The Third Day

“Just take it easy while I’m gone. Major and Minor will look after you; they see you as part of the family now,” the shop keeper brushes her fingertips against my cheek lightly, her touch like a phantom in the dark after last night. 

I don’t want her to leave. 

“Safe travels,” I whisper instead, unable to resist the urge to sink into her embrace. Pulling her flush against my body, I hug the apothecary tightly before pushing her away and taking a step back. I need to get my head back in the right place. The more time I spend with this woman, the more my mind gets muddled. This time apart will be good; I need time to think. Time without her gentle caresses, warm affection and searing passion.

This will be good.

And yet I still volunteer to go out of my way in order to aid her. I tell myself that it’s because I’ll be bored without her here, but I know that the truth is I want to make her happy. I want her to rely on me a little. I want her to know that her beloved shop is in good hands with me. I know how to sell the pre-made potions, and how to take basic orders. Anything more complicated and I’m to tell them to come back in two days, when the apothecary will have arrived home once again. She has to deliver a potion to a particularly sickly client who lives alone, and although she hopes the travel will take less than this, she warned me that she could be back as late as tomorrow evening, after I will have already gone to sleep.

I will wait up for her to arrive, anyway. No matter how late it gets.

I suppose I already want to see her again, and she hasn’t even left yet.

“Try not to miss me too much, sweet one,” she whispers with a small chuckle, her fingers lacing with mine before she opens the door, finally ready to leave me. 

Ready to leave in general, not me specifically.

I need to get a grip; it feels like she’s slowly driving me insane with her kindness and care. 

But it’s alright, because it’ll all be over soon. We have only two more nights together before I will have entirely paid my contract to her, and then I’ll leave and kill my father.

I don’t know why that thought leaves me feeling a little empty - emptier than usual, that is. Or perhaps…maybe around her I was feeling less empty, and the knowledge that our time together is limited is…upsetting? But I don’t feel like crying, so I’m not upset. I just feel like I have a void in my chest and when I’m around her, it closes up a little. But when she’s gone, that void eats away at all of my organs until I can feel nothing at all.

“I won’t,” I bite out, my face feeling hot. “I won’t miss you at all, so come back quickly.” Turning my face away from her, I focus on looking at anything other than the shop keeper, wonderment herself. She laughs, blowing me a kiss from the doorway before stepping out and closing the door.

And once again, I’m alone.

Several customers come in throughout the day, most of them simply picking what they need off the shelves and leaving me with their coins. Only a few ask for special potions, and I carefully note down what it is they want, along with their names and where the apothecary can find them in case she needs to speak with them before making the potions. The day sails past silkily smooth until a woman a few decades older than myself enters, staring at the potions available with obvious scrutiny.

“What I need isn’t here. Make it up now, will you,” she sniffs haughtily, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her foot impatiently. I already want to hit her over the head with my bow, but I wouldn’t disrespect my bow like that. And, also, I suppose. I wouldn’t want to create trouble for the shop keeper.

“I’m not an apothecary, so you’ll need to come back in when the shop keeper is here. The day after tomorrow she’ll be back, but I can take down your name and what it is that you need in the meantime?” I don’t really like doing this kind of work - I much prefer foraging and hunting in the woods with the shop keeper, but I understand that this is an equally important part of running the shop.

How have I ended up working in a potion shop again? The contract was about nights spent in pleasure together - it had nothing to do with working in a shop. But of course, I volunteered to do this. The apothecary explicitly told me that I didn’t have to do this, and that she normally just closes her shop for two days and it’s fine. 

But I wanted to impress her, I suppose. 

No, I just wanted to repay her kindness, that’s all. She doesn’t need to feed me, or clean my clothes, or let me sleep in her bed, or any of it. None of that was in the contract, and yet she wants me to feel at home here, despite it all.

At home. How long has it been since I had a home?

“I need my potion now! This simply won’t do,” the woman complains, bringing me out of my thoughts with a jolt. “What’s your name, girl?” She continues, peering down her nose at me. I hate when people call me a girl - I’m a woman. I’m a fully-fledged adult, not some silly little child. I don’t care if people disrespect me, my whole life has been disrespect since the day I was born. But I hate being looked down upon like this, in such simple ways as language. I could easily beat this woman in a fight, even in hand to hand combat, which is far from my strong suit - but that’s not the point. She’s just a rude old bat.

“My name is Lucilda,” I smile sweetly, giving her one of my many aliases. It’s been so long since anyone actually called me Temi or Artemisia - before I met the shop keeper, how many years had it been? Since I saw my mother last? Or did I ever trust someone with the truth, after I left home?

What would I have told the shop keeper, if she hadn’t already known my name? My real name?

I still don’t even know her name. 

I miss her already.

I’ve become so pathetic; the moment your heart and mind start to spot a glimmer of hope, weakness creeps in. Just look at me now; I miss a woman I’ve only known for a few days, simply because she’s not here to call me pretty and hold my hand.

Fucking pathetic.

“Well Lucilda, I am greatly disappointed with your attitude and I will be complaining to the shop keeper when I see her next,” the old bitch continues to prattle on, “I’ve been a great client for many years, even before the current apothecary took over this shop. You outsiders to this town never understand the community we have here,” she sniffs, turning on her heel and marching out of the shop.

She may have been a bitter old cow but she was right about something - I am an outsider here, and I always will be. No matter how appealing the thought of staying here longer than five nights is at times, I will never belong here. This isn’t my place, and it never will be.

I just don’t have a place in the world. I didn’t as a child, I didn’t as an adult and I still don’t now. I’m a wanderer, a traveller, a whore with nothing but anger and rage boiling deep in my empty heart.

I wish the shop keeper hadn’t left.