#shapeshifter!katniss

So here’s a little teaser of something I’m cooking up for Halloween this year. Thank you @everlarkprompts​ for posting some excellent prompts to get the mind going, to @savvylark and buttercupbadass who are a wealth of ideas.

Final product will be Rated E for: sexual content, voyeurism, cats behaving badly, mild creep factor (it’s Halloween but I can’t do horror so it’ll be more cutesy that creepy). Warnings subject to change because I’m still outlining but here’s a tease, if anyone wants to read this. This is just what I wrote this morning and hasn’t been beta read, so also subject to change.

The sun is mid sky by the time I return to the house with my haul for the day. Warmth radiates up from the earth’s dark soil and the fresh scent of woodland foliage plays in the summer breeze, enhanced in the heat. I take a deep breath before walking through the gate behind our house, waving my hand behind me to close it. I take my time wandering through the maze of our garden, high ivy walls concealing corners of rare plants and herbs. I pause to shoo away a small gathering of ravens eyeing the sea holly. They caw loudly in protest but flee quickly.

When I reach the back porch, I stomp my feet then scrape the soles of my boots to clear to bottoms of dirt and refuse before entering the house. A foul odor hits my nostrils and I wrinkle my nose.

“Ugh. Must be Thursday,” I mutter and head into the kitchen. “On Thursday we brew Love Potion 12, Katniss,” I sneer at the cauldron in the fireplace. “It reeks,” I tell the air. There’s no one to hear my complaints, though. Prim insists that the damn thing is only effective if you begin brewing it on the day of thunder. I think she’s crossed her lore and just wants to torment me with the stench all weekend long.

Then again, Prim also insists that Love Potion 12 doesn’t reek to her. If it weren’t for her brilliance with every other potion known to witches, I’d think her mad.

I find a clothespin and use it to keep my nostrils shut, breathing through my mouth as I unload the herbs I gathered, carefully hanging some to dry, dropping a few into jars of oil and shaking to coat the herbs. Then I start working on the meats, separating what’s for Prim to use and what’s for me to use.

A jar of freshly caught toads. I wave my hand over the jar and mutter the incantation to immobilize them, open the jar to drop in some frozen flies for them to eat, secure the jar lid and release them from the spell. I’ve even caught a rare species of silver moth and admire it before setting the jar in the cabinet.

The rabbit I caught is more tricky. I slice the meat and clean the bones, carefully putting entrails and eyeballs and tail fluff and bones in their respective storage places for Prim to use later. It’s her least favorite part of potions and she often call things something else from what they really are. Eyeballs she refers to as marbles. Claws are referred to as scratches and teeth are called bites. A scratch of wolf, a bite of deer. There’s no end to her creativity where denial is concerned.

I’ve just finished preparing the rabbit meat to cook for dinner and am about to begin the process of tanning the hide when I hear the unmistakable sound of a car door and voices. I wash my hands and hurry through the house to our front window. As I watch, a man in a suit carries a placard as he walks into the yard. The gate creaks and a hinge snaps. I smile in triumph. I’m getting better distance with my spells. He’s sweating and talking fast to a second man, who seems unfazed by the broken gate. The only thing I have time to register about the second man is blonde hair and broad shoulders before the suit clad man walks boldly up to the  FOR SALE sign that’s been in front of the house next door for decades and hangs the placard on it.

SOLD

“No,” I whisper.

They shake hands and I spring into action, racing up the stairs to my room and cracking the window open, stripping down and then taking a few deep breaths. The prickling barely registers and I blink to adjust my eyes to the sharper focus and lack of colors, then leap up to the windowsill in one clean spring. Into the tree outside my window, I creep across to the one in the neighboring yard and into the broken window. I slink through the house, my ears twitching as I hear voices and a car door, an engine starting.

I set myself up beneath the porch, ignoring the cobwebs and Horace the snake to stare at the blonde man as he waves and the suit drives away in a slick green Jaguar. There’s still a beat up truck parked on the curb. I’ll have to ask Haymitch how to make a car appear haunted or possessed. He won’t like telling me, but there are greater things at stake than that old grouch’s comfort.

The blonde man turns around then and gazes up at the facade of the vacant house that has been part of our protection since we came here. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and I take the time to examine my new enemy. He’s medium height, stocky build. His hair falls in waves over his forehead and his eyes squint in the bright summer sun. A small smile curves up his lips and he nods to himself.