“First we’ll need to grind up the Alden Wood bark into a powder.”

We made it back to the clearing with buckets in hand. Or in my case, in the crooks of my elbows, unable to figure out a way to carry two buckets and a blade without hurting myself. By then, the trip had lapsed into silence and I was focused on not spilling any of the harmful contents, especially onto myself. Any attempts to wrangle more information out of Tolsti were quickly given up on. I wanted reassurance, but her gleeful mood had alarms ringing in my head. The small pieces of explanation I did receive only deepened my misgivings. The whole thing was foreboding to the say the least.

“And we didn’t collect any while we were actually there… why?”

A handful of tinder and sticks in her arms, Tolsti instead pointed her foot towards the ribbons of bark littering the ground. Oh, so that was what she had been doing. After dumping the wood to the side of the fire pit, its embers still a warm orange, Tolsti unrolled a bundle of cloth to reveal a stone mortar and pestle. Grabbing the surprisingly heavy set, I plopped down near the strewn fragments of bark and silently considered how I would do this. A pinecone wizzing by my face brought me out of my thoughts.

“You can put the dagger down for now. I'm not a monster. I understand you only have two hands to work with. Just keep it close.”

I briefly entertained questioning how much she understood, before discarding it as suicide by stupidity. Her anticipatory scowl proved she understood the general direction of my thoughts and strongly hinted that no response was the way to proceed.

I stabbed the dagger into the ground, the blade sinking in a few inches to my right. It occurred to me that I should ask Tolsti about proper weapon maintenance and care. I didn’t think the pine needles and dirt were in any way harmful, but it seemed prudent to ask at some point. With a shrug and a crack of my knuckles, I readied the mortar and reached towards a piece. “Wait, they’re not poisonous, are they?”

“Not at all. The opposite actually,” she said, dumping a second armful of wood on the growing pile.

“They’re… good for you?”

“Well, no. They counteract the sap’s poison. Takes the edge off the whole thing. Brennus explained it as a defensive mechanism the tree developed over time, to make sure it couldn’t harm itself. Like how our stomach linings protect us from the acid inside.”

“Brennus?”

“Oh, just someone I know who loves the sound of his own voice. Too stupid to realize how stupid he is.”

“Right.” It was hard to tell what Tolsti actually thought of this Brennus. Stupid to the point of self-ignorance, yet a seemingly trusted source of woodcraft knowledge. The two didn’t really parse, but I guess knowledge didn’t have to equate one-to-one with intelligence. It could be that Tolsti was simply the type to jovially disparage her friends. That did seem the more likely of the two. I spent a moment watching her snap some of the larger sticks in two. I wonder how she viewed me?

Returning my attention to the task at hand, I cut up a strip into more manageable pieces and dumped them into the coarse stone bowl. Up and down, around and around, I used the thick pestle to grind the bark down. More difficult than I would have thought, my hands and forearms were soon burning with a deep exhaustion. An irritated glance revealed frustratingly little progress. The pieces barely broken up, let alone ground into a powder. A poorly hidden snort had my head snapping around to it’s amused source.

Hands in the air in a mock pleading gesture, Tolsti struggled to contain her smile, the edges of her lips twisting up in delight. “Bring it here, you’ll be done by winter at this rate. You have to dry it out first. There’s still too much moisture in the bark. Come, rest your weary arms and help me build up the fire.

* * *

A few hours near the edge of the fire had stripped the bark of a fair amount of moisture. While still not easy, the dried pieces eventually gave up their fight, leaving me with a course mixture that Tolsti deemed acceptable. During the wait, Tolsti consolidated the sap into a single bucket before going off to wash out the now empty containers in the stream. By the time the bark was properly broken down, the sun had fallen through the sky, only a few hours left until it dipped over the horizon. The now ready material was dumped into the sap bucket, mixed thoroughly and set into a newly formed bed of embers and coals.

“Now we wait,” Tolsti said with an eager lilt to he voice.

“So,” I began, carving furrows in the dirt with the tip of my blade. “Is this one of those things I’m not ready to know of yet? Because I would really like to know what exactly that,” I continued, pointing towards the lightly simmering mixture, “is going to do to me.”

Tolsti pursed her lips, eyes staring off into space while she considered the question. Her soft leather boots barely made a sound as she strode over to her satchel and dug a hand inside. A few seconds of rummaging ended with a pleased smile. Tolsti turned back towards me, the edges of her eyes taking on a bright golden glow as she threw her hand into the air, a scattering of things following right behind. A varied assortment of small metal odds and ends flew upward, arching around us and scattering into a bevy of trajectories. Glinting as they caught the late afternoon light, the nails, beads, cups and taps collectively paused in their flight, hovering over the clearing like our very own collection of satellites and moons.

“How can I do this?” Tolsti began with her hands spread wide, dragging me out of my mouth open wonder. “Because I’ve awakened. And because I remember.” With a glance my way, Tolsti gave a twitch of her fingers and the floating array began to move again. “You’ve opened the door, Henry. Traveled there and back, of that I have no doubt. But," she stressed, "you’ve failed to bring anything back with you.”

The scattered metal items coalesced into a rough grouping above her head and one by one made their way down into the waiting satchel. “The door has only just been opened, propped open with a foot. Enough for a peek, maybe enough to slip through, but a tight squeeze at that. You return, but anything you might have found is left waiting on the other side. And so you sit, remembering nothing, having nothing. That, my little Henry,” she indicated with a finger towards the simmering solution, “will help grease the hinges of your Heart’s Door. Allow you to open it wider than ever before. And, with luck, you'll come out the other side with something to show for it.”

“I see,” I replied, with a nod in her direction. I didn’t, not really. But I was still thankful for the explanation, even if it sparked more questions than it settled. Although it did make one thing exceedingly clear. Wetting my dried throat with a sip of water, I turned back to carving designs in the dirt. If I wanted a hope of surviving in this world, do more than fumble from one crisis to another, this would be my chance.

* * *

“Is there anything else I have to do. Any preparation or–”

“No. Just drink it down and find yourself a comfortable position. It will take an hour or so to kick in. You’ll know when,” she added, answering my question before I had a chance to ask. “It does have a… rather interesting taste, so be ready for that.”

“Are you sure that’s it? Nothing else I should know?”

Oh, right.” With a light slap to her head, Tolsti gave me an apologetic look. “It’s an incredibly potent aphrodisiac so your feelings towards me, not to mention heavily repressed lust, will undoubtedly come surging up and–”

“Okay, okay.” With a wave in her direction I stopped her there, indicating I understood. If it was worth knowing she would have told me already. I was only delaying at this point.

The cup in my hand radiated a comforting warmth, a remnent of the now cooling liquid. It had taken on a light amber color from the cooking process, possibly from the addition of the bark. It didn’t look especially off-putting, kind of like a watered down maple syrup. But my stomach was a bit of a mess at this point, roiling and turning, betraying my frayed nerves. I could feel Tolsti’s gaze on me and tightened my grip on the metal cup. One minute. I would give myself one minute to do it.

I dragged my eyes away from the liquid and up to Tolsti. She flashed a confident smile my way, the dying embers between us bathing her in a warm light. I thought back to her words from earlier today. If I feared the fire, I deserved the darkness and cold I recieved. The light and heat forever out of reach. With a final breath, in and out, I returned a nervous smile Tolsti’s way and tossed back the drink.

* * *

Beating my fists against the ground, fighting back the overwhelming urge to empty my stomach, I turned watering eyes to Tolsti in an accusing glare. The minutes stretched on while I struggled to keep the vile concoction down. The bitter nausea and stomach turning disgust taxing my reserves. A final swallow seemed to settle things down, somewhat, before a thick burp escaped my mouth unannounced. The sound accompanied by Tolsti’s out of breath laughter as she rolled around the ground in undisguised glee.

I narrowed my eyes in her direction before deciding not to give her the pleasure of my misery. I wiped my hands across my face, brushing off the trails of tears wrung out in my suffering and croaked out a response. “Not bad at all. A little spicy for my tastes though.”

The off handed remark only set her into another breathless fit. Her giggles floating through the surrounding woods before she threw up a hand in defeat, gulping in large lungfuls of air in an attempt to calm down.

Despite my best attempts to stay mad, helped along by the lingering rancid taste on my tongue, a ghost of a smile teased my lips. A sprinkling of Tolsti’s delight, even if it was at my expense, washed over me.

Finally over her amusement, Tolsti made her way over to my position and tossed a wrapped bundle my way. Giving a questioning look in her direction, I unwrapped the cloth to reveal a leather sheath. A deep brown with a faint grain, the leather was thick, but relatively soft to the touch.

“Give it a try. It should fit, close enough, if not perfectly.”

A small strap looped around the opening of the sheath, from the back over to the front, where it attached by means of a raised bronze stud. I slipped off the strap and tentatively slid my dagger inside. Pushing until the edge of the handle neared the opening, I rewrapped the strap around the base of the blade, hopefully locking it place. A few tugs on the handle proved as much.

“Thank you Tolsti,” I offered in a quiet tone, running my thumb over the leather in appreciation.

A smug face greeted me when I looked back up. “We’ll call it a fair trade for services provided. Good entertainment is so hard to find these days.” With a shrug she continued. “It was easy enough to come by, nothing special. And you'll need it much more than I ever would.” With that, she made her way back to the other side of the fire, tossing in a few small sticks along the way. “Besides, it’s better this way. The last thing I wanted was to save your life again when you inevitably cut, stabbed or otherwise sliced yourself during the coming hours. My words are still very much in effect. The blade stays in your hand tonight.”

“So sit back and relax, dear Henry. Because now it begins.”

With nothing else to do but wait, I played around with the new sheath for my dagger. Studying the tight stitching down the sides and getting a feel for the gift. As the sun inched closer and closer to the horizon my nerves began to blossom once again and it became more difficult to affect a semblance of calm.

The crackling of the fire seemed to roar right beside my ears, while Tolsti’s gentle humming sounded miles away. Sometimes the two would suddenly swap, the humming buzzing in my ears while the fire burned in the distance. The last vestiges of light that made their way into the clearing had an almost… physical presence. The beams of light becoming pillars that held up the sky. The ground around me rose and fell in steady waves, the breath of the earth making itself known. My own breath felt… not thin, but off in some way. Secondary. As if it wasn’t really entering me, more… passing through. I felt untethered and the rising details of the world grated on my mind. Happy to escape it all, I closed my eyes, only for a new world to open itself before me.