Witch's Brew

            “Come with me, dear, and you shall die fat and happy and wanting nothing in all the world, instead of a starved skeleton for the wolves.”
            That was my first memory—my mistress asking me if I wanted to die by her hand in exchange for a life free of worry. I said yes, of course—any fool could see that being cared for by the county witch was better than dying poor and miserable. I said yes and three years later I was nine years old and picking toadstools for my mistress to use in stew for dinner. I knew all the poisonous from the medicinal from the perfect side go with little boy. And I thought nothing of it.
            I ate many children when living with my mistress. Most of them I don’t remember, or never saw alive, but one in particular, a pudgy blond boy named Hans, stood out in my memory. Perhaps that is because he was the first child I caught and brought home on my own. I remember he cried so pitifully that I was almost sad to let my mistress cook him, but he fell for my trap and I had to eat just like all the other creatures on the earth, so into the pot he went. In all honesty though, by then my mistress had hoped to be eating me, and loaded my bowl with heaping helping after heaping helping. But I was still just as thin and scrawny as the day my mistress found me, lost and alone in the woods. We were both starting to wonder what was wrong with me, to keep me from gaining weight like I should have been. But I imagine that Hans was just as delicious as I would have been, and either way we were fed, so there was no reason to be unhappy.
          I suppose the other reason why I remember him out of all the others is because the morning after we had cooked him, my mistress had to leave for a few days, and for the first time she was leaving me alone in the cottage. She spent the entire evening describing to me all the punishments she had in store for me if I touched anything I wasn’t supposed to, or didn’t do my chores as usual while she was gone. She claimed that she had ways of watching me, and I knew she did, but I also knew that she would never waste that much energy on someone she considered so trivial. She would just slip some sleeping potion into a glass of tea and offer it to me before I went to bed, so I would sleep the time away and wake up with barely enough time to clean before she got back.
          Sure enough, as I was getting ready for bed she came over to my cot in the pantry with one her finer teacups and sweetly offered me a sip to drink. It was not the first time she had tried to drug me, but I had long ago found out that her draughts had little if any effect on me. I didn’t think it had anything to do with my being special; my mistress never had the finesse it took to be a great potionmaker, and she always said she preferred curses over cauldrons.
          After I had sipped the tea, feeling actually more awake than before, I dutifully pretended it had worked as well as one of her charms and curled into a ball to feign sleep. My mistress laughed her throaty laugh and swept her raven hair from her face and walked away. I could imagine how beautiful she looked, her red lips smiling and her dark eyes flashing. My mistress always looked beautiful, no matter what she was doing.
          When I heard my mistress leave in the early hours of the morning, before the sun had even come up, I still hadn’t slept a wink. I wondered if she had followed the wrong recipe for her sleep tea. I stayed in bed for a while longer, until light crept in under the door, just to make sure she was really gone. I had plans for my time alone.
          As soon as I had eaten my breakfast, I slipped guiltlessly into my mistress’ room, took the keys out from their hiding place in the hidden hole in the wall, and unlocked her invisible trunk under her bed. Inside the trunk were all of her spell books, her most precious tools and ingredients and all of her best charms. If I were her, I would never have kept all of my valuables in one place like that, where they were all easily stolen, but my mistress was a very arrogant woman, much to my benefit.
          I took out all that I needed and carried it out to the clearing where she did her spellcasting. It was not the first time that I had sneaked off to try magic, but this was my first chance to practice for any length of time with little fear of getting caught. At that point I could do basic fire spells, cleaning charms (which I used in secret to make my chores easier as much as I could risk), and the easiest poisons. So basically, I had gone through the first thirty pages of her thousand page universal spell book. That day I was going to try my first curse, and make our milk go sour.
          Curses were much harder than charms or potions, and my mistress’ skill with them more than made up for her inability to read a recipe. Charms simply had to be carved or painted onto a special object to give it magical properties. The spells wore off after a few months though, so charms always had to be replaced. My mistress would often sell small charms to the people in town, disguised so that no one would recognize her as a witch.
          With potions all one had to do was read the recipe and follow the directions, although the harder ones could be tricky. But curses used only handsigns and strength of mind. One had to keep complete control over the curse until it hit its mark, or else it wouldn’t work like it was meant to.
          I set my small bowl of milk on a stump a few yards away, then stepped back with the book, reading as I walked slowly backwards. The sign was simple enough; using my right hand, I had to mime milking a cow once, concentrating completely on my target. But since the handsign was so simple, I only had a split second to clear my mind and focus. I could already tell that this would take all day to get right. I held the book in my left hand, pegged the bowl with a hard stare, and made my first attempt. The curse missed completely, flying past its intended target to wilt some of the leaves on an elm tree. The second went too short. The first time I actually hit the milk, the sun was begging to set, and I didn’t want to be out after dark, so I had to dump the milk and head back to the cottage.
          I spent the rest of the time of my mistress’ absence practicing my magic, mastering the milk souring and then the sterility curses. On the third night, I even dared to go into town and harass the people there. I had to be careful though, for if anyone noticed me or I caused too much trouble, my mistress might’ve heard of it, and then she would kill me and let my small body rot. The last thing I wanted was to have my death come to nothing, for me to be wasted.
          On the morning of the fourth day, my mistress’ sleeping potion would have worn off, if it had worked, so I hurried to finish my chores before my mistress returned. At about midday I watched her slender form emerge from the forest, her cloak slung over her arm and her eyes squinting in the bright light of the clearing. She gave the cottage a cursory glance when she came in; telling me I seemed to have kept everything in good order, then sent me out into the woods to gather herbs until dark. And that was that.
          As the months passed by, my mistress spent more and more time away from her home. Sometimes she would say she was leaving for two or three days, but when I expected her back, I would instead receive a raven carrying a message saying she would be gone for another week. I wondered a few times where she could possibly be, what she could be doing, but I mostly just enjoyed all of the time I had to learn magic.
          On my tenth birthday, I had mastered all of the spells in my mistress’ book. I was finally a full-fledged witch. My mistress was going to be gone for other two days, so I had little to do but think. I began to wonder why I was still waiting to get fat and be eaten, when I was better at potions than my mistress, and just as good as her at curses and charms. Why did I learn all of this magic in the first place? I was still wondering this when my mistress returned, although I was careful not to seem distracted around her.
          A few weeks later had my answer. My mistress beckoned me to sit across from her at the table and sighed.
          “I’m afraid,” she said, “That I just can’t keep you any longer my dear. Four years I’ve waited—longer than I should have, but I was hopeful—and you haven’t gained a pound. Tomorrow night I’m going to eat you, skinny or not.”
            I was not entirely surprised. I knew that my mistress would not keep me as a pet forever. But as I looked at my reflection in the mirror that night, realized that I did not want to be her pet, nor did I want to be her supper. I ran my hands through my blonde hair and stroked my rosy cheeks. I was not dirty or ugly like the village children my mistress and I snatched from the woods; I was beautiful, much more beautiful than that old woman. And I deserved to live far more than she did. That night I realized that I had practiced my magic so diligently so that someday I could be free, so that I could live.
            I stayed up all night that night, slipping in and out of the house to gather herbs and tools, not caring if I got caught. I brewed a powerful poison in the clearing in front of the cottage, a tasteless and odorless concoction called Kingsbane. I made sure it was finished before the sun rose, but I needn’t have worried. Through a twist of fate, she broke habit and slept in well past first light, so I had more than enough time to ready a kettle of tea and clean up the traces of my deceit. When she finally stumbled out of bed, I meekly poured her a lethal cup of drink. After her first sip, she fell back asleep again.
          After a bit of deliberation on what to do with her—I couldn’t eat her, as she was now poisonous, but I didn’t want to leave her for the wolves either—I decided to simply make her a proper grave. I burned her body, and emptied out a clay pot to use as an urn. I dug a pit behind the cottage, placed the urn inside, and covered it with stones. I didn’t bother with flowers or tombstones or words; those were for the living to remember the dead by and to grieve with, and the only one who was going to remember her was the one who had killed her in the first place. Simply plopped the last rock down and wondered what I was going to do with myself now that I was no longer food.
            I decided that day that, seeing as at ten years old, I was already an accomplished witch, there was no reason for me not to go out into the world and make a name for myself, be it a good or a bad one. Not wanting to waste time, I went into the cottage and gathered what supplies I might need.
            In the trunk under the bed, while pulling out books, I found a stack of love letters: ten or twelve from a man I’d never heard of, addressed to a woman named Meredith, and one, seemingly unfinished, from Meredith to the man. Love, it read, I have but one more thing to take care of before I join you. But rest assured, my darling, that tomorrow evening I will be all yours. I tossed the papers aside, picking up the rest of what I needed and shoved the trunk back under the bed.
            Once I had packed everything I needed, I stepped out into the night, closed the door behind me, and never looked back. Those with power did not hesitate to lead their own path into the darkness and power was something that intended to have. I was no one’s dinner. I was a witch.