Bloom Little Flower

In the conflicting breeze of spring a girl sits crossed legged on the grass. She is happily playing a game. When observed closer it is clear that she is making a potion. But no one is observing her as the girls mother without word, had left her alone for the day despite the fact the girl seems to be around 8 years old. ‘Eye of newt’ the girl proclaims despite there being no people around to hear her. She is holding a leaf, the same sort of leaf as all of the others in the bucket she has. In the vibrancy of her imagination they are all separate ingredients, it is a great potion. In reality the bucket is filled with a sludgy mess of water and damp leaves. She places another leaf tentatively in the mixture and then begins to stir with a wooden stick submerging the leaf then breaking it up into pieces to join a group of its now identical sisters. Next to the girl there is a gilded wire cage. Behind the golden bar is a pair of white mice. She glances at the mice, her youthful face scrunches in determination. Plucking a yellow flower out of the ground she turns back to her potion. After she has pulled this flower to pieces and added it to her mixture she turns to her mice. ‘Soon you’ll be flowers’ she says ' and I can give the mum in a bouquet and maybe then she’ll stay’. And suddenly her motivation is clear. She is going to turn her pets into foliage. Or at least that is her plan. She believes she has the power to do that. ‘I hope you’re purple flowers. Mummy likes purple’ she says, lip quivering for a brief moment before she regains control. Her mother does like purple, more than the other colours. More than she likes her own daughter. Her regained composure doesn’t last long, thick salty tears stream down her reddening cheeks.

‘Why are you crying?’ a small voice asks. A young boy with kind blue eyes and dark messy hair asks. The girl recognises him even though she’s never been permitted to play with him. He is the boy from across the street. She’d noted him when she registered how involved his mother and father were.‘I’m not’ she snips indignantly. The last thing she wants is his pity. Pity is something she has become familiar with. The older she gets the more familiarised she gets with it. Teachers look at her. They whisper to each other in the corridors about social services and how much they disapprove of her mother. She’s learned to pretend not to hear them. ‘What’s your name?’ the boy asks unperturbed ‘mine is William’. ‘Kylie’ she answers no more friendly than she was seconds ago.

William glances into her bucket. In his brain it instantly clicks that the green sludge is meant to be a potion, the reason why she is making it doesn’t even begin to register. All he sees is her having fun. ‘Can I play too? I know where there are great flowers’ He asks. Internally he is eager to impress her. He has always found her pretty with her red ringlets. He has always thought she would make a great playmate. Kylie considers this for a moment. Then two. Then three. Finally she answers ‘As long as you can actually find us more flowers’. In all honesty Kylie isn’t interested in a playmate, the only reason she agrees is because she thinks she needs more flowers for her potion.

William nods with a large grin that would be toothy if he wasn’t missing his two front teeth. Kylie would bet everything she owns, which isn’t much anymore, that he got tooth fairy money for those. She drags her tongue through her own gap, she is only missing one tooth at the moment. When William returns he has a fistful of roses that have clearly come from someone's garden. They are full sized red roses and look well tended to. He’s dug them up by the root so they’re caked with mud at the bottom. Kylie contemplates just giving them to her mother but decides that the mice would turn into prettier flowers than those, the mice would turn into whatever type of flowers she wanted them to. The flowers had to be perfect pristine purple ones. ‘William they’re beautiful’ she gushes, her stony exterior dispersing in an instant William had proved to be a valuable asset.

For the next twenty minutes they stir and poke and prod the potion trying to brew it to ‘perfection’. Kylie flutters around William anxiously. ‘Not like that’ she snaps when he stirs the sludge the wrong direction ‘it has to be like a whirlpool’. He corrects his course immediately. William is taking the project almost as seriously as Kylie is. ‘William come and get your sandwiches’ his mother calls from out of sight breaking their concentration. William stands. Kylie looks at him sadly, her stomach twists with hunger but she says nothing. Even at 8 she knows she can’t impose. It isn’t like saying anything has ever helped her in the long term. In the short term she might get fed, then later she’d surely face her mothers wrath. William looks at her apologetically, not because he knows what’s going on behind the scenes but because he is going to leave their ‘game’ for his lunch. ‘I need to go’ he says sadly ‘mum is calling me...I’ll come back’. Before she can say a word he leans in and kisses her on the cheek. Just a second long touch and then pull away, chaste and as innocent as their ages suggest. Once he has pulled away he runs away leaving her in the aftermath. Her cheeks blaze red, she is starting to think that he might not be as annoying as he first seemed.

At first she is calm in his absence. Eventually the tears come. As they do an idea springs to mind, she is going to use her tears. She is going to use her pain to make her ‘potion’ even more potent. Every tear she cries bar from the first few that she shed before the idea struck her end up in the mixture, stirred in with a stick. 

After 20 more minutes have passed William returns bringing a small bottle with him. The bottle automatically catches Kylie’s eye. ‘Is that-’ she starts.‘Glitter’ William confirms with excitement brandishing the small bottle which is filled to the absolute brim with blue glitter. The boy is practically bouncing up and down on his toes because he has pleased her. A gleeful smile rapidly spreads across her face. Glitter is the perfect thing to add to their almost complete potion. ‘Let me pour it while you stir’ she suggests. William nods, he eagerly flexes his fingers. He unscrews the bottle’s cap and slowly starts pouring the blue glitter in as she stirs methodically.‘Where did you get this?’ she asks. ‘My craft box in my playroom’ he answers. Her smile stutters for a moment because of course he has a playroom. Kylie doesn’t even have any toys other than a bunny she got the day she was born let alone a playroom.

The potion starts going glossy, and any spectator could have sworn it was starting to bubble despite there being nothing in it to create heat or carbonation. ‘Look William’ she says getting excited again. William stares in shock his face flickering between happiness and horror. ‘Grab the mice’ she instructs.

Before William can comply they hear a tutting from behind them. The children turn. Standing there 5,8ft dressed in a long black ankle length gown with a slit up to the upper thigh is a pale dark eyed woman. ‘Little mouse don’t you be doing that’ she instructs and flexes her long nailed fingers at her sides. The woman is beautiful. Her physical appearance doesn’t prevent her from being creepy it actually aids it. There is something off about her.. too perfect.. too symmetrical. The air feels colder than it has all day but the breeze seems to have gone, the air is stagnant.‘Now my flowers what are we going to do with you?’ She asks pointedly her canines looking unnaturally sharp in the light. Had they just summoned exactly what they were pretending to be?