Hazel Softpaw's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

The clearing was clean, but the promise still hung over Hazel. Vern wanted a restoring brew and something sweet. She stood in the bare circle and saw only stumps and turned soil. No tea leaves grew here. No sweet herbs. She had cleared away the very green she needed. She had made a promise she could not keep with an empty clearing. Hazel did not wait to worry. She flew home fast. Her larder held what the forest gave. She grabbed the reed basket from last night's foraging. Stinging nettles and pine needles filled it, sharp and green. Nettle put strength back in tired legs. Pine cleared the head. Those were her restoring greens. For sweetness she needed one more thing, and she knew where it grew. She stopped at a shaded bank and picked wild violets, purple and small. Their petals carried a soft, honeyed taste. That was her something sweet. She carried it all back to her workbench and set out the pink granite mortar. Diamond flecks caught the light along its rim. She tore the nettle leaves and dropped them in with the pine. She ground them together, round and round, until the smell turned rich and green. Hazel scraped the crushed herbs into her small silver cauldron. She poured in cool water gathered under the new moon. The brew needed heat, and quickly. A living fire near dry stumps was too great a risk. So she used the safer way. She set the banded fire agate on a flat stone beneath the cauldron. Then she lifted her ruby-tipped wand, the redwood twig with the raw stone bound in copper wire. Back at the clearing, she hung the cauldron on a bent root that curved over the stone like a crane. The agate sat under it, waiting. Hazel held the wand steady and hummed the low fire spell her magic knew. The ruby warmed. Light gathered in the agate's amber heart. Then the fairy fire woke, a soft flame that glowed magenta into red and orange. It touched no wood. It only warmed the stone and the silver above. The brew began to steam. Nettle and pine turned the water dark and warm. Hazel watched it swirl and knew it was almost right. It needed the last touch. She dropped the wild violets in one by one. They floated on the surface, purple against brown, and the steam turned sweet. She let the fire fade and lifted the cauldron down. The restoring brew was done, nettle and pine for strength, violet for sweetness, all in one pot. Both promises kept in a single brew. Hazel had turned an empty clearing into her first cup of tea. She smiled, then a thought stopped her. Vern would drink and go. But her garden needed more than one brew for one worker. A tea garden served every creature. And her cleared soil grew nothing yet. She had made tea once. Now she had to make it grow.