Complete this thought: “I wish an alarm would notify me whenever…”
The phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID and gave a heavy sigh. She flipped open the phone and answered it. “Hospital or jail?”
There was a moment’s hesitation on the other end. “Why do you always assume I’m in trouble?”
“So you’re not calling me because you need me to bail you out or pick you up?”
Again the pause. “Maybe I just wanted to chat with my dear big sister. Hi Melanie, beautiful night isn’t it?”
The woman named Melanie glanced out the window. The early summer sun was just setting, the insects were warming up for their twilight symphony, and bats performed aerials in the sky as they hunted. She turned back to the kitchen and leaned on the counter, frowning at the ingredients carefully placed around the pot on the center island.
“It’s a perfect night,” she answered. “But something tells me, Marian, that it is not meant to be so.”
She could almost hear her sister’s ears turning red. “Well, I suppose it could wait til morning.”
Melanie shook her head. “Where are you?”
“The Central police station.” Marian’s voice was properly meek.
“You didn’t…” she didn’t want to speak the words aloud, in case anyone was listening.
Marian understood her silent concern though. “No! No, the family jewels are perfectly safe.”
“Good. I’ll be there shortly,” Melanie sighed and hung up. That was far too bold, even for Marian. They would really have to come up with better code phrases.
An hour later she was signing her troublesome sister out of police custody, apologizing profusely for Marian’s misbehavior. The officer manning the desk seemed amused rather than angry. Melanie shot a sidelong look at her sister, who was pointedly avoiding eye contact.
They strolled along the sidewalk in silence for the first mile. They rounded a corner towards a cul-de-sac when Melanie finally grabbed her sister by the shoulders and gave them a small shake. “What were you thinking?”
Marian stuck out her lower lip and batted Melanie’s arms away. “I didn’t do it on purpose,” she grumbled, turning towards the house at the end of the lane. “Anyway, he deserved what he got. Putting his hands on her like that.”
Melanie ran a hand through her long dark hair. “Did you even know them? Or are you White Knighting again?”
Marian tossed her pale hair and laughed. “I’m not a vigilante out to stop wrongdoers, but some things just can’t be tolerated.”
The siblings stared at each other in the growing dark, unalike as two sisters could be, at odds with their personal feelings towards other people. An owl hooted at the edge of the trees behind the houses and the tension broke. The women laughed with each other and walked arm-in-arm back to the elder’s home.
“Tea?” Melanie offered once they were safely inside.
“Please.”
She put a kettle on the stove and a small fire roared to life beneath it. “Seriously, one of these days I am going to come up with a charm that will alert me before you’re about to do something stupid so I can come stop you.” She nodded toward the assembled ingredients on the island. “Or at least give myself enough heads up so I have time to brew my potions uninterrupted.”
Marian laughed. “I did offer to serve my time.”
Melanie waved that away. “You know I couldn’t just leave you there all night. Certainly not on a full moon.” The kettle shrieked that it was ready and the older sister doused the flame with a wave of her hand and poured the hot water over two mugs.
“Well, whatever you were going to make, it’d be stronger to make it next month at the Solstice, wouldn’t it?” She accepted her steaming mug and followed her sister out to the back porch.
“It would,” Melanie admitted, “but I had something else in mind to brew for that. I’ll just make it tomorrow. It won’t be as potent, but it’ll still be effective.”
“As long as it isn’t something to stop me from enjoying myself,” Marian smirked.
“Trust me, you’d never know I made that until I showed up in front of you to stop you from doing whatever foolish thing you were about to do.” The sisters laughed as they drank their tea and soaked up the moonlight. After all, it had been months since they last shared the full moon’s light together.
Notes: I’ve been rereading Harry Potter the past couple weeks so I was feeling a very magical vibe from this one. Although, the opening paragraph was taken straight from a conversation my husband had with his mother back when we were still in college. He’d gotten a concussion after a night of revelry when his former roommate and cousin came to visit us at the end of a semester and he just wanted to let her know he’d been to the hospital to have it looked at. But it was funny that she assumed since his cousin was there they’d either been arrested or were injured. Seemed a fun starting point for a prompt like this.
Technology these days certainly makes it easier to set alarms and reminders for things we know are coming or due, but what sorts of unexpected or unplanned things do you wish you could get warning for?
Wednesday’s prompt: What are you recovering from right now?
What sorts of torments will I unleash on my characters tomorrow such that they’ll need recovering? You’ll just have to come back and find out! See you then!
Closet Full of Notebooks 