Oh wait, that’s me!
Speaking of Nolan...
“Aunt Mildred,” I ask, leaning against the counter while watching her put the kettle on the stove, “can I tell you something and you’ll promise to keep it a secret?”
“Does it put someone in immediate danger if I do?” she replies evenly, glancing over her shoulder.
I swallow heavily and hope I can keep my promise to Nolan. “No, the damage is already done. I need your help to fix it.”
She stops mid-motion, her hand extended up to retrieve the tea from the cabinet beside the stove, and now fully turns to look at me. Concern is written across her brow, and she leans against the counter opposite me, mirroring my posture.
“I’ll help any way that I can,” Mildred answers gently, her hands pressed primly against her thighs.
“And you promise to keep it a secret?” I emphasize.
She sighs and nods. “I promise.”
I tug on the sleeves of my red ASU sweater while trying to find the right words to explain something I only have a surface level of understanding. “So, um, Nolan has… an affliction that the guys believe was caused by a spell, and… I was hoping there was something we could do to help him.”
“An affliction?” she echoes with a quirk of her lips. “I’m going to need a little more to go on, and why do they believe it’s the result of a spell?”
In rapid fire, I answer like I don’t have time to breathe, “Nolan used to date Gina, then he broke up with her freshman year because she’s evil incarnate and so self-absorbed she’d fall off a cliff if there was a mirror on the other side, and since they broke up, he’s no longer able to drink bagged blood.”
While I take a few gasping breaths, Mildred blinks at me, clearly attempting to process my word vomit.
Slowly, like she’s testing each word to see if it’ll crack, she asks, “You’re telling me that your vampire friend can’t drink bagged blood, and the girl harassing you at school is the reason for it?”
Oops. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the Gina part.
“Yes?” I answer, the word rising into a question as I wince, my shoulders climbing toward my ears.
Unlike me, there aren’t giant thunderstorms or gale force winds to announce how angry she is, but by the narrowing of her eyes and the tight compression of her lips, it’s fairly safe to say she’s not pleased.
“I take from the vow of secrecy, that neither his parents nor Neva are aware of this?” she questions while crossing her arms and resting one hand under her chin.
I press my lips tight together and shake my head no. There’s a nervous flutter dancing in my stomach as I worry she won’t keep her promise and what the guys were able to keep secret for two years, I’ll expose within two weeks.
“Go sit at the table,” Mildred instructs, at the same time the kettle screams that’s it’s ready. “I’ll put the tea together, and then you’re going to tell me everything you know. Understood?”
“Yes,” I murmur and pray I haven’t made a huge mistake.
Over tea, mint for me and black for her, I explain everything I know. How shortly after breaking up with Gina, Nolan started vomiting up any bagged blood he tried. That the guys felt they couldn’t go to Neva, the coven leader and Gina’s mother, because Gina is technically too weak to have performed that kind of spell. They were sure no one would believe them. And Gina’s father is in charge of the Campbell’s blood supply, so accusing Gina could greatly hurt Nolan’s family.
“Well, he’s clearly still alive,” my aunt points out, sipping on her tea, “so what is he doing for blood?”
Recalling exactly how he’s been surviving, a deep blush starts from my toes and burns its way to my scalp, and I mutter, “He can keep down blood from… um... living donors.”
“I see,” she replies with a quirk of her blonde brow, and I’m afraid she just might. Thankfully, she saves me from having to find a cliff to fling myself off of by not asking any follow-up questions.
Mildred looks out the window just past my head, the cogs of thought visibly turning in her gaze. Slashes of afternoon light cast harsh lines across her pale face and highlight flecks of gold in her brown eyes.
“Without knowing the original spell, it will be quite difficult, maybe impossible, to reverse it,” she explains sadly. “There’s no blanket, magicalundo-itspell, and just like there are many ways to get to a single destination, there are many spells that can lead to similar results. Simply using the wrong elemental magic to try and reverse the spell, could lead to compounding the problem, instead of solving it.”
I wilt against my chair and stare up at the off-white ceiling. “Is there nothing we can do?”
“Don’t lose hope yet, my dear,” she advises despite her morose prognosis. “I’ll search the family grimoires, and see if, at the very least, I can find out what element the spell was cast under and how exactly the spell is affecting your friend. With those two things, we’ll at least have a chance.”
“Thanks,” I reply with a wan smile, then sit up to take a sip of my rapidly cooling tea. “Aunt Mildred, why does it matter what element a spell was cast under? I figured a spell was either something you could or couldn’t do because of your element-- though I haven’t thought too hard on it since, apparently, I’m the damn Avatar or something.”
