8
Evie held the bowl of tea to her nose and sniffed. She winced. The tribe’s shaman would have added herbs to the brew to make it more palatable, but Evie didn’t know the recipe, and anyway couldn’t have found the ingredients, so she had to make do with a couple sprigs of rosemary ground to a paste. They didn’t improve the smell much. She hadn’t prepared the sacred mushrooms properly, either. Tradition demanded they be dried for ten days, but she hoped that the single day she had left them in the sun would be enough to please the spirits. Still, she had to try. The spirits had given her this opportunity to hear their wishes, and she wouldn’t let it go to waste.
Hunching her shoulders to stave off nausea, she sipped. An earthy flavor flooded her mouth, tinged with smoke from coals she had
