Married at Last!
By the third day, the fingers began to stir. The movement started at the very tipsthose that resembled the cap of a scarlet fly agaric, only without the spots. Soon, the greyish lengths followed, and by noon, the digits writhed along their full span. There were no bones inside them, and the tendrils took full advantage. One by one, they swayed in the pot, grasping at its rim. Marina smirkedhow amusing that she had chosen a pot shaped like a human head. If only it could wrinkle its brow in thought as she did.
The fingers ceased their exploration and stilleda fly buzzed near the window. Fluttering its wings, the insect alighted on the patterned curtain and crept downward, probing the fabric with its proboscis before flitting to the glass. The fingers froze, unwilling to startle it. The fly crawled onto the crimson tip of one tendril, tasting it before inching lower.
The finger reacted at once. The red tip snapped down, trapping the fly. A crack cut short the buzzing, and all seven fingers knotted into a fist, curling against the earthen base. The fungus now looked like a grey brain threaded with scarlet veins.
“Food for thought,” Marina muttered under her breath as she lifted a small cauldron from the hearth. The meat broth had already begun to simmer away.
***
Marina ladled broth into a bowl, stirred it, and peered insidethe consistency was just right, and the smell was promising. Scooping a spoonful, she drizzled the hot liquid over the pot. The fingers quivered eagerly, the broth seeping into the veins between them. She stepped back from the windowsill to watch. The tendrils shuddered, then burst open from the tips. Grey stalks unfurled into crimson petals, studded with tiny suckers along their inner surface. The fully bloomed fungus lay like a scarlet flower upon the clay head.
Marina chuckled to herself and lifted the pot. One tendril stretched toward her finger, but she hissed sharplyand it stilled.
“Thats more like it,” she whispered, carrying it to the open cellar.
Something shifted in the dark pit below. She hurled the pot inside. A muffled squeak sounded, then a wet slap.
Returning to the hearth, she hefted the cauldron. The thick, sodden woolen cloth slipped slightly in her grip, the cast irons heat searing her fingertips. The murky, thick brew poured into the cellars mawanswered by greedy, slobbering gulps.
The girl set the cauldron aside and lit a lantern. Along the cellar walls, grey fingers of fungi twitched. One after another, they bloomed into crimson flowerspetals like tentacleshaving drunk their fill of the meat broth, brewed to her grandmothers recipe.
Placing the lantern on the table, Marina dragged the bed back into place, its iron legs screeching against the floorboards. She tested the mechanism, smoothed the coverlet, and draped the pit beneath it with a curtain.
A snow-white cloth spread over the table, steaming dishes from the hearth laid upon pristine plates. The floor gleamed from thorough sweeping, oil replenished in the lamps. Shedding her worn dress for a fresh frock, Marina pinched her cheeks for colour and peered from the cottage door.
A rider in gleaming mail approached from the crossroads standing stone. How splendidperhaps today, she would marry at last! And if the suitor proved unsuitable? Well, the cellar was always waiting.
The groom drew up to the porchand Marina, a witch by bloodline, smiled at him with all her teeth.
