The wind blew haunting chimes of the church bell from a distance. Twelve loud rings that echoed throughout the deserted darkness marked the time of midnight, the time when boggarts are thought to lurk, and ghouls are thought to spring. A heavy drizzle pounded the abandoned house on 13 Fortunado Drive mercilessly, some passing through the broken window, spattering onto two young witches and the myriad of scrolls that lay before them.

“Midnight has passed. Let us begin.” The shorter witch spoke curtly with an undefiable authority. Her tone was shrill and irritating, as if whinning from a young spoiled child. She had her cloak hem reaching to her foot, yet the top still struggled to fit her ridiculously obese waists. She sat with her fat bottom spread out evenly on the dust-covered floor.

“But…” The tall witch seemed unsure. She looked as if a gentle zephyr would be able to blow her down, with a lean and weak body very much alike a beanpole. A sharp nose hung limply onto her sagged and tired face, her eyes looked spacey and distant, blending the few wrinkles that cut deep into her young countenance looked her body shivering heavily.

“Shut up and do your job!” The short witch cut her off with an air of hubris before she could continue.

The tall witch peeked at her companion with trepidation and tremulously lighted the long prepared firewood. The short witch observed the cowardice with disgust as the tall witch then hauled out a big black cauldron filled with water over the fire. She stirred in little bits of what seemed like remnants of animals. After some continuous stirring and no further action, the short witch began to grumble impatiently.

“The final ingredient, where is it? Put it in!”

“But…”

“Put it in, you stupid blockhead. Then we will have the potion on becoming the most powerful witches ever!”

“But…” The taller witch’s face was bloated all red, either from embarrassment or desperateness, “We’re not even witches!”

“Shut your trap! Everyone tells us that, and you believe too? If you don’t even trust yourself, who shall trust you?! Now hurry up and put that last ingredient in like the scroll instructs.”

“But… But…”

“But what, you useless piece of nincompoop!”

“The book says that it’s poisonous. That Mer… Merc…”

“God blast that book! And when did you start believing the book, huh? ‘Little things attract each other and create the world’, who believes this junk! Besides, what did you get on that last test about that book, huh? A sixty-seven or sixty-eight percent?”

The tall witch bit her lip. She grunted as she heaved up a transparent glass container filled with some grayish liquid. Then she seemed to change her mind as she set the container down again, pulled out a thick hard-covered book, and started flipping frantically.

The short witch frowned with contempt as she pushed her companion aside onto the floor. Then, she poured all the liquid in the container into the cauldron herself. The tall witch stopped flipping through the pages and gazed at the cauldron, then back at her acquaintance with terror.

The night was pitch black. Not even a hint of moonlight embraced the little town where the two witches were preparing. A gust began to breed as it whistled its noisy chorus while blowing the cool autumn air into the tattered house. The taller witch trembled, and clutched her cloak tighter. Under the flickering of the feeble candlelight, her face looked pallid, filled with aghast.

The air grew colder as the liquid inside the pot began to boil. Waves of heat mixed with a wretched smell filled the air.

“It is ready!” The short witch’s voice was filled with jubilance and wonder, as she scooped herself a full bowl of the blackish red potion.

“It is ready!” The tall witch’s voice was filled with dread, as she scooped up a minimal amount of the foul gunk. The short witch gazed at her coldly, and suddenly snatched her bowl. She filled the bowl full of liquid up to the top, and then she thrust the bowl back into the tall witch’s hand.

“Let us toast, for we will become the most powerful witches ever!” The short witch drank her prized mixture in a gulp.

“Let us toast!” The tall witch wanted to secretly unload the horrible poison onto the floor, but under the menacing hawk-like glare of the other, she winced as she dumped all the contents into her mouth.

A gale raged with fury, as it attacked the abandoned house menacingly with ruckus, sending the house quivering, as if about to be broken apart.

“Haha… Haha…” The sound of the short witch’s strident laughter rang throughout the house. “I feel a change in my stomach! A change! I am feeling the power churning in my stomach! The Aura is running throughout my body! Haha... Haha...”

The tall witch trembled even harder. Huge beads of sweat broke loose all over her face, dripping down her chin. Her face was now white as a piece of blank paper, reflecting the full glow of the flame from the stub of candle left. “I feel a change in my stomach! I think I’m dying! Ah, the unbearable pain…”

Before she finished, two loud thuds hit the floor of the abandoned house on 13 Fortunado Drive. The wind calmed as it rustled the army of fallen leaves on the ground, as if mourning for the ignorant schoolgirls who believed they were witches. Under the influence of the remaining sorrowful breeze, the pages of the opened hardcover chemistry book that was deserted on the floor cried for their master, while fluxing onto page 316, Chapter 7 Section 3 “Mercury and its properties”.