Colorful Love

The Final Ingredient

We walk in to the strong smell of cinnamon and chives. I can hear my mother bustling about in the kitchen. We walk in, and are hit with the strong smell of garlic. I cover my nose, and can see Rhidian doing the same.

"Oh. Hello, kids. It's getting pretty late. This potion is going to take a while, so you kids can crash here," my mother says, pouring more ingredients into the bubbling liquids.

I walk out of the room hurriedly, into the living room where it smells a lot better. "Rhidian, you can either go home or sleep here. Let me warn you, you'll be on the couch," I tell him.

"I'll crash on the couch, if that's okay," he chooses.

I walk to the closet and pull out a blanket. "Sweet dreams," I say. I smile, and then walk into my room, where I will willingly fall asleep after a long day. I fell asleep and dreamed of color.

***

I was woken up by a shaking, and a familiar smell of coconuts. I felt my mothers hair sweep across the side of my face gently. She had leaned over my bed, whispering, "Wake up, Kya."

I yawn and get up, smiling at this familiar routine. My mother hasn't woken me up in years, and I hadn't realized how much I missed it.

"I'll be out in a second," I promised. She walked out of the room, leaving me alone. I change and walk out into the kitchen. The smell of garlic has receded, so that only the faint smell of cinnamon remains.

The flowered mixing bowl is full with a dark, bubbly liquid, moving by itself.

"What's in there?" I ask disgustedly. The liquid looks completely unappealing.

"I don't even want to know," Rhidian says from behind my shoulder. I jump because I didn't know that he was there.

"It's just normal ingredients, with some magic added Alright, now. The final ingredient is needed. It can only be obtained by you two," my mother stated, joining us around the bowl.

"What is it? As long as it's not blood, I'm cool with it," I confessed. I didn't want to have to cut open my hand for this.

"No, nothing that drastic, although I suppose that would work. I need the youngest living members of the Greenes, who are related to Helga, and the Prewett. That's you two. I only need a piece of you, so if you would just spit in the bowl, that would be fine," She told us.

I found it a bit odd, but because my mother told me to, I spit into the bowl that we had bought together in my youth. Rhidian followed my lead, and then we stayed completely still, waiting for the last step to stir in, and for the potion to be complete.

We waited tensely for something to happen, but nothing changed. The bowl and it's ingredients stayed exactly the same. "That was a bit anticlimactic," I stated.

"No. That's not how it's supposed to work. Something's wrong," my mother muttered. That couldn't be good.