Seriously Weird: The Smell of Love

cauldron in front of her. She smiled at me with her toothless mouth as I came closer.

"I knew you'd come," she said.

"I didn't want to!"

"Quite understandable" she grinned, "You're a boy. You've crept away from home. Like a mouse, out in the open. You're talking to the crazy woman and its night time!"

I felt my heart beating like it wanted to jump up my throat.

"Come a bit closer," she said, "I have the perfume."

I saw a small, green-glass bottle in her hand. It had a round glass stopper, and some words in gold across one side.

"Not many people know the name of this," she said, "It comes from a distant land. Here, take a sniff!"

Gingerly, I sniffed.

Amazing! I've never known a smell like the one which went into me that night. I forgot the cold, and the dark. I forgot the old woman, smiling at me in the street light. I was far away, in a huge rose-garden, with flowers of every kind puffing their scents into my face, and tall hedges, and flowers tossing their colors in bright sunshine. I swayed on the footpath, and held the edge of the table, to stop myself from falling over.

"Exotic enough?" asked the junk lady.

"Yeah!" I said, gradually drifting back to reality.

"Do we have a deal?"

I was thinking of Amee. If I gave her this perfume, she would be mine for ever!

"Yes!" I said.

"Good!" said the junk lady, "Here's the perfume. Remember, every drop of this given away, gives me a drop of youth youth. Its a fair swap, see?"

The junk lady closed her claw-like fingers over my shoulder and held me for a moment.

"But whatever you do," she said, fixing me with that dreadful gaze, "Don't break the bottle!"

"Why not?" I asked, trembling.