Part 26 In which Marlot tells her story (part 3)

At the festival Marlot snuggled up to a slightly drunk Peter, it was all too easy for her to pour the contents of her potion bottle into his tankard of mead. The effect was immediate. One swig of the spiked drink and it was Peter trying to impress Marlot.


She was seated on his lap, he had been playing cards but a single whisper from Marlot made him turn his full attention to her. “I love you little witch.”She quivered with joy as she repeated the sentiment. “You are so beautiful,” he breathed in her ear then kissed her with so much passion it made even the trees blush.


Marlot continued to feed him the potion once a day for the next couple of months but eventually it seemed that the spell didn’t hold up as it had. She would bring him his lunch complete with a apple soaked in love potion and he would sneer at her and call her names, eventually he would have to eat the entire apple before he would even warm up to her. After a few more months she had to increase the dosage to twice a day, once with lunch, the other with dinner. Eventually it increased further to breakfast lunch and dinner. Marlot started to grow nervous, what was she going to do next, feed it to him every hour.

One day Marlot had to hurry home and left her love’s lunch with him rather than eating with him like she usually did.


Now witches always have an escape route and that afternoon when the angry mob was at her door Marlot grabbed her spell book and broom stick then flew as fast as she could out the window.

“What happened?” Lilly asked leaning closer.

“I was able to piece together later that Peter had grown tired of eating apples all the time and when his friend said he was hungry Peter happily handed over the juicy red fruit. Needless to say Peter’s spell wore off about the same moment his friend declared his undying love for me. It didn’t take any of them long to realize what was going on and after tying up their love struck friend they came after me. I finally realized that Peter had never loved me, nor was he ever likely to.”

“I love you Marlot.”

“I love you too Jack. But you see Lilly, magic can’t solve all of your problems, it usually just causes them.”

Lilly sat back, appearing to absorb all that she had learned. “Did you ever go back and try to explain things?”

“Once, but it didn’t work, all I got was that part of the story I wasn’t around for.”

“Maybe you should try again, apologize, and explain to them like you did us.”

“Too late, I’m sure they are all dead by now.”

Lilly sat up in alarm while Jack looked vaguely curious. Lilly stumbled over her words in alarm, “Wh-what did you do to them?”

“I didn’t’ do anything,” Marlot said defensively, “time did, that all happened a long time ago.”

“How long?”

“Let me think, about a hundred and sixty years.” Marlot winked at Jack.

“What!” Lilly actually fell off the window seat in shock. “How old are you?”

“I’ll be one hundred eighty-seven in a few weeks.”

‘One hundred eighty-seven’ Lilly mouthed the number from the floor, “that is unbelievable.”

“I’m immortal.”

“But you look so young.”

Marlot rolled her eyes and scratched the top of Jinx’s head until he started to purr. Jack rolled his eyes too and helped Lilly to her feet, “weren’t you listening, she stopped aging when she was really young, why would you expect her to look any older?”