Bee And Foxglove

Bee Does A Thing

The next morning Bee woke up a little later than usual. Foxglove had already gotten up to milk the camel-cows. (That was usually her task, as she was an early riser).

Bee was bleary-eyed and thirsty. She looked to the bedside table and the mug of water on it. It was very, very slightly, almost infinitesimally inconvenient to roll over to take it.

I wish the mug of water would just jump into my hands, thought Bee. This was a fairly common thought for her, one which, so far, had never produced any noticeable result.

Foxglove ran into the room moments later at the sound of Bee's shrieking.

Bee was dripping wet. The mug lay upended next to her on the bed. Bee's face wore an expression that could be described as some combination of stunned and flabbergasted. Stunnergasted, maybe.

"I wanted to - what I always think - sparkly - but it actually - the cup -" said Bee, before shrieking some more.

"I'm here, Bee, I'm here. One word at a time," said Foxglove.

Bee caught her breath and said, "I wished for the cup to jump into my hands and my fingers went all sparkly like they were magic and then the cup actually did jump at me except I was so shocked it hit me in the boobs."

Foxglove didn't know what to believe at first, but didn't think about it too hard, trying simply to be there for Bee.

"I can't believe it!" said Bee. "This is so crazy!"

Foxglove put her arm around Bee, thankful that she was, at least, safe.

Bee closed her eyes and replayed the moment in her head. "That was so... weird. That was so... cool!"

Foxglove nodded understandingly.

On an impulse, Bee said, "I wish that... that book would jump into my hand!"

Green and red and yellow sparks leapt from Bee's fingers. The contents of the entire bookshelf collapsed onto the floor. One in particular hit her in the forehead. She fell back onto the bed.

"Bee? Bee!" cried Foxglove.

Bee got up again. "This is so cool!!" she cried. "Ow!" she added, perhaps as an afterthought.

*

Bee spent the rest of the day practising her new magic powers. She made all sorts of things leap towards her, and got pretty good at catching them. She could also send things flying, and to some extent make them hover and move about according to her will, though that was harder.

When Foxglove decided to take her focus off Bee for the moment and do some household tasks, Bee joined in, but used magic for everything:

"I wish the clothes would fold themselves!" (They just got more jumbled than before, but when Bee focused on individual pieces of clothing it worked a little better).

"I wish the apples at the top of the tree would fall down!" (They did. This was actually very useful).

"I wish the water would boil itself!" (It didn't).

"I wish the water would get warmer! Warmer! Hotter! Hotter! HOTTER! BOILING!"

A fire broke out.

Foxglove helped Bee put the fire out. Once they'd both calmed down a little, she put her arm around Bee. "Hey," she said finally.

"Hey," sobbed Bee.

"My nerves are kind of frazzled right now," said Foxglove. "And I'm concerned about you."

"Yeah," said Bee hollowly.

"Do you think we could be done with the magic for today, and take it a bit more slowly tomorrow?" asked Foxglove.

"That sounds very reasonable," said Bee.