Bottled

“Do you think it will work?” Lettie eyed the small bottle into which I was decanting a thin gray liquid from a small cauldron, roughly the volume of a large muskmelon. I was taking great care not to disturb the sediment that precipitated to the bottom of the cauldron as I slowly, carefully filled the bottle for Lettie. “It just looks like dirty water,” she grumbled, eyeing the coppers in her hand, payment for my services, and wondering if it was worth such a sum. I sighed, trying carefully not to break my concentration. “I assure you this is much more than just ‘dirty water’ Lettie”. I was annoyed by her question. First, because she asked it while I was trying to delicately pour her a measure of the potion she had requested from me. And I actually wasn’t sure if it would work but it isn't good business to go about questioning the efficacy of your own brew. That was a cardinal rule as a brewer. “If you’re going to brew potion,” grandmother had said, “then you’d better be confident it’ll do the job. And if you’re not, well, don’t tell anybody. It’s bad for business”. Grandmother was wise like that. She had taught me that confidence and emotion played a big part in magic. You had to really believe in it and in yourself. And when you didn’t, well, you sometimes had to fake it if you wanted to get paid. Besides, there’s a number of reasons a potion won’t work no matter how confident you are so no use making it your fault if it fails. Otherwise, you’ll lose out on repeat business.

“I’m serious Al. This has to work. I’ve not got much left and I’m giving most of it to you. I need a guarantee this will work”. Her bottle filled, I gently wiped the lip with a clean, well mostly clean, rag before putting in a fresh cork stopper. “Make no guarantees,” grandmother had told me. “If they need you to promise it’ll work, they already don’t believe”. “And they need to believe as earnestly as the brewer. Yes, grandmother, you’ve told me”. “They have to believe even more so. Magic is funny like that. And so are potions. They’re a bit like horses”. I giggled and grandmother shot me a look that could’ve stopped a cavalry charge. “I’m serious, boy. The potion can sense you and it can sense your intent. If you approach a horse, afraid or overly excited, what happens?” grandmother asked. “It’ll buck or run. It’ll do whatever it likes. It may or may not follow your commands,” I answered in a serious tone. “Exactly,” grandmother said. “You brew a love potion, but you don’t believe it. Or the user doesn’t believe it’ll work. And you might get love. You might get animosity. You may get hate or neglect. You might get nothing at all. The point is, if you want it to work,” I interrupted, “you have to believe it will”. Grandmother tousled my hair. “That’s a good lad”. 

“Lettie, you have to believe in the magic or it won’t work. I can’t guarantee something will work. Honestly, only you can. Through your belief”. I stared hard, looking deep into her pale green eyes. “And don’t call me Al. I’m not a child any longer. I’m Alwyn, the brewer”. I honestly preferred to be called Al, but, if I wanted to cultivate belief in my abilities and that of my potions, I couldn’t go around being addressed like I had when I was a little boy. Lettie stared back, her gaze unbroken for an uncomfortably long time. I was beginning to lose my nerve when she looked away. “I know you’re not a boy any longer Alwyn. We’re the same age, remember?” Lettie said it, not in a derisive tone, but in a quiet, sheepish manner. She looked at her feet. “I know Lettie. Do you think I could forget? I could call you Letha if it makes you feel better,” I said, watching a small smile form, just at the corners of her mouth. She cocked her head to the side and looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “I thought I’d made it quite clear, when we were what, twelve years old, that I was not to be called Letha. Ever”. And she had made it clear. She’d beaten me with a stick until I was bloody after I’d laughed at her name and refused to call her anything but Letha, despite her imploring me to stop. I still had a scar under my left eye from it. “My mistake,” I said. 

I smudged the bottle with the ash of burnt sage, part protection for the potion, part trademark, like a cooper burning his initials into the bottom of a barrel. I held the bottle out but pulled it back just before Lettie took it. “You do believe it will work, don’t you? It won’t work if you don’t believe”. She regarded me in that moment, her old childhood friend, now a young man of just twenty years, clad in an old green robe that was just a touch too small as it had belonged to my grandmother, and smiled. “Of course I believe it. You learned from the best brewer in the county. It’s just, well, I’ve never heard of any man brewing before. Honestly, no one has. It’s a bit out of the ordinary. And you look a bit ridiculous in your grandmother’s robe”. The first bit, about men not brewing, was definitely true and I had to agree with her. I was the only man I knew of that had been trained to be a brewer. But the robe? Other than it was a touch small, I thought it looked very professional. “Come now, Lettie, don’t be mean! What’s wrong with the robe?” She laughed and I handed her the bottle. She handed me the two coppers. “Other than it was tailored to fit an eighty-year-old woman?” 

Lettie left with the potion and I’d not heard from her since. I was glad of the coppers she’d given me that day as I didn't have any business since. In fact, I hadn’t had any business since hanging my shingle other than a few young men asking for tincture of sea holly. Sea holly, a lovely little blue flower that, when boiled down to its essence, made a very fragrant oil that, when blended with some pure alcohol and applied sparingly to the neck and wrists, was said to make you irresistible to the opposite sex. Most brewers won’t provide a young man with tincture of sea holly, claiming that the best way to tame a young man’s lust is the sting of a denial. Let a few ladies spurn their advances and they’ll learn to behave like civilized members of society. Or so they say. Grandmother followed the same practices, mostly out of respect to the other brewers, but she’d told me, when she’d caught me trying to sneak away with some of the essence, that it was not really efficacious. “Try it and you’ll see, boy. The girls will still find you as repellent as before”. She smiled and laughed her high, cackling laugh. And she had been right. I could’ve bathed in the stuff and not gotten the time of day from any of the girls in town. “Your motives need to be pure. Magic and potions know your intentions. If your only aim is to please yourself, enrich yourself, make the world better only for yourself, the magic will fail. And if we let every young man with an itch between his legs smear himself with sea holly, soon everyone will think our potions don't work and that we don’t have magic. But give that to a husband and wife who wish to see their passions reignited, to remember what it was like when they were young, and there’s nothing that could pull the two apart. Magic is about intention, Alwyn. Remember that”. I remembered what grandmother had taught me, but I also needed to eat. 

It had been just over a month since I made Lettie her potion when there was a knock at the door. Iwas surprised to see Lettie and another young woman I recognized but whose name I couldn’t recall when I opened the door. “Come in,” I said, stepping to the side and beckoning them to sit by the fire. “Alwyn, you remember Genevive? She’s a few years older than us. Thomas’s older sister?” That’s where I knew her from. Thomas and his family ran the bakery. Genevive sells bread down in the square. “Yes, of course. Genevive. What can I do for you?” Genevive looked around nervously for a moment. “Go on, tell him,” Lettie said. Genevive asked, “Aren’t brewers usually women?” “Usually, yes. My mother learned from her mother who learned from her mother, and so on. As far back as anyone could remember. But my mother died having had only a son My father took to the drink when I was little. I was raised by my grandmother. She taught me to brew”. Genevive seemed satisfied with the answer. “Can you make someone disappear?” “You mean, like invisibility? I can do that”. I wasn’t actually sure I could do that, but I wasn't going to admit that. “No. Like go away. Never come back?” That was something else. I didn't want to to get caught up in a murder plot no matter how badly I needed to get paid. “That depends. You’re not asking to kill anyone, are you?” Genevive thought hard about her answer, and I grew nervous. She finally spoke, quietly. “No, I don’t suppose I want him dead. Though it’d serve him right the bastard. I just want him never to set foot in town again”. I wish she’d have asked me for invisibility. “Maybe,” I said, “but it will cost you. And it depends on who you wish to have disappear”. Grandmother had taught me that, when trying to influence others, magic doesn’t always work. “If they’re too strong willed, too headstrong, too attached, too whatever… They have to be willing to let the magic affect them, even if it’s not conscious”. “Like the sea holly?” I asked. She nodded. “Exactly. A love potion will only grow feelings that are already there. Do you see?” 

“It’s Jasper Jennings,” Genevive said, “my fiancé”. “You don’t wish to marry him?” I asked. I didn’t add, “because he’s twice your age and smells like rotten meat and is known to be a nasty drunk”. Genevive nodded and began to cry. Lettie stroked her back. “She’s been betrothed by her father. He thinks Jasper is a good match”. Genevive said, “Father wants me to marry him because Jasper holds loans father took. Jasper has promised to forgive the loans in exchange for me. If I don’t marry him, our family will lose everything”. “How about a nice vial of good luck?” I thought. Grandmother had told me people love that one. “Luck isn’t really something we can give. But we can give confidence. And courage. And then people make their own luck”. I asked Lettie, “Did the potion I made you work?” I was trying to buy some time. “Of course it did, Alwyn. Do you think I’d have brought her here if it didn’t?” I was hoping she hadn’t tried it yet. Lower expectations for success would’ve been easier. 

I stood and paced, hoping to look deep in thought. If it’s going to work, I’m going to have to sell it. I pulled on my grandmother’s old robe. I took Genevive by the hand and led her out of the cottage and into a small outbuilding that served as my brewery. Its shelves were lined with bottles and boxes. Dried flowers and herbs hung from the rafters. I lit a small fire in the fireplace and opened grandmother’s potion book. It was written, in her hand, the recipes passed down from mother to daughter, each keeping their own book, adjusting the recipes as needed and adding new ones they had invented. I didn’t have my own book yet. Daughters usually inherit the knowledge as my mother had. Grandmother wasn’t going to teach me to brew since I was a boy and boys aren't brewers. But for some reason she decided to train me. I started much later than I would have had I been a girl. I’d only had the most basic of training when grandmother died. I flipped slowly through the pages of grandmother's book, taking care not to damage the brittle paper. “Ahhh yes, here it is”, I said, as though I’d found just exactly what I was looking for. “What is it?” Genevive and Lettie had both asked. “Charity,” I said, looking at the page. I really should’ve picked a different potion. “Charity?” they asked. “Yes, charity,” I said, looking at the recipe. “When is the wedding?” I asked. “Next month,” Lettie said. “Hmmm, this will take three weeks to brew. Come back in then”. I escorted them out the door amid a flurry of questions, mostly, “How and why?”. 

“Do you think it will work?” Genevive asked, eyeing the small bottle into which I was decanting a thick syrup that smelled of cherries and cedar. “Do you think it will work?” I asked. Genevive said, “It has to work”. “Yes, but do you believe it will?” I asked again. “I do,” she said, watching as I cleaned the lip with a clean, well mostly clean, rag, and placed a new cork stopper in the bottle. I smudged it with the ash of burnt sage and handed it to her. “Thank you,” she said, handing me a sterling coin. “You’re very welcome,” I said. Genevive turned and walked out the door. Lettie stayed behind. “Is there something you need, Lettie?” I asked, turning the coin over in my hand. “How is charity going to fix her problem?” I had no idea. Grandmother told me that you let the magic guide you. The customer asked for a solution to a problem and you let the magic tell you which potion to brew. You never knew why you chose a particular potion, why it would work, or even how it would work. You just knew that it would. I was still unsure if magic actually could work through a male brewer but at least I got paid. “Well, tell me Lettie. How did your potion work?” I was actually curious as I wasn't sure if it was magic or coincidence. Although grandmother had told me that most of the time it's hard to distinguish between the two. And I was hoping to avoid giving Lettie a direct answer to her question. “Well, you gave me curiosity when I had asked you for help finding work. I was out of money and it there wasn't any work to be found, at least not for a young woman. I didn’t understand why but you gave me curiosity”. That made two of us, but I wasn't going to tell Lettie that. “And then what happened?” I asked. Lettie paused, “Well, after I left, I went home and drank the potion. And then nothing happened”. That wasn’t what I was expecting to hear. “I didn’t feel curious. I didn’t feel anything. I was walking through town a few days later when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and there was a woman I’d never seen before standing behind me. She said she was new to town and was curious if I knew anyone looking for work. She had children that needed looking after”. Lettie stood and left then, calling after Genevive. The two walked down the lane, back into town. Lettie turned to look at me and smiled before disappearing around the corner. I smiled back and watched them walk out of sight. I pulled a small bottle from my pocket and took a sip. I replaced the cork and put it back in my pocket. “Affection isn’t the same as love,” grandmother had said, “but it can become love. And it’s a stronger and more lasting love if it happens”. I hoped she was right.