Prudence abdicated her life to pangs of sorrow. Nothing seemed to revive her. Until Suzanne made an offhand comment about ancient fey times when wild wise women gathered the four herbs of the anti-apocalypse. Nepenthe to forget all sorrows; rosemary to remember all that is pleasant; dandelion for strength and endurance; and St. John’s wort for happiness.

Prudence gathered all the information she could find. So long in obscure libraries, and eldritch archives, her complexion turned sallow.

In her vague sadness, she trudged toward the Neolithic rock formation thrust up from surrounding peat bogs and fey marshes. Her flowered rubber boots made sucking sounds as she negotiated the narrow path, as if the fen made to swallow her whole. A peat body, carefully preserved, to be found centuries hence.

“Worse ways to perish and reappear,” she thought; suicide often creeping into the dark abyss of her mind. She needed nepenthe the most, to ease her remorse and regret. The plant clung to cracks in the rocks above. She adjusted her knapsack, wiped tears from her cheeks, and marched on towards life. Unknown to her, the cloak of wild and wise women was being placed upon her.

image: Wild Irish Women: Biddy Early (1798 – 1872)

Composed from mlmm wordle 164 words: climb vague, sadness, perish, pangs, nepenthe (a drug or drink from the plant, said to have the power to bring forgetfulness of sorrow or trouble; anything inducing a pleasurable sensation of forgetfulness especially of sorry or trouble), Neolithic, four, offhand, reappear, sallow, abdicate (to renounce or relinquish a throne, right, power, claim, responsibility, etc., especially in a formal manner)