A Little Spice

This continues a story I started here.  I may have been too busy to blog, but I am never too far from a pen and a piece of paper, so I share my doodling with you now.


Granny was waiting for them, they knew. It was time to go home.

That Granny had added an extra piece to her spell, the Wilkerson girls did not know.   She flavored the cauldron with parsnip, lavender, dragon's blood...and a little something else.  It added an extra day to the cooking, this part of the spell, and the fire had to be tended so that the mixture simmered at a constant temperature.  Constant heat meant constant love, Granny knew. 

"Still toiling away?"  Jordan Wilkerson stood in the doorway and smiled at his wife. He was still as gorgeous as the day they met, she realized, although his dark hair was now peppered with gray.  Somehow, he always knew where to find her.

"I'll likely be here all night." Granny stood up, stretching until her bones cracked.  She went to her husband, standing on tiptoe to plant a kiss on familiar lips.  Jordan wrapped her in his arms and held her close.

"You need your sleep, my love," he chided softly.

"Oh, I'll just sleep on the floor by the fire," came the reply.  Jordan shook his head, kissed his wife on the forehead, and left the room.  Granny returned to her task, stirring the pot and chanting.  This time she added basil, inhaling deeply and mingling her exhalations with the aroma emanating from the cauldron. The chanting changed in tone.  Next came apple, almond, and a bit of cayenne for spice.  Granny sneezed.

"Bless you!"

She turned around, startled, to find her husband.  Jordan had dragged a mattress from one of the downstairs bedrooms while she was caught up in her work, and had made up the bed far enough away from the fire to avoid disturbing her.  He lay on his side, naked, glorious in the firelight, and stole the breath right out of her.

Just like the day they met.

"We haven't slept apart in thirty-five years, 'Stanza," Jordan told her, his voice a caress. "We are not about to start now."  He patted the mattress beside him.

"Come here, love."

Granny didn't have to be asked twice.  The cauldron could simmer for a bit, she thought, as she untied her apron on her way to join him.

Later, as Jordan was drifting off to sleep, Granny pulled on her t-shirt.  She watched the love of her life for awhile, a smile on her face.  Then she stood up and moved to the cauldron with renewed purpose.

Her girls were going to come home, and they would bring love with them.  

Come Back to Me

Fiction, of course.

The battlefield stench of death, smoke, blood, and worse lingered in the air, overpowering Adelaide's perfumed kerchief.  The shrieks and moans of the dying bled into her ears. She stumbled over the field, lifting her skirts to keep the hem from becoming soaked in mud and blood.  She passed the lifeless faces of many of her father's men, but not Torvald's face.  She passed many injured, who grasped at her, begging for water or succor, but she could not afford to dwell on her decision to leave them to their dying. Not when her beloved was out here somewhere on this forsaken battlefield. She had to find Torvald, and complete the ritual. 

Finally he was there, on the other side of a mound of the dead, as if he had fought an entire company of knights by himself.  The entire battlefield seemed to quiet as Adelaide knelt and struggled to roll his body over.  In her heart she already knew that he was dead; it was why she had come. 

For a moment she pressed her warm lips to his cold ones, and her tears washed away some of the blood from his battered face.  Then she sat up and began the ritual as the conjurer instructed.   She took a small silver knife and made an incision in her palm.  When the blood welled up, she held her hand over the gaping wound in Torvald's chest, allowing the blood to drip, as she was instructed.  She dipped two fingers into the wound, mingling her blood and his, using the heart blood to paint a cross on her chest and color her lips  Adelaide then pulled the witch's elixir from her pocket, and opened the bottle.  She poured half of the contents into Torvald's chest, and drank the rest of the foul tasting liquid as quickly as she could manage before collapsing next to him.

"Revertimini ad me ad," she whispered.  "I cannot live without you, my heart, not yet."





The word is dwell: to keep the attention directed.



This week, be inspired by the sense of smell. It’s said scent is the strongest tie to memory, and aroma is a powerful force—for good and awful! Is your nose engaged? Now I give you the word Elixir:
elixir |iˈliksər|
noun
a magical or medicinal potion: an elixir guaranteed to induce love.
• a preparation that was supposedly able to change metals into gold, sought by alchemists.
• (also elixir of life )a preparation supposedly able to prolong life indefinitely.