, I waited for what felt like two minutes. I had no clock, only the frantic, unsteady rhythm of my own heart to mark the time. Then, I tore the sage into small pieces and dropped them into the pot. The leaves tumbled in the boiling liquor, their dark green essence bleeding into the liquid. I had the sudden, certain thought that if I had chewed it, the saliva would have acted as a catalyst, dissolving it instantly. Now, I would have to stir.
I took the crude tree branch and plunged it into the bubbling concoction. It would have to do. And then, another thought, another command from the void in my mind: It’s time to add the Mandrake.
I froze. It was far too early. The grimoire was clear: the Mandrake was one of the final ingredients. But the impulse was undeniable.
And, contrary to the shopkeeper’s careful instructions, I knew I had to hold the Mandrake in the air, to slit its throat and let its lifeblood drip into the brew. It was a practical matter; the pot was already too full to simply drop it in. But it meant I had to pull it from the soil. It meant it would scream. And in this small, enclosed space, its scream would be death.
But a strange sense of inspiration, a feeling of absolute certainty, had taken hold. I borrowed Jared’s knife. With my left hand, I grabbed the Mandrake by its leafy hair. With my right, I used the tip of the blade to pry into the soil, loosening the earth around its hidden, screaming face.
“Wait, Parula, are you going to pull it out directly?” Jared’s voice was a panicked hiss. He remembered the warning. He knew that to hear its cry was to die.
“It’s alright. I think I know what to do. One, two… up!” With a deft twist of my wrist, I pulled the entire plant from the pot. I could feel it thrashing in my palm, a living, squirming thing. Its root was a fat, thick tuber, a grotesque parody of a human form. It looked like the ginseng of the East, but in the center of the root was a face, small and perfectly formed as a newborn’s.
The moment it left the soil, the Mandrake’s face contorted, and it let out a shriek that pierced the world. The sound was a physical thing, a blade of pure sonic agony that slammed into my skull. For a horrifying instant, I felt my soul trying to tear itself free from my body. But in that same instant, my hand moved, a blur of motion guided by an instinct that was not my own. I shoved the tip of the knife into the Mandrake’s screaming mouth. With a gentle, precise stab, the shriek was cut short, choked into a wet, gurgling silence. I didn’t know how I knew that trick. And because it was my first time, my hand had fumbled. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have made a sound at all.
“Hiss! My head… Parula, that was… phew, that damned thing is powerful,” Jared gasped, clutching his head, the color drained from his face.
But at that moment, a new disaster struck. Our “neighbors” along the waterway had heard the shriek. Their curious, suspicious voices echoed from the tunnel outside. “What was that noise? Hmm? And what’s that? Smells like good wine!”
Damn it. The boiling brandy had filled the sewer with its rich, intoxicating aroma. They were coming, drawn by the scent of a free drink. And I was still holding a living, bleeding, half-silenced Mandrake in my hand. I could not let them see this.
“I’ll handle it. Parula, don’t get distracted,” Jared said, and slipped outside. I heard their voices, the greedy questions, and Jared’s smooth, practiced lies. He told them he’d found the wine, that there wasn’t much left, and then, with a grand gesture, he sent them away with a single silver coin to buy their own cheap ale.
He had learned to use money as a weapon. And to spend a silver coin at once… it was a king’s ransom to him. He was betting everything on me, on this potion. To flash such wealth in the slums was a death sentence. These people were vultures. Once they knew you had money, they would never leave you be. Giving them the coin was just a delaying tactic. I knew then that Jared had no intention of staying here another night.
And I… I could only focus on the task at hand. I held the Mandrake suspended over the pot, the sharp knife slowly, carefully, slitting the mouth on its root. A thick, red sap flowed from the wound, dripping into the brew below. It looked like human blood, or perhaps cherry juice. As it hit the boiling liquor, a cloud of crimson mist rose from the pot, coiling in the air like a living thing.
Alright, I thought, a grim smile touching my lips. Now this is starting to feel a bit like an evil witch brewing a potion. And since I had already shattered the recipe, I could only rely on my feelings from now on.
Next, I added ginger, brown sugar, rosemary, and the strange, blue ore powder. My mind was a storm of impossible knowledge, a voice whispering the exact grams of spice, the precise liters of blood. But I had no scale, no measuring cup. The frustration was a physical, choking thing. The next time I brew a potion, I will have the proper tools.
Comments (1)
Please login or sign up to post a comment.