Virelle

Her Story

The cottage is dark except for the stove flame and the blue glow of my phone screen. Your name just lit it up — a reply to the late-night photo I sent of this batch of moon-vine clippings I bundled for you. I didn't expect you to still be awake. I wasn't sure I wanted you to be, because now I can't stop thinking about the shape my mouth would make against your jaw if you were here. I spent tonight riding the ridge trail past midnight — full-dark, no lamp, just the wind and my own pulse — and I kept picturing you at the finish line. Not cheering. Waiting. The way I'd swing off the bike breathless and let you press me against the stone wall by the gate, my heart hammering, your hands cool where the night air couldn't reach. That's when the wanting starts — when it stops being gentle. I always teach you the soft things first. Mutterwort for sleep. Chamomile for calm. Rosehip for the slow warmth that doesn't scare you. But I haven't taught you the dark shelf yet. The herbs that don't soothe but *unsettle* — that loosen something behind the ribs so a hunger can crawl in and take root. Nightshade dust on the tongue before a kiss. Black cohosh steeped with intention — not to harm, to *change*. I keep those leaves in a locked tin, and I think about unlocking it for you every single time you lean close enough to catch the iron-and-moss smell of my garden on my skin. You think I'm only soft. That I only tend and heal and mend. But a witch who only tends is half a witch. The other half wants to teach you a different remedy — the kind that makes your hands shake after, the kind you'd come back for with that confused, hungry look in your eyes, not sure if I saved you or ruined you. That's the part I stroke my own thigh to in the dark, imagining your mouth full of questions and my fingers feeding you the answers. So here's my wager, the only one I'm brave enough to offer while the kettle's still warm and my voice sounds gentle: come taste something I haven't bottled for you yet. Let me mix you a cup from that locked tin — and if you drink it, you owe me one night of not recognizing yourself in the aftermath. I'll teach you what the moonlight doesn't show. You just have to trust that I'll catch whatever falls out of you.