“God damn the faerie-folk!” Marie cursed aloud, holding the shriveling bundle of nettles in her woven basket. Her stomach growled.
She cupped her mouth, and looked around the forest that surrounded her to see if that snotty Anatoly, that little dog, was watching her from the trees again. How she would love to snatch her and snip off her tail with a pair of sharp scissors.
She looked down into her basket again. She took a dying nettle from the bottom of the bundle she picked from the field and examined it. The purple, beautiful and vibrant color was blackened, and it dissolved into dust. The dust whisked out of her hands, and fell on to the wet leaves. All those hours finding the right nettles in the field, and she had nothing to show for it.
Marie heard a branch crack from above and she instinctively darted to the side. A large tree branch crashed to the ground beside her feet. She snapped her head up, and saw a white furred four-legged creature slouched on a tree branch.
“Anatoly,” she snarled.
The creature, that upon closer inspection resembled a thin, elegant dog, shifted its eyes to her. The dog had trimmed white fur, a pointed nose and a wide mouth, but a very un-dog like smile on its thin black lips.
“I’m sorry, my beauty,” Anatoly said. Her voice was feminine and cooed to Marie. “I did not see you there.”
Anatoly slid down from the tree, landing on her paws gracefully, one at a time. She was quite smaller than Marie, but her body was long and thin like a treasured type of canine bred for hunting.
Marie crossed her arms.
“I’m sure it was mistake,” Marie said, not bothering to hide her sarcasm. “What do you want?”
Anatoly lowered her head, and gave Marie doe eyes.
“What do you mean?” She said it in the most sweet, unassuming voice.
“I mean, what is it you want to steal from me now?” Marie snapped.
Anatoly flinched, but it wasn’t very convincing to Marie. The reaction was out of sync and she played her card too early.
“Marie,” Anatoly whined. “I have never stolen from you, the most regal, elegant and beautiful potion maker.” She lay down and scratched her head with her back leg paw.
Marie tapped her foot, exhausted with the conversation already.
“Like the potion I made last month?” Marie said coldly. “The one you stole from my client, the butcher? I was lucky I wasn’t exiled from my guild for that level of trickery.”
“I was doing you a favor, my sweet,” Anatoly said. “He was going to use it to make his meat fresher for the end of Lent.”
“And that is a problem why?” Marie said.
“If he used it to make the meat fresher, then more people would buy it,” Anatoly explained. “And he wouldn’t give the leftovers to me anymore.”
Marie noticed something on Anatoly’s neck. It was a red ribbon with a white pearl on it. Anatoly moved away from her, but Marie only got closer.
“Is that what you used my potion for, you stupid faerie?” Marie said. “To conjure up a cheap little necklace?”
Anatoly got up and twisted her body around. A cloud of puffy smoke whirled around her. She transformed into a white-haired young woman in her twenties with a flowing white dress, fit for a countess. Marie covered her eyes at first, and then stood shocked.
“You used my potion to conjure up a dress!” Marie shouted. “Something so menial and basic. What a waste.”
“I didn’t use it for that! The dress was a gift,” Anatoly said, clutching her pearl ribbon around her neck. “I used the potion for a much better purpose. A grand, beautiful purpose that will have me set for life.”
“And what is it?” Marie said. “Did you use it to conjure up a thousand meat patties? They’ll spoil, you know.”
Anatoly whipped her long white hair around her shoulder. “It is none of your concern. Just know that your potion did not go to waste. I used every drop, so don’t bother looking for it.”
“And that is the last you will ever have,” Marie said. “Because this time I have a client you will never be able to interfere with.”
Anatoly turned back into her dog form, and gave Marie a little smirk.
“We’ll see about that,” Anatoly said, trotting in the direction of the village.
“I hope you’re meat patties get maggots!” Marie shouted.
Anatoly didn’t miss a step, and must have ignored her. She shot off in a blur of white, into the rising voices of the townsfolk, possibly to beg for more scraps. That was the nature of Faeries. They didn’t care about money, just things that money could buy. The tangible, precious objects that they could lord around or consume. That was what made her so irritated with the wealthier faeries.
Marie emptied her dust filled basket into the ground, and ran her hands through her long, dark hair. She wanted to tear it all out in frustration. She marched back to her home, which was located no more than a mile out of her way. She looked behind her, where the endings of Lent celebrations could be heard in the town square. Though out of her sight, she could hear the cheering and dancing echoing even within the forest.
Her house was shrouded in greenery, a facet her mother preferred from her time living in the forest. The house was made from stone and wood, and bunches of overgrown tree limbs hugged the exterior. Marie stepped inside and accidentally stepped on her mother’s overgrown hair while going through the door.
“I’m sorry, Mother,” Marie said, lifting her foot.
Her mother, in center of the small house, stood over a cauldron and stirred in soft motion. Her hair, a deep grey spilled around the floor in silky loops, tangled like bursts of leaves on branches. Other pieces of her hair pooled to different parts of the room. The hair stretched to the fireplace and the bed where the giant toadstool, Marie’s father, took residence.
Despite him taking up most of the bed, Marie was glad to have him around. It reminded her of her time as a small mushroom, sitting in a faerie ring with her brothers and sisters. Her father, the largest toadstool, would sit in the center while they sat still looking edible. They would all laugh when passing faeries would eat them and vomit.
She was the only one of them who allowed her mother, a witch, to pluck her from the ground. It took quite a bit of convincing to have her mother not leave her father in the forest to rot. Marie might look human, but she was still a mushroom at heart.
Marie was careful to not step on her mother’s hair again, though the older woman made no move to articulate her pain. She stood still like a statue, with her hand slowly moving to turn the contents of the boiling cauldron.
Marie walked up to her mother and took a look at her aged face. She lifted a hand to the wrinkles that pinched her mother’s sunken cheeks. There was some green matter on her chin, possibly moss. Marie went back outside and found a pot she kept to collect rain water. She hauled the black pot inside, careful to close the door behind her, and took a washcloth to clean her mother’s cheek.
Her mother opened her mouth.
“My sweet Marie,” she said. Her mouth was open, but it didn’t move. The sounds emitted from her throat. The voice was soft and sweet like honey. “You do not need to wash me. I will be one with the earth soon.”
“Don’t be dramatic, Mother,” Marie said. “You’re three hundred and twenty. If the earth wanted to take you, they would’ve done it by now. Have you eaten today?”
“Just some moss and a beetle, and other things” Her mother’s jaw fidgeted and there was a smile in her tone. “It’s wonderful how many squirrels find their way into the house. It crawled next to my mouth, so I ate it.”
“No thank you Mother,” Marie said. Witches ate whatever came into their domain uninvited. Marie wondered if she would be the same, since she was in training to become one. But she couldn’t imagine eating a squirrel. She didn’t have the stomach for it. “You must expand your palette,” her mother said. “You can’t just eat soups all day. What of the money you saved for yourself?”
“All gone,” Marie sighed. Witches as old as her mother had little concept of money. “And besides, I wanted to make some nettle soup,” Marie said rinsing off the cloth. She placed another hand on her mother’s neck, and wiped away some of the spider webs that had accumulated on it. “But the faeries in the guild have gotten wise. Don’t want us making extra potions, I suppose.”
“What could be made with nettles again?” Her mother sighed.
“Other than soup?” Marie said. She darted her eyes in thought. “It makes a lovely poison. It simulates drowning. It can even kill a tricky faerie.”
“Now who is being dramatic?” her mother said. She fidgeted her jaw again in a low laugh, exposing the grey stumps of what was left of her teeth.
There was a loud creak on the bed. Marie walked over and sat next to the red topped toadstool. Several mushrooms poked around him, and Marie was careful not to crush any of her siblings. She felt tears coming on, and sniffed. The toadstool rotated a bit, and spoke to her.
“Marie’s crying again!” One of her sisters, the smaller mushroom laughed. “Was Anatoly pulling on your hair again?”
“Crybaby, crybaby!” Another one of her brown headed sibling, her brother mocked. Marie flicked them both harshly with her index fingers. A couple of her other siblings laughed, but the smaller ones just cried, thinking they were next.
“Ow!” They both screamed, turning to her father. “Marie hit us!”
“They started it,” Marie said. Her father, the largest Toadstool rustled about on the bed.
“All of you stop!” the toadstool commanded. She and her siblings went silent. “My darling, what is troubling you?”
“I’m sorry, Father,” she said. “I wanted to make nettle soup but I can’t.”
“Is this truly about nettle soup?” he asked softly.
Marie laid her head on the top of the toadstool. It was red like a crown and she wrapped her arms around it, hugging. “The rules of the faeries are impossible. My guild only grants me one potion to sell a month, and the profit isn’t enough to feed us. They have gone so far as to curse our ingredients in the spring if I take too much from the forest.”
“But didn’t you have a buyer?” her father said. “What was his name? Lord something.” He had no mouth to speak of, but she could feel the toadstool hum under her, thinking.
Marie shook her head. “Lord Ferdinand. He promised a hefty sum for a love potion at the beginning of the month.”
She rose from the bed and took hold of a broom that stood beside the stove. She gathered up her mother’s hair on the floor into neater piles beside her mother’s still feet. Her mother cocked her head to the side a bit.
“He’s late,” her mother said lowly.
Marie swept under the stove. She spotted a small blue vial where she kept the potion that Lord Ferdinand requested. He’d promised to come and pick it up over two weeks prior. If she sold it now and he came to pick it up, she’d get an earful from the guild and have to pay Lord Ferdinand for his troubles. She didn’t want that.
“How late?” her father asked, cautious.
“Two and a half weeks,” Marie said. She could hear her siblings snickering. Of course they would laugh, they were all so single minded they would laugh at anything she did.
She thought further about the potion: If she kept it, then it would expire on the first of the next month. Since she still had it in hand, she wouldn’t be able to make potions for the next month either if she waited too long. She needed to get rid of it, as the end of April was coming. But she couldn’t just waste it either. She took a pride in her work, and if she threw out a perfectly good potion, then it would be just as bad as not making one at all.
“The bastard!” her father said, shaking on the bed. “Marie, you have my permission to turn him into a frog, or a mushroom.”
“Why not turn them human?” One of her sisters said. “They’re ugly.”
“Oh be quiet!” Marie said to her sister. She turned to her father. “ Father, I cannot even dream of harming a lord.” Though she couldn’t disagree, she needed the money and the pride a successful transaction gave her. Her stomach turned in hunger, and she didn’t even want to think of another day where there was little to eat but herbs and tasteless soup.
“He would make a lovely soup,” her mother said. “I’ll go start another pot.”
“Mother, I’ll sell some charms,” Marie said. “I will be fine.”
The ingredients for charms were much easier to get to. They were mostly made from dried leaves dipped in wet onion skin. The hollow eggshells she found on the forest floor sold quite well during Easter celebration. She had a craving for eggs herself at the moment. They were forbidden during Lent, and now the sellers in the nearby village had a batch of eggs in supply.
She needed something to sell at the market. There were only a few blossoms around that weren’t specifically used for potions. She knew of a tree near the edge of the forest near the village that had crab apple blossoms. Useless for her for potions, but when used for smelling, they were quite lovely.
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