The Magic of Consequences

See, the thing about being a witch was that people had misconceptions about your profession. They thought you were busy cooking soups made of eyes and frog feet or bottling the souls of whoever pissed you off to sell to monsters and demons.

And sure, sometimes you handled disgusting ingredients; some even made you whisper "ew ew ew ew" under your breath the entire time.

And sure, sometimes you made deals with strange, unsavory creatures. And, yeah, alright, sometimes you did bottle souls, but you had never cut off a poor frog’s feet. Or plucked out someone’s eyes.

The sad part was, despite your best attempts to polish your reputation, people rarely sought you out for good reasons. You had made so many health tonics at the beginning of your career, excited to make things a little better, only to be semi-gently reminded by reality that you should have gone and become an herbalist instead.

But herbalists had little to no magic, and wasting your talent for the arcane had seemed stupid at the time.

You hadn’t had the money for the mage schools growing up, either, and when a hedge witch had found you spelling apples to turn your bully’s hair a bright, ugly color, you had found yourself with an impromptu teacher, instead.

By now you were used to being sought out for less-than-savory deals, people appearing in your shop with hooded cloaks and shifty eyes and overly-obvious glances around for any witnesses. The utterly unimpressed face you greeted them with tended to make them even shiftier.

More often than not, you managed to talk them down from their really, really dumb ideas. Like desiring to love-potion-trap a prince into marriage or robbing a barony. But the rest of the time, people were too intent to follow up on their dumb decisions.

The thing was, everything had consequences. You had even written that in big, big bold letters on everything you sold. You pointed it out verbally, as well, every time someone bought an ill-advised potion or spell from you.

"Why did I become I witch," you groused to yourself as you bottled a potion that made flowers smell like rotting corpses and beer-farts because some asshole two towns over knew he wouldn’t win the flower presentation competition next week with honest hard work. What a loser.

"'Oh, I’ll help people,' I said," you grumbled in falsetto, stuffing a cork into the bottle and almost making it spill in the process. "'Oh, I’ll make people happy,' I said."

You set the bottle aside and started to clean the cauldron when you heard the bell of the front door jingle.

You shouted over your shoulder, half distracted, "I’ll be with you in a moment!"

After cleaning up and making a face at something squishy that squelched beneath your foot – some things liked to bubble over, and this potion had just been an all-around headache – you walked to the front of your shop.

A very young woman, clearly a noble considering the stupidly fancy clothes and jewelry she wore, was waiting for you, peering at some of the bottles for sale.

See, nobles were trouble. Nothing but trouble. If the farmer wanted to take revenge on his cheating wife, fine. If a bandit wanted to conjure up a storm for his robbery, whatever. If a miner wanted to steal jewels from his employer unnoticed, it was none of your business.

You could deny those people whatever you wanted or grant them whatever you wanted. At the end of the day, they were just normal people who were more or less stab-happy.

But nobles? Ugh.

They had mages in their employ to deal with many problems, astrologers who could tell their fortunes and treasurers who ensured they could afford nearly anything they wanted. And then there were other nobles they were allied with, as well, who would support them if called to action.

In short, they had power, and if they showed up at your doorstep, it meant they wanted things that their already impressive collection of options couldn’t grant them.

Which were curses.

"I heard you’re quite the competent witch," the young noble said, and you eyed her warily. She looked like she was barely eighteen; it wouldn’t surprise you if her wedding was in, like, a month or something.

Last you heard, nobles always got married to other nobles, which, of course, didn't stop lads and lasses of every class from sighing and daydreaming about unexpectedly being chosen as a noble's spouse, no matter how impossible that dream was for some of them.

So did this noble woman want to ensure her future spouse wouldn’t cheat? Or had she been spurned and turned away in favor of someone else, and now she wanted to get rid of the competition before she was forced to officially cancel the wedding?

It happened sometimes, and people really loved to gossip when nobles chose a different partner than their previous intended.

"I guess," you said, barely keeping a sour tone in check. This young woman probably wanted nothing good from you. Great.

You really should stop stocking healing tonics. For some reason, people always thought they would turn them ugly or give them illnesses or crooked cocks.

The young woman frowned. "You don’t sound very sure about that." She then pressed her lips together. "But no matter, you are my last resort."

She turned to face you fully, her fancy dress sweeping dramatically with the movement, and she raised her chin, proud and confident, and it could almost hide the anxious shine in her eyes. "I need a curse."

Outwardly, you nodded sagely. Inwardly, you sighed so dramatically and theatrically that you had to bite down on the urge to whine like a spoiled child.

You didn’t want to do curses. Curses fucking sucked. But who were you to deny a customer? Especially one with both the money and the ability to make your life either better or a living hell.

Because surprise, surprise, plenty of the ingredients you needed for potions or spells did not come cheap. No one had ever bothered to tell you that being a witch in general was not cheap in the slightest.

All the stories about witches in walking huts or in cottages in the woods had really set you up for disappointment.

"What kind of curse?" you asked and then pointed at the sign hung from the ceiling right behind you. "Everything has Consequences" was written in big, big letters by a really fancy hand.

You had even paid a fairy to make it glitter a bit. People liked glittery stuff, right? So far, the glitter certainly had made sure everyone read the signs, but that was it. At least, the ones that could read had done so.

The young woman read it quickly, too, then focused on you with more determination. "I need a curse that turns a princess into a monster."

Oh. Uh. That was... well. You could do it, but... "That’s a very hefty curse with equally hefty consequences," you said cautiously. "Maybe there are other ways to get you what you want? Maybe a temporary transformation spell? Perhaps something to pretty you up to catch a prince’s eye? Not that you need it, of course."

You were not in the business of selling love potions, because ew. Same with those annoying sleeping-beauty potions that required the sleeping one to be kissed awake.

Look, you were an asshole, and you had cursed a couple of people already, but you did draw the line at all that non-consensual love stuff.

Even witches needed to draw lines somewhere.

"No, I need a curse," the young woman said with a voice firm enough to give mithril a run for its money.

You considered saying no before you remembered all the reasons why you shouldn’t. If you refused her, you’d probably have to escape her wrath, uproot your life, and settle down elsewhere.

You were lazy, though, and you didn’t want to do that unless it became necessary. Besides, every curse could be broken, and you’d just give this curse a really easy way to get out of it. You did that for every curse you sold because you weren’t enough of an asshole to leave people stuck in some horrible reality for years on end.

"Do you want the monster to be sentient or not?" you asked. In case she didn’t, you’d make sure the curse could be broken by, like, drinking water or something.

The young woman blinked, then seemed to perk up, suddenly looking eager. "I can decide what the monster is?"

"If you’re willing to pay more," you said with a shrug. You were a good witch, and curses, for as little as you liked to cast them most of the time, had always been your best subject.

You threw your health tonics a forlorn look, noting the faint dust that had started to gather on the shelves around them and a bit on the bottles themselves.

"I’ll pay you anything you want," the noble lady said, her eyes suddenly filled with a hopeful gleam, and a smile appeared on her face for the first time. It made her look even younger, and you realized just how grim she had been previously. Huh.

You leaned against the counter to be more comfortable, and you reached for a piece of paper and a quill to write down what she wanted. The young woman was downright grinning by the time she had the curse tailored to her every whim.

"Wait here," you said, studying the list of demands as you ducked into the backroom. Thankfully, you had bought a couple of rare ingredients just a couple of days ago, so you managed to cobble together what you needed for the spell.

Fairy wings – not plucked, because again, you weren’t that kind of asshole, and a number of fairies had to molt their wings a number of times as they grew, and some even every spring – wolf teeth, and a griffin feather.

You carried everything out, the young woman watching curiously as you ground the teeth and wings to fine dust, which you then rubbed thoroughly onto the feather. All that was left was the transformation spell that would complete the curse.

Dark magic flowed through you easily enough, the wood around you graying, and the very air itself growing cold and hungry, like a drooling beast was gnashing its teeth, bright eyes focused on the tooth-and-fairy-wing-dusted feather.

Once the spell was completed, your surroundings returning to normal, you put the feather into a silk bag and handed it over.

"Put it under the pillow of the one you want to curse; they must sleep on it for six hours straight," you told the young woman. "And remember: consequences."

The young woman clearly wasn’t listening anymore, accepting the bag while she absentmindedly set down a pouch of coin. You started to count out the gold you’d need, since she had brought more than enough, when you heard the bell ring and the door close.

Looking up, you saw that the young woman was gone.

Huh. Well, you weren’t going to say no to all that extra money. You scooped everything up and dropped it off in a spelled chest that protected your most precious possessions from sticky fingers. That taken care of, you returned to cleaning up the backroom, especially the squishy smear on the ground.

A couple of days later, you heard of the terrible curse that had befallen the kingdom’s princess, and how the wedding between her and some kind of far-away prince was off the table for the time being.

The thing with your curses was, the cursed one instinctively knew the cure the moment they got cursed. You ensured that to give them the chance to fix the problem themselves.

None of that "someone must fall in love with you" nonsense.

This particular curse could be broken by seeking the nearest doorway, doing a little chicken dance, and clapping thrice afterwards, et voilá, the curse was gone.

Easy-peasy. The princess should be back to her old self in no time.

You quickly got distracted by some asshole teenagers that wanted to buy itching-powder to prank someone, and just as they left with a vial of the stuff in tow, a little boy hurried inside with tears on his face.

He put down three copper, looking very, very scared, and asked in a wavering voice if you could fix his dog, holding up a tiny and very weak-looking puppy.

It was the first time someone had asked you for that kind of help. To heal and mend rather than ruin and destroy. You grabbed a harpy feather and reached out to rest your fingertips on the tiny puppy’s tiny, feverishly hot head.

The light magic spell you cast felt like a warm, safe embrace. As though someone powerful was wrapping their arms around you and the boy and the puppy with endless kindness and soft reassurance.

It was the most beautiful spell you had ever gotten to cast, and the moment you were done, the feather turning to dust between your fingers, the puppy opened its eyes.

It wagged its tiny little tail like mad, and when the boy broke out into tears, it licked the tears away.

"Thank you," he sobbed, and you gave the boy’s head a few pats, resisting the urge to tear up yourself.

"Of course," you said, pretending like you weren’t touched and glad and emotional. There was just so much dust in this stupid shop. That was all. You really needed to clean more.

You gave the boy his copper back, telling him that he got the spell for free if he promised to take great care of the dog and to bring it to you if something bad happened to it again.

The little boy grinned, so relieved and happy you swore he was the reason sun shone through the window in that moment, before leaving with his puppy who looked perky and fully awake again.

You puttered around, restocking some things, and you set the health tonics up by the counter, hoping that maybe now someone would buy them. After a moment ,you added a little sign that said they were half-price.

When, a couple of days later, a merchant asked for a spell that turned all his copper to gold, you heavily considered getting "consequences" embroidered on your clothes, as well. But he really wanted the spell, so you gave it to him, and of course he didn’t want to buy a health tonic.

You were sulking at your counter when the door opened, and a very fancy young man entered. You resisted the urge to groan like a blacksmith’s bellows. A noble, again. Nothing but trouble.

"Good witch," he said with a small bow, the fancy feathers on his fancy hat bouncing perkily. "May I trouble you for a curse?"

You waved grandly at the sign behind you. "You may. Please read the fine print." The very big, very bold fine print.

He did briefly, nodding solemnly, then pushed on, "I hear you offer curses that turn people into monsters?"

He must be a friend of that young lady. Lovely. Now that you thought about it, you hadn’t heard anything else about the princess. Was her wedding off the table for good? Surely not, she had to have broken her curse by now.

Or had that noble lady pounced on the far-away prince, instead, and there would be a wedding announcement once a proper amount of time had passed to avoid rumors from spreading? Maybe the princess would go and marry another prince.

Whatever the reason, it wasn’t really any of your business. The curse was easy to break without outside help, and that was pretty much all that mattered to you.

"Would you like the monster to be sentient or not?" If not, you’d make sure the monster just had to walk in any kind of light for the curse to be broken.

The young man had a list of his own demands, and you wrote everything down dutifully. Afterwards, you headed to the backroom to dig through your expensive ingredients. Not the most expensive ones, however, those were in the special chest. This stuff worked just fine, anyway.

You returned with merfolk scales, a bottle of troll spit, and a harpy’s claws. The claws and scales were ground up and mixed into the spit until it turned into a very thick, goopy mixture that honestly looked pretty unappetizing, even if it shimmered and glittered the faintest bit.

A dark magic spell later, you held out the bottle. "Make sure the person you want cursed gets it on their hands. All of it."

This curse could be broken by coughing five times, followed by clicking the tongue five times. Easy.

The young man nodded, looking so glad and relieved it was a little surprising, and dropped a pouch of gold onto the counter. You were busy counting out the gold when you heard the bell ring and the door close, and you looked up, baffled. He was gone.

Alright, that was the second noble in a row who didn’t give a shit about money. You tapped your fingertips against the counter, confused and thoughtful, then you shrugged and put everything in the special chest.

The next day, after you heard that a baron’s son had gotten cursed, two friends hesitantly entered your shop. They looked nervous and like they already half-expected nothing but bad news. Or like they feared losing their souls.

"All the crops on our farm withered and died," one of them told you. "We and our other friends worked so hard, and this year was... was really hard. We had to repair the house twice, and half of our sheep got killed by wolves, and..." They clearly fought the urge to cry. "Can you help us?"

"Oh, yeah," you said, and they both sucked in sharp breaths of surprise. "How many fields are we talking? And what kind of crops?"

They told you everything, and you gathered the ingredients, carefully grinding salt and crystal to fine dust and mixing it in with the shell of a golden hen's egg.

You were lucky that one of your acquaintances had managed to raise a couple of golden hens who laid equally golden eggs. He traded those eggs and some feathers for potions and little blessings and sometimes hard coin.

"Sprinkle a bit on the fields," you told them, "and you’ll have the best harvest you can hope for."

"What do we owe you?" the other friend said, nervously clutching a very thin-looking purse. Considering what they had told you, you were willing to bet your entire stock of health tonics that they only had a couple of copper left, at most.

"Just bring me a crate of your food," you said with a shrug. With two nobles leaving far too much money behind, you really weren’t hurting for coin. "Now, shoo, the day’s not growing any younger."

They thanked you profusely as they left, and the next morning, one of them excitedly burst into your shop, grinning wide.

"It worked!" they almost shouted, looking sweaty and bright-eyed. "We woke up, and all our fields look perfect!"

"I do good work," you said, shelving a midnight delivery of star-orchids and owl-feathers. "But I’m still glad to hear you’re happy with the results."

You were gifted a smile sweet enough to rival a garden full of flowers, and you were promised two crates of food, and, to your surprise, you were invited to lunch during the weekend.

Huh. No one had ever invited you to anything. People wanted your services, but they didn’t want you in their lives, never mind their homes.

"I’ll drop by," you said, and they left with a jaunty wave, and the chime of the bell on the door sounded downright cheerful.

You only realized you were smiling when one of your potions turned into a cheer-up potion instead of the bad-day potion that someone had ordered for a nasty relative.

The kind of bad-day potion that made people drop things and stub their toes and walk into horse shit and stuff like that. It lasted from sunrise to sunset, and it usually made people cry at least five times with all the things that happened to them.

You corked the bottle of cheer-up and set it down beside the health tonics that had slowly started to gather dust again. You managed to brew the bad-day potion, but only after scowling at it fiercely and cussing it out until it grudgingly did as you wanted.

Honestly, some things really were not worth the trouble.

A day later, another noble found you. This one was an older woman who looked so tired and worn, you couldn’t help but offer her a cup of invigorating tea, which she graciously accepted.

She, too, wanted a curse.

This time, you hesitated. Nobles didn’t seek you out that often, and surely not so soon after another. Especially not when you gave your curses stupidly easy ways to be broken.

It would genuinely surprise you if the unlucky sods that had gotten cursed stayed cursed for more than a couple of hours... unless they weren’t breaking their curses.

Which was bad. Which meant that either all of the cursed people were just absolute fucking idiots, or that something had stopped them from undoing their curses.

And that spelled trouble for you because sooner or later, upset parents or a fiancé or guards were going to come knocking on your door to drag you off in cuffs to stand trial. You didn’t want to lose your head, so you’d have to fight and then go into hiding and you’d probably be forced to relocate to an entirely different kingdom.

If such an event came to pass, you needed as much money as possible to rebuild your life once everything inevitably came crashing down.

You once more gestured grandly at your sparkly sign, and the older woman nodded with great dignity and then hashed out what she wanted for her curse.

You went to the backroom to return with shimmering harpy feathers and a satyr’s horn and bits of bear fur you had plucked from shrubbery during one of your ingredient harvesting rounds in the woods.

After everything had been bound into a neat, cursed package, you told her the recipient of the curse had to wear it around their neck for a full day.

The undoing of the curse was, once again, something super simple: All the cursed person had to do was touch their noise with two fingers and blow a raspberry.

This time, you didn’t even bother counting the money when a thick purse of gold was set down on the counter. The older woman swept out right away with the curse held cradled in her hands like it was made of the tears of the gods themselves.

You couldn’t help but wonder what was going on. Then again, it wasn’t any of your business. At least, not until it came back to bite you in the ass.

You put the money aside and wondered if you should give the health tonics away for free.

The next couple of days were rather calm, and once the weekend arrived, you visited the farmers. You were, however, surprised by just how happy they were to see you.

They showed you their fields with the grandly growing plants, giddily telling you that it already looked like they’d have an amazing harvest.

"We had honestly given up hope," one of the farmers told you quietly while her friends excitedly pointed out how the pumpkins were already bigger than those of their neighbors and how their cucumbers and tomatoes were growing abundantly. "But this... this blessing you gave us, it’s going to turn things around. I mean, just look at this."

She gestured at the fields, how every single plant was perfectly healthy and growing strong, as though everything was determined to produce as much as possible and of the highest quality possible now that the plants got to live and thrive.

"Nice," you said with a nod, and the farmer blinked, then laughed, clapping you on the shoulder.

"Oh, you’re just a weirdo," she exclaimed with a bright grin, "like us and not scary at all."

You knew that, should people ever see you desperately talking a dreaming stone into your cauldron, no one would ever consider you scary again. Or worthy of respect.

Dreaming stones were menaces, and every time someone demanded a dream potion or a sleeping potion or something of the sort, you silently shed a tear for your dignity.

"Come on, food should be ready by now." With those words, you were guided into a modest house that had seen better times.

It was obvious where the farmers had tried to patch things on their own, fixing what they could with what they had, since they had little to no money.

But all the blemishes and badly patched chimney cracks and incredibly creaky doors and chipped mugs were forgotten in the face of a truly delicious meal and startlingly good company.

You had so much fun you actually lost track of time, and you stayed so long you ate dinner with them as well. When the farmers told you goodbye, this ragtag group of friends who stuck together through thick and thin, you couldn’t help but reach into your jacket.

Muttering under your breath, you gathered some of the herb crumbs and glittery dust that lined the bottom of all your pockets because you were a gremlin who stuffed all kinds of ingredients into your pockets to get everything into your work room in only one trip.

You sprinkled it on the ground and briefly held your breath to see if the spell would take.

The thing was, curses brought consequences, either for the one who bought a curse for someone else or for the witch who cursed the person in question, but blessings would only take if they were wanted.

You felt the tingle of magic as the blessing took root, and with a relieved little smile, you walked away satisfied, knowing that by morning, half the broken things and problems in the house would have fixed themselves overnight.

On the way home, you met the little boy with his tiny puppy, who was excitedly flagging you down.

"For you," he said, holding up weeds he clearly had ripped out somewhere without much finesse. "For your potions."

"Thanks," you said, accepting the scraggly fistful of plants, and the little puppy was wagging its tail so excitedly it was almost bouncing in place. "Goodnight, remember to come to me if you need anything."

"I will," the boy chirped. "And I’ll bring you more stuff, promise!" He held out his pinky, and you gamely hooked yours around his, shaking his hand up and down gently, and he grinned wide, showing that he was missing a tooth.

He hurried away when his mother called out, the puppy toddling beside him, little ears flopping all over the place. What a cute little wriggler, maybe you should go and get yourself a pet, too. Though perhaps one that wouldn’t try to eat your ingredients.

You went home and dropped the roughly plucked weeds onto the counter to take a closer look at them. Maybe you could use some of them for tea, or at the very least, you’d put them in a vase to spruce up your place. Weeds seemed like a fitting decoration for someone like you.

Except... you quickly did a double-take. Wait. Had that little boy really...

"Lightning strike me twice," you muttered under your breath, carefully straightening out the plants. "I think I’m about to invest in child labor."

That little boy had actually found song buds. The plants looked like fugly little shits to the untrained eye and were usually ripped out immediately, which was why they almost never grew around settlements.

People considered them useless since they tasted about as bitter as a spurned lover, and they always smelled a bit weird. Like wet iron and moldy mulch.

But if a witch like you got your hands on them, oh what a gorgeous, ugly little plant it was.

You giddily turned to properly harvesting the song buds that grew on the plant in hard knobs that never flowered – at least, not until magic got involved. By the time the sun was fully gone, you had a bowl full of faintly glowing flowers that filled the air with a soft, gentle melody.

Putting everything away, you went to bed with a smile on your lips and you wriggled into your sheets like a content caterpillar. You had to admit that you hadn’t been this happy in a long while.

You slept incredibly nicely, which made it all the more startling and jarring to be woken rudely by shouts and bangs on your door.

For a wild second, you wondered if the consequences of the curses were here to skin you alive, before you realized that the tone of the shouting voice was all wrong.

Whoever was out there sounded incredibly desperate.

Throwing off the blankets, you leapt down the stairs to your shop, and you banged your hip on the corner of the counter as you rounded it to rush to the front door, throwing it open.

"Please," a sweaty, wild-eyed woman rasped, tears streaming down her face, and she sounded like she was about to either have a panic attack or start screaming herself hoarse. "Please."

She held out a bundle, and with a start, you realized that it was a baby. A silent and still baby.

You yanked it from her hands without a second thought and ran back inside, the woman scrambling after you, sobbing and pleading. You were already tuning her out, the baby tucked into one arm as you yanked the special chest open to reach inside.

You put the baby on the counter and slapped the phoenix feather onto its chest, already chanting. Your surroundings began to fill with a golden, shiny glow, as if someone had ground sunshine to dust and had thrown it merrily into the air.

You felt the baby’s spirit fading, a soul mournfully moving on, and you grabbed it and yanked it back, hissing at Death, "No, not today, not this one."

The babe inhaled and screamed. It howled like a banshee as the glow faded, the feather gone, and it started to wriggle, swaying tiny fists about as the mother scooped it up, collapsing onto your floor sobbing.

You sagged in relief, as well. Phoenix feathers were among the rarest things in the world, and they could bring someone back to life as long as they hadn’t been dead long. But even they weren’t infallible, and you would have had nothing else on hand for reviving folk if it hadn’t worked.

It had worked, though, you reminded yourself as you wiped sweat from your brow and nudged the top of the spelled chest closed again.

You’d have to go and find a new phoenix feather now. Ugh, that would be so expensive. Phoenixes did share their feathers if they felt like it, but they could be such dicks about it, too.

"Thank you," the woman sobbed over and over, pressing kisses to the babe’s face and fussing over it, and when you looked at her, you realized that she looked like she had run to your shop in nothing but her nightshirt.

It was a bit too cold outside to be running around in only that. You muttered as you cast a few spells, taking two of the song bud blooms to sing health and fortitude into her and the babe.

She smiled at you with tears on her face, so brightly she out-glowed anything else in this moment. You couldn’t help but think that she was the most beautiful woman you had ever seen.

A shout from outside was all the warning you got before the door was thrown open, and a man stood there, panting hard.

The husband and father, you thought, considering the way he almost fell to his knees upon seeing the woman and the fussy babe. It wasn’t crying loudly anymore, but it was still decidedly less-than-happy.

The man rushed inside to press kisses all over the woman’s face as he held her and the babe, starting to sob helplessly himself. You politely ignored the whispers of gratitude and vows of love between them.

Still, at some point, they had to go. They both looked frazzled and exhausted, and with some gentle prodding, they left on shaky legs, still thanking you.

It was only after you closed the door behind them that you realized you were wearing your oldest nightshirt.

...look, everyone had that one really ugly, old article of clothing they kept because it was soft and comfy and just perfect.

Grumbling, feeling a bit embarrassed, you went back to bed, falling asleep within minutes.

The little boy, when you gave him a gold for his weeds the next morning, stared at you as though you had hung the sun and moon in the sky and created all the stars.

"I’ll bring you more!" he promised eagerly, and you made sure to give him a talisman so he’d be safe in the woods. The last thing you wanted was a dead kid just because he wanted to bring you plants.

It didn’t even take an hour for him to return with an armful of weeds. Which were, largely, actual weeds. He watched as you sorted through them, and as you found some song buds again, you gave him another gold and told him to leave the plants be for the rest of the season so they could regrow, unless he found a different patch elsewhere.

The boy left, looking giddy and thanking you and promising to bring you something again later. You made him take one of the health tonics on the way out, telling him what it was for, and he grinned happily.

Well, if no one bought them, you might as well give them away. You were busy putting the useless weeds in a vase to decorate your shop, the useful ones already taken care of, when the door opened again.

It was the mother and father from last night, the father carrying the babe in a sling on his back. They looked exhausted but still glowing with happiness, and they were both just unfairly beautiful people, even on little sleep.

They tried to offer you coin for your help last night, but, well, there simply was no way they could have been able to afford the phoenix feather.

When you grudgingly admitted as much upon their insistence, they looked surprised and stricken and then thoughtful.

"We will repay you otherwise," the wife said with great determination. "Don’t you worry, we’ll find a way."

With those words and a firm request to show up for dinner at their place tonight, they marched back outside, leaving you standing there, baffled and confused.

Weird. People usually skittered away the moment they realized they could get a spell free of charge. Which didn’t happen all that often, for the record.

But, well, magic didn’t actually cost you anything and there were plenty of ingredients you could gather yourself, so it wasn’t like a bit of help here and there was going to hurt you. Unless the ingredient in question was a rare and expensive thing.

Ugh, now you had to go and get a phoenix feather again. What a nuisance.

The farmers showed up around lunchtime, to your surprise, to bring you a meal. Which was not what you had agreed upon when they had bought a spell from you.

"We know you helped us more than you had to," one of them said with a sweet smile when you hesitantly accepted the bowl of delicious-looking food, along with some cheese and still-warm, freshly-baked bread they had made. "And we like looking after our friends."

They left with waves while you stared after them, startled and surprised, and then you shoved a piece of cheese into your mouth to stop yourself from tearing up.

You hadn’t really had friends in... ever. You had been a weird kid who had grown into a weird adult, and you were a witch, to boot. You had always told yourself that at least your job paid well, and you were really good at it, and that should be enough.

But this... this was more than you ever had. You had to return the favor, didn’t you?

It was easy enough to pass by their fields on the way to the married couple in the evening to sprinkle some griffin talon dust mixed with fairy wings onto the earth to give them an even more bountiful harvest.

Afterwards you left a little pouch filled with werewolf hair and moon flowers tied to the fence near their sheep to keep predators away.

The mother and father were very happy to see you, and you ate a wonderful meal in equally wonderful company. You even got to hold the baby, which was a damn novel thing. No one ever let you touch the babes, thinking you were going to curse them or turn them into witches as well.

Which was stupid. Magic was something one was born with, not something you could dump onto their heads like bath water.

You had such a good time that you once again found yourself dropping a quiet blessing on the way out, the magic taking root in the house, twining around the love that lived in every nook and cranny, promising to keep out the chill of coldness and illnesses.

There was a spring in your step on your way home, and you were surprised by how many people gave you polite nods and even greeted you as you passed them by.

Huh. How strange. But also, how pleasant.

Somehow, your life changed for the better.

As the days passed, people approached you for more than revenge and pettiness and greed. Now, they asked you for help, getting blessings for their fields, cheer-up potions for their struggling partners, and talismans for their children so they’d be safe playing in the woods.

Even your health tonics, at long last, were being bought and you might have danced and done a little joy-jump as soon as the shop was empty after the first bottle had been picked up, giggling to yourself like an excited child.

Somehow, everything became brighter and better.

The little boy with his puppy visited often, bringing you all kinds of plants and flowers, and soon other kids joined in. You couldn’t pay them all in gold without bleeding your funds dry, but you did give them either some copper or little blessings to take home, depending on if the blessings took or not.

And, suddenly, between one day and the next, the mother and father stood in your shop, grinning brightly, a phoenix pair perched on their shoulders.

They presented you with not one, not two, not three, but four feathers. You could have just about wept had you not stared at them in utter bafflement.

"They decided they like us," the mother said, grinning with fierce joy and awe. "They’re going to stay with us to raise their child alongside ours."

And there, indeed, was an egg carried by the husband, while the mother had their babe on her back.

"Uh," you said eloquently before shaking yourself out of your stupor. "And the feathers?"

"When they heard what you’re using them for, they gave them to us happily," the husband said, looking filled with boyish wonder and happiness.

Huh. Well then. "Alright," you said, helpless and touched and surprised, and the couple nodded at you before leaving with the phoenixes perched regally on their shoulders.

It only got stranger after that.

Before you knew it, all kinds of creatures appeared. The first was a basilisk who left her shed claws with you and nestled in among the resident chickens, bringing you her feathers whenever she lost one. It allowed you to brew potions to heal all kinds of ailments, and you could even give one traveling adventurer a carefully distilled oil to rescue their lover who had been turned to stone.

Next was a pack of werewolves and satyrs who settled down in the nearby woods, bringing you fur and claw clippings and fallen-out teeth in exchange for some aid.

The werewolves asked for potions that would keep them from attacking anyone during the full moon, and the satyrs organized parties for the entire village after you blessed the clearing so people wouldn’t get magically caught in their songs to dance themselves to death.

And then, most unexpected of all, a herd of unicorns came and stayed.

Trade boomed as merchants heard about all that good fortune and about the amazing harvest your home offered. You, in turn, found yourself helplessly overrun with orders for more and more things. Spells to make fields grow a plentiful harvest, blessings to protect homes, and tonics to heal sick and ailing children.

By now you, could even refuse the bad potions and spells others asked for because you didn’t need their coin anymore.

Just about the only time you cast a curse again was to get rid of a dangerous group of bandits who wanted to kidnap magical creatures and rob the village of everything precious within.

The consequences of that curse, strangely enough, weren’t necessarily bad ones. For a month straight, you were visited by all kinds of nightly creatures who traded their blood and hair and claws and even a few teeth for potions and spells to make their lives easier, and then they kind of... stuck around.

You were happy, the happiest you had ever been. You had friends and wondrous creatures willing to aid you so long as you used what they gave you for good.

You had vases full of weeds around the shop because the children of the village kept visiting you and bringing you things, even if you didn’t always give them coin or blessings in return.

The little buggers were so eager they would have caused you to go bankrupt with how often they barged into your shop to put weeds onto the counter

Before you knew it, you had ended up teaching the children how to tell herbs and weeds and magical ingredients apart, and the parents actually let you, seemingly glad to have an hour or two of free time to themselves. They even waved at you jovially when they picked up their kids from your shop.

And then, one morning, a gleaming carriage arrived, and the queen herself entered your shop. She had two footmen with her who carried a chest that, once placed before you, was revealed to be filled to the brim with riches.

"I need a curse," she said, and if she hadn’t been the queen, you would have refused her.

You gestured at the sign mounted behind you, one you hadn’t even thought about removing despite all the good you were doing now.

"There will be consequences," you said gravely, and she leaned forward, hands placed on the counter, and you had to swallow and resist the urge to shy back at her intense, sharp gaze as she leaned forward.

"Let there be all the consequences in the world," she answered, a low, dangerous tone in her grim voice. "Can you do this or not?"

She handed over a piece of parchment with a, frankly, ridiculously long list of demands for the curse.

"Sure," you said after reading through everything. You almost said that it would cost her an arm and a leg, but the chest she had brought more than paid for the ingredients you were going to toss into this.

So you crouched down in front of your special chest and pulled out two vials, one filled with dragon fire and one with dragon blood, before reaching for dragon scales, a giant’s tooth, and a stormbird’s feather.

Grinding and mixing everything together until you could fill a flask with the thick, syrupy product, you cast your darkest spell yet and held it out to the queen.

"You have to get the person in question to drink this," you said. "All of it, down to the last drop."

You didn’t tell her that the curse could be broken by patting the chest five times and then a leg five times while clicking the tongue at the same time. Easily done, no matter what.

The queen nodded, gripping the flask tightly, and there was quiet, well-hidden relief in her eyes. She politely said goodbye and left, her footmen leaving with her, and you eyed the gleaming treasure chest on your counter.

Someone really must’ve pissed the queen off massively to make her curse them.

You put everything away, hoping that this would be the last time someone asked for curses, and you paused briefly, wondering what had happened to all the other people who had gotten cursed.

You hadn’t heard anything about the princess or that baron’s son again. Nor, now that you thought about it, had you heard anything after that elderly lady bought a curse off of you.

Huh... should you look into that, maybe? Your curses were so damn easy to break it shouldn’t be necessary, but, on the other hand, if something or someone kept people from undoing the curses themselves, you didn’t want them to suffer, either.

You asked some people to look into these matters for you the next day, and before long you got your answer. The princess had never broken her curse and had left her home on her own to live somewhere else, though she apparently still visited her parents.

The baron’s son had gotten banished, which had, in turn, drawn the ire of the queen who had the noble family stripped of much of their power and wealth when they refused to care for their son.

To your surprise, there was actually a law that cursed individuals were not to be chased out of house and home. If they had been turned into mindless beasts, they were to be detained somewhere safe and kept comfortable until the curse could be broken.

Still, it was weird, why had those people not broken their curses yet? It worried you, and you were about to pack a bag to go look for the poor, cursed sods yourself, when someone pushed into your shop just as you were about to close it.

And. Well, you knew what cursed people looked like, and this one was absolutely and definitely cursed. It stood two heads taller than the biggest man and was just as broad in the shoulders, but there was a lithe lightness and grace in its gait. It also had claws to rival a griffin’s.

It looked kind of like a werewolf, only even meaner and stronger and more dangerous, a faint glimmer to its fur like it had gotten blessed by fairy dust.

Wait a second.

"I heard you’ve been asking about me," the person said, and now that you squinted up at them, you vaguely recognized the young woman who had entered your shop all that time ago.

The princess. The princess had cursed herself.

"Why?" you asked, utterly baffled, and she threw her head back, laughing and revealing sharp, sharp teeth.

"Because I was going to marry someone horrible, and my parents couldn’t back out of the deal they had made," she said with a shrug. "And being like this is fun. People take me seriously now, you know? I can actually do whatever I want." She spread muscular arms and grinned wide. "It’s the best."

"Well, that’s good," you answered, baffled and surprised and rather quite relieved to know she had chosen to remain cursed instead of being forced into some terrible existence.

"Same goes for my buddy," she said and stepped aside to allow a man through. One you had an easier time recognizing, mostly because he still largely looked human.

It was the fancy young man, sans feathery hat, who now had large, beautiful wings sprouting from his back and gorgeous, shimmering scales growing up and down his throat, disappearing under colorful clothes.

The scales looked delicate at first glance, but were probably tough enough to give a steel blade trouble. His eyes were sharp and pleased, and there was a surety to him as though he knew only few could harm him now.

"His parents were bad news, but we could never prove anything," the princess answered. "So, he took another way out. They couldn’t hurt him anymore, not like this, and now he gets to be free. He gets to be whoever he wants to be." She grinned. "And when they kicked him out, Ma could finally punish his folk like they deserved."

You were reeling a bit. It would have never occurred to you to use a curse like that. It seemed there were still plenty of things you could learn about magic and its countless uses.

"There was another one, an elderly woman," you said and they both perked up.

"Aunty Niki? Yeah, she cursed herself too," the princess answered. "She lets us stay at her estate from time to time, and she would’ve come, too, if she could have. She needed a curse to look after her people since she was the last one left of her bloodline. Now, they’re rebuilding because she can literally lift a house if she wants to."

At this point you were just overwhelmingly relieved that everything was alright.

"And the queen?" you asked, and the princess and the baron’s son grinned, dark and pleased and wicked.

"You’ll hear soon enough," they promised cryptically before leaving again after reassuring you that, yes, they knew how to break their own curses, and no, they had no intention of doing so anytime soon.

You stared at your glittery sign, your head swimming, and you took a long look at all your dark magic spells and potions and realized that there was a way to use each and every one of them for good, too.

Which was... well, it was a relief. You actually liked how dark magic felt, even if you didn’t like what it was being used for, and you had always excelled at that kind of magic the most. And now you’d get to keep doing it.

Soon afterwards, just like the princess and the baron’s son had promised, you found out what the queen had used her curse for.

You heard about an impending war, and people started to panic, but merely a few days afterwards, you heard of a massive dragon.

It had appeared out of nowhere to destroy their enemy, and afterwards, it guarded the kingdom. Sometimes, it was seen carrying the king around, and you knew what the queen had done.

And she, too, had apparently decided to remain cursed for now.

You couldn’t help but grin and shake your head while bottling new health tonics. After handing them to the young woman you had hired to help with your shop, you suddenly found yourself stilling.

Just wait a damn second. Stepping behind the counter, you stared up at the glittery sign.

All this time, you had thought that the people who had bought curses had used them on someone else. But by cursing themselves, you had been the one to curse them instead. You were the one who had to face the consequences.

And all of a sudden, you understood what the consequences were when curses were used for something good. You thought of all the moments when your secret, quiet little dreams had come true, the healing and helping, finding friends and being accepted.

The wondrous creatures that had appeared to live nearby, bringing awe and blessings and protection and even more friendships, in some cases. They had also made it downright easy to get your hands on rare potion and spell ingredients, offering you things freely and gladly.

You stared at the sign, and then you had to duck into the backroom to have a little cry to yourself without startling your newly-hired hand. You were sniffing and grinning hard enough to hurt your cheeks.

When your farmer friends showed up to bring you lunch, like they did almost every day, you couldn’t help but hug them tight, and they laughed and hugged you in return, glad to share in your good mood.

Life was amazing, and you honestly couldn’t even imagine how it could get any better, but there were still consequences awaiting you.

For giving a queen the power to protect her entire kingdom and all the people she loved.

You had never looked forward to the consequences of your actions more in your entire life.