CHAPTER ONE
Devil’s bite seedswere one of the more difficult ingredients to harvest for a witch’s kitchen, spawning from a carnivorous plant much like the pitcher plant, but more … aggressive. And full of barbs. Gods, I hated those barbs. A plant once seized my hand, and it was like being stabbed by fiery pokers from multiple angles at once. And the pain remained until the blasted things were extracted, which required the steadiest of hands.
The plant’s seeds were used to rapidly heal broken bone. It was an ingredient used often and was in demand, so I gathered it. But I didn’t have to like it.
The field where the plants grew in abundance was a short climb up a nearby mountain, well off the main trail. The devil’s bite hid among daisies and other brightly colored flora, where it could lure unsuspecting insects and small animals to the opening upon its slender yellow crown. Once the prey had climbed inside to investigate the delicious aroma, the opening would seal behind them, trapping them inside, where they would be cooked alive in digestive juices until they were broken down and ready to be absorbed as nutrients. Nature really was amazing. As a green witch, I never grew bored with the wonders of various flora and fungi. But I still didn’t like devil’s bite.
I parted a patch of daisies to stare down at a devil’s bite whose head was lifted proudly toward the sky, resembling a golden eggplant, although three times as long, with a flat top. It shifted in the breeze, as if winking at me, daring me to shove my arm down its throat so it could close around it. The naughty thing. But I was prepared for it now. I’d been coming here for a hundred and fifteen years, after all. It would have been foolhardy not to have developed a way to extract the plant’s seeds without assurances I wouldn’t be harmed in the process. It was unfortunate that the seeds were inside the monstrosity. And I couldn’t very well cut the plant open to retrieve them, or I wouldn’t have this source to harvest from again later. No, I still had to shove my arm down its greedy little throat. But not without protection.
I pulled a bottle of pink liquid from my cloak and poured the slimy substance over my right arm, then lathered it up quickly. In a moment, the pink liquid puffed up. I smiled as I twisted my arm, still as mobile as before, but covered in a thick foam that was hard as dragon scales. This was one of Mother’s potions. Rather ingenious of her, especially since it melted right off when doused with a counter-potion.
As the liquid settled on my arm, a green pod on a silver chain around my neck pulsed lightly as a small amount of energy was used for the spell. The pod was the size of a pocket watch and stored extra energy I’d gathered from the earth. Every potion, every spell, cost energy, and without the pod, my body would have little to offer. But I was regimented in meditating in green spaces to replenish the pod regularly. My father had always taught me to be prepared like that.
“Now then,” I said as I stared down at the devil’s bite before me, “you behave.” I reached out and pushed through the membrane that covered the plant’s opening. Something that had been trapped inside slipped out and paused, lifting its head to stare at me briefly. A little newt. It was brown and whole, not yet having been subjected to the plant’s acidic enzymes.
Newts themselves were a main ingredient for a witch’s kitchen. Eye of newt was used for spells that aided sight, whether for seeing into the future, or seeing across vast distances, or merely improving one’s vision. But they were fast little devils and other witches were better suited than I to gather them. My specialty was plants, and I was just fine with that. After all, the thought of scooping out the newt’s little eyes was nauseating. I had a soft spot for animals, after all.
The newt seemed to recognize my aid in helping free it, bobbing its head once before skittering away almost faster than I could follow, disappearing into the shrubs at my feet.
The devil’s bite, having sensed the distraction, and likely being annoyed with having been robbed of its dinner, clamped down over my hand. As predicted.
I glared down at the plant as it constricted around my hand and tried its best to bury its spines deep into my flesh for my intrusion. “You don’t listen very well, do you?” I admonished, sliding my arm farther down its throat. Once I felt my hand graze the bottom, I flexed my armored fingers into a scoop and dug my hand into the slime there, withdrawing my arm, with some difficulty, as the plant really did not want to let me go. I wrestled with the devil’s bite to get my hand out from its opening before grunting with satisfaction as I finally pulled free.
And there, in my hand, were a half dozen yellow seeds, like caviar. If the other plants were as generous today, this would be a good haul. I would hold on to several of the seeds to plant in the spring, to help the population grow after the final freeze of the year.
Once I’d completed my task, I slipped from the field and whistled as I trotted down the mountainside, back toward the bog I called home. A heavy fog had descended in the time it had taken me to gather the devil’s bite seeds. I had to step a little more carefully than usual, especially when I reached the bog and hopped from one patch of soggy grass to another to avoid falling into the water. I knew the way to my little house by heart, but the grass and peat moss could become surprisingly slippery, and all I needed was to ruin the seeds I’d just harvested by falling into a stretch of mud.
I paused when something caught my attention from out of the corner of my eye. A flash of purple.
I squinted and changed direction, watching the mist swirl ahead of me, until it parted to reveal a trio of fuchsia flowers, standing tall amid a patch of reeds. My heart skipped a beat, and my hands immediately lifted to my chest. Orchids. I hadn’t seen orchids in the bog in years. I had to have them. A touch of color was precisely what my shop needed.
Giddy, I removed the orchids from the soil, careful to preserve their roots with a good amount of native matter and transferred them to a pouch in my brown leather sack. I imagined Narcissa’s reaction to the beautiful flowers and kissed them with a loud smack. “She’s going to love you,” I assured the flowers.
A sound drifted lazily to me on the air, and I tilted my head a moment to listen. A voice, riding the wind like fall leaves. Curious, I hefted the bag onto my shoulder and resumed my trek back home with more haste. As I drew nearer, the voice became more distinct, and I could make out what was being said.
“Please, I beseech you, witch of Emperor’s Bog. I have need of your aid.”
Through the fog ahead, I could make out a small figure kneeling in the mud at the edge of the pond surrounding my house. It was a boy, likely not even ten from the look of him.
I glanced around uneasily. I didn’t like the townspeople seeking me out. The humans of this village had done no harm to me yet, but if I’d learned anything over the years, it was that humans were fickle and cruel. I’d barely escaped alive from the last fire to my spell shop before being required to find a new location. It was always “my wife births only weasels because of him,” or “he placed a curse on the town, so we bleed from our eyes every night.” No one askedwhyI did these things (because she stoned a family of geese to death merely for eating some barley, and the entire town participated in clubbing baby seals to death annually for sport). As far as I was concerned, good humans were exceptionally rare, and most of them deserved far worse for how they mistreated the innocent creatures of this world.
The little boy seeking an audience with me may not have committed any grave sins against nature yet, but it was only a matter of time. He needed to learn early on that he was a part of the natural world just like any animal and wasn’t above it. Humans could have used their intelligence for kindness, but instead used it only to serve themselves, and that made them perhaps the most dangerous animal of all. And certainly the least trustworthy.
I pulled the stopper out from a small bottle I produced from my cloak pocket and swallowed a mouthful of foul purple liquid that burned on the way down my throat. When I spoke next, my voice came from all around me, as if from the very trees themselves. The sort of theatrics necessary to keep the superstitious townsfolk from getting too comfortable with me.
“Who dares disturb my long slumber?” my voice slithered from the air. Gods, I sounded delightfully nefarious, my voice deep and powerful. How lovely. I hoped I would have occasion to hear more of it.
Stepping forward, I tossed a silver powder into the fog, watching as it thickened and roiled, as if alive. I smiled, my own eyes still able to see through the dense mist, thanks to a potion I’d consumed earlier to help me see better, particularly in darkness, as I’d had to do a little spelunking for fungi on the way up the mountain. The boy ahead trembled and nearly shoved his head all the way into the mud, he was bowing so low.
I stifled a snort and skirted the pond as the boy stammered out a reply.
“I b-beg forgiveness,” the boy said. “My mother is ill. Her breathing is labored, and she coughs up yellow bile.”
I paused at that. The sickness had been all too common of late, and often fatal. “Her lungs rattle with her breaths?”
“They do.” The boy looked up, but the fog was so thick by now that he couldn’t very well have seen a foot in front of him. His eyes were round with terror, and I couldn’t help but feel a little pity stirring for the boy, especially with a sick mother.
I set down my bag and threw a hood over my head so that my face was deep in shadow. In a moment, I was at the boy’s side, and I clasped him firmly on the shoulder. The boy stiffened under my grip, his trembling all the more apparent now.
