Spells in Silence

Chapter 23: Tale as Old as Time

It took three days for Hazel and Hedwig to replace all the everburning lamps in the hags' home. Not because it was strenuous or truly time-consuming; Hazel needed a few attempts each for the first several lamps, but just like her normal spells, the more she practiced the faster she was able to light the lamps the next time. No, the real reason was because they did not want to risk the lamps all going out at the same time. If it happened in the evening or the night, the hags would be blind in their own home until the sun rose. By refilling the lamps on different days, they would have time to get everything set up before the rest could likewise go out.

Considering they had a well instead of stairs leading to their basement, and their attic was also reached via a simple hole in the ceiling, it was understandable that they did not want to run around in the dark unable to see where they were going.

Instead, only a few hours of each day were spent working on the lamps. The rest was spent doing all the normal things the hags did, which in turn meant that Hazel dedicated her spare time to working in the basement alongside Gertrud. Just like last time, the younger of the two sisters – as Hazel had discovered after asking – was far more civilized when she stood in front of a cauldron or five. Hazel was not able to say for sure, but she had a theory about why she was safe in the basement but not elsewhere. With so many potions in front of her, Gertrud's mind was too busy keeping track of everything going on to pay attention to her own Insatiable Hunger.

In any case, she had shown Hazel a number of useful things over the last few days. One of them was the recipe for Night Eye, the paste Elfriede had mentioned using to see in the dark when she needed to harvest ingredients that could only be found at night. Considering how often Hazel had found herself walking at night while exploring, anything that would let her see more clearly would be very useful.

Another, and in some ways more important, thing Gertrud taught her was how to read the blasted chart that hung on the wall. The short version was exactly as Gertrud had described: the chart allowed for on-the-fly enhancement or even diminishment of different ingredients depending on their quality. That quick description was utterly lacking when the longer version came at her.

All potions ingredients had several properties. They had physical properties, which were mostly obvious to the naked eye. Taste, smell, viscosity, density; most of the time these were not important, but as Gertrud had explained, they contributed heavily to what the potion actually looked like and behaved in the real world. Each ingredient also had magical properties, typically tied to nine 'celestial affinities' with few exceptions. Those affinities in turn had a myriad of interactions with the constellations of the zodiac. Not every single one, thankfully, but each affinity would interact with at least two or three constellations. Where the sun, the moon, and the planets were in the sky in relation to those specific constellations determined the exact method for how to strengthen or weaken any one ingredient's magical properties.

By the time Gertrud finished what turned out to be a twenty minute lecture, Hazel's head was spinning around and around. The feeling of drowning in new information was not helped when Gertrud further told her that these celestial affinities were not readily apparent to the eyes or nose. It was information that previously had been memorized and passed down only by word of mouth. Nowadays it was written down, much to her relief until she saw the book in question and just how thick it was.

Copying it down for her own use would doubtlessly be the work of many weeks.

But that was a problem for tomorrow-Hazel. Today-Hazel was washing her hands and trying to ignore her stomach growling at the smell coming from the kitchen.