Cristina eyes the knife. “Let me see if I can find a needle.”
I exhale with relief. “Much better idea.”
She leaves the room and returns with a small sewing kit. My friend digs out a needle and hands it to me. “Here you go.”
I find a lighter and sterilize the tip. Then I poke my finger, watching as a bead of blood swells on my skin before it falls.
The pot hisses, and the lights flicker.
“Must be a storm on the way. Let me get some candles just in case we lose power,” she mumbles.
Right. A storm.
She returns with the candles and lights them. I snip off a piece of the dollar bill and watch as it floats into the pot.
“I’m sure you could still spend the rest of that,” she tells me.
“Oh yeah, there’s a lot left over.”
Cristina grabs the bundle of glow grass we harvested from outside. There’s nothing magical looking about it now, but when we plucked it, it lit up like a Lite-Brite.
She drops a pinch in the pot. “Say the words.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“I don’t know,” she still whispers. “This feels serious somehow.”
I agree. My stomach is doing somersaults, while my skin buzzes with electricity.
I stir the ingredients and look back to the book, which lies open on a recipe stand. “Lucem videre.”
The lights snap out, pitching us into darkness except for the warm glow of candlelight.
“Do you think that’s bad?” Cristina asks.
“No, it’s fine. Like you said—a storm must be passing through.”
I’m sure she doesn’t believe me, because I don’t even believe myself.
There’s a knot the size of a basketball in my throat. I swallow it down and say the next words. “Veritatem videre.”
A wind howls through the kitchen, plastering my hair to my cheek. But I keep on.
“Veritatem videre. Lucem videre. Incantationem in noctem iacere.”
The wind screams like the room is filled with the spirits of a thousand ghosts. The ingredients in the pot bubble turbulently.
Cristina grabs hold of my arm. “Coco, what have we gotten ourselves into?”
While she whips her head around like crazy, the chaos in the room—the howling wind, the bubbling and hissing ingredients—hits a crescendo.
It feels like a thousand strings shoot from my stomach, going in every direction. It isn’t chaotic. This is in tune. I’m connected to the wind, the ingredients, the very earth. Underneath my feet, ley lines throb from miles away, strumming for me.
As the feeling intensifies, as the noises heighten, my stomach fills. It’s a bubble growing inside my belly, rising with the intensity, putting pressure on my spine. And as it balloons, everything becomes louder, harder, deeper, and then all of a sudden—
The bubble pops.
The intense feeling falls away like a flower dropping petals in the breeze. The wind stops howling, and the pot gives one final death knell hiss. A line of steam rises, curls into a ball, and vanishes.
