The Preparation

‘Catch it!'

I scurried forward, hunched over, hands rambling through leaf litter after the creature I'd barely seen a moment ago. Blindly pawing under a clump of ferns, my fingers encircled something cool and wet about the size of a broad bean.

"Ahh! It's slimy!'

In my surprise I loosened my grip ever so slightly, allowing my quarry to maneuver through my fingers and drop to the ground, disappearing beneath a rotted log.

'Stupid girl. You had it. Now we'll have to find another.'

I sheepishly gave my apologies and followed the older woman deeper into the woods. She moved quickly for someone three times my age. Though I attributed some of her speed to the fact that she ploughed through the underbrush like an angry cow, while I still held up my skirts, to keep the mud off, and gingerly made my way through the sticker bushes.

‘Shouldn't we just roll back the log and catch that one?’

Stopping abruptly, my companion wheeled around and asked, 'Are you likely to be able to move a log the size of a suckling sow?'

'No, I suppose not. I just...'

'Don't say thought, because you didn't. You didn't think. If you had, you wouldn’t have asked.’

Again, I mumbled an apology and followed her march through the trees. A few minutes on, we reached a pond, not terribly large, but big enough that it wouldn't dry up in the heat of the summer. It was the beginning of harvest season, so there were red and orange leaves floating at the water's edge and the reeds along the bank had turned to dry, paper husks. Yet life hadn't fully retreated in the face of oncoming winter. A red-eared slider slowly made its way through the water and I saw ripples radiate out from under a willow on the far bank. Perhaps fish or a muskrat.

'Usually, there are one or two along that bank,' she said pointing to a pile of small boulders jutting from the pond's edge.

With my satchel slung back, I headed toward the rocks, knowing that she intended for me to scramble among them to find a replacement for the little escapee. After clambering over the rocks, stopping more than once to free my skirts from a crag, I saw what we were looking for; a black newt with yellow spots. Snatching it up before it could dart away, I fought my instinct to drop it once its clammy skin touched mine.

'Got one!,’ I shouted as I held my hand high.

Nonplussed, my companion waved for me to come down off the rocks. 'Put it in your satchel and tie it up tightly, so it won't escape,' she instructed, then adding as she turned back toward the forest, 'Hurry up. We have two more ingredients to collect.'

We returned to the old woman's cottage, a small, dark affair far outside the village. Most people avoided it, until necessity demanded a visit.

'Go 'round back and catch a hen from the coop. Bring it here,' my elderly companion said as she pointed to the stump that served as a chopping block.

By the time I'd returned with the tawny colored hen, the old woman. had retrieved an axe from the shed and a clay bowl from the cottage. Handing me the axe, she said, ‘Cut off its head and hold the body over the bowl, letting the blood drain out.'

I sighed. I hated killing animals. I was fine with butchery, smoking meat, making sausage and the like, but the killing part always made me feel unwell. But I knew this was part of the job, so I tucked the bird under my left arm and grabbed the-axe with my right. Holding her warm, feathery body down onto the stump, I raised the axe and struck off the chicken's head. The thwack of the axe made me jump slightly and I jerked my hand off the headless body. The decapitated creature flapped her wings vigorously, taking limited flight, landing in a nearby tree.

‘Go get it,’ my companion said, slowly shaking her head and rubbing her temples as if she was brewing up a headache.

Wiping my bloody hands on my apron, I gave her an apologetic grimace and made my way to the tree. The chicken had managed to flap its way about half way up, tangling her feet in a crisscross of fine branches. I’d climbed trees before, but not for many years, and not in a skirt and underskirt. Pulling myself up on a limb and hooking a foot in the crotch of the lowest branch, I was able to climb up into the tree. After repeating this motion a few more times, I was at the same level as the chicken. I reached out as far as I dare, while maintaining my grip on a branch, and tried to knock the bird from its wooden snare. It was freed, but instead of dropping from the limb to the ground, my touch reinvigorated her and she began frantically flopping around, flinging feathers and blood in all directions. A few minutes more and the last vigor of life left her body, allowing me to grab her by a foot.

I began my decent, but with the hen in one hand, I lost my footing halfway down and was unable to grab well enough to save myself a fall. Hitting the ground hard, I lost my breath, but not my life nor suffered any lasting injury.

‘Most of the blood you needed is in your hair or on your face. Better take the body and wring it out the best you can. I don’t want to have to lose another chicken to your incompetence,’ the old woman said, leaning over me with a dour look on her face.

I got back up from the ground, pushed my feather laced hair from my face, and held the chicken’s now quiet body over the bowl. Squeezing until I heard something break, I managed to extract a small pool of blood, about the size of an egg yolk. Poor hen. Died for barely enough blood to complete the task.

‘No time for pity. We’ll eat it for dinner. You can pluck it after your next task.’

Looking up at the elderly woman, I was about to ask her what that task was, when she jabbed her finger in the direction of the hut. Laying the hen on the chopping block, I picked up the bowl of blood and headed to the cottage.

It was dark and stifling hot inside. Several seconds passed before my eyes adjusted to the dim light, but once they did, I could see a form hunched over a cooking pot at the hearth. She was shorter and younger, but a considerably fatter woman than the old crone that entered the cottage behind me. They pair of them shared the residence, but I was never able to determine if they were sisters, mother and daughter, or just companions. I dare not ask, yet knew that the older one was in charge outside the cottage and the younger inside.

‘Final task before we start making the concoction. In the root cellar,’ the larger woman said, pointing to the trap door in the center of the floor, ‘is a jar that contains a rotten egg soaked in a hanged man’s last water. It is labeled “devil’s egg”. Retrieve it and crack it into the bowl with the blood.’

Staring at the trap door, I dreaded my final task. I wasn’t sure which part of the assignment was the worst; the spider filled storage hole, placing my hand in a jar of a dead man’s urine, or cracking a rotten egg into chicken blood. Drawing in a deep breath to steel myself, I yanked open the trap door and climbed down the short ladder that led into the storage pit. It didn’t take me long to find the jar with the horrible moniker. I grabbed it and made my way to the table to execute the final action. I managed to fish out the egg with two fingers instead of my whole hand, so the odor of stale urine only made me dry heave a couple of times. I set the egg down on the table and quickly screwed the lid back on the jar.

‘Once you add the egg, you will want to cut out the newt’s eyes and drop them both right in, but you can’t cut them out before you crack the egg, because they dry out too quickly,’ the rotund woman explained.

‘So, make haste,’ added her ancient housemate, as if I couldn’t follow simple instructions.

Cracking the egg on the edge of the bowl, a wall of putrid stench rolled out of it so vile I involuntarily wretched onto the floor beside the table. I attempted to empty the egg’s contents into the bowl, but my vomiting was uncontrollable. Dropping the egg, I ran from the cottage and found myself leaning against a tree gulping breaths of air, trying to get my stomach to settle. The lingering smell of the egg and dried urine on my fingers made the task difficult, but, eventually, I wiped my face off with dried leaves and plopped down on the ground. I looked up to find both women outside the cottage staring at me.

‘Girl, there is no denying it. You will never be a witch. You simply aren’t cut out for the essential work,’ said the older woman with a slight shake of her head.

‘Better to find out now than after you’re committed to it,’ added the plump one.

‘I’m sorry. I tried. I really wanted to, but I…’

‘It’s not for everybody. Now go on. Get yourself back to the village. We’ll see you at the next town hall meeting,’ responded the crone.

Picking myself up from the ground and heading away from the cottage, I pulled my satchel off my shoulder and opened it to peek inside at the newt.

‘It’s your lucky day. Good thing I’m a horrible witch.’