Becoming the Luna

"She did what??" Shana exclaims, worried now.

"She… got more?" Dale repeats hesitantly like he's still not sure what exactly is going on. "I noticed there wasn't any and she told me to get one or two for her."

I just sprawl against the backseat. "The hardware store knows not to sell things like that to her." 

"But why?" Dale insists.

"You still haven't seen any of Renee's fires, well you're about to." Shana says vaguely as Virgil drives into my street, Mae's house is quiet, which means she's most likely in her room painting or being a unicorn.

As we pull into the driveway, the smell of burnt batter is so strong, that the smell of smoke can't even smother it.

"Apple!" I exclaim, already flinging my door open to get out. "Mom!" The house was filling up fast with smoke and she was still inside.

As soon as I get to the door, it flings open to reveal my mom clutching a meowing Apple in my arms. I throw myself at her, even though she's covered in grime and her hair might be singed.

"Mom, what did we agree you would do anytime you started a fire?" I ask solemnly.

She becomes petulant. "That I should call the firemen and leave it for them to handle."

I could hear the fire department's siren in the distance. "Then why didn't you? What if you got hurt?" I scold her.

"But I didn't." She grins, her teeth the only bright thing on her face. "Wait, look!" She exclaims, dropping Apple in my arms and running back in.

"Mom…" I reach for her but Virgil and Dale are already going in.

"We'll go get her." They reassure me and I start to pace, hoping that she hadn't painted the interior of the house in powder or foam or even worse, both.

A fire truck pulls up to my house and they hop down, running forward with hoses.

"Hey, Hayden." The fire chief, Mr. Lake ruffles my hair and nods to Shana. "Where's Renee?" He asks looking around.

"She ran back in, most likely to get her cake." Shana informs him.

Chief Lake just shakes his head at this. "Another cake fire huh? Is Virgil inside?"

"Yes," I say in a blank tone, considering the thought of selling my mom or auctioning her off at a derelict parent auction.

"Alright men!" Chief Lake calls to his men. "We have the usual, cake fire so the heat is in the kitchen, our mission is to contain it with as little damage as possible to the house, saving lives is our top priority."  He explains, starting to run forward. "Let's go!"

I watch them run in with detachment, knowing they would find nothing but burnt cake and smoke which was most likely caused by my mom using a rag to try and put out the fire.

"Let's go wait in the car." Shana says, taking my hand. "We won't be able to go in for a couple of hours anyway."

I hum and follow her to the car and minutes later my mom comes out with Virgil and Dale, she had cleaned up and no longer looked like a factory worker.

"I made cake." She announces happily, an unscathed cake in her hands, it's tiny but I can't help giving her a fond smile.

"It had better taste as good as it looks." Shana grins, making room for my mom to join us in the back seats.

Dale looks traumatized in the front seat and I remember that he has never seen any of my mom's innate ability to start the craziest fires.

"Chief Lake said that we would need to be out of the house for a couple of hours to let the smoke air out."  Virgil informs us, getting in the driver's seat.

"Let's go on a drive then or we could head to the park."  Dale lays out the options.

"How about we drive around then go to the park." My mom suggests already cutting a slice of the chocolate cake.

"Is it supposed to look so dark?" I ask worriedly when she gives me a slice. "Did you use all of the cocoa powder or add chocolate in it?" I ask curiously and she blinks.

"Chocolate doesn't go in chocolate cake?" She asks in shocked disgust.

I shrug, surprised that I even knew so much about cakes."Not really, it gives it a brownie texture…"

"Just taste the cake to check if it's edible and stop filling us with words." Shana whines.

"Okay, okay, fine." I agree, waving a hand to indicate that she get off my back.

I bite into the cake and freeze, it was actually really good if a bit too dark and dense but the rest didn't know that.

"Well?" My mom prods, leaning forward, I'm sitting in their middle so Shana does the same as well, and even Dale turns around to see.

"It's awesome!" I announce, quickly eating the bite in my mouth.

My mom's grin lights up the car and I forget all about the emotional trauma encountering Elise caused me.

She shares the cake and I take the responsibility of feeding Virgil who needs both hands on the wheel, actually, he doesn't because he usually drives with just one hand but suspiciously started using both when my mom started to share the cake.

I feed him the cake absentmindedly and nearly choke on the dark confectionery when he sucks on my fingers, actually, wait I do.

I snatch my hand back and clear my throat copiously so that I don't get chocolate anywhere near my brain.

I finish my cake and look out the window, I actually look out the window, not daydream as I usually do and I frown.

"Where's everybody?" I ask, noting how Pine Creek looked almost deserted, I mean it wasn't populated, to begin with but it's starting to grow into a ghost town.

Shana shrugs. "Some people moved because they feel like Pine Creek isn't getting modernized."

"But that's the whole point of it being in the countryside." I say.

"Plus, there have been sightings of wolves, which gives them more reasons to want to leave." My mom adds. "I've been living at the edge of the forest for over two decades and not one wolf has been sighted, they keep to the forest but people will always be people and want the forest cut down to make room for some establishment."

I think over her words, it was accurate because the only time I ever saw a wolf was when I went deep into the forest and it didn't even seem like it was about to attack me.

"More people will fill up the empty spaces." My mom continues to say in one of her rare shows of wisdom. "It's like a cycle, people move out and in so I don't think you should worry about it."

"Oh, I'm not worried." I reply, I truly wasn't. I'm not the biggest fan of people to begin with and if the people moving in end up like Dale and Mae then it was a win-win situation.

"Wait, mom?" I suddenly ask after a short spell of silence.

"Hmm?" She glances at me, Shana is texting by my side and Dale is playing games on his phone.

"If you made this cake perfectly then which cake got burnt?" I ask, just realizing this long after we had eaten all of the cake.

"She made seven." Virgil replies, the only one paying attention to our conversation.

I blink at this, taking an unreasonably long time to process the three simple words that Virgil had just said. "W-What?" I splutter, swiveling my head around to stare at my mom incredibly.

"You promised you wouldn't tell." My mom accuses Virgil who has an unrepentant expression on his face.

"Wait, wait, let me get this right, you made six cakes before this one and they all got ruined?" I know I sound scolding but I can't help it.

"I really wanted to make a cake for finishing your 11th-grade final exams." She says seriously with an adorable expression and I forget why I'm mad at her.

"Let me see your hands?" I ask, putting my hands out, palm out.

She places hers on mine and I carefully inspect them for burns or blisters, satisfied when I don't see any. "You wore protective gloves so I'll let you off for trying to burn down the house by baking and burning cakes."

"I got one right at least." She tries to argue.

I scoff, "Barely, maybe I should learn how to bake just so I don't come back to find a room full of burnt cakes." I say absent-mindedly but everyone seems to hear and turn to look at me.

"What?" I demand petulantly. "Don't think I can do it huh?"

They all make non-committal sounds that have me getting exasperated, fine then, is that how it's going to be? I'd prove them wrong.