Some strange gifts

So when Bonnie woke up, we had some breakfast, made sure Bonnie had her wand and I had my belt, and we set off for town. Minnie's was a bus ride away, and we arrived in the centre of town, heading round to King's college, and down a side street opposite. There was a little Antique shop tucked just inside, with 'Minnie's Antiques' painted across the window.

We'd barely entered the shop when there was a cry of 'Bonnie! What a sight for sore eyes!' and Bonnie was swept into a hug from Minnie, who beamed and led us into the back of her shop. 'How's the belt? It was your ancestors, apparently. Where are the others?' Minnie asked me, and I explained we were meeting my friends later. Discussion about heirlooms and ancestors took up the time until we got to the crate she wanted. 'There's stuff for both of you here.' she said, rummaging around inside it. 'The belt arrived in this box, and there was more stuff when I had a proper look yesterday.' She pulled out two small books, what looked like a small deck of cards with animals and plants on, a casket/chest about the size of a shoebox, a folded piece of old parchment, and a small metal box with two wires sticking out of one end, with a crank on the other and small dials and sliders on the lid. She gave Bonnie the metal box, old parchment and one of the small books, and gave me the other book, the cards and the chest.

Bonnie started leafing through the book, and read the parchment with a frown. I looked at the cards. 'Are these those Tarot card things? I don't see what use that is to me.'
'NO no no, they're cards to help with your little potions.' Minnie explained 'I believe they help translate certain meanings, unlock new ways of using certain plants and things. They give you new, er, recipes I suppose, and help find answers to things.'
'Sounds suspiciously close to Tarot to me. But could be useful, thanks. I chucking them out if they start saying 'Die Tempest Die' though.'

Bonnie and Minnie laughed, and I opened the little chest. 'Wow!'

It had four main compartments, each filled with powders and liquids I'd never come across. 'Extra materials for you to experiment with. There was a note saying that everything inside had been kept fresh, so it should all work, even though it's about 200 years old. The note said you've got some rarer materials there, collected by magic no doubt, and some stuff that you may not have thought of using. It's all either really hard to get or impossible these days, so use it wisely. The note from your wizardly ancestor about it was outside the chest and crumbled to dust once I picked it up, sorry.'

There was a compartment filled with small bottles, most containing strange coloured liquids, but some with bright powders, a compartments full of some sort of glittery powder that seemed to change colour every time you looked at it, one full of shards of shining rocks, like little shavings of gems, metals and precious stones, in every colour you could think of. The fourth was filled with jars with stoppers, each one containing some twigs, or dried leaves, or petals, pieces of bark, offcuts of plants, one seemed to have earth in it, dried berries and nuts, fresh leaves, fresh fruits and nuts and seeds, or roots. I noticed a thin draw on the outside of the chest, underneath the compartments, and pulled it out to find it filled with thin sticks, like long toothpicks or thin chopsticks, each one smelling of some long-forgotten scent. 'Wow.' I said again, staring at all these ingredients of long ago. I slid the draw back in and closed the lid to see Bonnie winding the handle of the metal box, and sparks leaping between the metal prongs. Still winding, she put it on a table and moved her free hand towards the sparks, finger stretched towards them. 'Bonnie, what are you-' she dabbed a finger in between the sparks and they leapt to her hand, not touching it, but floating around it, like tiny fish, swimming round her hand just above the surface. She stopped winding the box and brought her other hand closer, causing the sparks to leap from one to the other like they had with the prongs. With a look of concentration, and a glance at the page in her book that she'd left open, she cupped her hands, like she was holding an invisible mug, and the sparks were drawn to the area in between her hands, dancing and swirling in the air with ever-increasing intensity, until they made a little sphere of energy in the empty space. There was nothing inside the ball of sparks, it was just a kind of forcefield around nothing, with the odd spark diving across the inside instead of going round the main ball. 'This...is cool. I have no idea what to do next, but this is cool.' said Bonnie, as me and Minnie stared, transfixed, and the magic going on in her hands. She moved her hands closer together, and the ball shrank, until the sparks made an almost solid ball of blue light, and then drew her hands apart, making the ball so big the sparks had to race across it faster than ever just to keep it's shape. Finally, muttering 'I don't THINK this will set fire to the shop....' she opened her hands wider and spread her fingers wide, causing the ball to break and the sparks to drift apart, slowly fading from existence. None of them managed to set fire to any of the paper or wood around us before vanishing, so luckily no fire started.

'Well.' said Minnie, breathlessly. 'That was quite something, wasn't it? Oh, I nearly forgot. This was delivered to me the other day for you, dear.'
She bustled off to a cupboard and returned with a package in black paper. It had the address of Minnie's Shop, but Bonnie's name. Bonnie tore it open, gasped, and swore loudly. I peered over her shoulder and stared. 'What the Hell?'

Ooops, I'm running late. Bonnie says Mum's made lunch, and I promised her a catch up tour of Cambridge afterwards to show her what's changed since last visit. Sorry it's been a while for me to actually put this up, we've been experimenting with all our new stuff. I'll finish it when I can.