Chapter 9

Unfamiliar Kitchen Concoctions

Luke

The morning after my run-in with the Witch something totally awesome happened – the new axe that I had been trying to get Owen and Ramsey to make me for ages was finally finished! They told me it had something to do with Kasey's work on the bells. The fire hadn't been hot enough to be good for forging anything bigger than jewelry for a while now, so when the bell had finally been rung – whatever that meant – there had been a lot of work on backorder. But it was finally done! I was beyond excited; I'd been using the same hand-me-down axe for years.

So I had some spring in my step when I left the blacksmith's shop with my new axe in hand and Old Faithful still stuck in the loop on my belt. I took a few swings through the air and reveled in the smooth feeling of the new blade whistling through the air. The grip was heavenly under my fingerless work gloves and I was beyond ready to get off to the forest and give it a try.

Just as I made it over the bridge I caught sight of Kasey, just the guy I was looking for. He was bent over in his fields, pulling up weeds or something. "Hey Kasey!" I hollered, waving a hand over my head and jogging over. His land was doing a lot better these days, it didn't seem nearly as dry or dusty and his crops were growing large as summer dragged on. He stood up and wiped his forehead with the back of his work gloves, leaving a little smear of dirt. The sun was well over the horizon at this point and half of Kasey's field was still in shambles, weeds scattered around here and there and the spare chicken or duck wandering around. I didn't envy him his job as a farmer.

"Yo, Luke" Kasey replied easily, putting a hand on his hip and waiting for me to reach him. "What's up?"

"Forge is finally back on so I figured I oughta give you this." I said with a smile, pulling my old axe from the loop on my belt and situating the shiny new one in its place. I offered Old Faithful to Kasey and shrugged a little bit. "Pops let you keep the key to the forest so you should at least have an axe so you don't get stuck out there. Plus this way you can gather your own lumber when you need work done." It didn't feel right to me to let someone run around in the forest when they didn't have anything to use to cut trees or clear brush. Pops should have given the guy an axe to begin with when he gave him the key, but at least this way I knew Kasey had a tool that would serve him as well as it had me over the years. Cutting his own lumber would make work on his house a little cheaper for him too, which would probably bring some business to the carpentry.

"Thanks man!" Kasey said, cracking a grin and taking the axe from my hands. "Oh, hey I've got something for you too." He tucked the axe into his belt and pulled the rucksack from his back. After digging around in it for a few seconds he pulled out a mushroom and offered it to me. "I heard you like these, and it never hurts to have a snack when you're out working all day."

"Yea these things are pretty good." I gave Kasey a crooked little smile before putting the mushroom in my bag and turning to head back into the forest. "I'll see you around, dude! Gotta get as much done as you can in the summer – working hard when it's cold is even more miserable!" I gave him a little wave over my shoulder and set back to jogging down the path. Kasey was an odd guy, but I've got to admit that he always seemed to know what to say. He had this air of charisma that wasn't matched by anyone else on the area. I'm not used to getting snacks from people, let alone mushrooms, but, hey, why complain about a good thing.


My axe was really pretty awesome, it was cutting wood like it was butter compared to my old one. The day was dragging on towards dinner time but I didn't dare head home before I'd gone to see the Witch like she'd asked. I was a little bit apprehensive of whatever she had planned for me, but I was by nature a pretty trusting guy and I was in a great mood. So I left my grin on my face and knocked on the door.

All of about a second passed before the door snapped open and the Witch stood in front of me with her nose crinkled in a look of obvious distaste. "You're less than prompt." She stated simply, turning on her heel and walking back into the home. "Come in and sit down." I suppressed my urge to tell her that I had a job to doing during the day and instead walked in and settled on the couch. The Witch strolled over into the kitchen, her heels snapping against the floor the whole way, and stood in front of her cauldron again. She snapped her fingers over it and whatever was inside started steaming. After giving it a quick stir she came back over and stood in front of me.

I swallowed, my throat feeling suddenly dry, and looked up from my place on the couch. The Witch Princess had her eyebrows arched menacingly and her mouth was held in a dangerously straight line. She leaned forward over me and took her hand from her hip, placing it firmly on top of my head; I nearly jumped out of my skin at the contact but her eyes had me pinned down. Suddenly she yanked a hair right out of my head and waltzed back into her kitchen. "Ouch! What the heck!" I exclaimed, rubbing my scalp at the hairline and glaring at the Witch while she dropped the blue strand into the cauldron and continued stirring.

"You'll be testing a new potion for me today." She said simply, throwing a smile over her shoulder and ignoring my look of distress. "You're in this mess because you like to waste time in my forest, so I'll be making sure that you're productive during your visits." My skin prickled a little bit at that. So she was going to be experimenting on me… But how bad could it be? I considered asking some questions but I held my tongue, afraid of making her mad. Maybe if I stayed on her good side as much as possible this wouldn't be so bad. The Witch waved her hand over the cauldron, siphoning the light blue liquid into a large jar and capping it off before she set it on one of the shelves above her head. She reached up into another cupboard and brought down a smaller container, this one holding a dark purplish colored liquid, and sauntered back over to me. "This potion will keep you from getting tired and allow you to stay up for multiple days feeling as well rested as if you just had a full-night's sleep." Her mouth quirked up at the corner into a littler smirk. She gestured for me to stand up and then placed the jar into my hands.

After a short moment of deliberation, I twisted the lid off of the jar, looked down into the potion, and then lifted it to my nose and took a cautious sniff. It didn't seem very intimidating, and actually had a rather pleasant smell of something like strawberries. But, being that I'd been testing the culinary endeavors of Bo and pops for years, I had a reasonable fear of anything unfamiliar that came out of someone's kitchen. "Are you… Are you sure this is safe?" I asked carefully, tilting the jar in my hand and watching as the thick potion responded to gravity.

"Of course it's safe! I'm the Witch Princess!" She tried to hide a blush by tossing her hair over her head. I'm not sure if that made me feel better or worse but my stomach did a little flip as I nodded at her and lifted the small jar to my lips. It was somewhere between bitter and sour and I fought the uncontrollable urge to purse my lips as I swallowed the beverage. It slid down my throat like warm pudding and I swear I couldn't feel my tongue anymore when I'd finished drinking it. As terrible as it was, I assured myself that it couldn't be worse than whatever the Witch would have done if I'd refused to drink it. The Witch looked at me expectantly while I grimaced into the now empty jar. "Well? You have to tell me everything about how you feel!" She seemed to be on the verge of tapping her foot.

"I feel…" I ground out, the world seeming to slow around me. "Weird. Really weird. Stuff feels slow. That stuff tastes awful, by the way. Smells great though." Everything felt slow around me, the air pushed against my limbs while I gestured as if I was underwater. "Did you say something?" I asked squinting at the Witch, who I could swear was trying to speak, but her mouth seemed to move lethargically and all I could hear was the rushing of my own blood in my ears. The colors around me seemed a little more vivid than they had before and the Witch Princess's eyes in particular caught my attention. "Hey. Hey wait. Have your eyes always been that bright? Princess your eyes are like glowing." I said, squinting even more. I felt like her eyes were glowing, growing, distorting and about to swallow me whole. I leaned forward a little and then I felt the air rushing around me and the bright eyes fell out of my field of vision. I was already almost to the floor when I realized what was happening, and it was far too late to catch myself. I felt something brush against my arm and my skin there felt it like it burst into flame. Then I felt the back of my head make contact with the floor and the world went completely dark.


Author's Note: Wooo, stuff is happening! This chapter and the next are among my favorites so far. Things are gonna pick up a little bit from here on out, but I'm still kind of a lame, rambling writer that focuses more on emotions than most other things, so don't expect lots of action or anything. Chapter 10 will be up later today.

Thank you to UnStellar, who left a lovely review as a guest (I found a profile but who knows if that's you or not, right?).

Please review! Your input is so important to me. I hope everyone has enjoyed the story so far and will continue to read.