The Variant [Part One] [Wanda Maximoff [FF] | Elizabeth Olsen

Chapter 18

Wanda meticulously engrafts the mycelium of the culinary wild fungi she has gathered with Milla together in the nice, shaded, cool, and humid spot just at the back of their wood cabin.

The little girl has always wanted her own miniature mushroom garden, Wanda went to the town's library (cuz she knows that the Abbey sorcerers won't allow her in their library) to read some books about growing shrooms and it's not as simple as raising plants because each type has its own specific needs: some needed to be matured on compost manure, some on straw, others on hardwood sawdusts, and more. But all of them taste interesting! After all, what's a little witch's hut without a patch of both edible wild mushrooms?

"Here," Wanda said, giving a bay bolete mushroom to Milla. Younger bay boletes can be consumed raw and the older ones are good for drying and are delicious when cooked in vegan butter.

The funnel-shaped black trumpets are packed with protein & contain sugar-alcohols that give them a sweet taste. White buttons easily adapt to any spicy and savoury dish. Cauliflower mushrooms are best soaked in soups. The ridiculously-named Chicken-of-the-woods strange chicken-like flavour makes it an excellent veggie replacement for chicken.

While Wanda's tending the mushrooms, the redhead notices Milla nearby smelling little vials containing some kind of mixtures.

"What is that?" Wanda asked. Milla looks at the woman.

"It's from the science lesson Mortianna and I have," Milla said as she pulled another vial from the wood box.

"What are those?" Wanda said, rubbing her hands on a piece of cloth to get rid of the dirt and strolled toward Milla's spot.

"Mortianna and I talked about unusual scents by animals," Milla said.

"Scents from animals? Aren't they too pungent?" Wanda asked. What typically comes to mind about such a topic are smells reminiscent of feral inferences such as milk, skunk cabbage, leather, musty fur, or even faecal notes.

"I thought so too. But Mortianna said that some of them smelled interesting!" Milla smirked. She pulled out one vial for Wanda to take a sniff.

"Check these out! Mortianna taught me how to dilute them in a solution to get rid of the offensive parts of the scents," Milla said.

Wanda smells the vials Milla offered: there is one vial that contains a lemon-smelling mist that's excreted by a group of ants as a fighting mechanism hence the need to tweak and adulterate it to remove its defensive effects.

A diluted aroma-compound of a bearcat's urine that evokes the notes of hot buttered popcorn. A phial of octanal that smells expressively of tangerines and is released by a bird to find a mate. And a tincture of castoreum in vanilla extract used by a beaver as a territorial marking. A chocolate-like aroma that's derived from a defence mechanism fluid from another type of ant.

Wanda admired the girl's fervour. Based on her tutors' remarks, Milla is described as an eager, diligent student that learns swiftly hence her satisfactory grades.

But then she wondered, how does she acquire these resources? It might be easier to say that Mortianna went to the woods and collected them for her. But grasping Vasilisa and Mortianna's 'get-up-and-go' methods, it's doubtful that either of them wouldn't dismiss a lesson without a challenge.

"How did you collect them?" Wanda said. Milla fidgets uncomfortably before speaking.

"I... Don't really know how to describe it... Mortianna asked me to use my instincts and find them myself... But I felt like I cheated a bit..." Milla said admittedly. Without delay, Wanda pitches the hint of how the child accomplishes the task.