“The Concoction”

Photo prompt by Alexander Ant on Unsplash

Author’s Note: This is a Take Ten to Write story and has not been proofread for errors. If I feel inspired or if there’s interest in the story, I’ll post a revised, edited, and extended version at a later date. Happy reading!

I watch with some interest as the colours all merge together before my eyes, each shade distorting to form a new shape.

“Is it working?” Lila whispers beside me, her eyes wide as she peers down at the cauldron.

“Get down,” I hiss. “You’ll burn yourself if you lean over much more.”

Lila quickly shrinks back down and mutters a quick apology. I take a deep breath.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap,” I tell her slowly.

She nods in acknowledgement and continues peeking over the cauldron’s lip. I let out a frustrated sigh but at least she’s being more careful now.

Lila’s eyes suddenly stretch wide open.

“Look!” she squeaks, pointing as the colours swirl against each other, more quickly now. “Did we do something wrong?”

I grab the book from its stand beside the cauldron, desperately skimming through the pages to double check that we did everything right.

“No, we followed the instructions exactly,” I mutter, on the verge of panicking. Still, I try to keep my voice even and calm so that Lila doesn’t freak out; the less she knows about the dangerous potential of this concoction, the better.

As my fingers slide over the cracked pages, I suddenly notice that the stiffness of the paper is different than the rest of the book. My heart stops.

Two pages are stuck together.

Sure, it might be the oldest and stupidest thing that can go wrong when following recipes. That doesn’t make it any less dangerous.

“Lila,” I say, my voice low, “we need to leave. Now.”

“Why?” she asks, staring at me. “You said we did everything right!”

My book tumbles from my fingers and falls to the ground in what feels like slow motion. My breath is coming out in ragged bursts and my hands are shaking. My brain still hasn’t fully registered that I made such a big mistake.

“Lila, now!” I snap, bringing my eyes slowly up to meet hers.

Even as she stares back at me with those huge, confused eyes, I know that we’re too late.

Beside me, a low rumble sounds from the cauldron…

Final Comments: The plot for this one kind of formed as I went along. I feel much better about today’s story than yesterday’s, even though it’s not one of my favourites.

Overall Rating: 🙁