“That’s a weird-looking bottle you have there. The trash bin is over there if you want me to throw it out for you…?”
“Don’t be so quick to run your mouth. Although, yes, this is just an ordinary bottle. For now, at least.”
“For now?”
My teacher then waved her hand over the bottle.
“Ingrain and capture this moment.”
Now, this was a spell I knew. It was time magic. The bottle was enveloped in magic and began to give off a faint rainbow-colored aura. I could tell my teacher had poured some of her magic into the item.
“I have enchanted this bottle. From today, you are tasked with gathering shards of emotion inside of it.”
“And what are shards of emotion, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“They are what they sound like. Strong emotions felt by other people. You are to collect these.”
“Strong emotions.”
“There is something called a seed of life. From the emotions people feel—joy, anger, grief, and pleasure—a seed can be created. And you shall make your own.”
“So how do I do that?”
“By using this bottle. I’ve cast a time magic spell on it, and a powerful spell that can’t be broken, at that. This bottle can capture human emotions and turn them into crystal shards for you to collect inside of it. You will need to collect joy from many different people, or more specifically, the tears shed by those when they feel happiness… You will collect tears of joy.”
“Tears of joy…”
“Yes. You will need them to create your seed of life, which can be used to make you immortal. Which means you’ll be able to negate any time limit imposed on your life.”
After she finished saying this, my teacher gave the bottle a small tap.
“This is the same method I used to become the Eternal Witch. You will follow in my footsteps. Through the power of the seed, you will not age a day unless you choose to end its effect. You’ll prevent your biological clock from going awry, nullifying the effect of your curse. You can live your life as much as you want, and when you feel the time has come, you have the ability to end the seed’s effect on you.”
“So I’m gonna be immortal?”
“For as long as you keep the spell active.”
“Whoa…”
I hadn’t seen that coming. Just this morning, I was a lowly witch in training, but I was about to become immortal. What this meant was that I would become the same as my teacher, a witch who lived eternally. Talk about a sweet gig. Wow. Now, this is love. Seriously, though. What the heck even is love?
“Heh, I guess you do love your pupil, don’cha, Teacher? So how many tears does it take to make one of them seeds?”
“You’ll need tears from one thousand people.”
It felt like time stopped when I heard her say this.
“…Come again?”
“You need one thousand shards to fill this bottle. Or roughly two hundred milliliters, in terms of volume. You’ll have twelve months to collect tears from one thousand people who cry true tears of joy.”
“Is that, uh…gonna be easy?”
“While it is common for people to cry when sad and in pain, tears of joy aren’t so easily shed. It took me, for example, one hundred years to gather them. And that was using various magics to keep myself alive until I could.”
“Can I actually do it in a year? All that…”
“As I said, it is no small task. Almost impossible, even. You’d have to be a witch capable of miracles to ever hope to accomplish it.”
“So it all comes down to talent, then… Well, thanks for sharing such a crappy story.”
“Meg, wait! Where are you going? Wait! Meg!”
I’m Meg Raspberry, witch in training. And evidently, I only have a year left to live.
My parents passed away when I was very little, or so I was told. I don’t have many memories of either of them. I don’t know why or how they died. All I know is that my teacher took me in after seeing me in an orphanage and feeling bad for me.
“Come. From today, we are family, Meg Raspberry.”
Even now, I could remember the first words my teacher said to me that day. And for whatever reason, I found myself looking back on those words now.
After leaving the witch’s manor, I ran to a nearby river and sat on the dirt embankment. This spot was about halfway through the Witch’s Forest toward the nearby town. There were so many green trees around; it always calmed me down. Though it also happened to be a popular date spot, and things could get a bit awkward when there was a couple present. Luckily, I had it all to myself for the time being.
The lush green leaves let in the perfect amount of sunlight from the bright blue sky above, creating a beautiful, soft ambience. With it being early autumn, it was a cool day. The gentle breeze tickled my cheeks.
To think such a perfect day was supposed to be my seventeenth birthday…
I’m going to die. But what does death really mean? Ask anyone, and they’ll say it’s the state or concept of being dead. Where all life ends. Nirvana. The idea of it is so grand that it’s difficult to make sense of it at all. Death is something that happens on television, not in real life.
Seventeen was young, and I was healthy. Even after seeing that frail version of myself keel over, there was still no way to really process it. That said, the shocking image was seared into my memory, and it didn’t feel good.
If I really was going to die in a year, then what would I have to show for it? I spent my entire life studying magic and working away like an idiot. And all that hard work would go to waste. If that’s the case, what was the point of the life I’d lived so far?
I still didn’t get why I had to die in the first place or what this last year was supposed to mean to me. I just wanted to give up on life, but a part of me still thought this was all some kind of elaborate prank, which was what was holding me together.