Page 36 of A Brighter Yellow
“You’ve used dynamite before?” murmured Ochre as Steve left the room.
“Sure,” said Anna. “On the farm.”
“What could you possibly need to blow up on the farm?” asked Ochre.
“Um… stumps, and rocks, and gophers. I mean, Dad didn’tneedto blow up the gophers, to be perfectly honest, and I’m not even sure he actually got them, but we all tell him he did. He was kind of having a moment.”
Ochre thought about that.
“No response?” asked Anna, looking nervous.
“Yeah, I’ve got nothing,” said Ochre. “That’s not like, I don’t want to tell you what my response is. I just really don’t have one.”
Anna shrugged. “That’s Dad for you. He’s kind of overwhelming sometimes.”
Ochre nodded, thinking that it must run in the family.
By noon, they had a pretty clear plan of the outside. Steve’s friends were present, and Anna was chomping at the bit. She hadn’t been lying—she did not like slow.
“What do you want to do about the package?” asked Ochre while Steve’s friends were loading their SUV.
“Package?” asked Anna.
“The black gunk?”
Anna made a face. “I don’t know. It was supposed to help Charlie. I don’t want to take it back to the warlocks.”
“OK, we’ll leave it here,” said Ochre. “And I’ll put a note to send it to my grandma if we don’t, you know….”
“We’re going to make it out,” said Anna.
“I know,” said Ochre. “But this is how stuff accidentally ends up in the Smithsonian, and then the next thing you know, you’re breaking into a National museum with your grandmother in the middle of a snowstorm during the winter break of your junior year of high school.”
“You did not,” said Anna.
“One time,” said Ochre. “And that was enough. I’m leaving a note, and I’ll talk to Sue.”
He had just finished writing out his grandmother’s address when Anna appeared in the doorway and went rushing to her bag. She was wearing loose flowy pants and sandals that looked very hippy-ish but not very good for fighting. He realized—as he considered how easy it would be to tug the drawstring on the pants and remove them—that getting out of her clothes fast was the point. She wanted to be ready to shift at a moment’s notice.
“Ha!” Anna exclaimed, pulling a pill bottle from her bag. She opened the bottle and looked in. “Two,” she said, looking up at him. He could feel that she was excited, but he wasn’t sure why. Drugs didn’t do the Supernatural community much good.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Well, I’ve been bringing Charlie Warlock samples for a couple of years, and she’s also been trying to combine magic and science. This is her first lab-proven spell.” She held out a pink pill to him. He looked up at Anna skeptically.
“It is a protection spell against warlock magic,” she said, pushing the pill at him again. “She encapsulated it so that it could be released on demand. That means when you swallow it.”
Ochre opened his mouth and shut it a few times. He’d never actually considered trying to combine magic and science at that level.
“Oh, come on, Ochre,” said Anna. “Don’t be all stodgy! We worked really hard to make these. This could help Supernaturals be safe when a witch isn’t around. Do you know how many icky pills I had to test to get to this one?”
“You tested them? Anna!”
“What?”
“That’s dangerous!”
“We had to know if it would work! And we were in a controlled lab setting. It takes about thirty minutes to kick in, so we should take them now.”
