The Peculiar Alchemist

80 || Birthday Party

There was a colorful cake on the table decorated with silly little green monsters with pink and purple bows on their heads. Sammy's niece, who also goes by Sammy, had always had the strangest taste. Those green monsters were her favorite thing in the world and she was jumping up and down in excitement wanting to light up the candles herself.

"I can do it, I can do it!" She was pushing her mother out of the way and Sammy couldn't help but laugh at how his sister huffed before crossing her arms at the way she was pushed.

But she still humored her daughter since it was her birthday and the girl was just too excited. "Alright, alright. Let's see what you've been practicing."

Breathing in deeply, the birthday girl pointed her index finger at one of the candles and looked as if she was doing her best to concentrate. She was letting out funny noises as she did so, and all that came out of the tip of her finger was a pitiful spark. The candle she spent a whole minute focusing on remained unlit.

Her mother raised an eyebrow at her and she sheepishly gave her a smile as she stepped away from her cake. "I will do it when I turn ten."

"Loser." Sammy laughed at her sorry excuse of a spell, but he did it out of fondness. Besides, she couldn't hear him so it was all good. She'll probably grow up to be better than him anyway.

His sister was unaware of him as well as she pulled the cake towards her and started lighting up the candles until there were nine lit ones. The whole cake looked even more ridiculous with the girly green monsters on top of it, but both Sammys loved it. It was perfect.

There was no big party or anything, instead it was only those of the family who could make it gathered around the cake now and excitedly telling Sammy, his niece, to blow out the candles. It was as normal as any other birthday party and if Sammy wasn't so busy watching his family – especially his niece – so fondly he would have been bored out of his mind.

It was only a while later when his niece was done eating her cake and washing her little green monsters to keep for later did she finally go to the most exciting part of any birthday party, gifts!

Sammy was waiting for that moment with so much anticipation but he was also extremely nervous. He knew exactly which gift he 'sent', it was a somewhat big box that was wrapped in the most ridiculous wrapping out of all the gifts present – it was also Sammy's choice, he liked to stand out – and it was the one that caught his niece's attention.

She went straight for it, making Sammy feel slightly proud of his choice, but he didn't know what was inside. The contents of the box were a mystery to him and even Aubrey who supposedly put something his niece wanted inside. The gift was also sent by Sammy, who is dead, so he was curious how everything would unfold. It made him wonder if Aubrey really was serious about being able to cast impossible spells, it sounded a bit absurd.

Then again, everything about his friends is absurd.

"Do you need help with that?" Sammy's brother-in-law reached for the large ridiculous box his daughter was carrying intending to help her with it, but she shook her head and sat down on the ground to unwrap it.

It was clear that the box was light, very light in fact to the point where Sammy feared that Aubrey forgot to place anything in there. That would be so embarrassing – but also admittedly funny – but he needed his niece to like him. This was the first gift he ever sent to her, it had to be perfect.

Sammy stayed on his nerves hoping his niece would reveal what's inside quickly, but she noticed the card that was on there and started to read it before confusedly tilting her head. "This says it is from me."

"No, honey, that's your uncle, Sammy." Her mother laughed, taking the card from her hand to read it as well. "Hopefully he comes back soon so you can meet him."