Sun Kissed Innsmouth
Part 148
Felecia didn’t put the mask on and go trapsing into the village. Most of her was still entirely unsure what had motivated her to make the ghastly thing in the first place, the rest of her was still trying to be convinced that the village and its loathsome inhabitants weren’t her problem.
The tables near the kitchen finally started to bear their new strange fruit. Unlike Jacqueline’s tables of earthworms, mosses, molds, and kitchen mushrooms, Felecia had started creating a real rogues gallery of fungi and plants, precious little of which was safe to eat.
The formula that seemed to slow or stop all living things, the rest it all, that’s what Jacqueline had called it, Felecia had guessed where the old witch got her forbidden knowledge from, and Felecia wasn’t willing to follow suit by trying to stare at the insane squiggles of the books written in the monster’s maiden tongue.
There were plenty of other materials to read that Felecia found of use. Two of the tables were left outside for what plants needed the sun, that was where most of her weapons were now. Clippings and bulbs were easy to come by near the edge of the meadow. The rest of her arsenal was finally starting to sprout indoors. Mushrooms and colony fungi of various forms and natures. Some gave visions, others nightmares, some would make a man dreadfully sick for a time, others would kill that same man if he ate so much as one cap.
Outside Felecia had berries that would also sicken or kill, plant leaves that would cause organs to bleed and rupture, stems and dried roots that will leave a man howling mad for the rest of his short vomitous life. The wet autumn was turning her experiments into fledgling fields ready to be harvested before another winter came.
Still though, Felecia was unsettled by the scenes of hemlock and mandrake and death cap and adders tongue. What was it all for?
The weather was starting to turn and Felecia was busy gleaning some of the nightmarishly tall hemlock that had taken to growing wild at the edge of the swamp where she transplanted it when she saw a figure out in the trees.
Gathering the plants was special work, like some of her fungi and the sumac it was best not to handle the plants with bare hands so Felecia used a few pairs of old hose as mitts. She looked at the figure in the distance and up at the cave and her bow and arrows that hung on the shelter over the fire pit. She had time, but she was also looking down at the growing pile of pure poison she was collecting and planning to preserve like the kitchen staff at Rotary House would, tucked away in sealed jars to be used through the lean months.
“What is this all for?”
Again, Felecia heard herself speak out loud, to no one. The voice sounded stranger than ever before. Older, dryer, exhausted, maybe even mad? Had she finally lost her mind out here in the woods and the swamp?
Was all this mask making and cultivation of hallucinogens and poisons her doing alone or was the monster still tugging at certain strings? Was it wise to fast walk to the cave and collect her bow in time? Maybe. Then again, maybe not.
The figure drew closer and Felecia could see the maudlin collection of faded greens and browns, old familiar colors and clothing hanging off a bony frame. There were two spots though, two bright flashes of color that stood out against the otherwise dull color palette.
A few more steps and the figure was only a stand of trees away, Felecia could see the swaying, the slow trudging. Phillip’s boy, of all the people, the angry youth who never had a kind word to say was staggering up to the old witch cave. He only made another few steps before stepping into a knee-deep pool of filthy swamp water and falling flat on his face.
Felecia had spent quite some time absent mindedly studying how to grow things that killed men, but you couldn’t really do that without reading a fair deal about how to heal them, the two went hand in hand.
Dragging the youth up the small rise and into the cave was to be the hardest part for sure. Cleaning him off and confirming her unsettling visions from that night in the meadow wound up being equally hard. Seeing the two stab wounds, one just above a small breast and the other deep and into the shoulder, no, that was the hardest part.
The wounds needed cleaning, packing, watching, and hopefully sewing unless Felecia managed to mess up some part of that procedure. Thankfully the youth was unconscious and stayed that way through most of Felecia’s fumbling care.
He came too in the wee hours a day later, dressed only in his still filthy underwear, covered only by a threadbare shawl on the settee in the caves tiny living room.
The youth gave Felecia that same tiresome look of distrust and mild loathing he had always given her before he tried his voice and finally found it.
“Pa took ill in the head. I knew you was out here. You need to fix him.”
Fix him.
Felecia grunted in disgust and turned to the kitchen. The indoor oven would have to do for warming a kettle. The sooner she got a sleep tea down the youth’s throat, the sooner he would stop bleating about whatever worthless crusade had sent him, and perhaps the sooner he would leave.
After a few moments of silence, the youth continued. “You hear what I said?”
Felecia grunted again and got a small fire going in the old oven.
“To hell with your stove and your tea. You’re a witch, right? Come help him.”
Felecia couldn’t help herself but retort then. “A witch, am I? Funny idea that.”
The youth began to rise and stopped when he realized he wasn’t wearing anything but his shorts. “Y…you took my clothes.”
Felecia nodded, “They were covered in swamp water, you were covered in leeches from the knees down, I cleaned them, and you.” She pointed to the folded clothes laying next to the settee, “You’re welcome.”
The youth took the opportunity with Felecia minding the stove to try and dress. Felecia could hear the sharp intake of breath, the pained grown. “Those wounds are like to fester if you move too much before they heal.”
“Shut up and get your things. We need to get back before he does something in the village.”
Felecia got the sleep tea brewing and laughed at the youth. “Like what, get even with that pile of luddites?”
The youth stood up and tried to close the distance between them, he slammed his shin into a corner of a table buried under old books and various materials and shouted in anger. “I don’t give a fuck if you think I’m a freak, or if you hate me, you owe my Pa, he took you in when you was supposed to die out in the cold.”