TONIGHT

TONIGHT

TONIGHT

I saw the cat's white tail disappear and felt a flood of the worst feelings I’d encountered yet.

I was all by myself, and no one could help me.

I moaned in pain, as my rigid hands and face spasmed, and I felt the muscles squirming under my skin. I doubled over, then slouched all the way down to the hard, wooden floor. I found myself in the fetal position, trying to take deep, calming breaths, to ease the pain in my face and hands.

After what felt like ages, it receded and my hands and face were my own again.

Right. I needed to work quickly. I had no idea when the next spasm would come, and render me immobile, squirming on the floor with pain.

I brought up the Grimoire, and found the potion I knew all along I would have to brew. I pulled up the page, and started reading through it.

The first paragraphs seemed to be a disclaimer and a warning from the author of the Grimoire.

Silly Gillygad (Difficuty: Unknown)

I have on good authority that this potion is meant to help one win a game. This recipe was transcribed, letter by letter, from Volfgang the Cracked, the only Sorcerer I know who is in good standing with the Patron of Pitchfork. Volfgang’s claim is that he transcribed it letter by letter from the Scarecrow himself. He tells me Gillygad’s help is guaranteed, but only if one doesn't care about the outcome of the game for which it is brewed. (All advice I’ve received from Volfgang carries this air of paradoxicality). Volfgang also advises anyone brewing this potion to ‘Just Go With It.’

WARNING: Consume this potion at your own risk! Prior to preparation, consider having on hand Unguentum Martiatum, which is a wonderful brew that clears the head of all delirious effects ( a well known side-effect of Gillygad’s presence).

I read carefully through the introductory paragraphs. How could I not care about the outcome of the game? If I didn’t care, why would I brew this stupid potion? It didn’t make any sense.

I read through the introduction a few more times, trying to understand.

The warning advised that I have a cleansing potion on hand, but I certainly wasn’t going to have enough time to brew two potions. That was out of the question. It was another risk, of many, that I was taking to get myself out of my predicament.

The first paragraph still bothered me, but I read on, hoping that I would understand more as I continued.

Next was the ingredients section. The ingredients weren’t given in a straightforward way. I had to solve for them.

Ingredients:

1.

Funny little yellow-heads,

They grow white in summer.

Blow on them till they're dead,

When they change their color!

2.

Spot, spot, count my spots,

Count them and be lucky.

But for every counted dot,

This mushroom is twice as yucky!

Off the top of my head, I didn’t know what any of it meant, but I gathered it was talking about only two ingredients. Good. My little store of herbs was severely limited, and it wasn’t like I could pop over to the shop and buy more.

I read through the riddle for the first ingredient. Unlike the riddle-poem for Balm, I couldn’t just guess it by trying out what rhymes with ‘calm.’ I had to figure out what the plant was, and then hope that I was right!

‘Funny little yellow-heads,’ I thought that might be talking about a flower. More specifically, a yellow flower. But there were dozens of those! Maybe hundreds!

‘They grow white in summer.’ A flower, then, that changes from yellow to white. That does narrow it down, or at least it would, for someone who was familiar with loads of flowers. I guessed I knew only about twenty by name. If that.

‘Blow on them till they're dead, When they change their color!’ I was stumped on this line. Could blowing onto a flower kill it? And if so, what kind of flower could that be?

I thought and thought, and couldn’t come up with anything.

“Blow on them, till they’re dead…” I said out loud, and held up an imaginary flower to my lips, and blew.

The motion jogged my memory, and immediately I knew the answer!

“Dandelions!” I shouted at the empty house.

I could have kissed Cheerful right on the tip of his beak when I realized that the first ingredient was in a paper bag in my cupboard. Useless weeds, indeed! I ran over and got the bag out, and set out on the table.

One ingredient down, one to go.

Spot, spot, count my spots,

Count them and be lucky.

But for every counted dot,

This mushroom is twice as yucky!

I figured out the second ingredient much faster. I knew from the last line that the ingredient was a mushroom. The rest of the riddle told me that the mushroom had spots, and that it was ‘yucky.’

Well, I knew of a mushroom that had spots, and was poisonous.

I pulled up my Almanac entry for Fly Agaric.

[https://i.imgur.com/fDq81mS.jpg]

Fly Agaric

Amanita Muscaria

Planet: Moon

Sign: Pitchfork

A very dangerous, toxic mushroom. There are legends that counting the spots brings good luck. Many children prize the red mushrooms for their interesting appearance. Don’t let the little ones eat them! Used in delirium inducing potions.

There it was in the Almanac entry! Counting the spots was considered lucky. I was definitely on the right track. The riddle said the exact same thing.

I checked the Almanac for both Dandelions and Agarics. Both were under the sign of Pitchfork. That couldn’t be a coincidence! I was pretty sure I had figured out both the ingredients.

I went on to the method of preparation.

Method of Preparation

Step One:

Take two heads, and put them to the left.

Take three caps and put them to the right.

Make a cuppa, drink and dance, until the last of daylight.

Step Two:

Leave the dregs, and put two heads,

Inside the empty teacup.

Take the Caps, and put them there,

It’s not yet time for clean-up!

Step Three:

Fill with Juice, (not any Juice)!

The one that’s clear and tasteless.

Then sing this song, that pleases me,

And makes your head all weightless!

Patches, patches, silly face!

Hoppity, hop, then freeze in place!

Coming down the mountain face!

Now act glad! Now act sad!

Hop in place like Gillygad!

Step Four:

Now leave my cup, and I will come,

And drink your strong concoction.

The next time that the sun is up

My help will be an option.

It was quite long! I felt nervous, as I had botched up the preparation for the last two potions. I could tell myself that it wasn’t my fault, that I didn’t have the proper equipment, but it didn’t make a difference. My last two potions were Awful. And I needed to make sure I got this one right!

I read the first step through again.

Take two heads, and put them to the left.

I took two dandelions (called yellow-heads in the ingredients section), and set them aside, to the left of the table.

Take three caps and put them to the right.

I took three Agarics, and put them to the right of the table. So far so good.

Make a cuppa, drink and dance, until the last of daylight.

Aaaaand, I was lost again. Make a cup of what?

Then I had to dance around? Why would I do that to brew a potion? How could it possibly help?

I frowned and went to the second step, hoping it might clear things up.

Step Two:

Leave the dregs, and put two heads,

Inside the empty teacup.

Take the Caps, and put them there,

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It’s not yet time for clean-up!

Looking at step one and step two side by side, I think I was starting to piece it together.

I had to make a cup of something, and I had a suspicion it was tea, since in step two it mentioned an empty teacup.

I would make a cup of tea, not using my ingredients, then drink it, and dance around, until the last of daylight. Sunset.

My eyebrows scrunched in confusion. I was sure that I had figured it out, but it just didn’t make sense. It seemed so random.

I put my hands on the table and looked at the ceiling, trying to think through it. I wished Aleister was there to help me.

“I can’t imagine why I’m doing this,” I said to the open Grimoire, “but you’re the boss.”

I grabbed my cast iron kettle, and went to work making a cup of tea.

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I sat there with my teacup warming my hands on a steaming cup of tea, the Dandelions and Agarics yet untouched.

While I was preparing the tea, I experienced some pleasant flights of fancy. I imagined myself a powerful and wizened Sorcerer, billowing robes, pointed hat and a staff (my fire poker)! And then I was a noble knight, on a journey of many moons, sitting in front of a campfire (my fireplace) in the wilderness.

As I sipped my tea, I shook my head. It really wasn’t time to be indulging in day dreams. I had a potion to brew and a monster of darkness to defeat!

“Pay attention!” I softly scolded myself.

Make a cuppa, drink and dance, until the last of daylight.

I made myself the tea, so now I had to drink the tea, and dance around until sunset. I heaved a sigh. With everything that was going on, I really wasn’t in the dancing mood. I dragged myself out of my chair, and to a stretch of clutter-free wooden flooring. I stood there feeling so stupid.

“Any preference on the kind of dancing? An waltz? A tango? Maybe an Irish jig?” I said out loud. It wouldn’t matter either way, since I didn’t know any kind of dance. I would just have to make it up.

I started doing an awkward step around in a circle. For the extra measure I started waving my arms about. I’m sure that if anyone were watching me, it would be highly embarrassing.

I looked at the slanted sunlight falling through the kitchen window. On the bright side, I didn't have long until sunset.

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I could tell by the reddish tinge of the light that sunset had finally come.

Something peculiar happened to me as I ‘danced.’ At first, it was clunky, and I hated doing it, but the more I twirled in a circle, the more I started to enjoy myself. I added spins, and curtseys, and once or twice, I pretended that I had a partner who I passionately grabbed and dipped low.

My imaginary partner started to take on a shape in my mind. It was a handsome prince, his epaulets shining like gold under a chandelier of a thousand candles. Then, it was a beautiful girl, who I was seducing in a smokey cabaret. Then, a golden haired man, with whom I was having a dancing contest, under the stringy and brisk melody of a fiddle. We both took turns hopping on a wooden platform, the smell of ale strong in the air, and the sound of imaginary laughter ringing in my ears.

My last imaginary partner had something to say while we danced.

Just like that!

All is naught but Dreaming! And Dreaming is all there is!

Once I noticed the sunset, the spell wore off, and I was back to reality.

I remembered that I was in the middle of being possessed by a dreadful and malevolent spirit, and that my last chance was to brew a potion. I had to get this potion right!

I felt like I had fulfilled Step One to the best of my ability. It was time to move onto Step Two.

Step Two:

Leave the dregs, and put two heads,

Inside the empty teacup.

Take the Caps, and put them there,

It’s not yet time for clean-up!

This one was easy. I was to put the Dandelions and the Agarics into the teacup, which still had a drop or two of tea left, long gone cold.

Rather, I meant to do just that. As I picked up the Dandelions heads, I got a strong mental picture of a wealthy merchant, putting two yellow diamonds into his wooden chest. Before I knew what I was doing, I held up one of the Dandelion heads to the light, pretending it was a precious gem, and examining it for its clarity and cut. I squinted at the flower and stuck my tongue out of the corner of my mouth.

“Yes, it is a wonderfully crafted jewel…” I muttered, and put the Dandelion in the teacup.

I stared at what I’d done.

I didn’t have time for these make-believe games! I wasn’t sure why it was so hard to keep focus.

I took two Agaric caps, and as I was about to stuff them into the tea cup, I suddenly wanted to pretend that I was an elderly woman, cleaning up after her grand-daughter. I almost let the words come out, (“Put these toys away darling!”), but stopped myself. Perhaps the toil of the last couple of days had pulled a few screws loose? I wasn’t sure why it was so difficult to stop these intrusive day dreams. As I straightened my face, and banished the thoughts of make-believe, I heard my last dance partner’s words again.

All is naught but Dreaming!

As I was looking into the cup, I caught sight of something black glittering over the mushrooms and flowers. It must have been a trick of the light, because when I examined the teacup, there was nothing save which I had placed in there, but for a second, I thought that there was a swarm of flies covering the ingredients.

I blinked my eyes to dispel it.

I needed to keep moving.

I reread the next step.

Step Three:

Fill with juice, (not any juice)!

The one that’s clear and tasteless.

Then sing this song, that pleases me,

And makes your head all weightless!

Patches, patches, silly face!

Hoppity, hop, then freeze in place!

Coming down the mountain face!

Now act glad! Now act sad!

Hop in place like Gillygad!

I had to fill my teacup with juice. I did not have any juice. I didn’t even have cherries or apples, which I could maybe pummel until they gave liquid.

“The one that’s clear and tasteless…” I recited the next line. I got a brief flash of a caravan, traveling a wide, arid desert, the red sand dunes stretching into the fire of a setting sun. The caravan finally stopped at an oasis with fresh water. I dipped my hand below me, as thought I was part of this caravan and had been horribly thirsty, and took a drink from my empty hand. I swore I could feel the coolness of the water in my throat, even as I knew that I had drunk nothing but air.

Oh, of course!

The juice that’s clear and tasteless is water!

I hugged my teacup to my chest, and ran to fill it under the sink. A little water splashed out, as I overfilled it, but thankfully, all the ingredients stayed in.

As I carried the teacup back to the table, I raised it above my head. I was a doting parish priest, and I was delivering the sacramental wine to my flock. I placed the teacup gently on the table.

I was pretty sure that I had gotten it right so far. I went back to the instructions, to parse out the next lines.

‘Then sing this song, that pleases me, And makes your head all weightless!’ First I had to dance, now I needed to sing a song. I still wasn’t sure how any of it could make a difference to the potion, but I was also starting to question the Method less and less; come what, come may!

I read over the words to the song, and started belting it out, rather tunelessly.

“Patches, patches, silly face,” the lights dimmed, and I felt a shiver run up my spine, but I kept singing, “Hoppity, hop, then freeze in place,” the walls started crawling with bugs. Glittering by the weak firelight, bugs and rats, and maggots everywhere in the kitchen.

I stopped singing. The light grew stronger, and blinking and turning around, I could see no creepy crawlers anywhere.

Not like that. I felt the words go right through me.

I had done something wrong. I reread the instructions.

The song should make my head ‘all weightless.’ I had skipped over this line, not thinking much of it. But how could a song do that?

I sat there pondering the song, muttering the words under my breath. “Now act glad, now act sad…”

It almost sounded like an instruction. I read over the song again.

Every line in the song was a direction. Make a silly face, then hoppity hop and freeze in place, and so on. Maybe, my head would feel weightless if I play-acted the instructions? If I hoppity hop’d a bunch, and got a headrush, for example.

It was worth a try.

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I stared down into my teacup and felt disappointed in my work. The actual ‘brewing’ of the liquid seemed way too easy. There was no alembic, no mixing, distilling, nothing like that. Maybe I had misinterpreted the riddle?

It wasn’t even really a potion. It was more like something a child might make while playing make believe; flowers and mushroom caps, stuffed into a teacup.

I looked dubiously into the cup.

This was not going to save me, there was just no way.

I shrugged and thought that at least it couldn’t hurt. I put the cup on the window sill.

That was as the last step directed.

Now leave my cup, and I will come,

And drink your strong concoction.

The next time that the sun is up

My help will be an option.

Apparently, the potion would do its magic on the next day. I dearly hoped that I had that long.

“If you do come, I could really use your help.” I said.

The delirium of the day was fading. All the thoughts that seemed so clear and true minutes ago, were now incomprehensible to me. I had hosted such strange ideas, such bizarre notions, but they were now fading like night fog on a clear morning, and leaving me feeling drained and very confused.

It all started when I sang the song, and play-acted the lyrics. Something very odd started happening to me.

At first, it was the same sort of day dreams which had plagued me all day.

I had started humming the song under my breath.

“Patches, patches, silly face…”

I contorted my face, like I was trying to make a scary grimace. The strength of my imagination overwhelmed me, and I was suddenly an ogre stomping around my green and slimy swamp, and haranguing hapless adventurers that came by me by accident.

I lifted one of the wooden chairs, thrust it into the air by its leg, and bellowed: “Get out of my swamp!” Pitching my tone low to sound like a mythical monster.

As the imaginary vision dissipated I slumped down, and carefully placed the chair back. Something was definitely going on with me.

I was no longer sure that it was being caused purely by my own brain either. I had a suspicion that these daydreams were from an outside source.

I went to the second line of the song.

“Hoppity hop, then freeze in place…” I hummed and started hopping and freezing. I couldn’t stop the vision of an emerald, enchanted forest, mushrooms glittering on my path, and I was a frog, hopping mushroom cap to mushroom cap, their iridescent caps beautiful and vibrant as gemstones, and, and…

I tried to stop myself, but every time I did, the daydreams shifted to nightmares of insects, rot, and decay. The delirium I was in felt like a tightrope walk. As long as I kept myself in the clouds it was gorgeous and airy and weightless and beautiful…

But one misstep and I might fall into a nightmare! I decided I liked the fantastical reveries of magical forests better.

I had to sing the whole song, and I decided to make it quicker, I would stop resisting the imaginary visions and just go with it. That’s when things really took off.

I was floating on an airship, through cotton candy clouds, on a swashbuckling adventure, and then I was a mermaid decorating my hair with dainty seashells and coral bits, and then, and then…

The daydreams were so potent, they were carrying me room to room in the old dusty house, but I could barely perceive the reality through my haze of fantasy.

“Coming down the mountain face…” I sang, as I ran through the hall, but I couldn’t see the hall. I was a wild bison, running with my herd down the side of a grassy hill, the stampede of my bison family making the earth shake and quiver. My dance partner was there, the golden haired man. He became a presence in my daydreams, and as I felt myself completely let go of reality, he smiled warmly.

It’s all dreams, it’s all dreams… He said, nodding his head.

“Now act glad…” Absolute, complete hilarity overtook me. I must have spent nearly half an hour rolling on the floor of one of the rooms (I could no longer track where I was), clutching my belly as I laughed and laughed.

Don’t you see?

And I think I was starting to see! I think I was starting to understand! There was a beautiful something forming in my brain, just the tail end of an idea. If only I could grasp it fully I knew I would never be afraid again.

“Now act sad…” I hummed, and the laughter turned to tears, and I cried and cried, but they were good cleansing tears, and I felt better and better with every drop. I was Alice, crying huge tears, and making a salty ocean, through which I would then swim as a mighty Kraken, and then engulf a ship with my tentacles, and then I was the captain of that ship, fighting a mighty leviathan with cannons and swords….

Is this dream real? My dance partner asked.

It was a good question. I didn’t know. The fantasies felt so real. The wooden ship in my tentacles felt realer than the wooden floor on which I had been rolling and writhing.

“Hop in place like Gillygad!” I finished the song, and immediately jumped to my feet, and began prancing all through the house.

Yes, this dream was real. I knew it as intimately as I knew anything. I was dancing once again, the golden haired man beside me, and we were twirling through yellow wheat fields, the noon time sun shining down on my head, and a warm breeze blew my hair about, and…

This dream was real! As real as any! As real as waking up, and talking to a cat. As real as casting spells, and going to work and drinking tea. As real as completing a Grimoire or reading a book about a struggling Sorcerer, and…

There were children playing next to a stone cottage, and we joined them for a round of tag. I ran breathless after a girl with long, blonde hair, barely catching up to her, and then knocked myself into a shelf in the front room. We played hide and seek, and I picked a very clever spot behind an old oak tree, which I might have called a counter, but I knew, I knew now, that it wasn’t so…

Because the daydreams were as real as anything else, but what did that mean? I knew I was deep in the belly of a truth, I was almost there, I almost understood something. Something very, very important.

Does it matter if you win your game? My dance partner asked, and I laughed, as we laid under a canopy of shooting stars, because how could anything matter, when everything was just a dream?

Yes! That was it! That was the answer!

It was all in my head and all not in my head, folded in on itself, empty within, hollow without! I could ring it like a golden bell!

The children were singing songs as they ran about my kitchen, and threw a red rubber ball back and forth. It was nighttime, and I knew that they would have to go to sleep soon and so would I.

They sang Gillygad’s song as they ran breathless, and I joined in.

I had another song I wanted to add. It must have been hardwired into my brain from childhood. The words sprang up clear as rain in my mind.

“Row, row row your boat, gently down the stream...”

Yes, yes, you’ve got it!

“Merrily, merrily merrily…”

All is naught but Dreaming!

“Life is but a dream!”

And Dreaming is all there is!

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TONIGHT

TONIGHT

TONIGHT

hoppity-hop

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