Chapter 12 #2
It had been a long time since she had taken anyone under her ward.
Francella had been clever, but she could not find her calling.
Morgaine rested her old broom in one corner as she recalled how Francella had never been called by any of the Four Winds.
Morgaine had tried to help her to the point of spoiling the wicked girl.
That had been the last time she called upon a favor from Devon.
It was true Morgaine had lived longer than most, but she had no intention of wasting her time on pointless drivel.
She resolved to be more restrained in her expectations of her new apprentice and let things unfold as they would.
After three hundred blissful springs, the only thing she knew was that she knew nothing about mortals.
After spreading a measure of Harbord Dust over her cauldron, in hopes of restoring the cast iron to its natural, handsome dark, Morgaine went to the door to finally allow Elise to see what passed for the modest interior.
When the wooden door creaked open and Elise stepped inside, however, Morgaine couldn’t tell whether the girl was feigning surprise or was genuinely taken aback by the dusted shelves, books, and glass containers.
Morgaine waited, watching as Elise twirled about the chamber with parted lips, as though the dried herbs and Wormwood hanging from the low ceiling were part of a diamond chandelier.
A rising suspicion that the girl had gone mad entertained Morgaine for a moment, but it was not until Elise began to caress the cauldron as if it were fine porcelain that Morgaine concluded this was no deceit but pure admiration.
“What are we going to prepare first?” Elise asked with pleading eyes.
Morgaine swallowed hard and looked around. She had expected Elise to be eager, but it seemed the girl was about to take charge, touching every herb and leaning in for a few sniffs.
“Let me show you one of my most coveted potions,” Morgaine said. “This one keeps me out of work. A couple of ladies from the court purchase it every month, and that’s enough to pay for food, clothes, and a bit of leisure.”
“Ah,” Elise gasped. “It must be a wonder. What does it do? Does it make them more beautiful? Does it make them younger?”
Morgaine grunted. There was no surprising Elise. The girl’s mind was set on absorbing every little piece of information about witchcraft, and she had to recognize it was making it harder to make a good impression.
“It does all that…in a way,” Morgaine replied cautiously. She was not sure whether to reveal the success of her potion so quickly, since her secret had earned her such good coin for the last one hundred years.
“How can I help?” Elise moved closer to Morgaine, and by reducing the distance, she could smell the sweet perfume of youth emanating from every pore.
“Pass me some lavender and some of those black flowers hanging to your side. It could become steamy here once I mix everything, but fear not. I’ve made this a thousand times.”
“A thousand times?”
Morgaine would have liked to confirm she meant it literally, but again she chose to be careful of what she revealed.
“It’s a saying, darling. What I mean is that the effort of making them becomes second nature over time. It all depends on which divinity chooses you as its conduit.”
“Divinity?” Elise asked with an interest that made Morgaine take a step back. The girl was hungry for knowledge, and Morgaine feared she might begin invoking every known deity on the spot, if only she knew how.
Thankfully, Elise noticed the reserve in Morgaine’s expression, for good judgment took hold of her soon enough.
“I apologize. I’m just thankful for the opportunity.”
“No one becomes a witch from one day to the next,” Morgaine warned. “It can take years of practice before the barrier between this world and the magical one grows thin enough for a divinity to notice you.”
“How long did it take for you?”
“It happened soon after I turned nineteen,” Morgaine sighed, the memory rising as if it had happened only yesterday.
“Although I didn’t know until I was twenty,” she added.
“I wreaked a bit of havoc along the way. Nothing major, but I would have liked to know why the world seemed to have a rather firm intention of pushing me away from where I didn’t belong.
One has to look in enough mirrors to understand oneself. ”
Elise’s brow furrowed, and Morgaine smiled.
“By mirrors, I mean people. The world reveals itself in deeper ways the more you understand others.”
Elise nodded, lips still parted, gazing at the fire beneath the cauldron as if Morgaine’s words had set some wicked little play in motion inside her head.
The poor girl looked as though she had just been entrusted with the truth of the ages. Morgaine chuckled and, not wishing to distress the already impressionable Elise any further, set about preparing the Beauty Potion.
The concoction was widely regarded as the chief source of fairness among high-ranking women.
A secret passed only among those whose coin exceeded the modest capacity of a pouch.
These fine ladies had enjoyed the benefits of smooth skin and youthful necks for generations.
If only they knew the potion offered not a true lifting of the flesh but a polite distortion of what they saw in the mirror, they might have been less inclined to hand Morgaine their gold.
The creation of this miracle potion came to Morgaine after a sudden realization: women do not need more beauty, only worse mirrors.
By her account, it was an act of benevolence toward anxious ladies who required little more than a pinch of confidence to enjoy the spoils their world already offered them.
The happiest, of course, were the husbands.
One need only observe that when women grow kinder to their reflection, the fellows find themselves living in a most agreeable peace, the sort of humbler satisfaction natural to their kind.
“How do you know how much of the ingredients to throw in?” Elise asked.
Morgaine’s thoughts snapped back to the task at hand. Without noticing, she had already dropped more Wormwood than the potion called for, but not wishing to appear careless in Elise’s eyes, she added more of the other ingredients as if it had all been calculated that way from the very start.
“As a witch, you develop a supreme sense to measure each ingredient,” Morgaine said, glancing sideways at Elise.
The girl nodded enthusiastically.
It was then that Morgaine added a drop of Spirits of Turpentine which produced a reaction so violent that even Elise, keen as she was, half considered making for the door in search of help.
After the fumes thinned to a light fog about the cauldron, Elise leaned in and watched with reverence as Morgaine bottled the elixir into one of her finest glass vials.
“No wonder you are so beautiful,” Elise gasped. “Is your fairness natural or the product of magic?”
If the remark had been meant to strike at the most sensitive corner of a witch’s ego, it landed true enough.
Morgaine felt it at once, a warmth rising in her chest, and her view of Elise softened accordingly.
In that moment, she decided the girl was nothing like Francella and allowed herself the small conclusion that Elise could be trusted and that she was a creature worth her mentorship.
“That is my best-kept secret, darling.”