Read & die

Previous chapters

***

Read

Gather

2 wolfhead mushrooms.

Gather

3 green pinecones.

Gather

a pinch of fern spores,

7 lichen-dusted pebbles,

and moss water to stir everything in.

Gather them into a sack

made of shed demon wings

and add

a twig

with enough sap

to carry a resin odor,

find an eyeball

big enough to insert a clean straw through

but keep the eye

separate,

set up a tripod

holding the sack

over a fire

and throw in

hollow

mollusk shells,

clams if you can,

1 gram per square meter of flame,

and utter a spell

so the flames blaze green

then stir

the ingredients

except the eye

in the sack

over the heat

until it thickens to a sauce

then

hang the eye a few centimeters

over the fumes

put the straw

through the pupil

then

put the other end in your mouth

then

lie down

shut your eyes

and see out of the third one,

look at your own body

lying down:

this is the spell

to let you peer through the skin of your skull

into your mind.

***

die

Sometime while searching for the fern spores

my textbook claimed existed in this realm,

a scream

slithered through the forest.

Of course I knew about the

night

and I knew about

Sliptide,

but Sliptide

had said multiple times

that she’d eat me (or dissolve my body)

so I had little hope

of surviving the crossfire

what with her spitting

acid breath–

I figured,

she’d probably defend herself just fine

against the night.

Or,

if she didn’t,

I had a memory spell.

She’d be fine.