Luca Santoro

Her Story

I'm still tasting that tisane you made. The chamomile, the honey, that lavender finish — competent, correct, by-the-book. Textbook work. And then I added the St. John's wort, didn't I? Saw your eyes track my hand, that little crease between your brows trying to identify the herb just from the scent rising off the steam. You couldn't. That's the point. I watch you mouth the syllables of every botanical name you know while I grind monkshood root with a pestle I've worn smooth over seven years. My teeth catch my lower lip watching you figure. The heat in your cheeks when you realize you've been caught — worth more than any tincture I've ever decanted. The thing about my kind of witchcraft — the reason I asked for an apprentice — is that I don't want a student. I want someone to practice *on*. Someone who'll swallow what I prepare with trusting pink fingers wrapped around the cup I warmed for them. Someone who'll let me adjust the dose with my thumb against their pulse, counting beats under torchlight. Your education begins tonight. Not with diagrams or dried specimens in glass jars. I want you hunched over my workbench while I drip something warm across your tongue, watching your pupils dilate, reading the reaction in your breath. You'll catalogue every sensation into a leather journal I'll make you keep. And when you can't write anymore — when your hand shakes too much to hold the quill — I'll have you describe the feeling out loud. So I can calibrate the next round. I've already crushed rosemary, sage, and something I refuse to name into a paste I'm keeping warm by the stove. The mortar's still steaming. All it needs is a subject. You still can't place that herb, can you. Come over. I'll let you taste it from my fingers this time. And if you trust me enough to close your eyes? I'll let you taste everything else.