RED BRACELETS
I was a boring woman, with my red bracelets and my strange bottles. See how bright the red. Listen to the chime of my bottles. I keep to myself, a plain woman with long dark hair in a non-descript dress, neither young nor old – timeless.
My neighbours call me bruja and speak of me only in whispers. The street urchins cause me no mischief, nor do they trespass save for when the dare each other to touch one of my precious bottles. Are they surprised by the cold, the texture? I wonder.
The bottles hang from the tree in my postage stamp front yard, swaying in the breeze, rattling when the wind picks up. Each bottle is unalike, unique. Each song it sings is different. I hear their music even when the air is still.
The bracelets were passed down from generation to generation to the eldest daughter. Until me. I was not the eldest, but they are mine nonetheless. They have no beginning and no end. I cannot remove them even should I care to do so. But why would I? I sacrificed much to gain them.
My sister was weak, unworthy. She would never have had the courage to care for the bracelets as they must be cared for. To do what she must to keep them red. My mother and my grandmother knew this but they were slaves to tradition and so my sister had lessons in the bracelets and I was sent to the witch in the woods, my mother’s sister, to learn the secret of the bottles.
They’re connected, you see, the bracelets and the bottles. You cannot have one without the other. And as soon as I understood that, my path was set. It took practice, many false starts, but I learned to perfect my bottles, to craft them into the shape of the soul. And in secret I watched my mother and grandmother attempt to instruct my sister in the blood magic of the bracelets, the knowledge of the forbidden filling me.
So I learned the secret of the bottles from my aunt, and then, to her horror, I embraced the magic of the bracelets and she became the first. That green, misshapen bottle, clumsily made, is hers. When the day came for the bracelet ceremony I was ready. When it was done I had three more bottles for my collection and the bracelets gleamed wetly red around my wrists.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
FAMILIAR
I survived the magical experiment gone haywire by hiding in her library. You’d think someone of her calibre would know better, but then Daphne always was over confident, always thought she was better than anyone else. Frankly, she got what was coming to her.
I was her trusted apprentice but her trust only went so far. I was good enough for the grunt work – gathering ingredients, mixing potions, cleaning up afterwards – but not for actual spellwork. She kept her spell book under lock and key and me in the dark.
Another of Daphne’s faults was that she didn’t believe in familiars. I’d always believed a familiar was an integral part of a witch’s make-up but when I broached the subject to her she just looked down her nose at me. I argued that the witch’s handbook advised the first solo spell should be the acquiring of a familiar she sneered and told me, “I’ll have no mangy animals in my household. Familiars are more trouble than they’re worth.”
So that was that and I never mentioned it again, just did what I was told and learned what I could. She was miserly with the lessons, but I was a quick study and learned more than she ever realized.
I didn’t know what the spell she intended to cast that day was of course, just that it would be major judging by the number of times she sent me to the woods and the village for ingredients. As usual, she zapped me with a spell of silence – just because that one time I distracted her with a question – so I couldn’t have warned her about the mouse even if I cared to.
So I stood in fuming silence watching the mouse creep closer and closer to the salt of the protective circle around her, braced for the inevitable. The mouse crossed the circle, the spell went awry, and I bolted for the well warded library.
I knew it was safe to come out when I could speak again – personal spells always dissipate when the caster dies. Daphne was a smear of ash on the floor. The mouse crept out from under the broom that had fallen and scurried over to my feet.
“Well done, Otis,” I said, stooping down so he could hop into my hand.
Familiars didn’t have to be big and mangy to be effective.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Wordage Report
Wandering Wizards – 0
I gotta tell you, the story’s been as elusive as the sun lately, but I’ll keep working on it.
Weekly Prompt – 409 words and 397 words
The fact that I got both prompt stories dome makes me feel like I’m actually doing something.
New Prompt
Use this as your first line:
I've got my lantern - now I'm going into hiding.
Happy Writing!
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