Over the next several weeks, Caiti worked night and day. Marlowe still went and visited her in the greenhouse almost every day, but he didn't stay as long as he had before, only because he felt like the distraction wasn't as welcome as it had been when she had felt stuck.
When she was there, she really was in the zone. At least a few nights a week, she would come over when she needed a break from thinking about it all and every time she would try her best to explain what she was doing, what she thought she'd understood, but she never really seemed to be able to get the words out.
"I don't know how to explain it," she'd said the other night. "It's just intuitive. I'm just sort of feeling it out. It just feels like what I'm doing is on the right track."
Any attempt she made at getting more detailed than this went over Marlowe's head anyway. He didn't understand potion making like Caiti did.
He collected her another little bottle of venom at the full moon, and the look of excitement that flashed through her eyes as she thanked him made the still less than pleasant experience worth it. She hadn't shown that before. She'd been grateful. He'd always believed that. But she'd been so worried about him. He didn't want to be a hindrance to what she was doing. He didn't want her to feel like she had to tip-toe around his feelings.
Near the end of November, Caiti showed up earlier than usual. It was lucky really that he was home. He'd taken to spending extra time at the field, training or working out on his own. He really wanted to push himself during the off season, to come back stronger than ever. This would be his third season on a rookie contract, his last opportunity to get a permanent position on the team, and he was determined to make the best of it.
In the beginning, Marlowe had thought that he might try to move to a better team when his contract was up, after he'd proven himself a little, gotten some professional experience. He didn't want that anymore. Winning no longer mattered all that much. It was himself he wanted to outdo.
He'd been thinking about all this when Caiti arrived all the sudden. It was very, very cold out that day — the reason he had stayed home — and her cheeks and nose were pink.
"Marlowe," she said quickly, her eyes all bright. "I think I figured it out."
All thoughts of quidditch dropped right out of his head.
"What?"
"I think I figured it out," she said again. "I think I did. I think it'll work."
Marlowe didn't know what to say. Caiti had always maintained that this would take her years and years to develop if she even managed it at all. Marlowe had always privately agreed, not because he didn't think she was capable, but because it seemed like such a big task.
"How do you know?" he asked finally.
"I don't know," she said. She unzipped her coat, dropping it over the arm of the living room chair where his and his mum's already were. "I have no idea, actually. I just think it will. I just have this gut feeling."
She started pacing back and forth, talking a mile a minute about the conversation she'd just had with her mentor Alora and about how she'd brewed something with her there to watch, so she'd have extra eyes to see what she was seeing, to talk through it all with her.
"Marlowe," she said, standing still for the first time since she'd come in. "The way it reacted. It just..." She didn't seem to have words to describe whatever had happened, but it must have been promising, because Caiti was all lit up.
"It was what you were hoping for?" Marlowe prompted.
"Better," Caiti whispered. She dropped down onto the couch, put her hands on the sides of her face, staring wide eyed down at the table. "Alora thinks we can send it to peer review in another few weeks," she said. "We could be ready to start real tests by February."
Marlowe sat down beside her, mostly so he wouldn't have to respond to what she'd just said.
"I won't make you test it," Caiti said quickly. She must have been able to tell what he was thinking. "We can hire other people for that. Pay them. I can use some of the money for things like that."
But Marlowe shook his head. "I'll do it, Caiti," he said. "I trust you."
He did. It was scary to think about, but not because he was worried the potion would kill him or anything like that. It was scary, because he didn't know what would happen. The thing was, after almost two years, he knew what to expect from a full moon. He knew what to dread, what would be fine, what to do keep himself feeling the best he could hope for given the circumstances. It wasn't enjoyable. He wasn't really used to it. But it was familiar enough.
When he took this potion, he would be going in blind. No one would really know what would happen. No one would be able to prime him with real life accounts of the experience like the ones he had poured over with sick fascination in the days before his first full moon.
When he took this potion, he wouldn't know what to expect, what would happen to him, what he would feel.
He really did trust Caiti, but he'd have been lying if he said he wasn't scared.
"You don't have to," Caiti said again.
He shook his head.
"I'm glad things are starting to fall into place for you," he told her instead. "I'm glad you feel like it's making sense."
And when Caiti continued to watch him with concern, he turned his face towards hers, smiling a little, and he kissed her.
"You're trying to distract me," she whispered.
"Is it working?" Marlowe asked.
She kissed him again.
"Maybe."
—-
Marlowe thought a lot the next few days. He went to the greenhouse some, brought a book and pretended to read while mostly sitting on the couch and watching Caiti continue to fiddle with whatever it was she was doing that she still didn't seem quite able to explain.
Then she started writing a lot.
She lay on her back on one end of the couch, her notebook propped up on her knees, writing and writing and sometimes scratching things out and then staring up at the ceiling for long periods of time.
He wanted to ask if he could read it, but there never seemed to be an opportunity. Once she'd gotten going, she never put the notebook down.
So Marlowe just thought. Or maybe more accurately, he worried.
He didn't like that he was doing this, but he couldn't seem to stop himself.
That weekend, he finished eating breakfast at the kitchen table and he got so lost in his thoughts that for almost forty five minutes he sat there, staring blankly out the kitchen window, his empty cereal bowl in front of him. He would've probably kept on sitting there if his mum hadn't come back in after her shower and said, "You still haven't cleaned up that bowl?"
He started and looked at her. "Oh," he said. "No."
She considered him.
Marlowe didn't like the way she looked at him. He got up and dumped the last of the milk out in the sink, pulled out his wand to clean it, and then put the bowl back in the cabinet.
When he finished, she was still watching him.
"Grab your coat," she said. "Let's go for a walk."
Outside, the air was brisk and bit at his nose, but the cold wasn't unbearable. Marlowe stuck his hands in his pockets and walked with his head down. The trees were bare by now, but brown crunchy leaves still littered the ground, crunching under his feet.
"You've been awfully quiet this week," his mum said after a bit.
"I've just had a lot on my mind," he said.
"Why don't you tell me some of it," she said.
He liked how she said that, some of it. He liked that she didn't ask for everything.
"Caiti thinks she's figured out something that will work," he told her. "She's going to submit it for peer review soon and then maybe start testing it in a few months."
"And how do you feel about that?"
"Scared," said Marlowe.
"That it won't work?"
He shook his head. "No," he said. "No, it might not. I know that. She knows that."
His mum didn't push him to explain further, just kept on walking in silence.
Marlowe kept his mouth shut, not sure yet what he wanted to tell her. Eventually, he said, "She said she'd pay someone else to test it for her, so I don't have to. But I don't feel right about that. I feel like I should do it."
He saw her nod out the corner of his eye, but she didn't say anything.
"I told her I would. But I'm scared of... I don't even know. That's the thing. I won't know what to expect and that's really scary. I like knowing what's coming. It's easier that it's not a surprise anymore."
"Unknowns are always scary," she said. "But you're also very brave."
Marlowe didn't know if that was really true. He didn't feel very brave. He felt very small, constantly at the mercy of this bad thing inside him that he could never get out.
"You are," she said, interpreting his silence correctly. "You are. You've really amazed me, how you've handled this. I'm not saying it's been easy. I'm not saying you've done everything just perfectly. But you've really been so brave. You've faced up to so much. You'll be able to do it again."
Marlowe just nodded, eyes still cast down.
"And just think," she went on. "Even if it doesn't work, it's going to give Caiti information she didn't have before. It's going to help her figure it out."
"I just wish I understood what she was on about," Marlowe said. "She tries to explain, but it always goes over my head or she just doesn't know how to put it into words. I trust her. I think I believe she can figure it out more than she does, but I wish I got it, what she was doing. I think it would help. It just feels so abstract right now."
They came across a park bench and his mum turned towards it to sit down, patting the spot next to her.
Marlowe didn't want to sit. It was easier to talk when he was moving. But he took the spot next to her anyway. For a long time, she didn't say anything, and neither did Marlowe.
He watched the empty branches on the trees swaying in the breeze, the peaky November sun flashing in between them.
His thoughts pulsed through his brain like a throbbing headache, one after the next, pushing at the edges of his temples and forehead and then retreating again before he could really grasp what they were.
"What if it goes badly and I blow up at her again?" he asked at last. His voice came out so weak he would have been embarrassed if he'd been talking to anyone else.
"How do you mean?" she asked.
"What if I get mad?" he asked. "When she first told me she made me the potion... and last year when she told me about her project... I got mad. I yelled at her. And I've been trying really, really hard not to let myself react like that to anything, to just think first before I say anything, because I never meant any of what I said to her. It just... I don't know. Sometimes when I get scared, I get angry, 'cause that's easier. And I say things and then I regret them, and I apologize, but I can't keep doing that to her. She hasn't done anything wrong. I'm just afraid if this doesn't work, I'll get scared and then I'll get mad and I'll take it out on her when it's not her fault. Even if it doesn't work, I know she would never try to put me in a bad situation. It's just harder to remember that when I get that way. I get sort of irrational."
He had said a lot more than he expected to, and the back of his neck felt hot. He didn't like thinking about the way he'd reacted to Caiti on those occasions. He wasn't proud of it.
"Well," said his mum reasonably, and she took his hand and gave it a squeeze. "I think that's a very valid concern, but I also think this is a bit of a different situation."
"How?"
"Oh, in several ways," she said. "First of all, you're more self aware than you used to be. You know what you've done in the past. You know you don't want to do that again. You're teaching yourself to handle things in a more productive manner. You're growing up. You've got tools now you didn't have then, ways to cope if it doesn't go well."
Marlowe felt she had overestimated him. It wasn't like anything since his last big blow up had really tested him in quite the same way. How was he supposed to know it really wouldn't happen again?
"Secondly," she continued. "Both those times, one of things you told me had bothered you was that it was a surprise. Both times you told me you didn't like how she sprung it on you out of nowhere. But she's learning to handle these things better, too, isn't she? She hasn't sprung this on you out of nowhere. She's kept you updated, as much as she's able to, all along. She lets you come and watch her work any time you like. She's told you about this particular possibility months in advance. She's given you time to prepare yourself."
Marlowe hadn't considered this. If anything, he'd looked at the next few months like the long, suspenseful pathway towards some looming darkness he didn't know how to face. Maybe it was a good thing though.
"And what if I prepare myself and it still happens?" Marlowe asked.
"Then you'll do exactly what you've done in the past. You'll talk to her and you'll figure things out. But hopefully you'll do it all a little better because you're older and smarter and you love her more than you did before. And she loves you."
Marlowe looked up at the sky. He wished they were walking again.
"She might not. If I treat her like that again. I wouldn't."
"Relationships aren't perfect, sweetheart," his mum said. She stood up, like she'd read his mind again. Having a good one doesn't mean you don't ever fight or say things you don't mean. It means you work through things together and when you do something that upsets the other person, you learn how to do better for the next time. It means you're constantly helping each other grow into better people and that even when you mess up, you stick by each other and help each other back up. You've only been together two years. Think how much more growing together you have to do yet. Your dad and I have barely scratched the surface and we've been married twenty six years."
Marlowe didn't say anything to that, but she didn't make him. She just turned back the way they'd come and they walked home in silence. Marlowe's nose was stuffy from the cold and he kept his head ducked down — they were walking into the wind now.
"I might go to the field for a little bit," he said when they got back home. He had a lot to think about. Even in the chilly air, he wanted to be up on his broom. It was the one thing that cleared his head.
"Okay," she said.
She opened the door to head back inside and Marlowe followed her, starting down the hall towards his room to get his things together.
He stopped only a few steps along though.
"Mum?" he said.
She turned to look at him.
"Thanks."
She just smiled.