The Clockwise Spell

Chapter 2

I don’t know if you know this, but there’s a bunch of type of flours. There’s your whole wheat, then there’s your finely grated flour. We can’t forget about the size too; do you want a small bag or a big bag? And don’t even think about overlooking about the brand!

In the Bryan family, Rosie is pretty much the only one who knows how to cook. Well, by “knows how to cook” I mean she is the least likely to burn the house down while trying to cook some good ol’ cookies.

Naturally, the task of grocery shopping usually fell to Rosie. If we relied on dad or I, all we were going to eat was microwavable pizza. I’ve never really picked out flour before. So that meant I spent a solid fifteen minutes in the Robert’s Foods, aisle six, looking at bags of flour.

To buy white flour or to buy whole-wheat flour, that tis the question.

Great. I was thinking in Shakespearian quotes. My summer has officially hit an all time low.

I could hear the smack-smack of the cashier’s gum even from here. The pages of her magazine rustled as she flipped another page. A couple isles over someone pushed their grocery cart, one of the wheels stopping over and over.

The only other sounds were the occasional pitter-patter of someone else’s feet as they pushed that stupid creaky cart. The whole place seemed to have that lazy quiet feel that seemed to always last in our new neighborhood.

Quite frankly, I hated it. Sure, where we moved from had been a small town but there was always something to do, somewhere to be. There wasn’t a second of silence, not with my best friend next door and my favorite place to hang out down the street – where we tended to blast the music so loud, that our neighbors had called the cops on us four times.

But I had never, not in my entire life, thought of summer being quite so… boring.  I almost wantedschool to start, just so academics could take up my life, just so I could have something to do.

I repeat: pathetic.

I suppose that’s life in mock Salem. It should be their slogan. Welcome to the pathetic excuse for life with no good music and no fun. All in one town!

Let’s just say, this wasn’t exactly how I pictured spending my summer before junior year.

Was there really a difference between better for bread flour and white flour? And what was with the healthy whole wheat one? What the hell was I supposed to do with that?

I narrowed my eyes at the flours. They were all neatly lined up on the shelve looking ever so innocent in their red and white packages.

I rubbed my neck. Why wouldn’t that tingling go away? It was probably from the freezer island, in the next isle over. Yes – tingles on the back of your neck and the feeling of being watched must be associated with grocery stores. Especially practically empty grocery stores.

Yeah, someone’s really concerned with what flour I’m getting so they’re stalking me. It’s now a national issue: What flour will Sapphire Bryan buy today?

I almost smiled at that but before I could, sparks raced up and down my spine again. They felt cold and foreign. This time I was sure there was someone behind me –

Snap out of it, Fire, I told myself. It wouldn’t be good to have a freak out in Robert’s Food over how the peanut butter behind you is creeping you out!

Swallowing hard, I forced myself to remove my hand from my neck. I crossed my arms and tried my hardest to concentrate on the flour in front of me. But since concentrating hadn’t exactly ever been my strong point, all I could think about was the tingling on my neck. The cold hard sparks dug further into my skin, demanding to be felt.