Brittle Magic

1

The squirrel hissed at me.

Okay, yes, to be fair, I'd been chasing him around the woods just beyond our backyard for the better part of an hour. I'd followed him up a tree and was now reaching out, trying to pet him. But who knew squirrels could hiss?

Doubt was creeping in. Could squirrels get rabies, like dogs and bats? How would I ever explain a rabid squirrel bite to my overprotective mother?

But in all the family records I'd studied and stories I'd gathered, which was pretty much all of them, any Brittle with an animal talent usually had to touch the animal in question to get things kick-started.

And my dream had been so vivid. It had to be a sign. So I took a breath and stretched out my hand even farther.

I'd just barely grazed his fur when the squirrel lunged forward.

"Ah!" I shouted. I jerked my hand back so hard that I lost my balance, tumbled out of the tree, and hit the ground, my left ankle twisting hard beneath me.

I rolled onto my back and let myself lie there for a minute, the squirrel still chittering and chiding me from above. Then I forced myself to get up to see what I was working with.

My ankle was sore, but I didn't think it was sprained. At least there was that.

I pulled my small notebook out from the pocket of my shorts and began flipping through pages upon pages of crossed-out ideas. Yesterday, at the very end of the list, I'd jotted down: dream about flying squirrels-some kind of squirrel talent? Flying??? I crossed it off with a pen slash so hard I almost tore through the page.

No and no.

d d d

The mid-September sky was turning from daylight blue to golden dusk as I limped slowly home. To get back from the woods, I had to pass by my sister Judith's pumpkins. I tried to avoid looking at them, but it was impossible. Even from a distance they demanded to be seen. They were like great orange and yellow beasts, sunning themselves in the dwindling light.

It wouldn't be long until her pumpkins would be the biggest in all of Massachusetts, the biggest pumpkins in the entire United States, and probably even the world. And it wasn't only giant pumpkins Judith could grow, although they were her specialty. Giant corn, zucchini, onions-you name it, and Judith could grow it, ten times their normal size. No, more like a hundred times their normal size. She'd never once left a county fair without a blue ribbon. She could grow award-winning giant vegetables from the cracks in dirty concrete, without paying any attention to them at all. Which she didn't.

I trudged on, forcing myself to look away from them. Some people didn't appreciate their luck. Past the vegetable gardens, I picked my way around the rotten apples littering the ground in Daddy's orchard, and across the wide green lawn that stretched out behind our rambling 1800s farmhouse. I could smell garlic and onion even before I pushed through the screened kitchen door. I was careful not to limp, even though my ankle hurt. I didn't want Mom asking what had happened, did I need to go to the doctor, or saying,
Shiloh, sit here so we can elevate and ice it. What I wanted was to go upstairs and get right back to the drawing board.

Mom was stirring something on the stove with a wooden spoon, and Daddy and Judith were sitting at the kitchen table. Judith was fiddling with the camera she'd gotten for her birthday and Daddy was reading. He'd been holed up in his office all day, and I hadn't seen him since this morning.

"Hi, Daddy," I said, going over to kiss him on one of his stubbly cheeks.

"Hi, sweetheart," he said, not looking up from his book.

"Smells good," I said to Mom, making my way over to the stove. "Need any help?"

She smiled as she stirred. "Thanks, but I don't think it's worth the risk."

She always said I wasn't allowed to help in the kitchen because I was so accident-prone, which I guess was true. I'd broken five bones by then, six or seven if you counted toes, but they'd all healed up great. And I hadn't broken anything or needed stitches in over two years. Okay, more like one and a half years, one and a quarter if you're being strict about it, but you get the point.

"I'm not that clumsy," I said.

"Hmm," Daddy said, flipping to the next page of his book.

". . . But you can go get your brother and let him know dinner's almost ready," Mom said. "I think he's in the greenhouse."

"I just came back in. Can't Judith go get him?" I eyed my sister, who was chewing on the end of her white-blond braid as she turned a dial on the top of her camera.

"I'm busy," Judith said, without elaborating. A year ago, she'd informed us all that she was going to become a war correspondent one day. I thought she'd only said it to provoke our mother, but so far, she'd stuck with it.

"Please?" Mom asked me. "It'll be ready any minute."

I sighed. Further brainstorming would have to wait. Not that I had much time to spare. "Fine. Let me just grab something from my room first."

Once I was in my and Sammy's room, I riffled around in the closet to see if I could find the pair of hot-pink compression socks Mom made me wear anytime we traveled. She made all of us wear them, even if it was just a long car ride. I pulled them on, and the squeeze of the tight sock instantly made my ankle feel better. Less conspicuous than an ACE bandage, which she'd notice and worry over in a heartbeat. There. That would do.

As always, I trailed my fingers along the locked door at the top of the hallway as I passed it to go back downstairs. I'd stopped trying the handle by then, because no matter what, I knew it would never open.

The greenhouse was on the edge of our property, across the small meadow and to the left of the apple orchard. It was annoyingly far from the vegetable gardens, but I think Sammy liked it like that. It was his retreat. I found Sammy bent over a wilted seedling, brushing it with his fingertips. At his touch, the seedling straightened up, its droopy leaves suddenly full and proud. That was Sammy's talent-making plants, especially sick ones, the healthiest and best versions of themselves. He was a plant whisperer.

"Sammy. Dinner's ready," I said, but he didn't seem to hear me. His sandy-blond hair was falling into his eyes, and he pushed at it distractedly, a look of pure concentration on his face. He, at least, appreciated his talent, and I felt a rush of warmth for my gentle brother. He was sugar where I was salt, and I loved him for it.

"Sammy!" I said again, louder this time.

He jumped. "Oh. Hi, Lo."

"Dinner." I waited for him while he dusted soil off the worktable and tidied up the pots and seed trays.

Outside, it was twilight now, and the bugs were singing.

We walked in silence for a moment before Sammy said, "Why are you limping?"

"Am I?" I tried to walk more normally. "I fell out of a tree. I'm fine, though."

"What? How'd that happen?"

"I was chasing a squirrel." I didn't have to explain why I'd been chasing it. Sammy knew why. For as long as either of us could remember, I'd been trying on potential talents. Like the summer when we were nine, when I was convinced my undiscovered talent had something to do with bullfrogs. I spent long, hot afternoons loitering by the murky pond in the woods, listening to the chorus of the frogs as they sang br-wum, br-wum, br-wum, hoping something would happen. Nothing much did, aside from the mosquito bites. I got so many that summer Mom put me on an iron supplement due to all the blood loss.

With the family reunion coming up so soon, my search had grown more feverish than ever. I didn't think I could survive another big Brittle family gathering with nothing to show for myself.

"But I'll probably cool it with the animal talents for a while," I continued. "I don't think that's what my talent is."

"Yeah." Sammy scratched behind his ear. "Shiloh-"

He didn't have to say another word. Sammy had tried gently, again and again, to remind me that if I had a Brittle talent, I would already know it. It happened the same way for all mothers carrying Brittle children. The night before the birth of her baby, she dreamed about what her child's talent was going to be. Sometimes the dreams were a little vague, and sometimes they came in perfect detail. But they were doubly useful, because they always let the mother-to-be know when to cancel plans and show up at the hospital, right on time.

The night before Judith was born, Mom had dreamed of giant vegetables. And the night before our birth, she'd dreamed of healthy, happy plants for Sammy. But there was no dream about me.

"I know what you're going to say, and I have a new theory about that," I said, interrupting him. "What if something happened-what if Mom got confused, since we're twins? You know how sometimes the stronger twin, like, bullies the weaker twin inside the womb, and takes all the nutrients? Maybe that's what happened with our dreams. Your dream bullied mine. And poof. She forgot about mine and only remembered yours."

"It's possible," Sammy said, not sounding entirely convinced. "But for the record, I highly doubt you're the weaker twin, between the two of us."

It wasn't stubbornness or an unwillingness to admit that I was one of the rare duds in the Brittle bunch. I didn't know how to explain it, but I felt it. Dream or not, I was sure I had a talent, buried in me somewhere.

I stared ahead into the growing darkness. "I just have to keep searching."