Carly's Ramblings Blog - Style

Autumn & The Witch's Kitchen

Today's blogs...

Blog City – Day 215

Prompt: What smells do you connect with autumn? Write a story, a poem or blog to your hearts content about what fall aroma tickles your fancy.

Wind whips above carrying leaves high and light
They dance upon the chilly breeze in flight
And seem to laugh with full delight
Autumn howls and moans its plight

Harvest scents that smell divine
Nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves so fine
Tickle the senses, you cannot decline
Sending you to heaven on cloud nine

Walks along the winding trails
Brings smiles to others, it never fails
The crush of leaves and all it entails
Colours rush from green to splendorous details

The earth becomes dark and moist with frost
It comes each night and then its lost
Into the day, with leaves its tossed
To bring a fragrance deeply embossed

Autumn takes its time you see
To turn the world so gingerly
From boundless summer energy
To sleepy, tranquil darker nights, that be

The world turns and takes a bow
Another season rises forth to vow
The earth sets into resting time now
Soon darkness will fall and empty each bough.

I must add... fall smells uique... a kind of musty smell of rotting leaves - odd, but fragrant. It is also the smell of pumpkin pie and turkey's roasting for Thanksgiving (Canada). And of course... we must not forget apple cider with nutmeg and cinnamon and Pumpkin Spice Lattes.

30 Day Blogging Challenge

Peeking at my compadres entries I see heartbreak and a mismatch of odds and ends. A through all day. Well given that I still need to develop and write an entry for my Protagonist backstory for NanoPrep, I will leave this for now....

The Haunted House - Day Two - The Witch's Kitchen

"I will not have those nasty spiders gallivanting in my kitchen." I hear a voice from across the room cackle.... feet shuffle across the room and stop at my head. I freeze.

The room is aglow with firelight. I twist my head to find a witch standing above me. Her wand poised and pointed at the web. A spell cast to bind the strands. My wide eyes, I hold her like a trance. I take in the greenish glow to her complexion, her crooked nose and spattering of moles. Her hair twists and sticks out at odd angles from under her black pointed hat.

"Did your family not teach you that staring was not polite?" she cackled down at me.

"I'm sorry." I muttered, dragging my gaze away from her to take in this new room.

Bubbling and hissing rose from a black cauldron in the corner and the glow of the fire rose up and bathed the room as it huged the cauldron's thick cast iron. It was the only light.

I rolled to my knees and eased myself up to standing, rubbing my backside where I'd landed.

The witch turned and head back to her work. She stood above a large, bound book leaning into it to read its twisted letters. I moved closer to catch a glance, but the language looked foreign and the words seem to leap up and swirl as she reads them. Her voice cackled and carried the words up into the room and they circled above her head. I was mesmerized by the sight.

"Eye of newt." she translated roughly and I watched as a bottle rose from the shelf and hovered over by her. Taking it she moved to the cauldron and taking a few pinches from the bottle she dusted the contents into the liquidy broth that bubbled below her. A blue flame surged forth and she laughed a crusty guffaw.

Letting the bottle go, it made it way back to the cupboard unaided.

Moving back to the book again she read another ingredient. I watched the words swirl and circle her head as she translated them again in her rough speech.

"blood of toad." she cackled as she turned out her hand and a toad appeared, thick and pudgy. Looking at it, she scrunched up her nose and sniffed it. "You'll do." she muttered, then moving to the cauldron she held him out over the bubbling forth. Her voice rumbled a few razor sharp words and then with both hands she twisted the toad like she was wringing him out. His last throaty croak cut off mid vocalization.

I felt the bile rise into my throat at the sight.

When she was satisfied that she had wrung every last drop of his innards into the cauldron's grotesque mixture she tossed the toad's lifeless body over onto the counter where I could now make out a few other lifeless bodies. There looked to be a dog and cat as well as a rat without a tail. There eyes looking bulged and bloody.

The brew's smell rose and enveloped me then and I felt my stomach heave. Covering my mouth and nose I moved to what looked like the sink and threw up.

"Such a weak child you are. Not what I need at all. Some fattening up might do...."

I turned and as I whipped my chin, I noticed that she had moved closer to look me over. I had a flashback to some childhood tale... Hansel and Gretel and my blood ran cold.

As she reached out to grab my arm, I spun away from her and ran the length of the room.

"Certainly a quick one, you are." she cackled moving forward.

I glanced back over my shoulder to see her advancing just as I ran into a soft body.

'OOmph.." groaned out a deeper cackle.

Beside me I heard a high pitched cackle that chilled my blood.

"Greselda are you frightening the ingred... I mean, the visitors again." screeched the tiny one.

"No, oh course not. I was just thinking the girl could use some extra meat... rrr.... I mean, could use some food."

"We would be considered bad hosts if we did not offer a little something, something..."

"Oh, that's quite all right." I croaked out.

"Not to worry, besides you just threw up anything you had already eaten."

I almost apologized for that, but quickly changed my mind when the largest witch, the one I had run into, grabbed me around the middle and lifted me.

"My, too light." She cackled deeply, giving me a hardy shake that rattled my teeth.

I struggled, but could not break her thick grasp.

"Scrawny too." The skinny little witch beside her whined. "That will never do."

"Put her in the Dining Room. We'll give her a feast she won't soon forget." The one named Greselda told them and together they moved me into the next room, the little one closing the door firmly as we moved through....

Next is The Skeleton's Dining Room.