Chapter 16

The next day she went straight to the cottage first thing in the morning, with her book hidden in her basket. It was still early enough that no one would be nosy about her adventures, but she couldn't risk it. She needed to make at least three potions today, and she needed her book to make sure there weren’t any accidents like last time. An earth potion, a cleaning potion, and a sleeping potion for Mira. The earth one was the easiest and most straightforward. Once she was safe inside the cottage, she pulled open the pages and rehearsed its ingredients.

For a potion of earth, she needed worms, a whole fish, shredded, wood ash, and dirt of the earth it will be used on. As for mana, it needed an old manaprint, rich in soul. That meant she needed to head back out. The previous witch did have wood ash in the cottage. In fact, a couple of jars of different types of wood ash. Unfortunately, none of them contained the proper manaprint. Being in the middle of a forest, finding an old tree was rather simple, but it did take a good hour or so finding one rich in soul.

She tossed the bundle of sticks inside, set the strawberries on the counter, then headed to the river. An old fish would be harder to find, due to the frequent fishing in the village. She took off her socks and shoes, and tied up her skirt around her knees before wading in. It was a bit chilly at first, but eventually became a nice buffer between the growing summer heat. Finding an appropriate fish took a few hours. Atraeya wasn't exactly a fisher, nor had fish much growing up, so she wasn't sure what kind of fish she captured nor what to do with it to shred it. After staring at its slimy, squirming mass and wide eyes, she decided to toss it on the ground and watch to make sure it didn't hop its way back into the river.

The worms were easy enough, especially by the river. It was just about now that she was cursing herself for her lack of foresight. Where was she going to put a handful of worms AND a fish? She wasn't about to put them in her pocket, that was gross. And she still needed the dirt as well. After wrestling with herself for a moment, she decided to just keep the worms in one hand, and hold the fish by the tail. By the time she got back to the cottage, half the worms had fallen, and her other arm was tired from gripping the fishtail too hard. They were gross sure, but if she wanted to make potions then she needed to simply get used to it.

She tossed the fish in her basket she left at home, then rushed to empty out a random jar of old goop. Definitely not as many worms as she had hoped would survive the trip. She grabbed a kitchen knife she had found and cleaned before, and began to shred the fish. The recipe said the whole fish, so she made sure to keep the innards and bones. The process took a while, and when she was done she placed her resulting work into a jar labeled fish parts. Whatever had previously sat in it was already all used up.

Instead of running all the way to her house and back just for some dirt, she decided to prepare the ingredients for the other potions, if she could. Atraeya pulled open her grimoire, thumbing through the pages until she found the one she was looking for.

For a potion of cleaning, it needed either ash or charcoal, tallow, algae, and the peel of a fruit, grated. It's manaprint needed to be strong in body, and young in age. Well, the ash she was going to use for the earth potion had the wrong manaprint for this one. Just how had the previous witch managed to sort through all the ingredients she had when everything needed a different manaprint? The combinations were endless.

Atraeya sighed. Charcoal was expensive, so it was back to the woods. And while she didn't know how to make tallow, she was sure gramps had some around the kitchen. And algae was laughably easy to find. In fact, she would probably use algae water as a base to simplify the recipe a bit.

She grabbed a jar she would use for the algae, then set of back outside. Predictably, all the wood with a manaprint strong in body and young in age were the tree saplings sticking out of the dead leaves, all twig like and just barely reaching her waist. She managed to grab plenty in just the immediate area of the cottage, so it was a simple matter of placing them in a distinctively separate place from the other branches she had harvested. Then after a bit of wandering, she found a stagnant pool of water gathered at the base of a tree. Judging by its dark and murky waters, she was sure it was filled with algae. She gathered as much as her jar would allow, and went back to base. Since she also needed fruit, she found a few wild strawberries as well. That one took a bit to find, as the manaprint needed a fresh strawberry, and those tended to be eaten quickly by the forest creatures.

The last potion was the sleeping one. She still remembered the recipe so she thankfully didn't need to go searching for it in that giant book. Woolen balls, poppy seeds, and feathers. And now that she could read, the jar full of poppy seeds were accurately labeled. But there was nothing about woolen balls nor feathers. She could probably find chicken feathers all around that one house, but nothing came to mind for wool. It couldn't have been too hard. Maybe gramps or Mira would know.

Atraeya groaned. All the recipes she wanted to make needed stuff from the village. It wasn't like it was a far walk from here to there. It was the "and back" part she was worried about, especially so late in the day. In that case the only thing left for her to go was to make the ash. She decided it would be best in the fireplace, and made sure it was completely cleaned of any other ash. Less risk of everything being burned down. And since it wasn't a lot of wood that needed to burn, the two piles were done in no time, and she was able to sweep them into jars.

The next day Atraeya got up bright and early. She needed time to gather the ingredients she needed and make the potions. First the dirt from the garden, which was easy enough with the jar she grabbed from the cottage. The tallow was sitting in one of the cabinets, so she placed the entire container in her basket. Mira was not yet out of the house so early in the morning, or perhaps wasn't simply awake yet. Poe had yet to start running around and Atraeya had noticed that when the weather was nice, Mira preferred to do her work outdoors.

She skipped over her for the moment, and went a few streets down. The chickens were heard before seen. Most of them plucked the ground for grains, while one rooster managed to stand on top of the coop, bravely watching over the flock. Once she seemed to step over some invisible line of its territory, it's beady eyes never left her. Luckily, there were feathers all over the place, so she happily began to pick up a few. It was mere moments later when the rooster began to practically scream at her. It began to flap its wings, descending from its throne rather quickly and ran up to her, clucking at the perceived fierce intruder. She had gotten too close to the coop.

Atraeya eeked out a squeal of her own and bolted, not even noticing the owner of said chickens shaking his head at her. She managed to get five feathers in all. Hopefully it was enough.

Mira sat outside, sowing something together. "Good morning Mrs. Mira," Atraeya began.

"Oh, good morning dear. How's your leg?"

"Much better. Like it never got hurt in the first place."

Mira smiled. "That's good to hear. Wouldn't want you to be limping the rest of your life, now. Up to anything fun today?"

"Uh huh! I'm making a gift, but I need something called woolen balls. Do you know where I might find some?"

Mira thought for a moment. "I believe I have some wool sitting inside. How much did you need?"

Atraeya shrugged. "Enough for five, I think? The recipe didn't specify."

"A recipe, eh? Well, I'll see what I can do. Wait right there."

Atraeya nodded, and watched as the woman went inside. To her surprise, it was Poe who came outside a few minutes later with wool in his hands. Then she remembered her promise to gramps about bringing Poe to the cottage. But it was potion day today, and she feared he would react just like gramps did.

"Mom said you wanted this?" He held out his hand with the wool. Atraeya nodded and placed it in her basket. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"Come on, Atraeya. I've known you long enough to know that face."

She gasped, and tried to un-scrunch her face, making it completely neutral. She failed though, as moments later she couldn't help but pout. Of course, he could see right through her. "I'm fine. But if I tell you then you'd be in danger, so it's better if you don't know." It was for his own good. "I'll tell you next time."

Poe tilted his head, but ultimately let her drop the topic. "You're so weird… Where are you going anyways?"

"The cottage… But you can't come. It'll be dangerous."

He shuddered. "You don't have to tell me twice."

Something told her that convincing him to come to the cottage next time would be difficult. "Witches aren't scary, y'know."

"Of course they are," Poe folded his arms. "They make weird potions from poison that you need to drink, and their mana is toxic."

Was that why gramps nearly collapsed when she tried to make a potion in the house? It made sense, but this information came from regular folks with bad assumptions about witches. If only she could have apprenticed under a witch for longer. Before she had to leave her home. Atraeya just didn't understand why people could condemn something so helpful like an earth potion or a cleaning potion.

Unable to fully retort his accusations, they said goodbye and left. It was time to make potions.

Back at the cottage, she divided the ingredients for each potion, and prepared them as instructed in the book. For the earth potion, she mixed the dirt, ash, worms, and shredded fish together. She had to cover her nose and tried her best not to gag from the smell.

For the cleaning potion, she mixed the ash in with the tallow, and set it aside by the jar of algae water and strawberries. That one was simple, at least.

The sleeping potion required a bit more finesse. Simply putting the poppy seeds on the wool ball let them fall out as soon as it tilted. She eventually found a needle to force them into place and really dig them in there. Wrapping them with feathers was impossible, though, so she laid each ball on a feather for later.

Once the water boiled, it was finally time. If she followed the recipe exactly, then in a few hours she should have a few potions. She grabbed her wand, and the earth potion mixture. Slowly she mixed in the ingredients to the cauldron, stirring with her wand as she did. Once they were all in, she began to add her mana, slowly at first. She wasn't sure what it would look like when it would be done. It was clumpy, and chunky at first. The fish bits certainly stuck out and made her skin crawl but the kept stirring.

After an hour, it all melted away right before her very eyes. The stirring became more difficult as the potion became thick like syrup. Its hue shifted to a dark green, and even seemed to shimmer. The problem became, then, that she had forgotten to procure potion vials. So there she was, sitting with a cauldron full of potion that could fill almost half a dozen vials, and no vial is sight.

She yanked open cupboards and closets in a desperate search to find something to empty everything into, but the only thing she could find were the ingredient jars. She couldn't exactly put the potion in that, it would contaminate it with the residue. Atraeya began to glance around, hoping to find something else, when she spotted the potted plant in the corner, whose pot was made of fired clay. While she wasn't about to dig the dead plant up, there was a river nearby. She could find enough clay to hold enough potions for three of the recipes she planned today.

She carefully covered the cauldron with a spare cloth and headed back out with her basket. It was really getting some use nowadays. The clay was found easily enough, especially after taking her socks and shoes off to wade in a bit. She managed to get a full basket of clay in just an hour, her hands muddy and the red of the clay dug under her fingernails. The bottles she made, like her wand, were not well-made. Crooked, different shapes, and the lid didn't quite fit. With each one, she set it by the fireplace so it could dry faster. It wasn't exactly a kiln, but it should work better by the time she finished the last one. She even made little designs for each potion type she would make today. A sheep for the sleeping potion, a diamond for the earth potion, and a strawberry for the cleaning potion, since that was the fruit she used.

Atraeya cautiously tested the first bottle with the earth potion still sitting in the cauldron. The bottle itself was still slightly wet, and when she dunked it in the liquid, while still usable, became a sopping muddy mess. It just barely held the potion in. She could use this for the earth potion, as long as she used it quickly, but for a potion that needed to be held long term, like the sleeping or cleaning potion, a more solid vial would be needed. This one would just seep into it's surroundings, or absorb the potion into the clay as it dried up.

She sighed. Her idea to pay Mira back for her help would have to be put on hold for now.

At least she had four bottles of earth potion now. Her first potion ever! She squealed in delight, and lined them all up, beaming with pride. Would her teacher be proud too? She learned how to make a potion, all by herself. That was certainly a bit noteworthy, at least. Atraeya hoped she was doing well.

She only needed the one potion though, and Mira was the only one who knew she was a witch. Two for her and two for gramps, maybe? No, she shouldn't get greedy. She put her hands to her chin, thinking. Maybe at night she could pour them in the community fields. It would help her new home not starve to death, at least, even if the effect didn't grow extra food. Bigger food meant more to pickle and preserve, and that meant more food to stretch out. It was a start at least. Atraeya could only hope gramps would see the situation as dire as she saw it.