Because clearly, he hadn’t fully realized what he’d just said. That was okay though—she definitely had. And it meant that her eyes went really big, no matter how much she tried to make them not. She even attempted to turn her face away, before he saw.
But it was too late.
“Shit,” he said. “Shouldn’t have confirmed that it’s huge, should I?”
Because he was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous, he was almost as much of a big goofball as he’d always been. Like a golden retriever if it suddenly became a person, she’d once thought. And that was super nice. But also infuriating.
“Probably would have been best for my mental well-being if you hadn’t,” she said.
“Sorry. It just sounded like you knew already. You said it so confidently.”
“I wasjoking. I was just beingfunny.”
He nodded, regretfully. “Yep, I see that now.”
“Wish you’d seen a second ago, so I didn’t have to have the image lodged forever in my brain. But you know, those are the breaks. One second your head is empty of your mortal enemy’s potential penis, the next you have to live with it endlessly unraveling in your head like a Fruit Roll-Up,” she sighed, weary and sarcastic enough that she thought this would be the end of the matter.
But oh no. No, no. He kept right on going.
“Well, you know it’s not so long that I have to wind it up. Usually I can just kind of keep it down one thigh and then wear long, tight shorts, and it sort of stays in one place and oh my god I need to stop talking.”
“You really do. Before I die of this conversation.”
He winced. “Sorry, sorry, I just felt like I needed to explain.”
“Explain important things, Seth. Like the scars and the soup and you somehow thinking I’m a more powerful witch than my grandmother.”
“Youaremore powerful than her. It’s not up for debate.”
She made a frustrated sound and looked away. Tried to give herself time to come up with fifty reasons why he was wrong. But before she’d even managed to get to one, he cut in. Firmly, like on this he had no doubts, no worries, no sense that he was fumbling things.
“Be honest,” he said. “Who wrote those recipes?”
“Shedid. She wrote them all down.”
“You don’t sound so sure about that.”
“Well, I am. In fact I’ll get them. You can see her handwriting for yourself,” she said, then went to do just that. She turned, but didn’t even make it up the porch steps. He had an answer for her, almost immediately. Just loaded in the barrel, ready to fire right at her back.
“Her handwriting might be in those journals, but I’m willing to bet you told her what to put,” he called out. Then after a beat, “Go on, tell me that’s not true. Tell me that she would scribble away based on some other witch’s ideas that she just failed to mention inany form, and you never get this overwhelming feeling that she was doing it ever so slightly wrong. You never stopped her, you never corrected her, you never thought if she just stirred three times instead of four, all would be well.”
She tried to scoff. Only the scoff didn’t want to come out.
All she managed was a faint breath puffing out of her, as his words sunk in. As her mind went back over those summer days, and the number of times her grandmother had paused while writing, and looked back at her, and said something like,what do you think, Cassie? What do you think, one spoon, or two?
And hadn’t she always had an answer? Hadn’t she always just—
“That’s not. That didn’t. I didn’t,” she stuttered out.
But oh, the memories that were rushing in. The way she couldn’t fight them, no matter how hard she tried. And of course it was showing. Of course her gaze had turned inward.
“You did. I can see it all over your face,” he said.
Though she wasn’t yet willing to give in. She couldn’t give in, this was bonkers.
“Well, you’re not reading me right. Because I am not Gertrude the Great. I didn’t come from an ancient bloodline of all-powerful witches, or learn things from terrible arcane texts that no mortal eyes should behold.”
“Yeah, and that doesn’t make it any less likely that you did this.”
