This week’s words: Pumice Sodden Waxy Angular Cleft Prickly Bristly Malleable  Coarse Satin Rigid Feverish Barbed Viscous (of a glutinous nature or consistency; sticky; thick; adhesive.) Tangible (capable of being touched; discernible by the touch; material or substantial. real or actual, rather than imaginary or visionary)

Miss Marble looked at the sodden letter in her hand surprised she had received one. It was sheer chance, on a day of constant rain that she had looked into her letterbox, which she always thought was a decoration next to her front gate.

Inside was a waxy covered paper under which was a request for viscous adhesive strong enough to keep a wayward wife in check. This in itself was unusual as Miss Marble did receive requests of a marital kind but usually from wives wanting their wayward cheating husbands castrated to put it kindly.

This letter was from Barry Jones at No 9 Grimace Street. Barry’s wife everyone knew was a handful with a barbed tongue and more than prickly personality. Her angular features only added to the hard face she had been born with and she saw Barry as a malleable man and did her best to bent him every which way. Obviously she had gone too far and he was now seeking Miss Marble’s help.

Miss Marble was a witch of considerable talent but she knew she wasn’t a miracle worker. Knowing Barry’s wife, the less than beautiful Dolores Jones, Miss Marble did consider for a moment why Barry had married her in the first place. Surely her bristly countenance, her face sporting enough hair to constitute a beard, would have been enough to put any man off but apparently Barry saw something no one else did.

She was a very rigid woman in her ways with a coarse tongue enough to make a wharfie blush. Miss Marble decided a potion made feverishly with the aid of her favourite pumice stone would be the thing to turn the tide for Barry. The point of this potion was to create a more tangible Dolores, one where she could do a minimum of damage by the whip of her tongue.

Miss Marble worked away feverishly on her potion, mixing, shaking and stirring with great care. She dressed the bottle in a satin cloth and carrying it protectively in the cleft between her breasts. There were some sacrifices Miss Marble knew had to be made to preserve the integrity of this potion and keeping it warm against the skin was most important. She made her way to No 9 Grimace Street where Barry sat on his veranda taking a rare moment of peace from the ever prickly Dolores.

With instructions to empty the potion into her dinner that night Miss Marble went home to see what her next order might be.

The next morning she couldn’t help stare at the sight of Barry and Dolores walking along arm in arm. A wink from Barry to Miss Marble as they passed was enough to know another potion had made its mark. Grimace Street would be peaceful again.

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2016/08/29/wordle-special-addition-touch-august-29th-2016/