Delia Smalltrot's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Delia poured the last of the dried morels into her copper pot and watched the mixture begin its slow simmer. The potion needed three more hours before she could test it on anything. She stepped outside her workshop to clear her head from the steam and bitter smell. A rabbit lay crumpled beside the wooden sign that floated above her threshold, the one that promised help to creatures like this. Blood matted its gray fur. Its breathing came in shallow gasps. Delia's stomach dropped. The sign had worked exactly as intended, bringing her a patient who needed healing right now. Her current batch wouldn't be ready for hours, and even then, it would probably turn gray and useless like all the others. She knelt beside the rabbit and pressed her hand gently against its side. It didn't flinch. She had no finished potion, no cure, no proof that anything she'd been trying actually worked. But she had her notes from the amber batch, and she had fresh morels growing behind the workshop. The rabbit's chest rose and fell, barely. Delia made her choice. She scooped the animal into her arms and carried it inside. She laid the rabbit on a bed of soft moss near her workbench and grabbed her journal. Her hands shook as she flipped to the amber batch notes. Fresh morel caps, not dried. She had written it three times, underlined it twice. The fresh mushrooms grew in a purple cluster behind the tree stump, their caps still damp from morning dew. She abandoned the simmering pot and started over. This time she crushed the fresh morels first, releasing their earthy scent into the air. The mixture turned pale gold almost immediately. She added the other ingredients exactly as her notes described, measuring each one twice. The rabbit's breathing grew more shallow. Delia poured the amber liquid into a small bowl and held it to the creature's mouth. The rabbit's tongue moved. It drank. Within moments, the matted blood began to fade, and the rabbit's eyes opened. Delia had her answer. She watched the wound close along the rabbit's side, the torn flesh knitting together like thread through fabric. The creature sat up, twitched its nose, and hopped toward the door. Delia didn't move to stop it. She turned back to her workbench where the amber potion still gleamed in its bowl. Her journal lay open to the page she'd read a dozen times before, but now the words meant something different. Fresh morels weren't just a detail to record. They were the answer she'd been missing. The rabbit paused at the threshold, looked back once, then disappeared into the forest. Delia picked up her pen and started a new page.