Tuesday, November 28, 2023

2

The Recipe

 Later that day, Lyn rifled through the half-packed crates in her storeroom, the sweet, musty scent of her dried leaves and flowers hanging thick in the air. Overhead, an incandescent lightbulb hummed, casting the room in a warm glow and keeping the indigo shadows of the night at bay.

 Lyn pulled three jars from the box and stole a bite of her now-cold toast. To help someone experience the memory as if it were real, she’d need the most oxidized camellia arcanum in her reserves. In order for it to be a good memory, a bit of dried lemon peel should work. Light notes of citrus to balance out the rich, bitter taste of the tea leaves. To avoid the potential side effects of the lemon and camellia combined, she’d need the skullcap she’d harvested in April to keep the nervous system calm.

 Lyn jotted down the beginnings of the recipe in a battered notebook, the natal home of all her best tea blends. She liked to keep all her old recipes and invoices with ingredients lists for future reference, just in case.

 Tapping her pencil on the page, Lyn chewed her lip. She had a decent start. But she still hadn’t touched the most challenging aspect of Amelia’s order—bringing back a forgotten memory.

 Enchanted teas didn’t just come down to the magical camellia arcanum leaves, it was also the other herbs added, the way the plants had been grown, the proportions of the ingredients, and so much more that dictated how the tea channeled the magic. People spent their whole lives learning the craft and barely scratched the surface of its secrets.

 Lyn trailed her fingers along the jars in the crates, running through a mental list of all the herbs she could use. Her finger stopped at the container of yarrow, only a few pale green flakes lying in the bottom. It would have been the obvious choice to try, but thanks to the recent economic crash, prices had risen so dramatically it was almost impossible to get a hold of.

 Rosemary merely sharpened memories. Lavender created calming daydreams. Rose would show you someone you loved. None of those would react with the tea leaves in the right way. Had her tea blends always been so… frivolous?

 Lyn sighed and snapped her notebook shut. Forty years of this, and she still found challenges that stumped her.

Outside, night had fallen completely. Stars freckled the dark sky, warning her that she’d better call it a day, or she would regret it tomorrow.

 Head swimming with problems and few solutions, Lyn straightened out her jars and flicked off the lights. She’d have to find a way around this before the end of the week, or she’d have to tell Amelia she couldn’t fulfill the order.