Garna the Alchemist was overwhelmed.
She used to be much better at this. Failing eyesight, tremors, and just plain anxiety were not good ingredients for an effective potion maker. She’d retired years ago to settle in the autumn woods. She’d make an occasional love potion for a smitten young otter, or healing salves for burns.
She used to transform things. She’d transformed her pinions into hands to help her in her work. She didn’t need to fly anyway and it was little more than a hop. She’d transformed straw into yarn, apples into pears, river rocks into jewels. She’d been highly sought-after for her amethyst-making. (She could make it out of nearly anything!) But after awhile, she couldn’t quite get it right. Instead of amethyst, she made eggplant. Right color, at least. She retired while she still had some dignity.
But even the simple things had quirks. That young otter fell in love with a shovel; oh that took a bit of undoing. Yes. Those healing salves weren’t as powerful as before but she dared not make them too potent to make them poisonous. She could not distinguish some of her herbs anymore.
Just as her life had simmered down, orcs. Orcs.
Her friends needed her to create explosions and fireball potions. But too much and she might burn the woods down.
A little spell on her glasses perhaps. A little one. Something to help her see better.
The formula is in the potions book.
Salves for eyesight, strength for glasses, oh she needed to see better.
She fumbled around searching for dried winsome weed, and boiled some bitterroots, and read some incantations but her hands were shaking. She was near tears.
She was a little proud to ask for help, but she was close to shouting for it now. Then someone at her entrance spoke her name, “Garna,” and it startled her and she dropped the flask. But that figure, Oof, her glassblower, with the emergency shipment she’d requested, reached out so quickly, so carefully, to catch the glass flask she’d dropped not knowing how hot it was at the bottom, that he burned his fingers and tossed the flask back up into the air. The potion splashed him full on his face and neck and hands!
Nevertheless he grabbed the flask again on its way down –this time by its neck–and placed it on the floor. He pulled his paws in quickly and wiped his eyes! The potion covered his fur. He didn’t seem in pain though.
“I thought the flask was hot when I touched it but the water in it was so cool,” he said.
“It wasn’t water,” she told him.
He turned his face to her, and Oof had always been a noble looking rat, but now his eyes seemed to hold stars in them.
“Oof, are you okay?”
He sat down on the floor, his mouth falling open. “I can see the future.”
Go to Chapter 15
“Protect the Autumn Woods!” is an illustrated story by Jerome Stueart in 33 short flash fiction chapters. The story features D&D-inspired magic-using forest animals who fight to protect their homes. This story was at first a response to a prompt list created by Jenn Reese and Deva Fagan for an October Art Challenge in 2021. You can now read all 33 parts of the story, “Protect the Autumn Woods” with the search term, #AutumnWoods. “Protect the Autumn Woods!” Art Show at the Dayton Society of Artists (48 High Street, Dayton, OH) from November 1 — December 15 2024.
“Protect the Autumn Woods!” is adjacent to a larger show of amazing Dayton Artists, “Small, but Mighty.” Come see all of the art, any weekend, Friday 12-5, Saturday 12-5 to experience the art yourself.
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