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“Hold on!” she called, stopping me again. “You need to eat the yogurt, honey.”
Iknewit! “Mom, I’m full right now. I just drank this whole cup.” I showed her the large coffee cup.
“You need the probiotics and the protein. Just eat the yogurt,” she said, and though she smiled sweetly, I knew she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. So, I grabbed a spoon from the drawer and ate the yogurt, thankful I’d bought the smallest one I’d found.
Three hours later,I was glad I’d eaten that yogurt. Whatever Mom was making me do here, it didn’t give me the chance to even take a sip of water, let alone eat anything. She always thought of everything, but I couldn’t even appreciate it right now as I stood over the stove and mixed a hundred different things together. The smell? It washorrible, like dead fish and boiled eggs mixed together. I was going to have to use the whole bottle of vanilla extract if I had any hopes of drinking this.
“Just a little more,” my mom said from the screen of my phone. It was connected to the charger and had heated up so much, it was going to start melting soon. But my mom didn’t care. She took her time and gave me the instructions, and I did everything she asked exactly right while she watched.
“It’s been twelve minutes, Mom,” I complained, looking at the timer as I stirred. It was so hot here, and that awful smell was going to stick to me, and I would forever smell of dead fish and boiled eggs.
“We need fourteen,” Mom said.
Two more minutes. It sounded like two hours to me.
“How’s it going, baby?” Dad’s voice came from the speaker, pulling a smile out of me like always.
“Hey, Dad!” I tried to wave, and when my mom looked about to pass out that my whole focus wasn’t on that pan, I turned to it again.
“Timothy!” she chided. “This is important. You can’t distract her. Go away!”
“Oh, right. Sorry, honey,” Dad said as he walked away. “Love ya, White!”
I laughed. “Love you, Dad.”
“Focus on stirring,” Mom reminded me, as if she couldn’t see that my eyes were stuck to it. The liquid was a bit thicker than in the beginning, and the color was a nasty brown that reminded me of things Idid notwant to think about right now. But I kept on stirring, and she kept on humming under her breath, which Mom only ever did when she was cooking or nervous, and those last two minutes were finally over.
As per her instructions, I let the liquid cool down for five minutes, then put the rose petals in it and sprinkled the vanilla extract in.
“It should work within minutes, if my formula is correct,” my mom said, getting more nervous by the second as she watched me pour the brown liquid into a glass. God, it looked disgusting, but at least it didn’t smell half as bad as before now. “You need to chew the rose petals, too. Don’t just swallow.”
Ugh.
“You sure this stuff isn’t gonna kill me?” I joked, and I probably shouldn’t have. Mom was already more than enough panicked.
“Teddy!” she complained in her high voice. I bit back a smile.
“I’m joking, Mom. Just joking. It’s just plants and weird worm roots. I’m still a pixie,” I reminded her, which didn’t really mean much. Poisons could kill me, if they were strong enough.
“It’snotgoing to kill you. I’m just worried it won’t work,” she said.
“I did everything just as you told me,” I reminded her. She’d stayed there and watched me every second, too.
“I know—I just mean a healthy dose of magic would have made sure the ingredients are mixed in correctly.”
I flinched. “Yeah, well, I can’t do magic.” Not just now that I had Crackdown in my system, but in general. Pulling up a shield about me was different. It required no finesse or delicacy, just will. Creating other things, however, had always been hard for me.
Unless…those weeds I’d grown on the rooftop deck meant something. It was probably just the right moment, and maybe I’d even imagined the whole thing. Still, it made me wonder if I’d have wanted to try if I wasn’twhiteright now.
“It’s fine. The roots have more than enough of it in them. I grew them myself. They hold magic really well. No need to worry,” she said, but it sounded like she was talking more to herself than to me.
“Of course, there isn’t. It’s fine. When have you ever screwed up something like this?”
The answer wasnever, and we both knew it.
“Still, I’m not there, so…” Her voice trailed off and she tried to pull her fingers off her hands as she watched me. With the full glass in hand, I sat at the table again.
“Mom, it’s fine. Worst case scenario—this doesn’t work. It’s not going to do anything—and even if I get just a little bit nauseous, I have ODP nymphs on speed dial, okay? They’ll be here in minutes,” I reassured her.
