My First Coven

Love Potion Number Nine

 I had managed to get through the night. Sort of. I was getting even more impatient now waiting on the crow vision to activate. I had a restless sleep, only getting a few hours rest before waking up, wandering around my room for a little bit, going back to sleep for a few more hours only to get up and do the same all over again. I was that restless that on my second round of pacing that night, Duncan came in and sat up with me for a bit; even though he looked pretty tired himself. He kept me company for a little while, as Domino had obviously had enough of my restlessness and retired to his favourite chair for a snooze. Duncan had brought me a cup of tea at some point and I had managed to drink half of it before I dozed off again. There was a general sense of unease kicking about that I could feel and I'm pretty sure that wasn't helping me at all.

But as the morning came and I was up proper, I made my way downstairs to the kitchen for some breakfast; only to find my Aunt sat on the kitchen worktop still in her pj's, her arms enveloped around Arne who had her in a tight embrace. She appeared to be grasping on to his Blackwatch tartan flannel shirt for dear life, almost as if she let go; Arne would disappear in to the ether. She looked over at me as I wandered over to the kettle to make a pot of tea, the dark circles under her eyes appeared to be just as bad as mine. We both looked like death warmed up.

'Morning Maddie. You sleep like shit too?' Auntie M asked me as she raised her head from Arne's shoulder, barely wanting to detach from him.

'Yep, diabolical sleep.' I sighed; holding my Aunts mug up, silently asking if she wanted tea. She nodded slowly as her eyelids drooped in tiredness.

'I ended up coming down for some belladonna to get me to sleep after one this morning.'

'That bad?' I asked her.

'That bad.' Arne answered. ' This one is a nightmare when she can't sleep, I don't like her using Belladonna much though.'

'And that's why I don't use it much.' My Aunt said, rolling her eyes at Arne. 'It's not good for you in the long term either, using it all the time.'

'I'll take note of that.' I said. The kettle had finished boiling so I filled up the teapot and left it to brew for a few minutes while I put some sugar in to our mugs and grabbed some milk from the fridge. I was instructed to get some breakfast by my Aunt who had reluctantly peeled herself of Arne, who himself seemed pretty hesitant in letting her go. I left them to it, deciding to fill myself up with cereal, yoghurt and several bowls of fruit salad before I went to get dressed. I was dressing for pure comfort today, throwing on my favourite, well worn and bedded in jeans and the biggest, cosiest sweater I owned; figuring I'd most likely end up on the couch having a little snooze at some point. But after shoving my hair up in to some kind of ponytail and gracing my face with the bare minimum of make up I could get away with, I trudged through in to my Aunt's lab to do some magic studying. If nothing was happening, I'd at least do something productive today.

Auntie M had obviously had the same idea as I had. She was dressed in comfy warm clothes, wore minimal make up and had also tied her hair up in to some kind of a messy bun.

'Just you and me today kiddo, the vampires will all be having naps today.' Auntie M said to me. 'They're kinda on stand by.' She shrugged.

'Weirdly that makes sense.' I replied. 'Whatcha doing?' I peered over to the pestle and mortar that my Aunt was using, not with the gusto she usually did but whatever she was doing was getting the job done. She was using her big heavy black marble pestle and mortar; whatever was in it was making a gritty sound which wasn't too pleasant to hear, but the smell was actually quite nice.

'Oh I'm making a hair mask for a lady I know with psoriasis in her scalp, she says it's the only thing she's used that helps it.'

'Is it just a potion? No magic?' I asked.