He'd done it. He had salivated over that fucking mandrake leaf for an entire month. His first attempt had gone awry after his mother had terrified him to the point of accidentally inhaling and subsequently choking on it. This month, he had been more diligent, had kept his temper more in check. Thomas had even fucking smiled at someone who had been pissing him off in an attempt to keep from having another reaction that caused a catastrophe. Perhaps, he was just delirious from not being able to eat properly.

Trudging across the grounds, a small box held under his left arm, Thomas grinned in an almost crazed fashion. He was so close to achieving his dreams. He continued past all the usual haunts, all the way down the shore of the lake until he reached a spot where the forest butt up against the water.

There, he set his box down and pulled out a pure crystal phial. Giddy, he held it up in triumph and then pursed his lips, spitting his now slimy mandrake leaf into the phial. From his box he pulled out the other ingredients, slipping them into the phial in the order he had read about---one of his own hairs, a silver teaspoon of dew he had collected from under a rock within a bush in the forest, and a chrysalis from a Death's-head Hawk Moth.

Now, to place it somewhere dark and quiet until the next storm. From his larger box, he took out a much smaller one and laid the vial upon a handkerchief inside. He then crept three steps into the forest and located the tree he had picked out in the beginning of September. It had a small nook in which his vial could rest. As if it were the most fragile thing in the world, Thomas lifted the box and slid it into the nook. From the ground, he scooped up fallen leaves and padded the box with it, hoping to prevent any creatures from knocking it about. Who knew when the next electrical storm would arrive.

"You can do it," he whispered, turned, and skittered back to the castle, too afraid to linger. The phial needed to be left alone. He did not wish to start again.