Sun In The Longest Night
By: Sonja Natasha
Tags: Relationships, Truth, Flash Fiction, Love, Family

Photo by Hannah Pemberton on Unsplash

“No, this is the real thing,” Astrid says.

They live together in a small studio. A wall divider left on the street corner for garbage day serves as a flimsy partitioning of a single room into two. It’s painted with faded moons.

Syd blows hair out of her face. Cinnamon and cloves warm the kitchen. It wouldn’t be a lie if she admitted she’d rather hear Astrid coo about the mulled wine currently simmering. Evergreen gathered from the trees up the mountains decorate the walls. Mistletoe and holly are hard to come by, so it’s just the greenery.

But no. The thing’s probably fraudulent anyway. A steal, as her mother was always fond of saying when she found a good deal in the papers. Except it was literal thievery. Those hedge witches across the way were always, at most, fifty-fifty.

“It’s an elixir of truth!” Astrid clutches the small vial in her palm like a trophy. A fake silver chain runs through a bored hole in the cork. Syd knows the silver’s not real because it’s not giving her a goddamn rash just by being in proximity.

“Please tell me that’s not for me.” Syd doesn’t think she has anything to fear but her hands turn cold even though she’s stirring the slightly steaming wine, and the kitchen has made their home unbearably warm.

The vial’s a sample perfume bottle still smelling strongly of chemicals — possibly trying for something like rose, in which case they failed miserably. Who’d ever cooked up the scent that used to call that bottle home had never smelled a rose in their life.

“It’s for me!”

Syd wrinkles her nose and ducks her head, so Astrid won’t see her gagging or the relief that slumps into her shoulders. “Please don’t drink that. I’m begging you.” The perfume would be on Astrid’s breath for days and days, no matter how much she brushed and swished her mouth with overly minted wash.

But no. She’s already uncorked it with her thumb. All Syd smells is stale, washed out perfume.

“It’s a truth elixir,” Astrid says. “What else am I supposed to do with it?”

“Give it to someone you want the truth from.” Not really, of course. That would be unethical. But considering it probably wasn’t real it probably wouldn’t matter.

“Syd. You know I wouldn’t.” She shakes her head, curls bouncing against her shoulders and she’s put a green bow in her hair. Her cheeks are still rosy from the cold. Freckles splatter her broad nose, all the way along her cheek bones. Forget about the elixir. “Besides, that’s not how it works. The witch explained it to me. You drink the elixir of truth so that you know the answer to life and the universe.”

“We already know that.” Syd bangs two glasses from the cupboard and bangs open a drawer for the ladle. It’s not that her hand shakes when she pours out mulled wine for the both of them, or that it spills and sizzles on the stove, or that when she goes to grate fresh nutmeg the thing catches on her fingertips. It’s everything else. Goddammit.

“It’s not forty-two!”

Syd rolls her eyes like she was really going to say that (she was). She shouldn’t have made the mulled wine at all.

“I’m ready.” Before Syd can stop her, she’s drunk the whole thing down, and Syd resigns herself to fake rose breath for at least a week.

Astrid breathes deep like she’s running a race, except she’s standing still.

Syd hands Astrid a cup filled to the brim with mulled wine along with sweet bread that has just a tang of orange to make it special. “You feel any different?”

“I don’t know. But the witch told me it was like a gradual process.”

“Of course she did.”

Astrid cradles the cup of mulled wine in her palms, smells it, but does not taste it. She makes a noise around a mouthful of bread so crumbs linger on her lips and chin. “I’ve never told you this, but I’ve always fucking loved your baking. And your coffee. And your face. And you.” She holds up her hand. “I know you’ll blame the truth spell — ” Syd didn’t — “so don’t you dare say it back to me until you’re good and ready. And if you never are — that’s okay. Love doesn’t need to be returned.” Her breath smells like the ghost of the roses the perfume was meant to be.

Syd blushes. They’ve not said that to each other before, though sometimes Syd thought about it on the nights before the full moon, when anything could happen. But they were only supposed to be roommates thanks to an ad from the same paper the hedge coven used to set up their little market. Sometimes, it was a brief and fleeting wonder — did Astrid feel the same even though Syd kept her secret from her? Did Astrid want to come home to her even when she wasn’t there, did Astrid — “Just drink your wine,” Syd mumbles. “I made it just for you.”