Part 4 In which Marlot makes a new friend

Players:

Marlot
A witch who doesn’t really like people that much, but is really lonely

Jinx
Her cat, the real master of the house

Young Woman
A farm girl who won’t leave Marlot alone


Marlot stood watching the young woman, who to the witch’s surprise smiled at her. “That is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me, do you know that.”

“But…what…who…alright lady, explain.”

The young woman motioned toward the garden gate, “may I come in?”

Sighing Marlot nodded, “only for as long as it takes you to tell me why you are still here and not yelling at me for telling you no.”

“I’m Lilly” the woman said as she walked through the gate and sat down on the wall near Marlot. “Usually when I tell people that I’m in love but the man doesn’t feel the same they…they say that I must not be worth it. Worth his time, his love, that I’m not good enough for him or his family. My father is just a local farmer and they are always the sons of bankers, or blacksmiths, or someone important.”

“I’m…sorry.” Marlot shook out her robes and then sat down next to Lilly. Jinx, seeing that his mistress was now sitting decided that her lap was where he wanted to be and Marlot absently scratched his ears. “I’m sure someday you will find someone.”

“Or I can be like you and make someone.”

“Well if you’re going to be like that.” The witch stood up again holding Jinx in her arms, and walked away, hoping that she had collected enough snails.

“Marlot!” She yelled after the witch, “I’m sorry.”

Marlot closed the door behind her and sat Jinx down on the table. “Now I remember why I don’t like humans.” She said to the cat who meowed and walked over to his food bowl. “Jinx, I love you but sometimes I feel like the pet and that you are my master.” She ran a hand down his back as she poured food into his bowl and his back arched under her fingers.

She was straightening up when there was a loud knocking at the door and Lilly was yelling “MARLOT, I know you are in there!”

Marlot ignored the woman and lined the new ingredients up on the table. There was the jar of snails she had found in the garden and the puppy dog tails which were wrapped in paper which she chose to ignore until she needed them. Marlot liked being a witch but there were some things about it that she wasn’t very fond of, and one of them were the tails she couldn’t look at, and the other was the fact that she still needed to snip the snails into the potion. She looked over at the boiling cauldron of dark liquid. The smoke coming off of it had changed colors every couple of days and out of curiosity she had opened the spell book again to make sure she had done everything right, which is when she had discovered that there were more ingredients that needed to be added at the halfway point. Two weeks into ‘incubation’ as the book called it, and on the third day after the smoke changed from yellow to green. According to the spell book the ingredients that she choose to add would determine the gender of the golem. “Who knew the poem was right,” she said to jinx before she scooped him up off the floor and spun him around singing:

‘What are little boys made of?
Snips of snails, and puppy-dogs’ tails,
That’s what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice, and everything nice,
That’s what little girls are made of.’

Marlot looked down at the cat in her arms and at the door where she could still hear Lilly walking around and occasionally yelling for the witch to come back, and that she hadn’t meant what she had said. “I guess it’s not what witches are made of though.” She sat Jinx back down on the floor and walked over to the door and opened it to see Lilly about to knock again.

“Oh, I didn’t think you were actually going to open up.”

“And you are still not going away.”

“No, I wanted to talk to you some more. Your… interesting.”

“And I’m busy, trust me, if you thought looking for snails was gross then you really don’t want to watch me snipping them up.”

“No, I guess not. May I come in anyway?”

“It’s never a good idea to insult a witch.”

“I already said I was sorry.”

Marlot stepped out of the way of the door to allow the young woman in.