"Mmmm…yes, yes, yes" she said with her serpentine tongue, pointy nose tipped to the thick, putridly scented air. One delicately selected spider's leg dropped from the ends of her long fingernails into the burning concoction, making a hissing sound and sending the mixture bubbling faster. How proud she appeared as the last ingredient merged together with the rest.

Into the cauldron she dipped a large wooden spoon - one she had used many times before – drawing circles within the thick liquid, the large veins and tendons in her hands tightening. Deep eyes flickered with the colour of the cauldron's burning fire, as her lips slowly began to move with a chant - inaudible at first - but soon taking on a sound that was surely heard, surely wicked, evil.

The tall woman smiled with small, pearly teeth, as she swept a glass into the cauldron, taking in a disgustingly purple, foamy substance. Up to thirsty lips the glass rose, and for a second it lay there, see-sawing on the edges of the outside and inside of her mouth. With a tap of her finger, the glass moved on a sharper angle, and the purple poured slowly into her throat, coating her tongue, her chest, her stomach.

Quickly she put the empty glass down as long hands grasped to the edge of the cauldron, chin shooting up in pain, the little pearly teeth grinding together. The pain, it seemed unbearable. Fingers clang on tighter and tighter with every second, making them blister, bleed even, until her eyes rolled over into white, and she held on no more, falling to the floor like a lifeless body, landing with a low-sounding thud.

And then, throaty gurgles and the horrible sound of nails digging deep within a hard floor – loudly, behind the cauldron, in the place she fell. The smell of burnt out candles filled the room, as it became dark, and silent. And then, breaking it, was a startling sound so surprising that the spiders shot up into their corner homes, that the cockroaches scurried into the wall. A scream, a shriek - a knife to the brain. It woke everything living in that house, from the cats on their pillows to the sluggish creatures that slithered beneath the floorboards. And from behind the cauldron, after a moment of tense hush, four pairs of clicking claws sounded, as they scurried out of the door and into the black, black night, the limbs connected to them twisting and cracking into opposite, impossible directions. Down the empty, grey street, the thing lurked, its shadow dragging behind it, cast by the full, fat moon. And as for the woman, well, she had simply disappeared.