With a "sploosh," the bottle hits the surface of the lake and immediately sinks. You can do nothing but watch and wait, not aware that you're sitting back on your hind legs like a semi-tame squirrel begging for food.
Suddenly a convulsion in your legs knocks you flat onto the ground. Amanda stands up and excitedly asks, "Is it working?"
You're not sure, not that you can answer anyway. Now it's just your tail that's twitching. Suddenly, all the hair falls off of it, and the flesh that was underneath becomes thicker and more muscular. At the same time, your hind legs are so unbearably weak that you can't stand or sit up.
"That's not right..." Amanda worries.
Now you feel pain, like something's trying to tear its way out of every inch of the skin on your tail. At the same time, you fear you hind legs are actually shrinking. When they disappear and a single flat mass grows out of the end of your tail, you fear you know what's happened. Finally the tranformation is over and you can look.
You're a mer-squirrel! Your hind legs are gone, and your tail has scales and fins, like that of a fish. As you look back at yourself, you can see gills as well, but you seem to be breathing air without trouble.
Amanda just stares for a while. Finally she asks, "Are you okay?" You nod once, slowly. With some hesitation, she picks you up, then runs as fast as she can back to the witch.
"You gave the other drop to another cursed human? Oh, what a mess you've made. I should have given better instructions. And you should have been more careful," said the witch after Amanda told the story. She looked you over. "You can't just cover one curse with another. Half of some poor soul's curse bounced back at you. And half of your curse probably hit them. My guess is there's another mer-squirrel in the lake right now."