The Isadora Interviews (3 page)

“Camille!” Leda cried in dismay. “This is terrible! The potion needs at least two more days.”

“Can’t you speed it up at all?”

“No!” Her hands raked through her hair. “This is awful!”

Camille chewed her bottom lip. “What if we go ask Fitz? He’ll know what to do!”

Fitz was the eccentric, twiggy potionmaker that holed up in the apothecary. Leda stopped and stared at Camille. Fitz was an option. Not a good one, but an option.

“Would he help?” Leda asked.

Camille shrugged. “Maybe. Worth a try, right?”

Fitz wouldn’t be happy to see her, but Leda didn’t care.

“Yes,” she said, recovering her breath. The curse whirled through her mind. She had to stop and close her eyes against the relentless shuffle of images. Elderberries. An old woman. A cottage. Elderberries again.

Leda shook her head to clear her thoughts.
No, no, no,
she told herself.
Not elderberry! Too dangerous.

“Let’s go,” she said with a grim tone. Camille squared her shoulders like a Guardian preparing for battle.

“Right. I’ll lead the way.”

•••

“What do you want?” Fitz asked as Leda stepped into his office at the apothecary. A pair of glasses covered his large blue eyes, but only one of them held a lens, which magnified his pupil so that it filled the entire circle. When he blinked it looked like his eye disappeared and then reappeared again.

“I need some help,” Leda responded.

Fitz lifted a thin eyebrow. He was built tall and skinny, much like a glass vial, and with about as much personality.

“I don’t like helping people,” he said.

“I know.”

Fitz was known all around the village for his peculiar eyeglasses and bad moods. The only things anyone had ever seen him eat were raw apples and cups of coffee. As a result, he often seemed moody and jittery, but no one was ever sure if it was because he’d had too much that day, or not enough.

“Then why did you come?” he asked.

“Advice.”

He rolled his eyes and turned away but kept Leda within his line of sight. Taking it as permission, she continued.

“I’m making the Forgotten Potion.”

She knew he’d be skeptical, but his blank reaction wasn’t what she’d expected. He just stared at her, his great eye blinking up and down.

“And I have to finish it by tomorrow,” she concluded when he didn’t react. “The potion needs two more days. Can I increase the heat to cut down the brewing time?”

“No. You aren’t going to finish it,” he said. “You can’t shortcut a potion. Increasing the temperature will change the viscosity and ruin the brew.”

“There’s got to be a way around it!”

“There is. Pick a different potion.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“I can’t help you.” He turned and started walking towards the door. Leda hurled herself in front of him, blocking his path. In her desperation she was willing to submit one more option, a plan that surely testified to her distress.

“What if I add elderberry?” she asked.

He stopped.

“What?”

“Elderberry. What if I add it? It will speed up the process. I could increase the heat as well, making it finish by morning.”

His forehead furrowed in thought. “You want to add elderberry to a weak potion in order to speed up the brewing time?”

“Yes.”

“It won’t work,” he concluded, after a long silence. “Your potion would be too volatile to trust. It would explode.”

“What if I—”

“No.” He shot her a warning glare. “Forget it, Leda. You can’t do the Forgotten Potion.”

“But everything depends on this! I’m going to sell it to pay tuition to Miss Mabel’s School for Girls. If I don’t get this, I’ll be a nobody!”

He paused, staring into her desperate face with all the warmth of an arctic breeze.

“There’s nothing I can do to help you.”

Frustrated, Leda spun on her heel, stalked past Camille, strode through the forest, and out to the little shed. The potion bubbled on, releasing a citrusy scent. It was right on track and looking perfect. If only it could finish sooner!

She scrounged through her herb chest and retrieved the packet of elderberry from the bottom.

Dare I?

She had enough to do the job and then some. Leda hesitated, sifting out a sprinkling of the herb into her palm. The stakes were the highest they had ever been. But elderberry? Was she that desperate to escape her life? She gazed down at her tattered dress and holey shoes.

Yes. Yes, I am that desperate.

With an decisive breath, Leda dropped the elderberry into the pot. The top of the brew fizzled into a thousand bubbles, then settled, returning to the usual boil.

Leda took a step back.

Elderberry was a fickle herb to work with. From this point on, stirring the potion or touching the pot would only alter the reaction. Her heart slammed in her chest. It had a few hours to work overnight. Isadora would arrive in the morning for the interview. The potion had to be ready. The massive cauldron seemed to mock her.

This won’t work. Fitz is right.

No. Fitz was wrong. He must be wrong. Elderberry would speed up the process. It wouldn’t explode.

If it did, it would take her future with it.

•••

Leda woke to the sound of giggling.

She shot out of bed, disoriented by the rays of light streaming through her window. Leda always woke up before the sun to start breakfast with Bronwyn. The sun meant morning, which meant that the interview with Isadora was upon her.

“Oh no,” she cried, shoving her hair out of her face. “I slept in. I slept in!”

Bronwyn stirred next to her beneath a layer of blankets. She let out a moan as Leda threw the covers off and vaulted out of bed.

“Bronwyn! Wake up! I slept in! Isadora is going to be in town any minute now!”

Leda stumbled into the dining room with her shoes in hand, pulling a dress over her head at the same time. Mama was wrangling the little children into their seats.

“Leda, what are you doing here?” Mama asked, looking up. “I thought you left hours ago.”

“Obviously not!” Leda yelled. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

She pushed past the kids, snatching her shoulder bag from the hook in the wall. Her youngest brother gave a wail when she ignored his outstretched arms and drooling lower lip.

“What can I do?” Mama cried after her, but Leda was already gone, the door slamming behind her.

•••

Leda’s heart fell into her stomach with a heavy lurch as she approached the sleepy town of Hansham. A few buildings were awake, small plumes of smoke spiraling up from the brick chimneys. Letum Wood’s expansive canopy soaked up much of the light, filtering the rest through the many leaves to fall in solitary beams. The sight of a small crowd of witches at the apothecary sent a whirl of pictures through her mind.

“No,” she muttered, bracing her head with one hand. “Not now! Infernal curse.”

The queue of witches murmured and jostled each other. Having two girls this close to getting into a Network school meant the whole town had to stick their nose in it. Leda muttered at them under her breath. She hated gossip.

“Hey,” she growled, shouldering her way to the front. “Let me through!”

An old woman with a curved back and low shoulders stood next to Mr Hymas, the apothecary. Camille rushed to Leda’s side, her dishwater blonde curls bouncing on her neck.

“Where have you been?” she cried. “We’ve been waiting for almost ten minutes.”

“I accidentally slept in. What’s happening? Am I too late? What about the interview?”

“Isadora is just discussing a few things with Mr. Hymas.” Camille looked over her shoulder to the little shed behind the apothecary and then back to Leda. “Is your potion ready?” she whispered.

Leda’s mouth was so dry from fear that she worried sand would spill from the corners. There was no telling. Her plan had been to wake up early and check on it, but now she’d have to trust fate.

“I hope so,” she said with a trembling voice.

Isadora’s eyes found Leda, sending a cold wash of fear down her skin.

“Merry meet, Leda,” she called.

“Merry meet, Miss Isadora,” Leda said, ducking her head before looking back up. Were Isadora’s eyes different colors? Leda blinked several times. No, surely they couldn’t be. Leda had never met another person with eyes like her own.

“Are you ready?” Isadora asked.

What little composure Leda had left failed. Her curse accelerated the spinning images, and she could barely get enough control to think. She managed a terse nod.

“I understand you’ve made a very difficult potion,” Isadora said as Leda joined her. “Would you mind if I looked at it?”

“No, I wouldn’t mind.”

“I’ll follow you.”

Isadora motioned for her to start. Mr. Hymas managed to control the crowd, keeping them at the apothecary with an offer of free spiced tea. His voice rang out through the trees, following Leda and Isadora until it faded behind them.

Despite her gnarly joints and hunched appearance, Isadora moved with surprising speed. Leda didn’t speak. Her nerves and emotions were too strong to allow any forethought. Instead, all she saw were blurry, indistinguishable flashes of light and darkness. Her head began to pound. When they arrived, Leda hesitated outside of the hut.

“Is there a problem?” Isadora asked.

Yes. No. I don’t know.

“No.” Leda heard her voice respond before her brain was aware. “This is where I prepared my potion.”

“What potion did you make?”

“The Forgotten Potion.”

This time Leda looked to judge Isadora’s reaction. The deep lines of her old face shifted.

“Oh? What for?”

“I had planned to sell it for tuition money so that when you came I’d be able to prove that I could go.” Leda could barely choke the words out.

Isadora hummed something under her breath. “I see. What made you decide to do the Forgotten Potion? It’s very difficult.”

“I needed something valuable.”

“There are many valuable potions that aren’t quite so challenging.”

Leda tried to push the embarrassment down, but it moved into her voice instead, making her sound raspy.

“I needed a rare, valuable potion. My family doesn’t have the money to send me to Miss Mabel’s, and I knew this would get me enough.”

Isadora studied her expression.

“Your eyes are two different colors,” Isadora observed. Taken aback by the sudden shift in conversation, Leda simply blinked.

“I—”

Then Isadora smiled.

“So are mine.”

Leda looked closer. So she hadn’t imagined it. Isadora had one eye that was a shade of gold, like a deep amber, while the other was jade green.

“Yes,” Leda whispered, “you do.”

“It’s a rare trait, you know.”

“Does it mean something?”

“It can.”

“Would you like to see my potion?” Leda asked, feeling sick. She just wanted this over with.

“Yes, I’m quite intrigued.”

Leda drew in a deep breath, gave the handle a pull, and let the door swing open. She stifled a gasp of shock.

A melted lump of black had replaced the massive cauldron. The sides curled down like the petals of a dying flower. A rough, jagged layer of sparkling crystals coated every surface, from the floor to the ceiling, in a dark shimmer. Only a few boards were visible in between the coats of black. Isadora’s eyebrows lifted.

“Oh,” she whispered, putting a hand on the doorframe. “Oh my.”

They gaped at the disaster together. Leda wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. Her future had exploded in a mess of shining black shards. Literally exploded. She wasn’t even sure if it would come off the walls, or the jars, or the broom in the corner. Fitz had been right after all.

Domestic tranquility, here I come.

Leda opened her mouth to explain but realized she didn’t know what to say and closed it again.

“Goodness. It’s been a while since I’ve seen such a big collection of Leigh crystal,” Isadora said, running her fingertips along the jagged edges nearest her. “Actually, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this much.”

Leda’s breath caught. Leigh crystal?

“What?”

Isadora shot Leda a look from the corner of her eye.

“Yes. For how valuable it is, very few know the potion. Even fewer are brave enough to attempt making it due to the explosive nature of the process, as you can see. Your big cauldron must have contained the reaction.”

Leigh crystal.

The realization slapped her in the face. Leigh crystal was a magical imitation of black crystal, but it looked so real, and was so much easier to manipulate, that most witches used it instead. Even as an imitation, it was a difficult potion to execute well.