Hazel - September (Patreon)

“I don’t know what I did! I don’t know what I did!”

Braided vines looped down around the rafters, stretching across the windows and blocking the lantern light from outside. The creaking groans as they stretched, wrapping themselves around the support beams, caused the apothecary itself to shudder. There was an air of sickly magic dripping from each purple flower that bloomed on the winding vines. The petals would open, curling back in a sneer before coughing out a huff of pollen that sent the wisps who were trying to help, fall dead to the floor.

Hazel cried out as yet another blue light was snuffed out, coating the ground in luminescent dust. She was up on the second floor mezzanine, hair down around her shoulder and a bloody scratch shining across her cheek.

“Is it a spell?” I called up to her. “A potion?” I had gotten her distress call and had made my way over. It was not unusual for her to call me during the week, asking me to come by due to a difficult customer or simply feeling overwhelmed. I had not expected to exit the alleyway and see it covered in thick vegetation, the likes of which parted to let me in, and then closed behind me.

“No,” Hazel cried out. “I wasn’t mixing anything!” She shrieked as one of the purple flowers bloomed near her head, the pollen puffing forth. She stepped out of the way from the spray but knocked into a new shoot coming from the bookshelf.

“You need to get down from there.” It wasn’t like the lobby floor was much better but whatever this was, didn’t seem to be coming after me. If I had her closer, maybe she’d be protected.

“The stairs are blocked,” she told me. The stairs couldn’t even be seen. A slick layer of moss had covered them while little white flowers had begun to sprout. 

The scene, if I could stand back and look at it objectively, was beautiful. The apothecary had always held a quaint charm to it and the lush array of plants that Hazel had begun moving in had only added to the atmosphere. Now, it looked as if time had taken one long leap forward, leaving the insides overgrown as nature took its rightful place again. Each surface was littered with lush forest floor and near the back, where we would sit and play cards, a tall oak had formed, breaching through the ceiling, up to the second floor and out into the night air. It was hauntingly beautiful in an objective way. But Hazel was caught in the middle of it all.

“You’re going to need to jump,” I told her, taking a few steps forward. If I climbed up on the counter, I wouldn’t be too far from her. She could hang from the railing a bit and maybe I would be able to grab onto her.

“Jump?” she looked at me then the ground beneath, and the way the purple flowers seemed to be creeping closer and closer. The layer of blue iridescent ash that was covering most of the surface was too hard to acknowledge right now. I knew those wisps had tried to save her. While they annoyed her most of the time, they held a fierce love for the woman who had given them a home.

She was shaking her head. “I can’t jump.”

“Honey,” I tried to keep my voice calm. It wasn’t like I was thrilled over the idea of her jumping either but we had to do something. “I am right here. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” The balcony was getting smaller and smaller and we were running out of time. “You need to trust me.”

Her soft eyes locked with mine. I could see the motes of dust swirling around her. She had once told me that dust was made from the bones of those departed from our world. That the particles clung to those who would soon join them. I tried not to think of that now.

“I’m scared,” she admitted.

I smiled at her. “Nothing to be scared about. We’ve been in much worse than this.” I thought of the spells she had performed. The lines of red that had marred her body after she tried to get Malcolm back. The way her mind had been cast aside after I had left. It had been her choice, however. This… I didn’t know what this was.

“Come on,” I stepped closer, holding out my arms. “We’ll just take it slow.” An action I didn’t feel we could afford but if I rushed her, she would slip away from me all the quicker. “Just get yourself over the railing.”

A vine came and curled around her leg. Hazel jumped away from it, kicking out harshly and sending it recoiling towards the wall. It seemed more determined now to come for her, snaking forward this time at twice the speed.

Hazel moved quickly, gripping the once willow bark railing. Small shoots came up to ghost against her fingers. Her hands were shaking so much I wasn’t sure if she noticed.

“That’s it,” I encouraged.

I could see her swallow from here and as she moved forward, slinging one leg over, I watched the vines from above lunge. They formed a noose, looping towards her to wrap around her neck. Hazel panicked, jerking instinctively away.

I heard the crack before I realized what was happening. Halfway over the railing already, her entire weight came down on the brittle wood. Malcolm had told her once that the railing was going to do nothing for safety. Hazel had brushed it off, most likely because she didn’t like putting iron in her shop and liked the wood aesthetic better. Now, it snapped. Hazel’s eyes went wide as she looked at the noose but felt her body falling. The scream that ripped from her throat was enough to make even the plants curl away. I would not be able to reach her in time. Not in a way that I could keep her from falling.

Three wisps came down, wrapping around the sleeve of her blouse and tugging her to the upper floor. Hazel managed to grip onto the floorboards, her legs still dangling. As the noose shot forward again, the wisps blocked its way. A coating of blue ash dusted Hazel’s face and hair as she let out a sob.

I could only just reach her, my arms able to wrap around her shins but nothing more. There was going to be no way around it. When she let go, we were going to fall.

“Okay, when I tell you to, let go,” I said. “I’ll fall backwards and have you land on top of me. Then we’re leaving.”

She was shaking her head, eyes still closed. “I can’t,” she said. “It’s not going to work.” Beneath us, the ground began to open. The bottom layer of the apothecary floor crumbled away, leaving behind a roaring cavern. My eyes widened as I watched shelves and bottles begin to cave in, falling into the vast nothing. 

“We’re going to die,” she hiccuped. “I don’t want you to die again.”

It hit me hard then. I looked around the room, at the plants. The flowers. The broken windows and the looming nightmares. They breathed with Hazel. They moved with each ragged breath. When her lungs couldn’t expand any further and a high pitched whine escaped her throat, each vine vibrated with her. There had been no spell gone awry. No broken bottle that had released a storm upon her house. There was just this. Hazel’s panic. Maniefesting into something horrible that was going to take me away.

“Hazel,” my body relaxed. This wasn’t real. The ground wasn’t an open maw beneath us and the plants were not trying to kill us. “Hazel, honey. Open your eyes,” I soothed. “We’re in the apothecary.”

She shook her head. “I can’t watch you die,” she whimpered.

“And you won’t,” I said. “Nothing is happening here. This is all just you. But I am here. I am safe. You’re safe. You just need to open your eyes so we can curl up in bed somewhere and I can prove it to you.”

She wanted to believe me. I could feel it. But panic had this funny way of gripping a person so tight that even the most logical of explanations seemed like nothing more than a distant fairy tale.

Wind whipped around us and I could hear the apothecary begin to groan. I could feel it now. The way her panic was bitter against my tongue. I grabbed onto her ankle, digging my thumb into the soft spot right below the bone. “Hazel. I am here. I am alive. I need you to breathe with me and then open your eyes.”

“No,” she wailed. “I’ll see you die.”

“Do you trust me?”

There was a pause, as if the panic itself was telling her no. That they didn’t. She didn’t. :That if she said yes she was going to open herself up to more heartache and then… and then… her body relented.

“Yes.” I could barely hear it.

“Then please. Just open your eyes. Believe in me and know that nothing is happening here.”

The wind began to die down around us. It was a slow crawl at first, still trying to ruffle her hair. The ground beneath us was closing though. The vines retreated. And while the noose still hung ominously near us, it no longer sought her out.

She let go of the mezzanine before she fully opened her eyes, twisting her body to fall chest to chest against me. The two of us tumbled off the counter I had been precariously standing on, and fell blessedly against a solid ground, devoid of moss. When her eyes opened, I was greeted with those warm earthen tones, and felt my own tension bleed from me.

“Hi,” I told her. 

She was blinking at me owlishly, fingers still curled tight against my shoulders. “Hi.”

“You’re safe,” I reassured her. I could tell she didn’t want to look around yet. Didn’t want to trust her own eyes. That was okay. I would be her eyes until she could handle the world again. “I’m not going anywhere,” I told her.

She swallowed thickly and then leaned forward. I could feel the shuddering breath release from her in a giant whoosh. The wisps came down from the rafters, surrounding the both of us in a soft aquamarine. She didn’t answer me and she didn’t dare let me go. I just held her until she stopped shaking.