Evergreen

Dahlia didn’t typically brew from this kind of recipe, but she had no other choice. None of the fabrics she had found so far were right.

And the dress had to be perfect.

It was with the fluid hand of a practiced witch that she first added the nettle leaves. These were important: they were the beginning. She had, after all, been gathering nettles when she first saw Cyrene: tall, bow slung over one shoulder and her bounty in hand, a shard of broken sunlight lying across the straight line of her sharp jaw. Dahlia had been slightly curt in asking her to leave the bird population alone (she was the witch of the forest, after all), but intrigued enough by the beautiful huntress to ask her in for tea. Cyrene—with, perhaps, less caution than you should show a mildly offended witch—had accepted.

A ginger stem, next, for the tea that Dahlia had brewed, and two baking apples, for the cake she had served with it. Cyrene had been sincerely appreciative of the skill involved—she clearly held as much admiration for Dahlia’s world, composed mostly of the cauldron, the kitchen and the loom, as she did her own realm of string and sinew. She had a hunter’s focus—in some moments, everything stood balanced on the point of her arrow—but she could also see outside of it.

It was refreshing. Despite herself, Dahlia had invited her to visit again.

Now a drop of moonlit dew, for nights spent in conversation, and a winding gold thread, for the quality of it. A preserved water-lily, since their first kiss was by a pond: in her surprise, Cyrene had half-stumbled into it, and they’d fallen. Dahlia could have spelled her dress dry once she got out, but she hadn’t.

Crushed coal, for heated words by an evening fire. Dahlia might have watched her leave without calling her back, but she couldn’t.

The final ingredient was the ground bark of a tree, evergreen. Not just any tree, of course—Cyrene had proposed beneath this one. A promise, that they would be ever-lasting.

They would be ever-lasting.

Dahlia murmured that intention alongside her enchantments as the contents of the cauldron simmered into paste. By dawn, it was what she had wanted. Tomorrow, she would use this to dye the cloth, already woven, and then she would begin the garment’s construction. Cyrene had yet to decide on what she wanted to wear—Dahlia personally thought she would look dashing in a well-tailored jacket—but there should be plenty left over even after Dahlia had finished her gown. The dress would be regal: rich with the colours of the forest, entwined with coils of gold like bursts of sunlight and studded with dew like diamonds. Representative of the domain they had come to share, of their first ever meeting.

Dahlia paused.

It occurred to her that she had something even better for that: a feather, plucked from the bird Cyrene had shot that day. Dahlia had preserved it out of indignation, then ended up keeping it out of sentiment.

She weighed it in her hands, considering. It was slightly crooked; the animal had slumped to the ground, bent beneath the crush of Cyrene’s strong fingers. She had never used a pigeon’s feather in a brew like this before, which - especially combined with the complexities of that first memory - might prove ill-advised. Would it affect the colour palette?

Are you still allowed to call yourself ‘the witch of the forest’ after this? came Cyrene’s voice in her head. Dahlia had been huffily putting together an impromptu pigeon pie.

She'd turned, a curt response about hunters and their ill-gotten wares on her tongue, stopped by the brightness in Cyrene’s glittering eyes. Apologetic, yes, but not sorrowful; amused, even. From the beginning, Cyrene had been fascinated by Dahlia’s strange, enclosed world, so perfect that a dead bird could disrupt an afternoon.

Of course, she ended up disrupting much more than that, and Dahlia had been more than a little fascinated back.

She let the feather drop into the cauldron.

© 2023 Megan Baffoe

About the Author

Megan Baffoe is a freelance writer currently studying English Language and Literature at Oxford University. She likes fairytales, fraught family dynamics, and unreliable narration; she does not like Twitter, but can be found @meginageorge. Her published work is all available at https://meganspublished.tumblr.com.