Page 18 of Faerie Marked

Barbara smiled, the discolored skin around her mouth stretching and revealing wrinkles I hadn’t noticed before. “There you go, Tavi. There you go. Good girl. Now, with our contract out of the way…” She trailed off and snapped her fingers a third time, this time sparks flying up from where her skin touched together. The table in front of us disintegrated. In its place rose a giant cauldron the size of a bathtub, forged of black iron and balanced on four legs.

I felt my face drain of color. The liquid inside the cauldron throbbed like blood pulsing through an artery. As though the damn thing had a heartbeat all its own.

Here were the witchy accoutrements I’d thought were lacking before. Here was the crazed and magical woman who had the power to save or destroy me. Maybe she hid those things away for guests? No, based on the look of the rest of the house, Barbara didn’t have any guests, only customers who were dumb enough, like me, to agree to her terms. And odds were good she didn’t care what they thought of her, anyway.

“Oh, stop shivering,” Barbara admonished, and the snap of her voice drew my attention. “You got the scary part over with! You can relax. It’s all a cake walk from here on out.”

I was a magical being but I’d never had the time or a reason tousemy magic, since I’d lived most of my life in hiding as a full-blooded werewolf.

Watching Barbara work her power with such ease…the visual drew me forward and repulsed me in equal measures. What kind of magic did she possess? And how did I know she would use it for good?

I didn’t. I had no idea what this woman would or would not do, only how she had an apocalyptic fantasy that inclined her to shoot people on sight. Maybe I was one of the lucky ones and she already had a sufficient pile of bones hidden in the backyard. Ingredients for her spells.

Sick.

I placed a hand over my belly and rubbed at the slight ache there.

“You’re going to need a little bit of calendula, a little bit of…” Barbara apparently spoke to herself, the cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. The ingredients were conjured out of thin air. Barbara grabbed them one at a time and dropped in whatever amount she deemed necessary. “A few tadpoles for flavor. Maybe a little bit of black ash. Red string. A large pinch of wormwort—”

“What is the wormwort for?” I tried to ask, coughing at the belch of smoke expulsed from the boiling mess inside the cauldron. It didn’t smell any better than the original concoction smelled. “What else are you putting in there?”

Barbara paused long enough to glare at me. “Hush up and let me work.”

“You can’t blame me for being curious.” I wrapped my arms across my chest and struggled to keep my now blurry eyes on the potion.

“No, but I can blame you for getting the ingredients wrong because I’m distracted.”

Okay, message received and lips zipped.

Finally, she completed the potion. Ten agonizing minutes of watching Barbara conjure random plants and minerals out of nothing and throw them haphazardly into her stew-like concoction. There were things I recognized and more I didn’t, and at the end the air smelled like someone had lit a pile of tires on fire using duck fat.

I hope she knows what she’s doing. Please let her know what she’s doing.

I’d done my best to keep track of the ingredients, to see if this was something I might be able to do on my own or if I’d need to come back to Barbara when I finished this round. The thought had me queasy.

“Almost there,” she told me. “Hold your horses a while longer and I’ll have it for you.”

She closed her eyes and raised both hands in the air like she was praying to the Holy Spirit itself. Twenty-eight glass vials rose from the counter, the black liquid equally divided among them before corks stopped up each one. They settled into a container with slots for each of the glass bottles.

“You can keep the cushioned wooden case. I have plenty of them lying around. Well, somewhere,” Barbara stated, blinking. “Consider it part of your payment. It’s going to help you with storage, because you do not want to leave these lying around. If anyone else tries to take them it won’t be a pretty sight, or maybe your classmates will figure out you have something to hide and report you. You with me so far?”

“Yes, I understand.” At least the case had a handle. Good for traveling.

“You’ll need to ingest a vial every thirteen days on the dot. This batch will get you through the probationary first year at the academy as long as nothing happens to the vials.” She knew about the academy, too, then. Or else she’d put two and two together.

Her finger snap shook me, and when I glanced up, I no longer saw the cauldron. The kitchen table was back in place. I wasn’t sure what shocked me more, how she worked so easily with her powers or how normal everything looked now, as though the spooky concoction equipment had never existed.

“How do you know about the probationary first year?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Barbara ignored me. “If you need more vials for any reason, then the price doubles.”

The price I had no clue about. I nodded to keep her talking.

“And there are rules. There must always be rules, Tavi Alderidge. You would do well to heed them.” I could have sworn her voice deepened. “One: You can come into contact with no saltwater while under the potion’s spell or the spell will break. No saltwater baths, no accidental saltwater splashed on your skin,nothing. Two: The potion cannot protect you from the light of a full moon. If you go out beneath a full moon, your true nature will be revealed, regardless of the potion being in effect the rest of the time.”

The weight of her words echoed through the space and shook something inside of me until it reverberated with a twang. They held my life in each vowel, each consonant.

It was a good thing I was a natural born shifter, even half-blood, because if I had been bitten then the full moon would have held sway over me and the potion certainly would not have worked. Maybe if I had been bitten, I might not be in this position.

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