Caffeine and Magix

@windythegreat sent in : “ Prompt Witches that specialise in plants. Vines on her walls succulents hanging by window. Thank you so much for wonderful writing”

It starts with the poinsettia Carol hands to Sydney after Christmas. The leaves are bright red and green, the plant is healthy, but there’s something sour about the pot. She thinks it might be the wetness of the soil or the way the plastic wrapped around the pot is holding water on the bottom.

“Maybe you can use it,” Carol tells her, flapping a hand at the door. “For, you know, your…thing.”

My craft, Sydney corrects mentally. She smiles at Carol, understanding that her friend is being considerate in her own way, and climbs into her car. She’s not a big talker and she’s fortunate that she has friends who understand that. She can deal with her practice being relegated to “thing.”

Sydney takes the poinsettia home, takes the plastic off, and watches the water drain down the kitchen sink. She sniffs the soil and is oddly pleased. Less sour and more earthy.

She takes the plant with her to the bedroom, situating it in her bedroom window. She falls asleep admiring the red leaves.

———————————-

After the poinsettia is the spider plant. This one is born out of necessity rather than happenstance, an intentional addition to her new home.

There’s a story behind this.

She moves to a new house, closer to Carol and the city, farther from the apartment building with the bursting water pipes from before. Carol calls it her cottage, set a little way back from the road, the smaller size drawing it that little bit away from the other houses sitting on either side. Two rooms , a small back yard, a living room, one bathroom, and a kitchen. It’s perfect for someone like Sydney, someone who moves with barely a fuss and a poinsettia in her arms, but–

There is a spirit in her new home. Moreover, there is a spirit in her home that refuses to leave when asked.

Sydney’s been taught, she’s studied, she’s practiced, but she’s never been great at banishing. She sets up her rituals, the black salt and dagger, the willow’s bark and rosemary, the white and black candle, all of the thing she needs. She asks for peace and safety, she tells the negative energies to leave, she floods her new home with white light, bright, white light.

After, the air is…stale. Empty? There’s a hollowness there that doesn’t feel like home to her. She cradles her poinsettia to her chest, asking it to purge the taint of negativity from her skin, and thinks. 

The leaves of her poinsettia brush her chin and she thinks, Maybe?

It takes some research to find what she wants. Nothing too big, nothing that needs what she can’t give it, nothing that will disagree with her poinsettia.

Something to keep the energy moving, she thinks. Something to bring positivity, something that will make me happy.

She goes out and buys a spider plant.

She brings it home smelling of plastic and artificial air. She nurtures it, placing it in a hanging pot the internet tells her they prefer. This one is already offering a baby at the end of one, long stem, so she clips it and replants it in the vacant pot. 

She sprinkles both of them with eggshells, mixes the rich soil around the white powder and feels…clean. Her hands are singing with the power of the earth, dark dirt under her nails. The air feels lighter, somehow, in her new home, bright and cheerful.

She looks at the wall over her couch and thinks maybe.

————————————————

After the spider plant(s), she stops keeping track. She buys honeysuckle and bird’s nest fern for her front yard, something bright and sweet, something protective and warm to welcome her guests and discourage what needs to be discouraged.

She circles her home with african violets and carnations, bright colors carpeting the world around her. Moss in the shady corners of her house, soft padding for the wildlife that begins to gather. She’s got hummingbirds and pill bugs, small swallows in the willow behind her house, squirrels climbing the evergreens separating her from her neighbors.

The inside of her home begins to burst with life as well. There are hanging plants in every room, spider plants and wisteria climbing from pot to pot, long limbs reaching down to brush at her head and shoulders.

Half of her kitchen table is dedicated to her succulents, arranged in spirals and loops with chunks of amethyst and quartz.

She keeps her poinsettia in her bedroom, full light in the day, full dark in the night, because it whispers familiarity to her. Her dresser gains a bonsai she buys off of a wizard from the city, a small cactus Carol gets her for her birthday.

Sydney feels herself relax in a way she’s never been able too. She runs her hands along soft grass, waxy leaves, furry stems and she feels comforted. She’s not alone, these plants don’t expect her to talk, they perk up with her presence. She thinks the honeysuckle in particular likes to wrap thin tendrils around her, pressing against her bedroom window.

——————————————————

“You’ve changed,” Carol says during one of their coffee dates. She looks over the edge of her mug at Sydney. “You’re glowing.”

Sydney looks down at her tea, a flush heating her cheeks. The barista had recommended this, lemon grass and mint. It’s good.

(She thinks she might add them to her garden.)

“I told you the move would be good,” Carol says with satisfaction. “You were withering at the edge of the city.”

Sydney thinks that it wasn’t the move. It was her poinsettia.

On the way home, Carol’s phantom kiss goodbye still throbbing on her cheek, Syndey picks up a bag of new fertilizer. And some lemongrass. And some mint.

———–

It’s the first winter in her little cottage when Sydney thinks her plants might be a little strange. She notices the tulips and petunias in her neighbor’s yards wilt from frost. She sees their grass glitter with ice, the way their trees drop brown leaves to the frozen earth.

She does not see the same in her yard. Or, for that matter, in her house.

Her honeysuckle explodes with another rash of blooms, the sweet nectar just as rich and wonderful as it had been in the summer. Her african violets glow bright purple against the ice, the ice which can’t seem to catch hold of her moss.

Her poinsettia is just as bright and full (maybe brighter and fuller) as the day Carol gifted it to her. Her spider plant has had children and grand children, and they’re all connected and flourishing through her house. Green highways race across her ceiling, spiral down her walls, curl around her bedposts. Her wisteria is fragrant and beautiful, elegant columns in the corners of her living room.

The cactus Carol gave her, said to seldom bloom, blooms and blooms and blooms.

She keeps her little home warm anyway, checks the leaves and stems of all her plants each morning and each night. When she touches them, she feels her magic gather in her hands, a soft glow that sinks into the violets, the ferns, the honeysuckle, the succulents and wisterias, the spider plants and her poinsettia.

She doesn’t notice when her heating bill grows smaller and smaller. Her home begins to feel warming and welcoming, each of her plants reflecting back the heat of her magic and love.

—————————————————–

“You’ve changed,” Carol says again next Christmas. “It’s a good look.”

Sydney smiles. She’s still not a fan of talking or being around large groups. She’s still not bright and sparkly like Carol and she still prefers to celebrate Yule alone.

But she’s happy. Happier. She feels grounded (rooted) and full of life. When Carol hands her this year’s poinsettia, she takes it with gentle hands, carries it to her car, buckles it into the passenger seat.

You’ll love your new home, she doesn’t say to the poinsettia. You’ll see. 

The red leaves shift in an ethereal breeze and begin to glow.