Chapter 30 Witches’ Sabbath
I was two days before the Witches’ Sabbath was to take place. Reeba reminded her already of that but Izabella needed no reminder. It was too important to forget. Reeba asked if she could bring some plants from the botanical garden to make the so called Hexensalbe, so Izabella was headed there the following evening, after school.
Reeba explained what Hexensalbe was, even though Izabella had already heard about it. The so called flying ointment, Hexensalbe was an essential ingredient to any Witches’ Sabbath. It was a hallucinogenic ointment they used during their meetings, which allowed them to be open to receiving visions from the other world. Izabella wrote down all the ingredients on a small piece of paper, then folded it carefully and placed it into her zipped pocket. There was quite a lot on the list and she needed to get all of them if they wanted the ointment to work.
When she arrived at the Botanical garden, she had no idea how she was going to steal plants from there. She had a big jar in her backpack and a pair of household gloves, as some of the plants were poisonous, so she didn’t want to risk it. She hoped she’d be alone there, so she could go ahead and do her criIzabellal deed undetected, but the moment she walked in, she realized that there was already someone there.
She recognized him by his stooping posture. He was kneeling down, next to a bush, inspecting the blossoming flowers gently, with the tips of his fingers, making sure not to hurt them as he did so. For a second, Izabella thought how lucky a girl would be to have him touch her like that, as if she was a flower that needed to be cherished, watered and admired. Wasn’t that what any girl wanted from a guy?
She tried not to make a sound but he quickly turned around and immediately sprung to his feet, so she couldn’t admire him any longer.
“Oh, hey!” he recognized her straight away, greeting her with a smile.
“Hey Thorne,” she smiled back, approaching him.
She wondered if they should kiss on the cheek, just as an innocent greeting but she remained where she was. She didn’t want to seem pushy.
“What are you looking at?” she asked him.
“It’s crape myrtle,” he informed her, glancing at the flowers again, as if they were so beautiful, he simply couldn’t keep his eyes off of them.
“Sounds like some old lady with dozens of cats,” she laughed.
“Yeah, it does,” he joined in. “What are you doing here?”
She looked around, and saw that, again, there were only the two of them there. She was thinking what would be best: to go back and do this some other time, or make him a possible accomplice and steal the plants together? The other option was far more tempting but he sounded like a goody two shoes who didn’t break the rules very often. That didn’t fit in with her plans. A thought occurred to her: Raphael would probably steal them immediately. Hendrik, too. She didn’t doubt that. But, Thorne…. He seemed too sweet to do anything wrong.
“I’m here…” she started, still weighing it, “because I need some plants.”
“You need plants?” he wondered. “For what?”
“A friend,” she replied mysteriously.
“Why does your friend need plants?”
“She needs to make something.”
“Like a potion or cream?”
“You could say that,” she frowned, feeling a little embarrassed that she had to lie.
She hated lying. It wasn’t something that came natural to her, so she always had to make an extra effort when she was doing it and it was hard keeping up with a lie, not getting entangled in it.
“From the way you’re replying, I’d say you don’t want anyone to know what your friend is doing, right?” he asked ingeniously, even though she expected as much of him.
“Right,” Izabella just nodded.
“Then, I’m guessing it’s a potion.”
Izabella didn’t reply. She just looked at him and the answer was written all over her face. To her surprise, he wasn’t upset.
“Potions are dangerous,” he continued. “Does your friend know what she’s doing?”
“I think so.”
Izabella pulled down her backpack, and extracted the glass jar from it, then the neon yellow gloves.
“By the looks of it, it’s something dangerous?”
“Poisonous, yes.”
“What are you… I mean, what is your friend making?”
“Hexensalbe,” Izabella said, trying to sound as German as she could.
“The flying ointment?” he called it another name but Izabella knew it was the same thing. “She’s a witch?”
“Why else would she need it?” Izabella asked, a little more gruffly than she intended.
She’d been stressed out as the days slowly passed and it started to show only now.
“So, you need the fat of children then,” Thorn said gravely.
“The what??” Izabella shrieked.
That wasn’t on the list. Were the witches going to kill a child during their Sabbath?
She was horrified. If this was true, she’d take no part in it.
“Relax,” Thorne laughed seeing her reaction, “Francis Bacon said something along
those lines, that the flying ointment consisted of the fat of dead children dug out of their fresh graves, then smallage, wolf-bane, cinque foil and wheat.”
“What the hell…” Izabella frowned. “I don’t have any of those things on my list.”
She got the list out of her pocket, and checked it carefully. She was sure there were no kids listed there, nor wheat.
“Can I see that list?” he asked, extending his hand.
She thought about it for a second, then realized she had nothing to lose. He was already here. He might as well help. He already knew enough to make him even more curious.
His eyes skimmed through the list of necessary plants, then looked at her.
“All of them are here,” he told her, matter-of-factly. “And you need just a little bit of every single one, so if we’re really careful, no one will know that you even took anything.”
“Really?” Izabella squealed with delight.