At last, Cecily stood up and stretched her taut muscles. She looked out at the evening sky, dyed in a deep orange hue.
“Fine, then. I’ll do it,” she whispered.
There were no tears in Cecily’s eyes, which were redder than the twilight sun. Instead, a fierce resolve dwelled within them.
“If he’s so scared of a witch’s potions, then I’ll give him a taste.”
Cecily had made up her mind to create that foul brew—she would concoct a love potion.
✧ ✧ ✧
When she was forced to leave home, Cecily had packed her bag with various letters from her mother, Greta. After all, she couldn’t know which potions would prove to be useful in her two years away.
However, perhaps due to a trick of fate, among these letters was one that she didn’t remember packing away: the recipe for a love potion.
She should have ripped it up the moment she found it, but she didn’t. She could barely lay her eyes upon it, and had instead sealed it away in the depths of her wardrobe.
Today, that seal was broken.
“Mom’s handwriting... It really reminds me of her.”
Tracing the lines of ink with her finger, Cecily let out a deep sigh.
It felt almost as if Greta had a premonition that this day would come. As if she could see what Cecily’s future would hold, she had slipped this one recipe into the bag of her departing daughter, waiting for the day it would be used.
And now, this recipe was a source of hope for Cecily.
Readying herself, she began to read it, beginning with its ingredients.
“Okay, first up, I’m going to need green-rooted medicinal herbs.”
She was lucky. Although a love potion required a lot of different ingredients, she actually had most of them already. After all, Cecily had her own allotment where she grew a number of herbs. She did have some trouble with the mandrakes she grew in the corner of the allotment, but this was easily solved with a pair of earplugs.
“Right, next...”
Cecily was quick to realize just how naive she had been—the next line made her voice catch in her throat.
“I’ll need...the fresh blood of an amorous toad!”
The recipe suddenly demanded way too much of her. She couldn’t believe what she was reading.
“The fresh blood of a toad?!”
She was so shocked she repeated the words to herself. Convinced that this must be a mistake, she read on.
“The hair of the concocter—one thousand hairs, from tip to root.”
That was way too many hairs. And plucking that many would be far too painful. Cecily felt she had damaged her scalp just by reading that line of the recipe.
“I’ll also need the tail of a pink lizard? Lake water that has been thrice blessed by the full moon’s glow? The fresh blood of the concocter?!”
Why did a love potion require so much blood? Cecily couldn’t help but shake with the ridiculousness of the recipe’s demands.
Hold on just a second. Someone has to drink this! Is it meant to be some kind of punishment? Meant to gross them out?
It was far too cruel to force Zeke to drink such a disgusting concoction. Wait—it was far too cruel to even toy with the idea of controlling his heart in the first place.
But it was also too cruel to drain a little toad of its blood, to part a lizard from its tail, and Cecily felt sick simply thinking about drinking water that had been stagnating for three straight months. Above all, it was absolutely a disgusting proposition to suggest drinking something that had so much human hair in it.
To top it off, the idea of putting your own blood into such a thing wasn’t just cruel—it was totally irrational. Plus, obtaining the blood was bound to hurt.
By this point, Cecily had long since exceeded her ability to stomach grossness.
“Rolo!”
No longer able to bear it, she called for her cat. Rolo simply looked down from the catwalk Cecily had constructed using slats of wood.
Cecily entreated him, pleading, “Now, Rolo. Would you be a good dear and fetch me fresh blood from a toad and the tail of a lizard?”
This was perhaps a bit too difficult a request for a young woman to make of her cat. Rolo simply answered her with a yawn, and the only sound was the creaking of the catwalk under her portly cat’s weight.
“P-Please, my darling Rolo! I’m begging you! I’ll make you a feast tonight, so please get these ingredients for me.”
Continuing to ignore Cecily imploring him, Rolo curled up into a ball. It seemed he had no intention of helping. What an ungrateful cat.
“Hmm... Can’t I substitute some of the ingredients?”
Too grossed out by the recipe, Cecily now pondered whether certain compromises could be made.
“Yeah, I don’t see why not! I don’t like to admit it, but at the end of the day I’m still a witch. I’m sure if I put my absolute everything into it, I can make something that’s close enough to a love potion,” she announced aloud, to pump herself up.
Her motivation returning to her, she set about gathering substitutes for the ingredients she didn’t want to use.
Instead of toad’s blood, she could use ripe tomatoes. Instead of a lizard’s tail, she could use the end of a burdock root. Instead of lake water blessed thrice by the full moon, she could use water from a vase.
Instead of her hair, she could use thin strands from a hemp rope. Instead of her own blood, she could use fresh tomatoes.
“This is perfect.”
Cecily’s heart swelled at her own genius.
Having gathered all the required ingredients, she headed to her workshop. This was an area for concocting potions, separate from her kitchen. Cecily had converted it from a small storehouse, and was proud of it.
Upon arriving at her beloved workshop, Cecily sloshed the water from the vase into the cauldron and lit the fire beneath it. Next, she threw in the chopped and decocted herbs and other ingredients. Of course, this included the tomatoes and the burdock root. Then, when the heat was stable, Cecily set about stirring the cauldron with a large stirrer.
If a normal person had simply mixed together this concoction of disgusting ingredients, then they would simply end up with an equally disgusting slop.
However, Cecily was a witch. Witches are capable of pouring their magical powers into their potions while concocting them in order to grant them special properties.
Cecily grunted with effort.
She imagined her magical powers focusing within her fingertips. As she concentrated, her red eyes started to glitter like rubies. Large droplets of sweat started to form on her brow, but she remained strong and kept on battling with the potion.
“I decided to do this. I need to see it through.”
Cecily’s main driving force was frustration.
She was angry. She was upset. She was frustrated.
In situations like these, Cecily would usually cry herself to sleep and carry the memory in her heart for ten years or so before finally forgetting about it. However, the despair of having her expectations betrayed like this had left a far deeper wound.
Maybe I’ll be allowed to find the kind of love I read about in those fairy tales. Maybe I’ll find a prince to be with. Cecily had been so won over by Zeke that she had begun to think that these desires might actually be realized.
As she brewed her potion, the strands of rope caught fire; the tomatoes burst and splattered on her face. Despite these incidents, at the end of Cecily’s struggle that couldn’t be captured in words...
“It’s done! I did it!”
Cecily cheered in jubilation.
After cooling the potion down, she then transferred it to a bottle. Looking at it, she saw that the liquid didn’t have anything floating about in it. It was a shockingly vibrant red.
Yes—Cecily’s own original love potion was complete.
✧ ✧ ✧
The next evening...
Cecily hurried towards the city with the love potion—if it could be called that—in hand, her head full of worries.
A love potion wasn’t something you could test for yourself, and Rolo wouldn’t have dared take a drop of this poisonous-looking liquid either.
She felt bad for Zeke, but her only option was to force him to drink it without any prior testing.
But that was fine. Cecily’s worries were elsewhere.
“How can I get him to drink this without him suspecting me...?”
Specifically, she was worrying about how she would get Zeke to actually drink the potion. He was the captain of the knights’ order, so it was natural to assume he would be wary of what he consumed. Would he really drink it if she simply told him that it was a thank-you for helping her the other day?
“No... He wouldn’t drink it so easily.”
Cecily smirked self-deprecatingly. After all, to Zeke she was simply a witch that deserved suspicion. If a witch like her handed him a potion and said “Drink it,” then it would only be natural for him to instantly turn her down.
“Maybe I could invite him to dinner and mix it into his drink?” She paused. “No, I don’t have the sleight of hand required for that.”
Cecily muttered to herself as she trekked towards the city. Startled by her behavior, passersby avoided her and stepped out of the way, but Cecily didn’t notice them in the slightest.
“I mean, I don’t even know how to arrange a meeting with him.”
Zeke belonged to the Celestial Knight Brigade, so it was feasible to assume that she would meet him if she went to the castle. However, Cecily was a simple commoner—her social standing was far too low for her to be allowed into the royal palace. Her only option was to try and find him again in the city.
“That said, I doubt something so lucky would happen agai— Wah!”
Cecily let out a small cry as a passerby bumped into her left shoulder.
Losing her balance, Cecily was about to fall over when their sturdy body caught her and set her straight.
“I-I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
Cecily apologized as she looked up at the person who had caught her...and could only gulp in surprise.
The person who had caught Cecily by the shoulder was none other than Zeke.
Lucky things do happen!
It was almost as if the goddess of fortune was on Cecily’s side.
Cecily’s expression was frozen in silent surprise, so Zeke quickly removed his hand. However, he didn’t move to leave.
The glow around Zeke’s silhouette from the light behind him was surely nothing more than an illusion.
“We meet again.”
Cecily’s eyes widened at this single sentence.