Marmalade's Love Potion

Ch 8 - Marmalade's Tree - Pt 3

Marmalade's tree was warm and filled with the soft, golden light of glowstones. Penelope kicked off her borrowed boots, setting them by a haphazard stack of others in the entryway.

Emptying the pockets of her borrowed coat, carefully stowing the fate token in the pocket of her skirt, Penelope hung her coat and scarf on a hook by the door. Marmot shrugged off his own pack, setting it on the floor with an alarming rattle of its contents.

Opposite the cosy entryway was a set of narrow stairs leading up to a platform that appeared to follow the curve of the hollow tree, up and out of sight to untold rooms above.

A doorway to the left lead into a kitchen filled with small cupboards, shelves packed with ingredient jars, and bundles of drying herbs strung from the ceiling.

Following the sharp clack of firelight stones through a doorway to the right, they found Marmalade in a crescent-shaped sitting room stoking an amber fire.

The outer wall was round and irregularly shaped, with shelves set into the smooth wood seemingly at random.

The room seemed to spill over with books, bottles of mysterious, glimmering liquids, vases of flowers, and myriad trinkets of wood, quartz, copper, and stone.

The fragrance of baked tarts and warm bread permeated the air, mixing with the scent of old book pages and pine kindling.

At Marmalade's beckoning, Penelope and Marmot settled into armchairs by the fireplace, which was set between two round windows overlooking the garden.

Marmalade hooked a pewter pot over the fire to boil, then began retrieving small jars filled with flowers, mushrooms, moss, and stones from her pack.

Setting them on the small hearthside table of polished red wood, she examined each jar in the flickering light, ensuring they were undamaged by the journey.

Marmalade nodded, satisfied. "I'll just store all these away properly and then make us some tea."

Penelope nodded as Marmot spun around in his seat several times, curling into a ball of brown fur and crusted earth. The light of the flames glinted from his eyes and the wet sheen of his nose.

Marmalade bustled away with her wares to the kitchen. Penelope listened wearily to the sounds of cupboard doors opening and closing, the sound of metal clinking on glassware, and the pouring of liquid into jars as Marmalade prepared her ingredients for safekeeping.

Now that sundry crises were averted, and Penelope was seated safe and warm by the hearth, her thoughts turned to the Sisters.

They must be fretting themselves ill. Were they still in Grimwood? Had they ventured home? Would they ever let her leave their sight again?

Penelope groaned, burying her face in hands covered with dirt. What a mess she'd made of her first proper independent outing through a proper town.

Penelope retrieved the fate token from her skirt pocket. The copper tracings laid into the smooth obsidian coin glinted in the firelight. Soon, Marmalade would lay its magic to rest, then Penelope would write home to the Sisters. In the morning she would make the trek through the forest to the cottage, and then do her best to forget this whole misadventure had ever happened.

Feeling resolute at having a plan, Penelope placed the token on the small table and stood to look around the room.

An elegant cabinet of pewter and glass housed dozens of small bottles filled with vibrant, luminous potions. Some danced like gossamer mist, thin and transparent. Others roiled with tiny, crashing waves, dense and opaque as the deepest waters. Others were absolutely still, seemingly calm but for the feeling of a rising storm, electric with the promise of violence and light.