The Tales Of Hyssop (chapter 1 part 1)

Hyssop laid on a mattress in her attic with a lit cigarette - blowing the smoke into the air with a heavy angst and imagining what it might look like if she was talented enough to do those tricks with smoke rings. she sighed and rolled over to her tray of herbs; she had been trying to quit the habit for some time and she had been rolling herself an herbal blend.

Mullien, catnip, mugwort, she had gathered some rose petals and tried them but wasn't quite sure if the taste was something that she wanted on her lips, that it might be too much like a perfume; too feminine; too light; not fitting with her mood of the day.

She was doing quite well for some time; she made it a whole week once, but inevitably she ended up reaching into her bag of tobacco and telling herself that she would quit next week.

She convinced herself to leave her bed after a 5 hour battle with her body; She couldn't lift it. She couldn't stay awake. Her body felt heavy and foreign as she sat up and convinced herself to stand;

"I have to do something today", she spoke into the silence, "anything" she added, trying to convince herself that she was still capable of living at a functioning level. She wasn't sure when the life had left her, when that energy dissipated from her veins, all she knew was how exhausted she was, and that the world she lived in while she was awake, felt just as foreign as her body.

She managed to get onto her feet and she stood there, there was a full length mirror across the way in front of her; hanging on her closet door. her eyes looked heavy and tired. Maybe she just needed - something. Coffee? Tea? It felt like she had taken every supplement on the planet in hopes to fully wake up; but had yet to discover something that worked. She has been to the doctor, too, and yet that seemed somehow less effective than the countless diets and nutritional regimines she had dragged herself through. She has begun to accept that it might just always be this way for her.

She pulled on an old black tshirt that had some print about self empowerment on it, grabbed her work trunk, and loudly came down the stairs with it as it clunked hard down each step.

She had been renting her room for the past 3 years; the house itself was mostly empty though. It belonged to a power couple who had a rather large family, but then the kids grew up, moved out, and they have been on a somewhat permanent vacation since. They were a very kind couple, Sarah and Tom Nettles. They treated her as if she was their own overgrown child; calling to check up every so often; To make sure she had watered the plants and fed the cats, of which there were two.

An orange cat with an attitude named samantha, she was big and round and would fight you for a slice of your pizza, and a more timid, black cat, named monica. Monica liked to catch mice in the yard and bring it to the kitchen table as if it were a meal. Hyssop thought it was gross at first, but then she thanked the cat as she started drying their tails to stick in jars for future spells.

Hyssop enjoyed finding eccentric ingredients; the weirder the better; and there was always a market for weirder and weirder potions to sell.

The other day, a woman had come to her looking for a love spell; She remembered the desperation on the woman's face. She chose the spell jar with Honey, rose, bull sperm and Maca root. She wanted to get pregnant. She wanted a boy. She had hoped that having a child would bring her and her husband closer together; but Hyssop saw it; the timelines that flew around her head and collapsed into each other and broke apart and twisted and tangled and shifted. She had left out the details. She didn't think that Hyssop could see it, she didn't know. As much as people believe in witches, psychics, spells and readings, they still try to hide the truth, maybe to gain access to something they want; something they don't want to be told they cant have, or maybe, its simpler than that. Maybe, they can't admit it to themselves.

Her husband was having an affair; and there is no way that a child would fix all her problems. 

Hyssop had tried to steer her to a more suitable spell, but the woman insisted she knew what was best. So hyssop sighed and sold her the spell; knowing full well the most probable outcome. Later down the road, the woman will realize that hyssop was right; but she just didn't have the energy for the countless meaningless arguments claiming they are about love, when what the customer was asking about was really control.

They never had the guts to just say it though; That they really just wanted control; they tried to make it off like it was what was best for the other person, like it was some kind of selfless holy act; but really they were full of shit.

Hyssop made it down to the stairs. She pondered if she should eat. Her body was rather frail, she had a hard time meeting a typical calorie count, she could feel her body starving but it felt as if no matter how long it has been, her brain didn't connect that she was hungry, so she craved nothing, ever, and mostly ate whatever she could manage to.

"maybe later.." she mumbled to herself as she walked to the front door. It was a Wednesday, after all, and she knew that the park would have more activity today. She wandered outside feeling a bit lost and without direction; even though she knew exactly where she was going and why. She sets up her stand on days she can manage to get out of bed and sells her spellcraft to passerbys. 

For the amount of people who claim not to believe in the craft, she certainly did well. She credits it to the fact that most people really do want control and power, but they want it packaged in a cute little bottle so that they don't have to take personal responsibility for their desires. They want someone to blame if something goes wrong, and someone to tell them that everything will go right. They want a scapegoat and a guru. They want an escape out of the lives that they feel stuck in.

They want to feel like they can have any life they choose.

Hyssop knows that magick takes a certain amount of complexity; She knows that most people will not follow her recommendations; they are just too set in their ways; maybe they want something to go wrong. Maybe they are too confined to their daily routines that they are looking for any excitement that might come to them, even if the cost of such excitement is their sanity and their daily lives themselves. Maybe people aren't meant to live this way, its too unnatural, and after enough time doing the same thing every day, going to work, bringing home money, eat, sleep, repeat. Maybe that is why people do this; They want an excuse to lose their minds so they can break free from their perceived cages.

Hyssop opened her trunk, she sets up by her favorite oak tree, people always know where to find her. She had thought about opening up a store one day, but that day isn't quite here yet. Inside her trunk, is a large blanket that she lays on the grass and then displays her current potions, with their individual info cards. She really did like this set up, it felt more natural. Customers have to come to her, ask questions, she gets a chance to look at them, to look at their energy and what they are carrying with them.

Today is a wednesday, so she didn't have as many potions stocked. She makes them on the weekends typically, and then sells them throughout the week.

Today though, she did have some interesting ones. Every spell she makes is unique, and works in its own unique way; she carefully studies the effects of each one and keeps a journal to save notes in regarding the occurences. as much as she has wanted to, replicated the same spell is by nature, almost impossible.

why? She can use the same template, and yield even similar results, so it is useful to save the recipe. However, it won't be exactly the same. It depends on what her energy was like during casting. it depends on what energy was in the air, it depends on where the planets and stars were at the time. Maybe the weather also plays a factor. Whatever it is, nothing can ever be made exactly the same way ever again. That is why Hyssop often worked by making things in large batches.

A customer walked by, a man, and lazily eyed her assortment of potions. They pointed to one of them, and asked "what does this do?"

Hyssop looked over to see which one they were talking about, "Ah yes, that one is a love potion. It attracts lovers to you, as if you are catnip and they are cats."

Hyssop fell into a state of reverie for a moment, remembering the night that she made that potion, most people imagine that she must work like carefully, in a lab-like room, going off some old fashioned recipe from a book, with very exact ingredients and amounts. It didn't quite work that way, hyssop saw herself more as a mad scientist, in a kitchen, chaotically feeling out the recipe and tossing in a little bit of this, a little bit of that, while communing with the spirits on what the dosages were. She made a friend that night, a neighborhood cat, they were stripey and orange and loved to play. Their collar said that their name was chamomile, she knew the kitty was owned, so she never fed it, but they kept coming around, hyssop had a lot of catnip planted by her window, and cats from all over love to wander into her yard. As she was making this potion, she imagined what it must be like - to have that sweet romance, made of pure joy, exploration, adventure - like finding a treasure, unexpected, but pleasant and warm.

The customer frowned at the potion, "Aren't love potions evil?"

Hyssop sighed internally, "only if you are." she said, bluntly.

"Do you have anything for money?" they asked. Ah yes, one of those. Everyone wants to pretend that the spells they do are somehow better or more moral than others, but they never consider the rippling effects that every spell casts...

Hyssop pointed to a potion in the far left corner of her blanket. It looked, plain. It looked simple. Because it was. It got the job done. But that was it. She didn't invoke a lot of emotions into that one, because money is what it is. It is an object, not an emotion. While different emotions can carry objects to you, depending on your manifestation style, money itself is not an emotion. You can be sad and make money, you can be happy and make money, money is, in itself, an object.

Inside the potion, was a bit of evergreen, suspended in an oil that was infused with bay leaf. It only had those two ingredients, and that was enough.

"It doesn't look like much" the man stated in an unimpressed monotone voice.

"then for you, it won't be much." Hyssop stated, matter of factly.

"What do you mean?" he said.

Hyssop thought for a moment, about simply confusing the stranger more. She's been in this business for far too long, and she has begun to notice who is worth teaching, and who will not learn. Sometimes, it feels that simply being silent or annoying is better than teaching those who refuse to teach themselves, but today, today was a wednesday.

"What is it, that you really want? What is it, that you think you are able to realistically achieve?" Hyssop decided on asking.

"I want to be wealthy. I've never been wealthy." they responded, coldly.

"why not?" Hyssop inquired.

"It feels impossible."

and there it was. Sometimes, all it takes, is breaking into what is holding a person back. Hyssop dug through her trunk, she pulled out a square pillow and sat it on the grass. "Sit" she commanded. The man sat on the pillow, a confused look on his face.

Hyssop dug through her trunk, and pulled out various stones. She placed a black tourmaline in one of his hands, and a Rhodialite in the other.

The man looked even more confused, but Hyssop was in full witch-doctor/mad scientist mode.

"It feels impossible...then it is.

Why does it feel impossible?" Hyssop asked the man.

"I've never had it before." The man started to feel a pain, in his lower stomach.

"Why not?"

"because...its...too hard."

"Do you work?"

"Yes, I work all the time. I work too much. It is never enough. The system isn't built - "

Hyssop stopped him.

"Wealthy people exist. You can be one, if you believe you can."

That statement made the man feel, as if his chest broke open. He began to cry.

Hyssop dug through her trunk again, she pulled out another potion, it was black, and in a different jar than the others. She handed it to the man,

"This is the one you need."

"What is in it?" he asked, "what is it?"

"Before you can move forward, you must go back. You have to feel in the depths of your soul, why you believe that you cant have what you want. Once you know why, you can rip out the roots of that belief, and believe something new. Then you can heal. Then you can move forward."

"does it...hurt?" asked the man, staring at the jar with questionable ingredients.

"A bit. You will probably cry more. Sometimes it makes you scream, or makes you want to crawl out of your skin." Hyssop was always honest with her work, and the real work was never as pleasant and fairy tale like as people wanted.

The man put down the stones, and reached out for the jar. As soon as he touched it, he felt his chest bursting open again. "Why...do I feel this?"

"because it is working."

The man looked terrified, everything was unknown to him. He went into his wallet, and pulled out some cash to pay Hyssop. Hyssop put it in her pocket.

"what about the money potion?" he asked her.

"I will set one aside for you. but if you use it now, it will not work as you imagine. You must wait, you need to detangle yourself first. Then you can have whatever you would like to have."

He eyed the money potion, which he had criticized as being too plain only moments ago. "Can I buy it anyways?" he asked, pulling out a crisp $100 bill.

Hyssop said no.

She wasn't in control of these things. If the spirits told her no, she would have to obey them.

"When will you be here again?" he asked her.

"Find me on wednesdays."

Wednesday.

The man got up, and brushed himself off. Hyssop watched as he tried to return to some kind of normalcy, but was unable to fully reach that state again. Something in him stirred awake, and he couldn't forget that taste, that feeling.

Hyssop wondered if he would follow through on the lesson; but she wouldn't bet on it. She's seen many simply put a potion like that on a shelf, ignoring it completely, convincing themselves that it wasn't real. It is much more comfortable to people to think of witches as some kind of entertainment, and when they learn that it isn't about simply making wishes, they aren't sure how to react. They aren't sure how to reconcile that feeling they felt.

Hyssop finished packing up her trunk, but, the sun was shining so beautifully. She decided it must be a good time to take a nap under a tree.

So she did. She locked her trunk up, and laid out her blanket, and took a nap.