cliché musings

She met a man in the middle of winter, when a light gray had finally settled over the earth and tight stillness swept through the air. He came into her shop wearing a large black coat and leather boots that tracked in clumps of snow. He was disheveled: wet strands of dark hair plastered across his forehead and cheeks stained a hellish red. His limbs were shaking, but his shoulders slumped and relaxed when he entered the store.

She focused on the white flakes coating his hair. It could have been the storm outside, but it also looked like dandruff. She had a cure for that.

“Hello, sir,” she greeted. “Can I help you with anything?”

She saw his eyes roam the store. The walls were cluttered with bookshelves, each lined from frame to frame with her recipe collections and medicinal archives. The lower shelves held a panoply of goods, from bottles and jars, to stones and amulets, to her brand of toddler-and-kid friendly items, and, of course, her official merchandise, stacked with shirts, jewelry, and semi-permanent tattoos. Aromatic materials sat on black tables in the middle of the store space. She sorted the array in a meticulous, color-coded and month-of-production system. Her system was the only acceptable one and didn’t allow for any other employee to soil it. The man glanced upwards, to the three luminescent chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Shaped in the form of a crescent moon, a star, and a lightning bolt.

“Yes,” he said. He took his hands out of his pockets. They were shaking, too. “I’m looking—well, I’ve heard you have remedies here.”

“Many,” she said. She wondered who referred him to her, and why.. “What are you looking for?” What’s wrong with you?

. He was still shaking, avoiding her eyes but flitting his own around the store in nervous fashion. She thought it was a shame, really, when she took the time to put eyeliner on this morning.

 “Do you ever feel lost?” he asked. “Sorry, that’s a dumb question. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Sometimes, ” she said. “I learned how to anchor myself, I suppose.”

The store was her anchor. If she ever saw a passing shadow out of the corner of her eye, she’d stay up all night brewing a new potion. If she started to hear faint voices whispering from behind her, she could pass a few hours binding a new book. And if a customer was ever especially rude, she was always able to busy herself with reorganizing her shelves and tables.

“Then I’m looking for an anchor,” the man said.

She told him to come back tomorrow. She’d have just what he needed.

The first attempt was a bit messy, she would admit. According to all the peer-reviewed research sponsored by the Coven Academy, no attempted love potion had ever seen success.. They could only assume that such a thing was not possible. Maybe it shouldn’t be done at all, they speculated. Well, she mused, what do scholars know about love, anyway?

She had to break out a few of her Witch Wide Web books for the ingredients; most were obvious: Love Bay Leaf, for lasting taste; Pixie Dust, for bonding; and Onyx Berries, for physical sensations.. She balked at the final ingredient – Chicken Feet; whoever thought that would work needed their Magick license revoked.

She considered love like a timid rabbit: flighty instincts that warned them of danger. There were times she felt vulnerable as the hare, felt the breath and sharp teeth of a hungry mouth hovering above her, poised to snap. It took time for a rabbit to feel safe. Perhaps they never do in the wild — that’s why she needed an owner. 

A love potion wouldn’t work. At least, not the first time.

She decided on a whim to add rabbit fur.. She sprinkled it in first.. Next was the Love Bay Leaf; considering the ingredients list again, she decided to add Wisp Oil and Honey. Love needs to be palatable, no? It had to be comfortable, familiar — something you realize you enjoy without even trying.

And then love had to be tied to a specific soul. At first she thought a clipped fingernail would suffice, but love wasn’t really about the tangible, was it? Love could never be broken down to a physical science, to our atoms and skin cells and aging organs. It was deeper, radiating with your every step and breath, igniting a flame behind your eyes, all the things that could make you laugh or cry or the hairs stand up on your arms, a tense sensation below your chest waiting to be released.

The man was looking for an anchor, and the store was hers. 

Her final ingredient was a page of her first recipe book. At the advice of a love from years ago, she’d written it down with excited fingers. That was a failed love, of course, and its darkness had lingered until now. She brewed seven potions, a week’s worth, and she gave them to the man the next day when he returned, again red-faced and covered in snow. “To help you find a light in the dark,” she told him, handing over the black bag she’d carefully tied with silk ribbon. The glass vials within clinked together as he took it from her.“What do I owe you?” he asked.

She hadn’t thought about a payment. “Keep track of your symptoms. Come back in a week with notes.”

He returned a week later when the air was heavy with the start of spring. The snow had melted., It had been sunny this week, and the black walls of the store were a tepid gray..

Love took time. It was a careful process, but it was also unpredictable. The havoc it wreaked would arrive without warning. So, when he told her he didn’t feel any different, maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised.

“Would you mind waiting here a few moments?” she asked him. “I might know the problem.”

She gathered the same ingredients from the week before and quickly set them to boil. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it before. Two more potions. One for him, and one for her. In her backroom, she filled a vial and chugged it down her throat.

She almost gagged from the taste: a bitter, soapy flavor that bubbled on her tongue. She grimaced: who said love was easy? She brought the last potion out to the man. “Here,” she said. “One more dose should be enough.”

“Are you sure?”

“If it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.”

He grasped the ninth potion, and she watched the cords in his neck flex as he swallowed 

It was quiet for a while; he held the glass vial halfway between them, dangling from,his fingertips. He was staring at it, but then his eyes shot towards her.

“This store,” he said. “I really love it. Are you hiring?”