Dill & Wolf

Chapter Four: The Familiar Witch

*Shall I stew my familiar for supper?*

The Moon Goddess most oft appears as the radiant silver-bowed huntress, guardian of forest and beast; thus she bestows upon her votaries the gift of animal pacts, that they might hunt the abhorrent were-thralls and preserve sylvan peace.

A familiar is to a lunar witch what the silver bow is to the Goddess: serpent venom yields paralytic draughts; rare white stags purify curses; ubiquitous wildcats sense monstrosities.

As for the great white goose… Amber wracks her brain: it might buy its mistress five minutes’ rear-guard—time enough for an appetizer?

Since that fateful debut, Dill has reaped the village’s collective pity. Condolence offerings mound before her cottage. Playmates swarm, some dissolving into tears mid-consolation, as though bidding farewell to the girl’s final human hours.

“Pelyn, what shall save the child?”

The red-haired witch plucks a calico from an emptied cask and flings it back to its sodden mistress, who addresses an oak bucket as confidant.

One drunkard surpasses another. Pelyn snaps: “Ask a tavern-keeper; her cure is ever singular.”

At the words, Amber’s bucket brims anew with ruby nectar. The cat, cowering in her lap, laps spilled dregs.

Mistress and beast regard Pelyn with matching glazed emeralds. She yearns for Junli River’s verdant vines—grapes swollen with spring’s emerald and summer’s gold, intoxicating at a glance.

Silver-tressed Mida may be the coven’s loveliest, yet witch-power dwells in the eyes; Amber’s are the most haunting Pelyn has beheld.

Scarce the thought forms when the “mightiest witch” pitches forward, brow cracking the table, startling the cat skyward.

Pelyn drains her cup, cheeks unflushed. Even titans kneel before her “magic.”

Setting it down, she eyes the cat—fatter than last year—and sighs: “In a blink, the tadpoles turn sixteen; my cellar shall yawn half-empty.”

Amber, rubbing her crimson forehead, lifts the cup for anodyne, then recalls duty and shakes clarity into her skull.

Squinting at the witch before her—proprietress of the finest cellar—she warns herself: no drunken rampage here.

Divine rites demand wine; the village cellars suffice for a year’s revelry, yet more is brewed. Each novice claims a personal cask, fermented sixteen years, infused with blessings and sorcery, unsealed at maturity.

At the sixteenth benediction, the young sip their natal vintage, swear sacred oaths to the Goddess, ascend from lowly acolytes to itinerant emissaries, and embark upon the dire-wolf hunt.

To craft this hallowed wine, the eldest crone summoned Pelyn from distant Junli—sanctum of the Nature Goddesses. Pelyn, uniquely devout to multiple divinities—including the Moon and the Triune Nature deities—arrived.

“Your disdain for little Dill is plain; yield her to me. My ladies are far gentler.”

Harvest and hedonism fall under Nature’s sway; Pelyn brews peerless vintages and covets Dill’s culinary alchemy, proselytizing shamelessly these years.

Amber has warned her: her Lady is less magnanimous. Doubt it? Tour the Goddess’s Garden.

Yet now, drowning sorrow, Amber slurs: “Fine—fetch a wolf-head and she’s yours.”

Without awaiting reply, she rummages, producing a scrap: “First, my pupil’s birthday gift.”

She tenders weathered parchment.

Pelyn arches a brow, accepts; her sleeve stirs, wafting vinous perfume.

The auburn beauty dyes her robes with ripened fruit; summer’s viridity clings, autumnal russet drapes her shoulders—mature enchantment even Mida envies.

Pelyn scans the note, sighs, rubs it against her stole.

*Achoo!* The mink sneezes, unfurls; a golden musk-cat emerges, trifurcate stripes gleaming, pink tongue depositing a bronze key in its mistress’s palm.

“To the cellar, then.”

Pelyn rarely quits her tavern; Amber divines wall-digging intent. Yet if Dill consents, this negligent mentor will brave lunar wrath.

It is all she can now offer.

Emerging at dawn, the sky still cloaked in night-wind, morning dew weaves pewter mist over undulant hills. Distant ridges curve like the Goddess’s veiled bosom, nursing forest life; the forest sustains the valley coven; all glory ascends to Her.

Miller Vale nestles in cloud-confluence, ever humid, verdancy rampant. Part the fog: only primordial evergreens. In thickest mist, the village floats—an island adrift in vapor seas.

Yet Amber knows: seven days across the range lies the sea’s sapphire hem, mortal spires piercing heaven, ports crawling with life, foreign merchants puffing eastern tobacco. Secluded Miller Vale never truly escapes clamor.

The calico frolics downwind, tongue tasting brine from over the peaks; its mistress gazes afar, thoughts coalescing and dissolving like mist.

“A lifetime here would suffice.”

Pelyn muses unprompted, then continues:

“The outer world is too dreadful.”

Following her gaze: thatched cottages, camellias and morning-glories cascading rooftops. A window lifts; a young witch smiles in greeting.

“How could it rival the Goddess-blessed realm?” Pelyn murmurs in reverence.

Heavy humidity; roofs woven of straw, clay-sealed, watered by storm, ripened by sun, kissed by sea-breeze—each a towering floral arbor. Fearless fawns and hares beg from sills; all seems divinely wrought, fairy-tale pure, intolerant of mortal dust.

Threading the floral labyrinth, north and south blur into verdant walls. Yet Dill’s abode is unmistakable.

Amid cauldrons of rejuvenation, one simmers mutton stew; the black-haired foreigner ever distinguishes herself.

A lion-headed, qilin-necked prow bursts from camellias—once proud figurehead, now paint-flaked. Morning-glory vines climb a tattered fish-tail banner, curling green against azure.

The roof, overburdened, denies birds perch; a lone bare branch sports wooden masks—moss-clad, yet elongated brows and ink-black hair echo Dill’s Eastern visage.

“Told you countless times—clear the rubbish! Sneaking to the riverbank again for flotsam!”

Amber steps over a shattered celadon basin pooling stagnant water and withered leaves. Pelyn tuts in wonder: the fabled junk-house revealed.

They halt before the cluttered cottage.

Ocean-borne detritus spills within and without; breezes stir floral tufts, and glass curios clink in conspiratorial chorus amid the floral serenity.

From afar, Dill’s dwelling resembles a ship beached in blooming surf.

Amber and Pelyn skirt hazards seeking ingress. Where a window should be, rusted iron plaques lean askew—arcane Eastern script, labyrinthine, dizzying.

Since learning her origins from Amber, Dill has hoarded like a field-mouse, treasuring every Eastern relic, however broken. With time, the hoard overflowed, mounting into hills.

The black-haired girl gathers fragments, piecing together “the East,” seeking echoes of a distant “home.”

“Where’s the goose?” Compared to neighboring deer and hares, the cottage lies unnaturally still.

Pelyn points to the languid chimney: “Cooking?”

She frowns: “Child, cooking sealed tight—suspicious.”

Through a narrow slit, the tavern-mistress sniffs: “Fragrant… meat broth?”

Air freezes; eyes meet in ominous accord. They stare at the barred door…

The door explodes outward.

Sweet steam billows; the girl stands before the cauldron, ladle raised like a spear, gaping at the intruders.

Before Pelyn can peer within, a scarlet webbed foot smites her nose.

Amber beholds the goose flapping furiously, assaulting Pelyn’s face with nest-building fervor.

“No, Turnip.”

Dill raps the cauldron rim; the goose subsides, waddling back, while the vain witch flees, hair a tempest.

Turnip?

The false alarm sobers Amber; she pats her chest, palpitating.

Noting the woman’s pallor, precocious Dill narrows her eyes.

“You thought I was boiling my familiar, didn’t you?”

“…”