Grimoire in hand, I grasp a bundle of dried leaves and stinging pine needles as I chant: “Become rice to fill her belly. Manifest spice to please her tongue. If only for one day.”
There’s no food to save Mum, so I conjure what I can. Even though items conjured by the grimoire vanish the next day. Even if the illusion will only take her pain away and let her starve in peace.
When the new emperor took over, he executed all witches and demanded all village women smile as we observed them hanging on the gallows. Decreed crying to be the devil’s water and punishable by death.
Mum stitched the corners of my mouth up to my cheeks, and cast a spell of heat over my eyes so tears vaporized as soon as they were produced. Grinning like an idiot, I watched them all swing: first my aunt, then my mentor, and finally, Mum’s secret lover and coven sister: the witch I had recently begun calling Second Mother.
Mum didn't stitch a smile on herself, nor enchant her tear ducts. Elder witches like her had learned to smile as told, because even if the previous emperor didn’t execute us, our place in society always demanded pleasing behavior. Mum had convinced her body to behave without magical interference. To form a certain kind of smile as substitute for tears.
As for me, my eyes grew so warm I thought they’d caught fire.
Grimoire in hand, I hide in the abandoned basement of our coven, preparing another meal of ether for my dying mother. We consider ourselves grateful for one thing: Here in the company of stinking rats and redolent herbs, we can both cry in peace.
When the emperor increased taxes, he proclaimed complaining a sin. He proclaimed himself an optimist, and decreed ‘his people’ share in that optimism, suppressing their suffering to make the world a happier place.
He referred to the city as his garden. Men were his gardeners, and women were the flowers. Aside from how revolting that notion was, it always seemed ironic to me. Our coven leaders wouldn’t even treat their herbs the way the emperor did his people. How can you deprive a plant of water then step on it for daring to wither?
We were saved from execution only because Mum traced her lineage to a concubine. Her birth was a sin the previous emperor obscured, even from his own son. In all official documents, we were a family of a traveling merchant who planted a seed and moved on. Even with this protection, without the coven, we had no money.
When Mum grew too weak, I hid her away in the basement of our house, the one gathering place of our coven the emperor’s men never found. She had grown too weak to judge me for consorting with our enemy.
See, the emperor had taken a liking to me, ignorant of my nature.
“There’s something delicious about you. A rose without thorns, you are. But not quite a rose because you have fruit as well.”
I wasn’t clear on what that even meant, but I knew it nauseated me. He ‘raised’me to the status of a concubine. Didn’t make me feel like less of an object, even if I could eat my fill of leftovers in the royal kitchens. I was eventually recruited, at my request, to be part of the kitchen staff. I had a knack for cooking, after all, and I thought that position would grant me the benefit of bringing something back to my mother. But no matter how high a status I acquired, I wasn’t allowed to take anything away from his palace. Not a single loaf of bread.
Security was so tight, I ended up smuggling small portions in my mouth, kept mush of meat and carrot at the back of my gums. Then kiss-fed it to my mother, like a bird feeding its young.
Grimoire in hand, I bring Mum a mouthful of spittle and mushed chicken in a bowl. Covered in dirt and water.
I chant: “Mud turn to gravy, opulent as his vile halls. Give Mum a taste of the true sinner’s gluttony. And lift her pain once more.”
My voice trembles, and without enchantment to heat my eyes, I weep as I serve my emaciated mother her last meal.
I thought the emperor disgusting since I was old enough to speak his name, but nothing prepared me for what it meant to be his concubine. It was not that he was violent, but he was a man of grotesque kinks. Here’s one: Despite hanging witches alive, despite him being ignorant to what I was, he asked me to pretend I was a witch—during the act.
I tried to avoid it, because no matter how strong a stomach I had, I was not ready for that. I made excuses of “I don’t want to associate myself with devils in your eyes, my emperor.”
To which he had a simple solution: “Do it or die, my flower. And consider all your pretty petals plucked if I hear the slightest rumor of this from anyone.”
Grimoire in hand, I carry a meal to the emperor’s bedchambers, a meal we’ll share together. He always makes me taste it first—does not trust my love for him. On the way I chant:
“That which has become rice, manifest venom out of spice. Carry his vile Grace to oblivion.”
The poison will vanish by tomorrow, taking away all hints it ever existed. But unlike Mum’s starvation, once the conjured venom takes our lives, it will never give them back.
