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Hyunseo had her reservations about a mortal joining the coven. Yujin had told Hyunseo to stop worrying and be happy that they'll have someone else to split the rent with.
"What about magic?" Hyunseo had asked.
"Don't worry about it," Yujin snapped.
Hyunseo continues to worry about it. The concern does all seem to be for nothing. Gaeul walks in on a séance two days after moving in. She laughs, a flat and quiet sound, and asks to join in. Hyunseo supposes things will work out after all. Yujin was right.
Each member of the coven has their own room. The house is an old one converted from an old factory on disused farmland. Between the cheap rent and the spells and wards propping it up, the place is perfect for their coven. With enough distance from the other houses in the village, small explosions don't attract strange questions.
Yujin's room is filled with twinkles and sparkles.
Rei's room is all a flutter with butterflies with wings of glass.
Wonyoung's room is swirling with enchanting perfumes which linger outside the door.
Jiwon's room is usually filled with the gentle thumping of the tiny friends she conjures up to laugh at all of her jokes.
Hyunseo's room is a wreck. Her magic isn't under control at all. Living this far from other people is mostly a necessity because of her. Nobody else gets teased so often about making the house fall apart. Well, that was the case before Gaeul arrived.
A dull thud. A big thud, not at all like the army of miniature footfalls from Jiwon's room. The ground shakes again. At least this explosion seems contained. Gaeul is working early today. Hyunseo thinks it is better to stay out of the mortal's way. She returns to reading her potions book. Spellwork is a lot to concentrate on these days but potions should be fine. Potions are just like any other recipe. All she needs to do is follow the instructions.
There is no pronunciation or intent to worry about unlike casting a spell. Potions are much more straightforward. She has, however, learnt from Jiwon's carelessness with potions. Hyunseo absolutely must read through a recipe and check she has everything she needs before attempting to make a potion.
The draught to relieve regrets seems like a nice potion to practise. Whilst magic can't change the past, seeing there is a solution to change a person's perspective on the past is encouraging. Hyunseo doesn't have any specific regrets which come to mind but that is because she ends up regretting most things that happen. Little things about what she should have said resurface in her mind right before sleep and even when she is supposed to be focusing on her studies. There isn't much relief in the fact that the experience isn't unique to her. She still weighed down by memories of clumsiness and injustice the she simply can't release.
Setting aside the racket Gaeul is making in her room, Hyunseo decides there is no better time to practise brewing this potion. The draught to relieve regrets is a quick and easy potion according to the book. A two out of five broomstick rating for difficulty should be a piece of cake!
Hyunseo clutches the potions book to her chest and makes her way to the kitchen. She creeps past Gaeul's room, timing her scurrying just right so that Gaeul's door doesn't get blown into her and knock her down the stairs again.
In one piece, Hyunseo sets to work brewing the draught to relieve regrets. The instructions are simple enough and Hyunseo doesn't even dirty multiple cauldrons, spoons, ladles and scales like the last time she brewed up a potion with similar steps.
One area Hyunseo could improve in is the timing. A potion recipe stated to take thirty minutes took her almost two hours. In her defence, Yujin's rule of cleaning as she goes really did slow things down. Nonetheless, this isn't something Hyunseo regrets. She's improving. The finished potion, cooling in the little, black cauldron looks exactly as described in the potions book: pale in colour with a watery consistency. As it cools, it becomes almost milky and iridescent.
Satisfied at last, Hyunseo finds that the kitchen still looks like a tip. She can't leave it like this when everyone comes home or she'll never hear the end of it. Hyunseo gets to work as well as she can. She isn't a fan of tidying up but the threat of having her messiness leveraged against her for the rest of her life is a great motivator.
When Hyunseo is up to her elbows in suds, Gaeul emerges from her room.
With her hair awry and soot on her cheek.
"You look like you have been busy," she says in her gentle, little voice.
"I'm cleaning it all up!" Hyunseo wonders just how guilty she sounds. There wasn't any need for her to react like she'd done anything wrong but just as though she had been teased already, she is raising her voice and all sorts. Gaeul chuckles softly. Hyunseo steals a glance over her shoulder and sees the remnants of Gaeul's smile fading into comfortable neutrality as she sits down at the table.
Perhaps without saying anything at all, this mortal has ways of teasing Hyunseo as well as any member of the coven.
The clink of metal against metal behind Hyunseo makes her think there are more similarities between Gaeul and the rest of the coven.
"What's this?" She asks, "It looks so pretty."
Hyunseo hesitates around a response. Whilst Gaeul has seen some of their witchcraft, they should still try to hide the rest of their reality. Gaeul is stirring the potion in the cauldron but Hyunseo can't think up a believable lie.
"I'm making…"
Soup? Slime? A mess? What is she supposed to say?
"The taste is familiar."
Hyunseo whirls around, water and bubbles splattering on the floor. It is too late. Gaeul somehow found the time to ladle some of the potion into a cup to start drinking.
Gaeul contemplates the potion for a few moments before taking another sip. And then she disappears and her cup clatters to the floor.
Hyunseo rushes over to the table, wondering what on earth Gaeul regretted to completely disappear from existence. What she finds on the floor beside the pulled-out chair, sitting glumly in the opalescent shine of the puddle of potion, is a young child. This might actually be worse than Hyunseo's first thought.
"Hello?" Hyunseo says. Her voice trembles uselessly. The small girl with pigtails and adorably big ears frowns up at Hyunseo.
Oh dear. Oh no.
"Are you alright?" Hyunseo asks, her voice betraying her as blatantly as before. The small girl drops her gaze and shakes her head.
This is awful.
Hyunseo is admittedly not the best at magic. Before anything else, she sets about cleaning up the mess on the floor. She doesn't have anything size-appropriate to change Baby Gaeul into so a very loose and oversized T-shirt will have to do. The spillage is easy enough to resolve along with the pink shorts which will hopefully be clear of the surprisingly oily residue from the draught to relieve regrets once the washing machine has seen to them.
There is still washing up to be done but Hyunseo can probably get away with some excuse about leaving everything to soak. There is a more pressing matter to fix before mundane chores like washing up.
Hyunseo's first thought is to drink the potion she made. This should qualify as a large enough regret to be resolved. Luckily she reads the page from the potion book again and decides against her impulse. No longer regretting something wouldn't resolve the issue. In fact, her current panic is the very thing which is motivating her to want to fix this. Drinking the potion now would leave her satisfied with how the situation currently is.
She flips the pages of the potions book in search of anything to reverse de-aging. There are ineffective anti-aging potions galore but nothing helpful. The only aging potion is the Crone Elixir which temporarily bestows the drinker with wisdom and a wizened appearance. Hyunseo looks across the table at Baby Gaeul.
No. A Baby Gaeul with lots of wrinkles would not solve this problem at all.
After giving up on potions, Hyunseo relents and rushes to fetch her spellbook.
Baby Gaeul begins making quiet little sounds like she's blowing through her teeth. She twists her hands in ways surely a contortionist should, and she steals tiny glances at Hyunseo.
"Are you alright? What's the matter?" Hyunseo asks. Baby Gaeul begins to mutter something. Hyunseo asks again and leans closer. Baby Gaeul repeats her muttering even quieter than before. This leads to a cycle of question and answer that ends when Hyunseo has crawled across the tabletop to get her ear as close to Baby Gaeul's pouty little mouth.
Hyunseo needs to give up on this approach. She wriggles back across the table and into her seat. Baby Gaeul is doing a really bad job of pretending not to be looking at Hyunseo.
"What is it?" Hyunseo asks. She hears her impatience in her voice but maybe Baby Gaeul misses the obvious tone in her voice. "I mean, are you tired? Hungry? Bored?"
Baby Gaeul mumbles and squirms like a wriggly worm. This is a language Hyunseo will never understand. She finds some snacks in the cupboard and tips them onto the table for Baby Gaeul to take her pick. She has heard that sugar and children aren't a good mix but distracting this kid is her priority for now.
Unconfident and unskilled, Hyunseo tries her luck casting whatever spells and charms she can find. Spells to reverse time, forward time, communicate with spirits, cheering people up, making people angry, luck, mantras for wealth, and anything else she can tangentially excuse. Nothing works. At least, nothing returns Gaeul to her rightful state. Watching a child pick her nose in reverse is something Hyunseo will make sure to avoid in future.
A spell which could have been kinder if less effective is the spell to speed up time. All of a sudden, Hyunseo hears shuffling and clattering at the front of the house. She still has a lot of mess to clean up.
Wonyoung shrieks loudly, trotting over to introduce herself to Baby Gaeul and asking to be best friends. Jiwon is equally enchanted, paying Hyunseo no mind so that she can startle Baby Gaeul into giggling quietly into her hands.
Yujin is quiet, fixing Hyunseo with an interested stare which says more than Hyunseo would like to acknowledge.
"Isn't she so precious?" Wonyoung asks. "Baby, who do you like more, Jiwon or me?"
"Do you really think she'll pick you because you called her precious?" Jiwon scoffs. "Baby, look at me. Aren't I your favourite? I'm way funnier than Wonyoung, aren't I?"
Baby Gaeul shyly contemplates the questions and hides her face in the collar of her borrowed T-shirt.
"Yujin, is the baby cuter than me?" Rei asks helpfully. Yujin's face turns contemplative for a moment. She keeps her eyes on Hyunseo as she crosses her arms over her chest.
"Maybe," Yujin decides.
"What does that mean?" Rei asks as Yujin struts away, deeper into the house. "Am I cuter or not?"
*
Hyunseo keeps herself busy clearing up the rest of the mess she made in the kitchen. Sequestered in the kitchen and banging pots and pans, nobody presses for answers about why she has this funny little friend. Then again, this mustn't be the relief she assumes it to be. By now at least Rei would have asked the little girl for her name. The truth is hardly an impossible riddle when the little girl shares a name with their mortal housemate who hasn't been seen all day.
This is terrible. Hyunseo drops a humongous pot she doesn't remember using into the sink. Suds and water slop over the edge of the sink sluggishly. Even hidden away in the kitchen, Hyunseo can only scream internally. She won't ever be able to fix this and she'll get in trouble and then she'll get kicked out of the coven for being the worst witch ever!
A knock at the kitchen door distracts Hyunseo from rubbing suds into her eyes. Yujin leans against the doorframe looking like the cat who got the cream. She slowly folds her arms and smiles in a way that makes Hyunseo think she might well wait there forever.
"Is everything okay?" Hyunseo asks. Yujin's grin grows impossibly wider.
"You tell me."
"It must be fine then," Hyunseo mutters under her breath.
"Alright," Yujin sighs, "I'll tell you. But only because you're desperate to find out if I know."
"I don't know what you're talking about." If Hyunseo holds her nerve here, she might be able to find the solution to turn Gaeul back to normal whilst avoiding any trouble.
"What's that?" Yujin asks, slinking closer and closer with one deliberate footstep at a time. "You're so careless that you didn't even notice you'd turned our little mortal into a child?"
Oh. So she has been caught after all. All the same, lying might still help.
"Who? I have no idea what you're talking about?"
"Really?" Yujin asks. She sounds almost entirely disinterested aside from the fact she laughs ominously after speaking. Yujin inspects her fingernails for the moment longer before she points and yells, "LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE!"
A clap of thunder rings out and Hyunseo smells something singeing. It might even be her pants!
"No! I'm sorry! It was an accident! Please put out the fire."
"You crack too easily," Yujin notes. "There isn't a fire. Click your fingers, see. Making smoke is easy."
Yujin clicks her fingers a few times to demonstrate. Hyunseo tries it between glances at her currently unburned bum but she can't conjure up any smoke at all.
After a moment of failure, Hyunseo realises the issue at hand." Gaeul. Yujin, what do I do about Gaeul?"
Yujin shrugs. "I don't know. Isn't she more cute and lovable this way? Plus there's no risk of her grassing on us all if she's a kid. Kids love magic!"
Hyunseo almost settles with the thought that they've found the solution to all of this.
"Yujin!"
"Alright," Yujin grumbles, waving her hands in the air so that sparkles appear and Hyunseo has no choice but to give her space. "I'll turn her back before tomorrow. You need to prepare all the things I'll need for the ritual to put her back to normal. Some heavy lifting should teach you a lesson."
Hyunseo is certain she has already learned her lesson. She supposes she has no other choice.
"Say thank you," Yujin says sternly.
Hyunseo is only allowed to pout for about three seconds before Yujin flutters her fingers threateningly.
"Thank you."
Hyunseo isn't looking forward to her impending punishment.