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When Agatha was young, her mother often left her at the house alone. Agatha wasn’t the coven’s heir apparent – her oldest sister, Charity, was – and she wasn’t even the back-up – her older sister, Prudence, was. Even her twin brother, Nathaniel, older only by a few heartbeats, was given more freedom; with no natural magical ability, he had little to do with the coven proper, and as the sole son, he was much more involved with the other people around Salem. In fact, he’d spent most of his time at the docks with the sailors, hoping and waiting for their dad to return. Sometimes, when she wasn’t needed around the house, Agatha would join him, but most of the time—
Charity, training to be the next leader of their coven, took Agatha under her wing. Where their mother spent her time looking after the coven proper or training Charity personally or where Prudence spent her time with the small family she’d tried to start, Charity spent most of her free time with Agatha, helping her hone her magic and showing her the best time to go shopping for the different herbs or components they might need for their various spells. Sure, most spells don’t require anything more than runes and incantations, but sometimes…sometimes they need more.
Now, three hundred years later, when her mother, her sisters, and her brother are all dead (all by her hand, some more intentionally than others), Agatha forages in the urban landscape for tricks of her trade. Sure, sure, during a solar eclipse, she should be out in a forest or on an island, taking roots and shrubs and leaves and blooms that are only found in this exact time, but she’d scavenged so many during the last eclipse that she still has more than enough to tide her over until the next one. And sure, sure, there are spells – incantations, mostly – that can only be enacted during an eclipse, most of them specific to the specific kind of eclipse – but she hasn’t felt like experimenting with the solar sigils this time. She’d gotten burned plenty throughout the last century, and she’s made enough progress on her newest attempt that she feels comfortable waiting before trying again…mostly because there are a few techniques she wants to perfect before implementing them in her next attempt.
Which is why she’s here, in the heart of some unnamed city, searching not for herbs or roots or components but for shops that are only open during the eclipse, when the barrier between some of their realms draws thin.
One shop in particular.
Agatha speaks in a language that was foreign to her centuries ago but which slips through her lips much more easily after multiple lifetimes of training and use. “The Ancient One sent me,” she lies in the language they’d learned together. “Do you have anything new for them this moontide?”
The shop owner, whose name Agatha has either forgotten or never learned, doesn’t even look at her. “I do not wish to speak to their pupil—”
Agatha recoils at the word and doesn’t even listen to the rest of what the owner says before spitting out, “I’m no pupil of theirs, boyo. I’m a witch, magical in my own right, and I don’t need the tricks of sorcerers to….” She takes a deep breath, swallows her words down, and scowls at the owner’s amused expression. “The Ancient One cannot be in all places at all times,” she tries again. “They have more immediate concerns this moontide, and so they have sent me.”
“One who is not their pupil.”
“One who is their friend.”
This, at least, is not a lie, although Cian would probably prefer Agatha not use their name or their notoriety to bother shop owners who would otherwise want nothing to do with her. But it isn’t as though Agatha is the only one who does so; she’s given Cian free reign to name drop her among any witches they might find themselves. Even if she hadn’t, she knows they would. It’s how they’ve found her so many times when she hasn’t wanted to be found.
Still, the shop owner chuckles, still not looking at her. “The Ancient One has no friends. You lie.”
“They don’t need friends,” Agatha corrects, trying to be as gentle as she knows Cian would be, despite wanting nothing more than to bite this owner’s hand off, “when they have me.” She waits for any acknowledgment of her words, and when there are none, she grits her teeth together. “Look, do you have anything for them or not, hon? I don’t have all day.”
“Nothing for them,” the shop owner replies, finally glancing over to her, removing his glasses and rubbing them with the end of his shirt, “but something, maybe, for a witch.”
Agatha’s brows raise sharply. “What do you have?”
Which is how Agatha ends up with a tiny sprout of a thing similar to a venus fly trap, but smaller, in her possession. It certainly isn’t the weirdest thing she’s gotten from one of those eclipse shops, but if it’s witch specific, it’s getting up there. Point of fact, witch specific usually doesn’t mean anything good. It usually means something deadly.
Agatha isn’t fool enough to believe that a plant this small can’t be deadly, nor is she fool enough to believe that only the plant itself might be the problem. Keeping the plant alive might be a superhuman task, and letting it die might be the truly destructive thing. There’s no way of knowing.
Honestly, it might have been better to leave the plant well enough alone.
But Agatha has never been – and will never be – very good at leaving things well enough alone.
It takes some trial and error – and a fantastic bit of bad fortune – before Agatha finds that the plant feeds on human blood.
Of course, Agatha doesn’t feed it her own blood. She keeps a bag or two around for vampire friends when they decide to visit; it’s nice to have a good spot of tea with friends, and when your friends aren’t much into tea, you make do with what you can. Some vampires still like tea, provided it’s spiked with a spot of blood. Others just want their blood in a mug, heated just the same way she might tea or hot chocolate – on the kettle or in a pot over the stove.
It’s nice, every now and again, to have visitors. It’s less nice when certain others decide that her visitors need to be terminated for whatever reason. It’s even less nice when certain others infiltrate her apartment and attack her visitors and that hot mug of blood gets spilled everywhere, including on the nice new plant that she’d gotten during the eclipse because it was supposed to be great for witches or whatever.
Little bit of a turn up when the plant, which had been in the process of dying, suddenly seems to get better, but that doesn’t really make up for having to get all of that blood out of the carpet. Even with magic, it’s a pain and a half, and that’s on a good day when the vampires haven’t decided to boycott her for months because they think this is her fault.
(It is her fault. A vamp went after Cian. But she can’t explain that to any of them. Besides, they’ll get over it eventually.
So will Cian.)
Now, Agatha doesn’t constantly feed the plant. Sure, sure, she has blood for her vampire friends, and sure, sure, her vampire friends aren’t coming around right now, and sure, sure, blood goes bad within a couple of months, but it’s not like she’s going to pour all of the blood she has on a plant. That would be ridiculous.
When she finishes the last of her saved blood bags, Agatha names the little plant Cordelia and thinks this is a much better disposal of blood than trying to pour it down the drain, which is such a waste.
Five months into owning Cordelia, three weeks after the last of the blood bags is used up (and two weeks before the next one needs to be cycled out), Agatha first hears the croaking, whimpering, rasping voice of something calling out, “Feed me.”
Notably, it is not speaking in the English that Agatha predominantly uses whenever she has a visitor over, it is not speaking in the Latin she frequently uses for her incantations, and it is not speaking in any other language it would have heard around her apartment; it’s speaking in the language it first her speaking when she picked it up, a language that is old and antiquated and no longer spoken in most places around the world, at least not in the way that the plant is speaking it.
And she knows it’s the plant solely on the basis of that very specific thing.
Which means that the shop owner sold her a speaking, blood drinking plant, which sounds less like a plant and more like something else entirely. Or maybe a new crossbreed between a vampire and a plant, like maybe a vampire version of one of the flora colossi, which would be interesting to say the least, but that would require some very specific changes to how that species functions, including actual roots stuck in the ground, and, of course, something that functions as blood by which to turn them in the first place.
It would also mean its throat would have evolved to the point where it could say more than three words, but if it’s been turned into a vampire, there’s a possibility that—
No, no, no. It’s something else entirely.
Agatha gives the plant a blank stare and says, in English because she doesn’t feel like parsing through another language right now, “Try that again, hon. I couldn’t quite make out what you were saying.”
The plant opens its venus flytrap like lips and squeaks out again, in English this time, “Feed me.”
“Mmhm.” Agatha doesn’t even blink. “Want more blood? Is that it, dear?”
“One of those vampires would be nice.”
Agatha’s eyes widen, and she gives a great nod. “Did you see how upset I was when they got attacked?”
The plant shrugs its drooping leaves. “You hummed quite nicely after dinner. Figured you were, uh, not that upset.” Its lips curve into a menacing grin. “Next time, use me.”
It takes a moment of consideration before Agatha stands, bops the plant – Cordelia – on the top of her rubbery head, and returns to the kitchen. “You can’t just eat everyone who annoys me, hon, and I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.” She leans up against her kitchen counter and stares at the plant. “On the other hand, I have a friend who might have great use of you.”
Cordelia’s grin grows.
It’s another week or so before Agatha drops in on the New York Sanctum Sanctorum. Not because she particularly likes the place, although she does have some quite fond memories of her time there, but because the Ancient One has decided to check in on New York, taken a sabbatical from their time at Kamar-Taj, and when Cian decides to come back just across the street from her, Agatha always goes to visit. It’s habit.
Now, Agatha doesn’t bring the plant with her for their first weekly tea meeting. That would be sacrilege. She does, however, over a sip of tea mention, “I might have another artifact for you.” She hides her grin as Cian’s brow raises and instead leans back conversationally in her chair as she says, “This one talks.”
Cian doesn’t groan, exactly, but they do the physical equivalent of it by setting their teacup to one side, clasping their hands in their lap, and sitting up a little straighter, the way they might when dealing with a particularly obnoxious student. “That does not sound like an artifact, Agatha. That sounds like another pet.”
“Cordelia’s not a pet.” Agatha holds up a hand as she takes another sip of tea. “Yeah, the name makes it sound like she is. She’s not. Just a blood-drinking plant from one of those shops you told me never to visit without you.”
Cian stares at her.
Agatha sighs. “You really thought I was going to listen to that, angel? Really?”
“No, no. I knew you wouldn’t.” But Cian settles, leaning back into their chair, which means they aren’t on edge anymore. Which is good. Probably. They meet Agatha’s eyes with their moss green ones and ask, “Which store?”
When Agatha finishes explain her admittedly limited knowledge of the situation, she finishes by saying, “And you have easy access to portals across other dimensions, so if something goes wrong, you can take care of her.”
Cian shoots her a tired look. “Agatha. Love. You also know those spells.”
“Yes,” Agatha groans, “but all of my sorcery is tied up in my back. You know this.” She lifts up her shirt and gestures to her back, covered with thick, thick scar tissue. Sure, she has the same spells that Cian does because they’d trained her in sorcery a long, long time ago. But given the chance between relieving her own pain and having additional sorcery to partner with her magic?
No, no. She has magic. That’s more than enough for her.
(Except for her back.)
“Someday, you really should find someone who can heal these.” Cian reaches out and gently traces a finger along one of the scars before Agatha drops her shirt back into place. They sigh. “If I must be your heavy lifter, then I will, Agatha. You know that. I only regret that you decided….” Their voice trails off. “Never mind.”
Their disappointment is palpable, but Agatha pretends that doesn’t matter. She’s won, after all.
“Alright, you little alien from who knows where,” Agatha says, staring at Cordelia. “If anyone – anyone at all – tries to hurt Cian, you snap them up, you understand, hon? They’re going to tell you they don’t need the additional help, which is why you’re not going to tell them. You’re just going to eat those shitheads, got it?”
Cordelia’s lips spread in that menacing little grin. “Sure thing, baby girl. I’ll eat all the intruders you want.” It even looks like she winks, which doesn’t seem possible.
But it feels a bit like they’re in cahoots, and it’s nice to be in cahoots with someone again.
(Cian calls thirty minutes later. Wong has been swallowed whole. Cordelia has been eviscerated from the inside out but is still somehow alive.
Agatha cackles long after Cian disappears.)