Chapter Two: The Sacrificial Witch
1077 Words
She now felt herself accursed.
Magic is never gratis; fledgling witches barter offerings to the goddess for sparks of inspiration. Dill’s inaugural rite mirrored the ancient Greek sorceress Medea’s rejuvenation of the aged ram—a primal sacrifice emblematic of renewal and eternal cycle.
The coven dismembers a hoary goat, consigns its quartered flesh to the cauldron, and resurrects a frisking lamb. Thus every novice witch claims her first oblation.
Others swiftly cradle bleating kids; yet Dill, sweat beading her brow, stirs the steaming vat to no avail. No creature stirs within. Instead, each swirl exhales a fragrance that sets mouths watering.
At length, the witches carve the mutton stew. Desolate Dill doubts her gift—only to learn her talents abound, merely misallocated.
For the indispensable flying ointment: sisters anoint themselves, gambol beneath the moon, pluck eggs from treetops. Dill, earthbound, nets fugitive clouds of marshmallow fluff. One witch samples a tuft—sweet, delectable.
Had a meticulous arch-witch not ingested the confection and floated aloft, Dill might have been deemed forsaken, stripped of apprenticeship.
Next, crafting simple talismans: transmute cotton rags into silken finery. Dill’s effort? The inspecting elder declared it the most exquisite spun-sugar gown she had ever tasted.
Dill’s sole triumph: transmuting water into wine whose bouquet intoxicates at a whiff, nearly inciting a bacchanal among the tippling crones.
She fancied herself Harry Potter; instead, she is Christ reborn.
Amber and the elders demur. They suspect malediction, dousing the girl with bizarre potions and incantations until she resembles pickled relish.
At last they pronounce a palatable verdict: no curse, merely the felicitous name Dill resonating with the goddess’s dominion over Abundance. Witchcraft channels divine authority; divergent aspects yield divergent sorcery. More poetically: Dill is so lavishly favored that excess Bounty stifles orthodox spellcraft.
Thus, before ascending to greatness, Dill becomes the coven’s chef. Each cauldron’s unveiling draws predatory stares; apprentice witches improvise a ditty, tapping soup bowls: *Dill fails, we feast.*
In such hours, Dill pines for Sichuan pepper.
In her prior life as a gourmand from the Middle Kingdom, these hands were Midas-touch for sustenance—never hunger in desert or dearth. A portable panacea for travel. Add Eastern spices and native fare, and she might launch an otherworldly Zhonghua diner, embarking on a light-novel odyssey.
Yet once she grasps this world’s cruel canon, naïveté evaporates.
“Is that today’s stock?”
A girl vaults through the window, twin golden braids whipping, pointing gleefully at the herb basket.
Within reposes a lustrous white egg, swaddled in lace-trimmed cloth, plump and endearing. Beside the burbling cauldron, any would mistake it for supper.
Dill slams the casement, scoops her treasure into her apron. All hope nests in this shell; she will not surrender it to these ravenous harpies.
This time, no failure.
Beyond the door, witches cower from Amber’s might, peering through cracks.
Recently, every novice bonded a familiar in Moonlight Wood—alley cats to albino stags, nimble squirrels. Guided by lunar beams, Dill discovered… an egg.
The covetous coven, recalling past banquets, conspire: the goddess surely intends nourishment for her diligent votaries. They cajole Dill to poach the tempting ovum.
Dill, of course, harbors grander designs. From the moment the egg was hers, ambition rekindled. She will hatch it.
An egg! Descendant of dragons in both lives, Dill’s mind teems with mythic beasts. Dragons lay eggs; phoenixes too. Infinite potential slumbers within. Even a iron-eater—panda—would suffice with Oriental flair and isekai logic.
Defying pitying glances, Dill cradles the egg with mystic certitude, envisioning herself astride a black-and-white steed roaming free.
To shield it from jackals and tigresses, she bears it waking and sleeping, sewing an apron pouch. She endures mockery unflinching.
Even Amber, fond of pranks, rebukes the sneering “brood-hen” taunts with stern reprisal.
Dill remains undaunted: she cradles not mere albumen, but Hope, but Dream.
Days bleed into weeks; the shell stays sealed. Expectation swells among the witches; anxiety gnaws Dill.
Fear creeps: has her outlander soul offended the local divinity? Nightmares plague her—the egg cracks to reveal a family bucket of the Colonel’s chicken, devoured by zombie-faced sorceresses.
Roused from terror, Dill rejects endless vigil. She resolves to bathe the egg in growth elixir—yet dreads her own hands.
Lest it become tea egg mid-boil, she propitiates the Moon Goddess beforehand, begging pardon for past irreverence.
All prior sins dissolve; henceforth she is the deity’s most fervent devotee, heir to idealism. Emotion scarcely kindled, Amber interrupts with mischief.
“I’ve spare growth potion—use mine.”
Rare tenderness softens the contrite mentor. She draws curtains, seals door and window with warding sigils, brandishes threats outward.
Dill opens her mouth—*c***k*—master and apprentice lock eyes. Air congeals. The cauldron roils; a faint alien sound splits the frost.
Silence blankets indoors and out; even cats tread softly. All sense the epochal.
Dill’s shoulders quake. Shell fragments patter behind her; her neck stiffens, unturning.
A soft thud restores her wits. She winks frantically at Amber: *Well?*
Amber, witness to the nativity, wears a kaleidoscope of expressions rivaling a scorched kettle bottom.
“…Alive?” she ventures neutrally.
Dill holds her breath, heart teetering.
“W-what color?”
“White?”
Dill’s heart clenches—every Eastern divine beast flashes past.
“White with black??” *A panda?!*
Her rapture disconcerts Amber.
“No black… some red?”
White tinged red? Dill’s face falls. *What manner of creature?*
“Does it… suit me?”
“Perfectly.” Amber nods vigorously.
White with red, matching her Eastern aura—*a red-crowned crane!*
Dill whirls in ecstasy to embrace her compatriot… and beholds snow-white plumage, scarlet feet planted firm—precisely as described.
So white, so red, so prosaic—a colossal red-footed goose!
Black-haired maiden and goose lock stares. Vertigo engulfs Dill; consciousness slips.
Amber regards the swooned girl with pity, then the plump goose, and after long rumination offers solace:
“At least the familiar looks more edible than its mistress—buying perhaps ten minutes’ survival.”
In delirium, Dill slits an eye. Nearby lies the tattered *Hymnal of Divine Praise*, flung earlier, splayed to a dog-eared page oft consulted:
[An underage witch must, on the full moon of her eighteenth year, hunt alone a dire wolf and offer its head at the Goddess’s altar. Failure forfeits magic and invites the Moon Goddess’s eternal curse.]
She now felt herself accursed.
- Writer
