The Witch's Brew
by (Hidden)
All Hallow’s Eve
The guy dressed as Sexy Mr. Rogers was explaining cryptocurrency to a girl in a catsuit when Ethan decided he’d had enough of Halloween.
Not just the party; though, the party was bad. Warm PBR in a basement that smelled like artificial fog and regret, a playlist that seemed to be nothing but remixed versions of “Monster Mash,” and his former classmates all pretending they weren’t as terrified of their futures as he was. No, Ethan had decided he’d had enough of Halloween itself. The forced whimsy. The manufactured spookiness. The cultural imperative to pretend that dressing up and getting drunk would somehow make you feel alive.
He wasn’t wearing a costume. Hadn’t seen the point. When pressed by the host, some guy from his Philosophy of Religion seminar whose name he’d already forgotten, Ethan had gestured to his thrift store button-down and said he was dressed as “a recent college graduate.” No one had laughed. That should have been his first clue to leave.
“You okay, man?”
Ethan turned to find Chad, someone actually named Chad, unfortunately, leaning against the wall beside him. Chad was dressed as a ghost, which seemed like minimal effort even by Ethan’s standards, just a white sheet with eyeholes. But somehow Chad made it work. He always did.
“Yeah, just...” Ethan waved his beer at the room. “You know.”
“Existential dread?”
“Is there any other kind?”
Chad laughed, the sheet rustling. “Dude, you’ve been out of school for what, three months? Give it time.”
“Four months,” Ethan corrected. “Four months of living in my childhood bedroom. Four months of my mom asking if I’ve applied anywhere ‘interesting’ lately. Four months of pretending that my degree in Philosophy means anything more than I’m really good at thinking about thinking about things.”
“Hey, at least you’re not dressed as Sexy Mr. Rogers explaining blockchain.”
Ethan snorted despite himself. “Fair point.”
But thirty minutes later, after Chad had drifted back into the party’s gravitational pull and Ethan had finished his beer without tasting it, he found himself climbing the basement stairs. No dramatic exit. No goodbyes. Just a quiet extraction, like a splinter working its way out of skin.
The October air hit him like a correction. Cold, clean, honest. The college town’s downtown stretched before him, mostly dark at—he checked his phone—11:47 PM. Most of the shops were closed, their windows full of paper skeletons and construction-paper witches that looked like they’d been made by elementary schoolers. Probably had been. This was that kind of town.
Ethan started walking, no destination in mind. Just movement. Just the illusion of purpose.
His phone buzzed. A text from his mom: Hope you’re having fun! Remember to be safe! Love you!
He typed back: Having a blast. Very safe. Love you too.
Three lies in eight words. That had to be some kind of record.
The street was empty except for the occasional cluster of drunk college kids stumbling between parties, their costumes already falling apart. A witch’s hat trampled in a gutter. A plastic pitchfork leaning against a telephone pole, like someone had just given up on being the devil halfway home.
Ethan understood the impulse.
He walked past the vape shop, closed, thank god, and was about to turn down the alley that would take him back toward his car when he stopped.
There was a shop.
Right there, wedged between the vape shop and what used to be a Blockbuster. It had always been a Blockbuster, as far as Ethan knew, empty for years now with its sun-faded sign and FOR LEASE notice that had itself started to fade.
But here, now, tonight: a shop.
It shouldn’t have been there. Ethan had walked past this exact spot a hundred times, maybe more. He’d cut through this stretch on his way to campus, to the coffee shop, to the bar where everyone went on Thursdays. He knew this street.
The shop hadn’t existed yesterday.
Yet here it was, door ajar, warm light spilling onto the sidewalk. A hanging sign swayed in the breeze, hand-painted, elegant script that read: VESPER’S APOTHECARY.
Ethan’s first thought was that this was some kind of pop-up, Halloween-themed, the kind of temporary thing that would be gone by November. But the storefront looked old. Not vintage-trendy old, but genuinely old, like it had been there for decades. Centuries, maybe. The window display held glass bottles of every size, their contents dark and mysterious. Dried herbs hung from copper hooks. A mortar and pestle that looked like it was carved from a single piece of onyx.
His second thought was that he should keep walking.
His third thought was that he was going inside.
The door tinkled when he pushed it open, an actual bell, silver and sweet-sounding. The interior was deeper than it should have been, stretching back into shadows that the candles couldn’t quite reach. Bioluminescent plants in terrariums cast an eerie blue-green glow. The air smelled like cinnamon and sulfur and something else, something Ethan couldn’t name, but that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
“Hello, Ethan.”
He spun toward the voice.
She stood behind the counter like she’d always been there, like she’d been waiting for him specifically. Dark hair that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Eyes that might have been brown or might have been black. It was difficult to tell in the candlelight. She wore a deep burgundy dress that looked both Victorian and somehow modern, the kind of thing that shouldn’t work but absolutely did.
She was, Ethan realized with the distant part of his brain still capable of forming coherent thoughts, devastatingly beautiful.
“I...” He stopped. Rewound. “How do you know my name?”
Her smile was knowing, amused, predatory. “You’d be surprised what I know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” she agreed. “It isn’t.”
She moved along the counter with a grace that seemed almost liquid, her fingers trailing across jars and bottles. Each one seemed to light up at her touch, just for a moment, like they recognized her.
“You looked lost out there,” she said. “Like a man who doesn’t know what he’s looking for.”
“I wasn’t looking for anything.”
“That’s what I said.” She reached the end of the counter, closer to him now. Close enough that he could smell her perfume—jasmine and wood smoke and something darker, earthier. “But perhaps I can offer you something anyway. For what ails you.”
“What makes you think something’s ailing me?”
She tilted her head, studying him with an intensity that made him want to look away and also made it impossible to look away. “Four months out of college. Philosophy degree. Living at home. No direction. No purpose. No idea what comes next.” She paused. “No idea what you want at all.”
Ethan’s mouth went dry. “Lucky guess.”
“I don’t believe in luck,” she said. Then, before he could process that: “I’m Vesper, by the way. This is my shop.”
“Since when?”
“Since always.” She turned back to her bottles, selecting one without seeming to look. Dark liquid, the color of midnight. “The question is: since when have you been ready to see it?”
“That’s...” Ethan started, then stopped. What was it? Cryptic? Impossible? True? He settled on: “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Sense is overrated.” She held up the bottle, and it caught the candlelight, making the liquid swirl like it was alive. “This, on the other hand, is underrated.”
“What is it?”
“Something to make you feel alive. Really alive. Not the borrowed-life you’ve been living. Not the going-through-motions existence. Alive.”
Ethan should have left. Should have backed toward the door, made some excuse, gotten the hell out of this impossible shop with this impossible woman and her impossible promises.
Instead, he heard himself ask: “What’s it cost?”
Vesper’s smile widened, showing teeth that were very white and possibly too sharp.
“For the first one?” she said. “Just the willingness to drink it.”
She set the bottle on the counter between them. The liquid inside seemed to pulse like a heartbeat.
“Everything else,” she added, her voice dropping to something intimate, something dangerous, “we can discuss after.”
Ethan stared at the bottle. His Philosophy degree had covered plenty of cautionary tales about accepting mysterious gifts from mysterious strangers. Fairy tales, myths, that whole thing with Persephone and the pomegranate seeds. But those were metaphors, weren’t they? Lessons about innocence and corruption and the price of knowledge.
This was just a bottle. Probably essential oils or some overpriced CBD tincture. This was only a woman with good marketing and excellent bone structure.
This was just Halloween.
“What’s in it?” he asked, going for casual, landing somewhere around transparently nervous.
“Blackberries,” Vesper said, counting on her fingers. “Smoke. Starlight. The memory of what it felt like to want something.” She looked up at him through dark lashes. “Does the recipe matter?”
“Seems like it should.”
“But it doesn’t. Not really.” She pushed the bottle closer. “What matters is what it does. And what it does is make you feel like yourself. Your real self. Not the diminished version that’s been sleepwalking through the last four months.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know everyone who walks through that door, Ethan. I know what they need before they do.” She leaned forward, elbows on the counter, chin resting on interlaced fingers. “You need to remember what it feels like to be alive. To want things. To choose things, instead of just letting life happen to you.”
“And this does that? Some kind of ... confidence potion?”
“If you need a label.” She straightened, reaching for a small crystal glass that looked like it cost more than his car. “But I prefer to think of it as a reminder. Of who you could be. Who you already are, underneath all that resignation.”
She uncorked the bottle with her teeth, a gesture so casually provocative that Ethan forgot to breathe for a second, and poured a measure of the dark liquid. It moved like wine but caught the light like oil, refracting colors that shouldn’t exist.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Vesper said, sliding the glass toward him. “You’re going to drink this. You’re going to feel like you’ve just woken up from a very long, very boring dream. And then you will decide whether you want to stay awake.”
Ethan’s hand moved toward the glass before his brain could authorize it. His fingers wrapped around the cool crystal.
“And if I don’t want to stay awake?”
“Then you leave. Go home. Forget this place exists.” She smiled that dangerous smile again. “Though I don’t think you will. Forget, I mean. Or leave.”
He should have asked more questions. Should have asked any questions. Instead, he lifted the glass to his lips.
The liquid tasted exactly as she’d described: blackberries and smoke, sweet and sharp and wild. It burned going down, but not unpleasantly, more like the burn of whiskey or the first breath of cold air on a winter morning. Something that woke you up, reminded you that you had nerve endings, that you were capable of sensation.
And then...
Oh.
Oh.
It hit him all at once, a rush of clarity so profound it was almost physical. The world sharpened. Colors deepened. Every sound became distinct; the hiss of candle flames, the rustle of dried herbs, the rhythm of his heartbeat suddenly thunderous in his ears. He could smell everything: cinnamon and sulfur and jasmine, and underneath it all something ancient and green and growing.
He felt good. Better than good. He felt like himself, but more so. Like someone had turned up the saturation on his existence.
“There it is,” Vesper murmured, and her voice seemed to slide down his spine like silk. “That’s the look I was waiting for.”
Ethan set down the glass with careful precision, suddenly aware of how his hands moved, how the air felt against his skin. “What the hell was that?”
“I told you. A reminder.”
“Of what?”
She moved around the counter with that liquid grace, and suddenly, she was beside him, close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating from her body. Close enough that he had to tilt his head up slightly to meet her eyes.
“Of what it feels like,” she said softly, “to be in a moment instead of observing it.”
She reached out and took his hand, turning it palm-up. Her fingers were cool against his skin, and the contact sent sparks racing up his arm. She traced the lines of his palm with one fingernail, barely touching, and somehow that almost-touch was more intense than any grip.
“Long lifeline,” she observed. “Though that’s negotiable, of course. Strong heart line, despite recent evidence to the contrary.” Her finger paused at a particular crease. “And this ... this is interesting.”
“What?” His voice came out rougher than intended.
“Your fate line is branching. Right here. Right now, actually.” She looked up at him, and this close he could see that her eyes were definitely black, no distinction between iris and pupil. “Multiple futures, Ethan. Multiple versions of who you could become. Isn’t that exciting?”
“I don’t believe in palm reading.”
“You didn’t believe in mysterious apothecaries either, yet here we are.” She released his hand, but only to step closer, reaching up to brush something—dust? nothing?—from his shoulder. “The question is: which future do you want?”
Her hand lingered at his collar. He could smell her perfume, stronger now, intoxicating. Could see the pulse at her throat. Could feel the heat of her breath.
“I don’t...” he started, but she pressed one finger to his lips.
“Shhh. Don’t think. You’re always thinking. That’s your problem.” She let her finger trail down, across his chin, down his throat, stopping at his collar. “Feel instead. Tell me what you feel right now.”
Terrified, he thought. Aroused. Confused. Alive.
“Awake,” he said.
Her smile was radiant and terrible. “Good boy.”
She stepped back, and the loss of her proximity was almost painful. He swayed slightly, steadied himself on the counter.
“So,” she said, all business now, moving back to her bottles. “Now that you’re awake, we should discuss what you want to see.”
“See?”
“Mmm.” She selected another bottle, this one filled with something that looked like liquid silver. “The first potion wakes you up. The second opens your eyes. Lets you see things as they really are, not as you’ve convinced yourself they are.”
Warning bells started going off in Ethan’s head, distant but persistent. “What kind of things?”
“Everything.” She held the bottle up, and in its surface he could see his reflection, distorted and strange. “The world behind the world. The truth underneath the pleasant lies we tell ourselves.” She lowered the bottle, meeting his eyes. “Me.”
“I can see you.”
“Can you?” Her smile turned almost sad. “Most people never look closely enough to see. They’re content with surfaces. With pretty illusions.” She set the bottle between them. “But you, Ethan ... you’ve spent four years studying philosophy. Learning to question. To dig beneath the surface of things. Don’t you want to know what’s really there?”
He should say no. Should take his newly awakened clarity and walk out the door. Should thank her for whatever the hell was in that first potion and get back to his safe, boring, comprehensible life.
Instead, he heard himself say, “What’s the cost?”
“For this one?” She considered. “A secret. Something you’ve never told anyone. A truth you’ve been keeping locked away.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s everything, darling. We are what we hide.”
Ethan thought about it. Thought about all the small shameful things he’d never admitted. The fears he’d never voiced. The desires he’d never acknowledged.
“Deal,” he said.
Vesper’s eyes lit up, and for just a moment, they seemed to glow. “Tell me, then.”
He took a breath. The words came easier than they should have, whether from the first potion or just from the strange confessional intimacy of this impossible shop.
“I’m afraid,” he said, “that I’m never going to figure out what I’m supposed to do with my life. That I’m going to wake up one day at forty, or fifty, or sixty, and realize I’ve just been ... drifting. Never choosing. Never committing. Never being brave enough to actually want something and go after it.” He laughed, bitter. “I’m afraid I’ll waste the whole thing.”
Vesper was quiet for a moment, watching him with something that might have been sympathy or might have been hunger.
“Thank you,” she said finally. “That’s a good fear. An honest one.” She poured the silver liquid into another glass. “Most people tell me they’re afraid of spiders, or public speaking, or dying alone. Surface fears. You gave me something real.”
She held out the glass. “Your turn to see something real.”
Ethan took it. The liquid was cold, almost freezing, and it seemed to move in his hand like it was breathing.
“After this,” Vesper said, “you can’t unknow what you know. Can’t unsee what you see. Last chance to walk away.”
He lifted the glass in a mock toast. “To terrible decisions.”
“To honest ones,” she corrected.
The liquid tasted like starlight and ozone and the moment before lightning strikes. It was cold all the way down, spreading frost through his chest, his limbs, behind his eyes.
And then...
The world cracked open.
Not metaphorically. Actually. He saw the seams in reality, saw how thin everything was, saw the vast darkness pressing against the edges of the world. The candles weren’t candles anymore; they were trapped flames, burning in frozen time. The plants weren’t plants; they were reaching, hungry things with too many leaves and roots that writhed.
The shop stretched back forever, impossibly deep, and hanging from the ceiling were hooks. Iron hooks, old and stained with rust that might not be rust.
The walls were covered in symbols, carved deep into wood that looked like bone. They pulsed with a light that hurt to look at, forming patterns that his brain tried to interpret and couldn’t, tried to understand and failed.
And Vesper.
Oh god, Vesper.
She was still beautiful. But her shadow had too many limbs, reaching and writhing behind her like tentacles. Her reflection in the bottles showed different faces, different ages: young, ancient, young again, cycling through centuries in seconds. When she smiled at him, he saw that her teeth were very white and very sharp, and there were too many of them.
“There you are,” she said, and her voice was layered now, multiple tones speaking in harmony. “Do you see me now, Ethan? Do you see what I really am?”
He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Terror locked his joints, froze his tongue.
She stepped closer, and her shadow stretched toward him like it wanted to touch. “Most people run at this point. Scream. Break. But you...” She tilted her head, studying him with those bottomless black eyes. “You’re still here. Still looking.”
“What...” His voice was barely a whisper. “What are you?”
“Old,” she said simply. “Hungry. Patient.” Her hand reached out, a normal hand, human hand, but the shadow of it was all wrong, and touched his face with surprising gentleness. “Interested.”
He flinched but didn’t pull away. Couldn’t pull away.
“You’re afraid,” she observed. “I can taste it. Sweet and sharp, like good wine.” Her thumb brushed his cheekbone. “But you’re not running. Why is that?”
Because his legs wouldn’t work. Because the potion had frozen him in place. Because he was an idiot who’d drunk not one but two mysterious substances from a creature that definitely wasn’t human.
But that wasn’t the truth, and this was apparently a night for truths.
“Because,” he said, voice shaking, “I’ve never felt more alive than I do right now.”
Vesper’s smile widened, showing all those terrible teeth.
“Oh, Ethan,” she murmured, leaning close, her lips nearly brushing his ear. “We are going to have such fun together.”
The effects of the second potion began to fade, or maybe Ethan was just adjusting to the horror, the way your eyes adjust to darkness. The hooks in the ceiling were still there, but they seemed more like décor now. Unsettling décor, sure, but part of the aesthetic. The symbols carved into the walls still pulsed, but the rhythm was almost soothing. A heartbeat. The shop’s heartbeat.
Vesper’s shadow still had too many limbs, but she was right. He hadn’t run. Hadn’t screamed. He was still standing here, his heart racing for reasons that had less to do with fear and more to do with the way she was looking at him.
“You’re adapting well,” she said, circling him slowly, appraisingly. “Most people can’t hold the sight for more than a few seconds before their minds ... rebel. But you’re different.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Depends on what you want.” She completed her circle, stopping in front of him. Close. Too close. Not close enough. “What do you want, Ethan?”
It was a simple question. Should have been simple, anyway. But Ethan had spent four years learning to deconstruct questions, to find the assumptions buried in them, the implications. What did he want? From this night? From this creature pretending to be a woman? From his life?
The honest answer terrified him more than her shadow.
“I don’t know,” he said.
For the rest of this contest entry you need a
Registration + Paid Premier Membership
If you have an account, then please Log In
with a Free Account (Why register?)