Frozen Dinner
There are some things in life that are simple, such as riding a bike or acting as live bait for ravenous demons. Such actions are instinctive and don’t require a lot of thinking. Instead, you can just zone out and let your body do its thing whilst praying you won’t die a gruesome, painful death. Sleeping at the Owl House is not one of those things.
It was half past midnight, and I was lying prone on my bed. I stared sleepily up at the dark ceiling, unable to achieve blissful unconsciousness. The reason for this was not King, who was snuggled up against me, nor was it Tenebris, who was perched on the headboard above me, sound asleep and softly snoring. It wasn’t even because of the creatures in the forest, though their occasional cries pierced the night. No, there was something else.
Drifting through the floor from downstairs came an awful, persistent scratching sound. It was as if someone was scraping a fork in circles around the rim of the metal kitchen sink. And I would know, as King had once done exactly that when he was bored. After only five minutes of it, I had been sorely tempted to chop my ears off. Luckily, Eda had intercepted the demon (and forced him to clean Hooty as punishment) before I had to resort to such drastic measures. But this hollow, grating squeal was ten times worse than even that.
After another minute of torture, I couldn’t take it anymore. I slid out of bed, taking care to not disturb the other slumbering occupants. Using the light of the nearly full moon to guide me, I made my way out the door, trudging grumpily down the hall. The noise grew louder as I lumbered down the stairs, and I covered my ears with a scowl, trying to block out the irritating sound. Alas, it did not work. I rounded the corner, bursting into the main room in a fury, ready to destroy whatever was producing that awful, awful ruckus. But when I looked around, my anger faded into confusion, and I slowed to a stop, trying to comprehend the unusual scene in front of me.
The room was an utter mess. Scattered around the large, open space were heaping piles of jars, each an opaque grey wrapped with a white label describing the contents in a nearly illegible scrawl of a handwriting. At the center of the disaster was a massive black cauldron, the indigo liquid within dangerously close to boiling over its edges. A shiny metal pole swirled around the lip of the cauldron, sloshing its contents ever closer to spilling and producing that dreadful howl that had awoken me. And next to the apparatus stood Eda, her brows furrowed in concentration as she read from an old dusty book bound in black leather.
I made my way over to her, picking my way through the labyrinth of jars. “Eda…? What are you doing?” I inquired cautiously, blinking sleepily in the bright light.
Her head snapped up in surprise, though she grinned cheerfully when she saw me next to her. “Ah, Luz!” she exclaimed, flipping back a few pages, “Good, you’re up. I’ll need you for this next part.”
“Next part of what?” I asked warily, wincing as the scraping took on an even higher pitch, “and can you please stop that awful sound?!”
“What? Oh, right.” She snapped her fingers without looking up, and the metal stick shifted, the harsh squeal fading as it moved towards the middle of the vat, stirring slow circles in the center.
My shoulders slumped in relief, and I uncovered my ears, letting out a happy sigh as I relaxed into the heavenly silence.
“Anyways,” Eda continued distractedly, her eyes busily scanning the book, “I’m brewing up something. For you.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed, a little disbelievingly. “Really? That’s… uncharacteristically nice of you.” My eyes narrowed, and I side-eyed her suspiciously. “What is it?”
Eda finally looked up at me, a scowl gracing her face as she glowered at me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she defended primely, “I’m incredibly nice. I protected you from the Emperor’s Coven just two days ago!”
“Alright!” I said with a laugh, raising my hands in surrender. “That was very good of you. Even though I got kidnapped anyways and nearly died like, five times.” I hesitated, my worthless bisexual brain filling with thoughts of my would-be jailor. I shook my head to clear it, beating back the untimely mental interference. “Although,” I dragged out, getting myself back on topic, “I seem to recall you using magic just yesterday to launch me hundreds of feet into the sky.”
Eda sniffed. “That was nice,” she stated indignantly.
My jaw dropped in incredulity. “How?!” I sputtered, throwing my arms out and glaring at the indifferent witch, “The forest was not a soft landing, I’m lucky I didn’t get ripped to shreds! Then I got stuck in a tree! And then I almost got eaten by a six-foot demon squirrel! It took me hours to climb down!”
“Nice for me,” she clarified with a smirk, “It was very amusing to watch.” She shook her head at me in an almost piteous sort of way. “Not everything is about you, human,” she chided haughtily, her face blank but for the laughter still dancing in her eyes.
My eye twitched.
“Besides!” Eda continued, waving a feathered hand in dismissal, “That palisman of yours fought of the squirrel, so I don’t see what your problem is.”
I watched the feathers drift to the floor from Eda’s motion, taking the short time to rein in my frustration. I rubbed my arms, tracing the crisscrossing networks of scratches I had obtained in my fall through the trees. I had stubbornly refused to let Eda heal them, even though the deepest still ached through their scabs. With a long, heavy sigh, I ran my hands through my hair and looked back up. Eda was reading again, apparently content that she had won our dispute. I shrugged, deciding I didn’t care enough to argue about it more.
“So,” I began, moving next to Eda so that I could see the book, “what are you so kindly making for me?”
She flipped back a few pages, landing on a diagram of an elliptical dark purple stone laced with concentric swirls. “This,” Eda said, tapping the picture, “is a petram. It’s a sort of pendant that gives the wearer a specific magical resistance. They’re highly illegal.” She paused, grinning down at me. “Not that I care,” she chuckled, ruffling my already disheveled hair.
“Anyhow,” Eda continued, turning back to her book, “after the whole you getting kidnapped thing, I figured that you need something to protect you. I don’t have enough hands to defend us both in a serious fight like that one.”
“Cool! What does this petram do?” I asked her curiously.
Eda cleared her throat. “It’s sort of a catch-all,” she explained, “it nullifies all spells cast on you with the intent of harm. I could still, say, blast you into the sky, but only as long as I’m not trying to actually hurt you. But if I cast it with the aim to hurt you, nothing would happen.”
“Oh,” I blinked slowly, thinking through the implications, “That sounds useful.” Beside me, Eda nodded in agreement. “Why is it illegal?” I asked her with a frown, “that seems like something that would benefit everyone.”
Eda snorted in derision. “Probably because it would be hard for the Emperor to keep control if he couldn’t kill anyone who defies him.” She paused, then snapped her fingers. “Oh! And because it’s super dangerous to make. There’s about a fifty/fifty chance it’ll fail and blow up the entire Isles.”
I stared warily at the bubbling cauldron. “Well then. That would be unfortunate,” I deadpanned.
“Eh,” she shrugged in disinterest, “if it does, oh well. I’ve had a good run.”
I rolled my eyes at her nonchalant dismissal. “I care if I blow up,” I told her dryly, “so let’s try to avoid that, yes?”
“Sure thing kiddo!” she crowed, cackling.
“Great,” I murmured with a sigh. “Glad we got that settled. So, what did you need me for?”
I jumped as Eda slammed her book closed. “Grab that spoon there,” she ordered, gesturing to the metal stick in the cauldron, “and start stirring.”
I did as she said, slowly mixing the sloshing concoction. Despite it being boiling, intense cold radiated off the liquid, numbing my hands and racking me with shivers. My own body temperature dropped rapidly, and I began to long for my warm bed. “Wh-why is it s-so cold?” I huffed through chattering teeth, pushing to keep my freezing arms in motion.
“Sorry kid,” Eda apologized, standing in front of the cauldron, “this will only take a couple minutes. Do not stop stirring, or we’ll all get blown to bits.”
I groaned, hunching my shoulders in an attempt to preserve some warmth. My eyes stung from the frigid fumes. Eda took in an audibly deep breath, then raised her arms, feathers poofing as she gathered herself. She drew one huge spell circle, the thick, golden lines crackling like lightning. More golden light streamed out of the confines of the circle, waving softly as the current slowly floated towards the cauldron, the dark liquid rising to meet it as I stirred.
My jaw dropped. I forgot my freezing body for a moment as I watched Eda pour out her magic into the spell. Her head was lowered, though I could see that her eyes were squeezed shut, and her teeth bared at the effort of sustaining such a costly circle. The plumage on her arms grew thicker, new feathers sprouting as it marched up her neck.
I gasped as the temperature plummeted sharply, snapping my attention back to stirring as I desperately forced my weakening arms through the repetitive motions. My teeth were on the verge of rattling out of my skull as they chattered, my uneven breaths coming out in a fog of white vapor. It felt like my blood was turning to ice, and I was half convinced that my leaden limbs would collapse under the weight of it. The ice was traveling to my lungs, where it seared my every breath. Nevertheless, I kept stirring, feeling as if the rhythmic movements were my only tie to life. If I stopped, I might just cease to exist.
Unsurprisingly, Eda lied. Through my dimming vision I could just see the clock on the wall cheerfully ticking away the seconds. I observed blurrily as one minute passed, then five, and then ten. I could no longer feel my arms, and watched in detached fascination as they continued to move in circles, feeling as if they belonged to someone else. Surely those could not be my fingertips stained with blue. I was fairly certain that my own skin was brown, not this pale, frightening hue. Someone should warn them, I noted dimly to myself, the thoughts trickling their way through the sludge in my mind, that color doesn’t look very healthy.
I set my unfocused gaze back up to the wall, searching for the clock. The room was blurring together now, and all I could see were fuzzy blobs of distorted colors. The clock had disappeared. I frowned, wondering hazily where it had gone. There was a guttural growl next to me, and I turned my head towards it, grinning stupidly at the floaty sensation the movement caused.
There was a grey mass beside me, faint light trickling from the sputtering circle before it. As I watched, the circle snapped, and the form staggered to the side at its absence. Then another circle appeared, much smaller and steadier than before. A deep hum joined the ringing in my ears, clashing horribly in pitch. I winced, turning back to the cauldron in hopes that it would stop. It didn’t, of course.
Now I was looking back into the vat. Past the stranger’s arms, which had stopped stirring and were now traced with blue, the liquid seethed angrily. It contracted in on itself, the hum growing to a scream as it was compacted down, growing smaller and smaller by the second. I stood there frozen (quite literally), swaying and I stared in muddled wonderment.
Then my eyes rolled back into my head, and I collapsed in a heap.