I think the night and the morning are the same, equals and opposites. One becomes the other becomes the one. A little like sleeping and waking.
Something about what Ari says reminds Sam of her alchemy searches.One becomes the other becomes the one.Her curiosity blooms, and she opens her mouth, ready to whisper to him:
Do you know what alchemy is?
At the last possible moment, she swallows it back down, oblivious tohow close she is to the answer, afraid to ruin this moment by asking such a strange question. All she does is smile back and tuck his letter into her pocket, excited to have made her first real friend.
By the time Sam gets home, the smoke-shrouded sun is bloody, casting the entire apartment in an angry red glow. She closes the door softly and takes her shoes off before she sees her mother sitting at the laptop, eyes narrowed and face drawn, fixed not on the screen but on her.
Immediately, Sam stiffens. Her mother rarely pays attention to her like this, and when she does, it is usually because Sam has done something wrong.
Her mother turns the laptop’s screen around, and in a flash, Sam realizes her mistake—she’d forgotten that her school sent out progress reports today. And even though she’s too far away to read everything on the screen, she can plainly make out her grades. C-. B-. D+. D.
She winces. They are lower than she thought.
When she remains silent, too afraid to speak, her mother brings up a long scroll of the laptop’s search history.Diamond Taylor. Will Taylor. Alchemy. Alchemy. Alchemy.
“How long have you been looking all this up?” her mother asks quietly.
“Not long, Mama.”
“Why?”
“I was just curious.”
“What’s going on with your grades?”
“I promise I’ll do better next month.”
“You spend all your time reading garbage online instead of studying?”
Sam swallows hard. “It’s just midsemester,” she murmurs. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s not a big deal.” Her mother considers her in silence, lips pursed, and Sam realizes with dread that she has said exactly the wrong thing.
Her mother gets up from the couch without a word and walks into their bedroom. When she comes back out, she has Rabbit clutched in her hand.
The hairs rise on the back of Sam’s neck. She has never seen her mother this angry before.
“Does nothing I say matter to you?” her mother asks in a low voice.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” Sam whispers, her eyes flickering to Rabbit.
Her mother heads into the kitchen and grabs a long knife. With a blank face, her mother puts Rabbit on the counter and saws off one of its ears.
Sam gasps as if she feels the pain. “Mama, don’t,” she says, stepping closer.
Her mother doesn’t look at her, doesn’t say anything as she cuts off the other ear.
“Mama, stop!”
Her mother stabs the knife deep into the toy’s soft side. Stitches rip as she cuts open its belly.
“Stop! Stop!” Sam tries reaching for Rabbit, but her mother shoves her roughly away.
“You’re too old for these toys,” her mother says through gritted teeth. “Old enough to waste your time. Old enough to break your promises.”
Balls of cotton fall from the counter onto the floor. Sam feels like the world is tilting around her. She can hear herself sobbing as she watches her friend hacked into pieces. When she tries to grab the knife from her mother’s hand, her mother scowls at her and pushes her away hard enough to send her tumbling backward. There, Sam kneels and cries so hard that snot streams from her nose.
