Repurposing spam reprised

[muninnhuginn]

Not done this for a while. So, here goes. The subject was "this is the best trenchant buttonweed". Best called "Witch's Weeds", methinks.

"This is the best trenchant buttonweed?" The customer looked up from her browsing and darted a quick glance towards the shadowy shape behind the counter. "There's no puce, is there?"

"Puce?" The voice hissed between stumps of teeth. "I find it's possible to obtain quite satisfactory"--the hiss became the whistle of a graveyard wind--"results with an inch of screaming inkwort added to the pink."

The customer scratched her warty chin. She fingered a length of crow's-craw ribbon in a pale shade of vomit. "How can I be sure it'll match?"

"Match?" came the reply, a low moan between ancient mossy mounds. "Think contrast, my dear. The cat-walks are full of it this year."

"Oh?" The customer sounded unconvinced. She tucked a hank of grimy hair beneath the brim of her high, pointed hat.

"And you must remember," the air turned chill as the shape moved closer, "that buttonweed darkens as it ripens. Those are very immature seedlings."

The customer took a half step back, a frost forming on her gaunt features.

"Small too," the customer commented from a less frigid region of the store. "The design calls for something more substantial. And soon. The bodice is due to bloom any day."

"They'll bulk up with time. A general feed helps."

A rush of wind ruffled the hems of the customer's skirts and tugged at the grassy fringes of her shawl. The outline of a small bottle came into focus as fingers of ethereal mist uncurled and withdrew from the counter.

"No, thank you," said the customer. "I don't use—"

"Organic." Disapproval seeped between marble-pale lips.

"Yes, I find it grows a better garment." The customer pulled her shawl more snugly around her throat. "I think I'll just take the ribbon. Twenty spans."

The ribbon danced across the room, supported by elusive limbs. Blades glinted between translucent digits. A sudden snick and the required length parted from the roll. A small paper bag wafted up from below the counter.

"Put it on my account, please."

"Very well, madam."

As she left the shop, its dismissive door shushing a wisp of rime around her ankles, the witch brushed away the icicle that had formed on the end of her rudder-like nose. How she hated dealing with those sales-ghouls.

"They think they're so cool in there," she whispered--and clicked her gnarled fingers.

Light lanced through the leaden clouds, an entire summer concentrated into a single beam. The shop deliquesced. Across the resulting puddle trailed pathetic fronds of zip-vine and occasional strands of shoelace fern.