Apricot

October 9, 2024

“Cut the rest of the apricots, Charlie. Pit them and put them into a bowl, Charlie. Check on the pie in the oven, Charlie. Wash the salad for dinner, Charlie.” Charlie mumbled to himself on the morning of the summer solstice. His parents had been preparing for this feast since the spring solstice- why they had to celebrate every solstice for every season was beyond Charlie. Couldn’t someone else take over this celebration? Just this once? Being the town witches had its positives, but this was undoubtably, the biggest downfall. At leas in Charlies eyes. In Lenoras, though, these were the best dates of the year. Lenora is Charlies older sister, and is studying to become a witch under her mother and grandmother. Being a young man in a family of all women was hard enough as it was, but throw in the fact that they were all witches, and might as well paint his face and give him a red nose because all of his classmates had laughed at him relentlessly.

“If you would just do as you’re told, mom wouldn’t have to nag you so much.” Lenora said, traipsing into the kitchen holding a basket full of flowers she was going to enchant and make into flower crowns for the festivities. Her gifting was heavy in the emphasis of plants and potions. Their mothers was more focused on baking and cooking - she identified heavily with the mother from that Disney movie Enchanto and brought up the similarities, or lack there of, often. Their grandmother had been the most powerful witch in all the land, but now she had resorted to minor enchantments when young poeple came to her wanting to do well on an exam, or with troubles with their parents or friends or significant others. She was well into her nineties and didn't care much for the extravagant shows of her magic like she used to when Lenora and Charlie were young.

Charlie stuck his tongue out at his sister. She was always so hard on him. There was never really a time that they got along well, even when he was first born, Lenora had been frustrated to receive a sibling, and made sure he remembered that she had happily been an only child for the first five years of her life. She wrinkled her nose and shot an angry glance his way before sitting down at the bench at their large kitchen island. Quickly, she got to work humming and chanting over the blooms as she wove them into the most gorgeous crowns she had ever made. Charlie would never tell her that these were gorgeous, but she had really outdone herself this year.

“Is that young man you are fond of coming today?” Charlie asked, knowing the specific chat she was saying was somewhat of a love enchantment. “Maybe…” Lenora responded briskly. “Now let me focus.” Charlie held back a laugh and went back to preparing the food for dinner. He knew that she had been drooling over a boy in town called Lawrence and wrote down in her notebook ( over and over ) Lenora and Lawrence or Lawrence and Lenora in elegant cursive, and then again in block letters, and then again in a serif font of her own creation. “It’s called manifesting, Charlie. Ask anyone.” She had snapped at him once while he was teasing her about it. “He will fall in love with me, and I won’t even have to force him into it, the way mom did for dad.” Charlie tried to shake that memory out of his head, they both knew she had gone too far. She shouldn’t have said that, it had been hard on all of them since he left ten years earlier, but the look on their mother's face when Lenora said that had been enough to make anyones heart break.

Their parents had been happy while they were together, but their father was suddenly under the impression that she had been tricking him into loving her for the entirety of their relationship, even though she hadn't, and he ran away with the woman who convinced him of this, and no one had seen him since.

“Are those almost done, Charlie? I need to use them for a custard.” Said their mother as she walked in with her hands full of a skirt she was mending for Lenora to wear that evening. Her sister had always been the one that was better with garment enchantments, but she was taking a stab at it this year because it was going to be the first solstice ever that her sister was not going to be there as well. Gwendolyn had finally found a town of her own that she was going to be the resident witch of. She had fallen in love with a local, and had a baby on the way. “Here we are, Lenora! This is going to be just perfect!” Their mother seemed giddy, and they both felt like Aunt Gwen not being there had something to do with it. “Charlie, these look great! I will get started with the few that you have done already, but keep going. I will need all of those before the feast this evening.” And with that she was humming and chanting alongside her daughter Lenora, from different corners of the kitchen. Charlie loved the sound of his family making magic, even if he would never tell them that, it felt like home. He breathed in the smells of the pie baking, the apricots he was pitting and the spicy smell of his mother and sisters magic in the same room.

Maybe he could enjoy this solstice. Maybe this was the year things would change.