Gramma's chocolate cake could fix anything.
Usually.
Jennifer sighed as she poked at the confection with a fork for a moment before she reached over to fiddle with a crystal that had been next to her glass of milk. She had a terrible, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach and while she usually felt this way when summer was about to end, this was different. Home was never a good thing, but she had never felt the 'need' to stay away.
She wondered if it meant her father was drunk again.
The fork was traded for the crystal and she let it slip through her fingers as she tried to imagine the little gem soaking up that feeling from her. "Work faster," she muttered before giving her head a shake, sending her long, brown hair flipping over her shoulder.
"Do rocks work better if you talk to them?" Sabriena asked as she sauntered into the kitchen, snickering a little at the look on Jenny's face. Her baggy pajama pants barely hung onto her hips as she banged around the kitchen. She had to prop her knee up on the counter and hoist herself up to reach a plate from the upper cabinets, she was so short. "There!" she said proudly and cut herself a large slice of the cake, then sat down at the table. "What's got your panties in a twist?" she asked as she popped a bite of cake in her mouth and gave an appreciative groan. She slicked her long blonde hair out of her face and fixed Jenny with a stare. "Eat your cake or I'm gonna steal yours too."
The threat made Jenny glance down at her cake again, pressing her lips thin for a moment before she picked up her fork and poked at the piece. "Summer is ending faster than I'd like. As always, but..." She paused to eat a bite and she closed her eyes at the chocolate bliss. "I don't want to go back home. Bad feeling," she said, looking over to her friend.
Sabriena smacked her lips as she considered her fork for a moment, licking the chocolate from the tines. "Yeah, I don't think you're the only one not looking forward to going back. Pretty sure Lindsey's planning on hiding in the basement until next summer." She finished off the last of her cake and pushed the plate away as she leaned back in her chair and stretched. "I mean, I guess you all could stay here with Gramma. I bet she'd let you if you asked. But not me. It's too quiet for me to stay here for too long."
She looked around at the kitchen with its high arched ceiling, the dark hardwood floor, the antique white cabinets. How many summers had they spent here, helping Gramma during the busiest time of the year, learning her craft? Well, practically every summer as far back as she could remember. There was something comforting about being in Gramma Arthusia's house. It smelled of lavender and fresh baked bread, incense and smoky cloves. The air carried a feeling of safety, of ancient magick that seemed to wrap around every single person who stepped through the front door, almost tangible and tingling on your skin. It was as if the house itself were alive with a magick all its own.
None of them ever really wanted to go back home at the start of fall, but this time Jenny sounded serious. "We can't just stay here making potions and playing with tarot cards for the rest of our lives," Sabriena said.
"We could," Jennifer said with a slight smile. Her mind called up memories of hot tea and the saturated leaf grounds on the bottom of porcelain cups, reading the signs and symbols left behind. "I know I've thought about it. We are good at our craft, too. Or you know, you would be too if you didn't spend all your time on your phone talking to that boy-toy." She paused and tipped her head back, a grin tugging her lips. "But who was that hottie you were talking to the other day? You know the one, that guy leaning against the fence?"
A smug little smirk played across Sabriena's lips even as she took a sudden interest in the ceiling and bit at her fingernail. "Which one? You need to be more specific," she said, a slight giggle in her voice. In all honesty, she couldn't remember any of their names. She had a boyfriend back home, so none of the flirting was serious, but what was wrong with having a little fun? It was better than weeding the garden in the hot summer sun, or pouring over the symbolism of rune stones.
"Oh Jenny, we all know Sabriena has her own magick," Gramma said as she came into the kitchen, a basket of fresh cut lavender hooked over her arm. Her silvery grey eyes fixed Sabriena with a piercing stare. "And we all know what it is." The corner of her mouth quirked in amusement as Sabriena gave another giggle and didn't deny it.
A laugh was pulled from Jenny's lips before she could stop it and she held up her hands, the crystal still firmly in one palm was she waved her hand at Sabriena. "Wait, wait, I can see it now. More than one man will have your heart before you finally settle down." Jennifer only laughed harder at the look Sabriena gave her and she busied herself with finishing off her own piece of cake, finally.
A shriek of laughter escaped Sabriena before she sobered herself. "As if I'd ever settle down."
Gramma laughed at that and shook her head as she set the basket on the counter. "At least one of you girls gets it," she chuckled as she went to the bottom of the stairs. "Lindsey!" she shouted up the steps. "Get down here!" She huffed as she set aside her oversized sunhat and returned to the counter and began bundling the lavender together for drying. "I don't care how late she was up arguing with that boy. There's work to be done around here."
It was a few minutes later before they heard her tromping slowly down the stairs. The redhead stumbled into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and yawning. Her hair was a frizzy mess of coppery curls that hung to her waist because she hadn't bothered to brush it, and there were dark circles under her eyes though the rest of her freckle-splashed face was rather pale. "I'm up, I'm up," she muttered, reaching into the refrigerator for a soda to wake herself up. She shrank back at the disapproving look Gramma gave her. "Oh yeah, they eat chocolate cake for breakfast and you say nothing, but I have a soda and you look at me like I'm kicking a damn puppy."
She needed the caffeine that morning. She'd broken up with Xander in the spring, before she and her friends even came to spend the summer here on the coast of Maine with her grandmother. But somehow, she just couldn't stop talking to him. Maybe part of her had hoped that they would get back together after a little time apart. But last night, she'd been awake and bored and reading that damn romance novel, and something in her heart made her think that talking to him would be a good idea. She hadn't been prepared for the female voice that had answered his phone.
A little sniffle escaped her, her nose still stuffy from last night, and she popped the top on her soda to take a long swig. "It's not like I reached for the pitcher of margaritas," she said and took another swallow. "Although I'm seriously considering it at this point."
Gramma pressed her lips to a thin line, but a soft laugh escaped her and she shook her head. "Some days I don't know what to do with you girls," she said as she set aside one bundle of the lavender and started bundling a second one.
A slight frown crossed her lips as her granddaughter flopped into a chair at the table. She could feel the emotions from all three of them; neither Jenny nor Lindsey wanted to return to their home in the midwest. There was a heaviness in her heart that was not her own, and she knew it came from both of them. There was a fear and a sense of embarrassment that she could feel from Jenny and it made her blood boil. Jenny deserved so much better than that nightmare she lived with at home. And Lindsey, there was such a loneliness in her heart that it broke Gramma's own.
She would have happily kept all three of them there with her, but she knew that wasn't what was best for them. In fact, she'd thought about it quite a lot that summer. She didn't much like the idea of any of them going back either, even if Sabriena would've happily gone. And that concerned her just as much as, if not more so, than the other two. No, they needed to go somewhere else, somewhere away from what they knew. Find new paths for themselves.
"Have any of you applied for college yet?" she asked casually, keeping her eyes on the herbs as she worked.
Jennifer shared a look with the other two before she looked over to Gramma. "Not yet. Procrastination at it's finest." She sighed as she stood up, pushing in her chair before she went to stand next to the old woman and began hanging up the completed bundles in the window so they could dry in the air and sun. "I'm not sure what I want to take, but I know I want something more than the hometown schooling. I need to travel more." She wasn't certain how to say it any more clearer than that.
"It's not like the university is any better," Sabriena muttered as she stretched again, then hauled herself out of the chair with a groan to help herself to a soda of her own. "Gramma, can you save me some of that lavender? I wanna use some to make some lemonade this afternoon." She leaned back against the counter and watched the two of them work as she sipped at her soda. "Well what other options are there?"
Gramma scoffed at that and turned to face her girls, pushing her waist-long black hair over her shoulder. "What other options are there?" she asked incredulously. "There are colleges all over the world! You girls could go anywhere and do anything you want! Do anyone you want," she added, her lips quirking with amusement again as Sabriena's face lit up like Christmas had come early, Jenny snickered, and Lindsey gave a groan and let her forehead drop to the table. "I'm just saying, you have options," Gramma continued with an innocent shrug of her shoulders.
"Tour de Sluts," Sabriena snickered.
"You're horrible," Lindsey said, but couldn't keep the giggle out of her own voice either. "We'd get deported if we tried to go anywhere with her." A sigh escaped her as she leaned her cheek against the heel of her hand. "I dunno. Where would we even go?"
"Anywhere," Gramma answered. "What do you all have holding you down? Trouble, you know your father would let you go anywhere you like," she said, gesturing at Sabriena as she turned back to the counter and set aside a bunch of the lavender for her. "Lindsey, I'm as much of a guardian as you have, not that you need it. And Jenny…" She paused and a sympathetic sigh escaped her. "Well, honey, you're old enough now that you don't need permission from anyone to do what you like."
She nodded at that. "But you are the only one I'd even seek approval from anyway if we were actually doing this." Jennifer blinked at the look she got and she turned to Sabriena and Lindsey, "Are we? Can we really just stop and go like that?"
Lindsey turned in her chair, blinking at her friends. "I mean… I guess? Honestly, I don't care if I go back anytime soon. Stupid, selfish…" she grumbled a string of complaints about Xander under her breath before she stopped herself and looked at them again. "But where do you all want to go? I'm game for wherever, I guess. I've always wanted to go to Italy."
"Well, wherever you go, you need to decide quick. I imagine it's quite the process to get signed up for an exchange program. That would be better than staying in dorms," Gramma said.
Sabriena squinted across the kitchen to the big map that hung on the wall, covering an old bulletin board. It was riddled with tiny holes from push-pins, the edges of it holding notes and recipes in various faded shades of colored paper. "Gimme that," she said and reached over to snag the kitchen knife from Jenny. Holding her tongue between her teeth, she squinted at the map, then zinged the knife across the kitchen. She stood up straighter with a look of pride when the knife embedded its blade into the map. "There! That's where we'll go!"
"Or we could just go work for the carnival. You can run the knife-throwing game," Lindsey said, staring wide-eyed at her friend. A sigh escaped her as she got up and went to the wall, wrenching the knife out of the board. She rolled her eyes as a resounding SMACK echoed through the kitchen behind her and Sabriena let out a yelp. She tipped her head slightly to the side, wrinkling her nose. "Well, I guess we're going to Japan."
Jennifer just shook her head at Sabriena, who was recovering from Gramma's punishment. "This is why we can't have nice things."