Erika laughed as she glanced from the contents page to the back of the frontpiece page. Someone had glued an ancient looking mirror, which now reflected the face of the wicked witch that she had become. She cackled as she gazed into the mirror, and rhymed, "Mirror, mirror, tell me, which curse I should cast to most displease."
To her surprise the reflection quivered reshaped and was transplanted by a smoky image in the mirror of a bare chested muscled bearded man. The glass vibrated as the voice echoed out of it like an old gramophone or telephone with that crackling echoey sound, "Tried and True a Sleeping Death Potion is the One For You."
"Sleeping death? Yes, yes, yes!" Erika's pointy finger nail traced the items in the contents, and then she rapidly flipped through the pages to a crimson and black ink penned page captioned. "CURSE OF THE SLEEPING DEATH POISON"
"This subtle poison can be administered by food, drink, or the prick of a needle. The victim rendered incapacitated sleeps eternally or for at least a hundred years in an enchanted sleep dreaming of their "true love". Only the kiss" and here the text was annotated with "in the biblical sense" it continued "of one's true love can foil this spell." Another gloss written in the margin reads, "Fortunately there aren't to many necrophiles out that, but there's more than you'd think. That bratty stepdaughter of mine found a royal one!"
Erika laughed. She wondered if the gloss was authentic if Snow White's Stepmother Queen had owned this book. More likely some witty witch like herself had added that comment. She deftly followed the instructions setting up the brazier and mixing the oils, herbs and entrails (she had always found that neighbor's tabby cat annoying). She chanted the spell and soon was holding a phial of a delicately lavendar tinted liquid.
"Aha, at last, my dear, the potion is prepared. Now how should it be delivered and to whom?" Thunder clapped in the distance, ah what a portentious sign.