5 - Highsun 17 / 1 - Ash Moon 9
I do not know why the best ideas always arrive at three in the morning.
The house was asleep in a hush of wood smoke and cooling cauldrons; the moon was a thin, patient fingernail that barely lit the garden. My hands moved on their own, the way they sometimes did when I had practiced a thing a hundred times in my head and I'd be left with too few thoughts to question things.
Grandmother's book lay open before me like a small, expectant animal. I had read the steps until the letters blurred and the ink felt familiar under my fingers. I had tried three dozen wrong mixtures across the last week and learned, with each little disaster, something I kept in the back of my head like a pocketed charm. Tonight, the air in my cottage was charged with sparks of magic as I had never created this intensely before… I was exhausted. But I felt so, soo close to figuring this out!
"Base of spring water," I whispered, as if the book were shy. "Pearlwort petals. Moonroot. Moonwater. Iris. Beeswax. Powdered pearl. Sun-thistle; two drops for endurance."
I gathered each thing with ritual care. The pearlwort grated like old chalk; the moonroot was a pale powder that smelled faintly of tin and riverbed. The moonwater I had kept in a blue bottle labeled in Grandmother's cramped script—for small, fickle charms only. The beeswax melted into the simmer and tempered it.
All night I stayed in the small ring of lamp-light, stirring and counting, measuring the seconds between additions with the nonsense rhythm that had always calmed me: one-and, two-and, three-and—simmer. I swore I heard Grandmother in the margins: Listen. Feel. Ask. I should have listened better when she said it; still, her words were heard now, like a remembered song.
When the recipe said to stir counterclockwise fifteen times, I stirred counterclockwise fifteen times. Then, in a moment of cowardly superstition, I stopped and wondered if fifteen had been a misread loop and whether the book had said seventeen. I told myself not to be ridiculous—Grandmother hadn't been careless with numbers—but the thought niggled like a burr. I gave it two more turns, because two extra feels safer than regret.
Then came the small, private step that made my throat tighten: the drop of my own essence. My hand trembled in a way that had very little to do with the cold. I pricked my finger with the seam of a needle, watched the bead of blood grow, and let the drop fall into the mixture. The cauldron sighed; a thin pearlescent smoke curled up and I felt, absurdly, that the room breathed in with me.
I tasted fatigue and desperation on my tongue as I leaned my head close. The surface glimmered like a distant lake. This—this could be it… I ladled some into my palm, and then smeared it onto my face, done with the slow and careful applications. After a few minutes, I lifted the mirror with shaking hands.
"Please, please, please, please…" I begged for fate to take over.
I was out of a couple necessary ingredients… It was quite literally now or never.
The Ami that looked back at me was… beautiful. Still, I looked for the warts, or wrinkles, or possessed winks from previous tries.
More minutes passed, and… I was still glamoured. No red eyes, no messy hair, no messy brows or chapped lips. I was still not me.
With a soft smile, I lowered the mirror. I lifted the ladle and poured a sliver of the potion into a small glass vial and capped it with a final wish for this one to be the one.
Sleep took me like a sudden death. I must have passed out at the table, because I woke sprawled out on the chair, sun-bled light slipping around the shutters. For a breath or two I forgot what day it was. Then the memory landed—Highsun seventeen, the wedding—and my heart did an unruly thing against my ribs.
I stumbled to the mirror because of course I did. For one shining moment I thought I'd somehow dreamed the whole thing. I stared at the face in the glass and blinked, hard. My cheeks were smooth and pink and clear. My eyes were brighter; my hair sat with more patience and volume on my shoulders than it usually did. I was still glamoured…
Relief hit me like too-strong tea. I remembered each step as if retracing a path: the counterclockwise stirring, the exact pinch of pearl, Grandmother's whispered intention matters as much as ingredients. I had probably been right to have added two extra turns of the spoon. I had probably been lucky. I also probably hadn't. Either way, it held. For now.
The clock was not my friend. I dressed in the fastest version of "presentable" I owned: a skirt without stains or holes, a blouse good enough to pass up close inspection, my mother's old shawl tucked into the belt so it didn't fall off. The vial sat warm in palm like a small, precious coin.
With a deep breath, ran to the Duke's mansion, weaving through the bustling streets, past vendors calling out wares, the smell of fresh bread and buttered popcorn filling the air, the idea of coming back and buying some making me move quicker.
I arrived just in time—slipping in was easy enough—and ran to the back.
Staff moved around me with practiced indifference, but every so often someone glanced my way and their eyes lingered; their faces would soften the way a settled pond smooths after a tossed stone; I felt ridiculous and buoyant all at once.
A footman with a face like a folded map intercepted me and plucked the vial I now had in my hand from me with a professional nod. "A gift for the bride, correct?," he said, as if I were a courier and not a breathless fool who had never in her life walked in a great house.
"Yes, but well, I—" I began. He gave me a look that suggested he knew, and that he had seen small girls hand him worse things and survive. He pushed a coin-paneled purse into my hands with more weight than any coin purse should have. My fingers closed around it like a bird securing a twig.
I could have swooned. Instead I blinked and whispered the strongest words I could think of right now: "Thank you." It came out thin and real.
In shock, I returned through where I had entered, and—when away from the others—I giggled and happy tears collected in my eyes. I made my way through where I had come from, and looked up in time to see the royal carriage come round through to the front entrance of the mansion… I stayed in place, wondering how this must be a big event if even a royal was here in our small town.
The next thing I know, the carriage door is being opened, and out came… the most handsome man I had every laid eyes on… He would most certainly never need for a glamour potion…
Suddenly, I knew… this was one of those moments in life: those that mark a 'before' and 'after'… If I hadn't swooned with the money that would allow my survival for months, I was swooning now for this boy…
His hair was red like rust, brushed back with severe formality, his shoulders fit his coat with confidence, and his face was—for reasons—something my brain had not been prepared for, and the sight made my breath tilt off-kilter. He looked around as if in a scene rehearsed for me alone; his eyes met mine after a couple seconds… They were not regal or bored; they were interested. Maybe that's the wrong word. They were awake.
I swear the world slowed like honey. I only noticed then that my hands were gripping the coin purse so tight as my fingers began to hurt. I opened and shook them out, trying to ease the tension in my body somehow.
He was close enough that I heard his voice as he spoke to someone greeting him, and his voice—my stomach did something traitorous at the sound of it. He moved up the entrance steps as if he had been doing it forever; he smiled at the man in front of him, gave a quick word, and then—because the universe loves a cruel, perfect pause—his head turned and his gaze landed on me again.
Time did not so much stop as rearrange itself. Every thought and breath fled from me. I had, in the space of a heartbeat, become a girl with a crush.
He did not bow to me, nor smile at me, and of course he didn't walk over to me… He simply met my eyes, and his look held me as if asking a question I did not yet have words for.
I jumped a foot in the air when a throat was cleared behind me. I flushed and turned quickly, as if caught doing something embarrassing. A maid carrying flowers to decorate with stood there and gave me a questioning look. That was my cue—leave. I tucked the coin purse into my belt with hands that still shook and hurried away, cheeks hot as an oven.
Later, on more familiar grounds, the town was bright and ordinary and smelled of frying bread and cider. I walked as if on new legs, the coin purse bumping happily against my hip. I stopped at the baker's and bought a roll that tasted like yeast and sin and the promise of better days. I bought a wedge of cheese that oozed when they cut the slice for me, and a piece of smoked ham that was filled my mouth with saliva at the thought of its rich taste.
For a while, I floated. Each small purchase felt like proof: the world would let me buy warmth now. I unwrapped a slice of the ham and tasted it like contraband, eyes closed and prickling as they filled with tears; it tasted of my hard work and first true success, this small, terribly lovely treasure.
I let myself imagine what life might be like from now on—less digging for roots to sell, more potions that worked, a better coat for the chilly seasons to come, and perhaps enough power and fame someday to be important enough to meet him…
For now though, my powers were promising; the glamour had held. The Duke's payment had been generous. I had exchanged curious looks with a Prince…
It was not much, and yet it was everything. I felt alive for the first time in nearly a year… I felt happy.
When the sun tilts lower and the market stalls began to fold their awnings, I finally head for home, humming the tune my mother used to hum. I carry the weight of my purchases without complaint, remembering the job done, the magic spent—and my head is dizzy with a thousand small possibilities. I don't think anymore of roots that tripped me and the useless weeds that bloomed on the side of the path home; I only have eyes for the sky, thinking of what I might buy next if this works out well.
Tomorrow, I promised myself, I would tidy the notes. I would work out whether fifteen was right or seventeen was right, whether counterclockwise or counterclockwise plus two was fate or folly. But tonight, I tucked the coin purse close, tasted the memory of ham, and walked with the lightness of someone who—finally—had hope.