Tale of Adalira [Working Title]

Chapter 2: Magic in the real world

Over the next month, many more things would come to pop out of the air. Not only food, but baby toys, onesies, and blankets too. Then it all stopped, only to resume again the following year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and so on.

Coming to see that nothing popping into their lives in this odd way was causing them any noticeable harm, Oliver and Wendy's anxiety diminished, but their curiosity, understandably, did not. They spent almost every evening for those first few years of Scarlet's birth discussing this, trying to sort out what was occurring, and while they didn't manage to pinpoint the cause of it, they did manage to notice a number of patterns, which they scribbled onto a paper and kept tacked to a wall in their closet. The piece of paper was safely hidden there, behind Wendy's jackets, far from the eyes of any visitor, which was of crucial importance to them. They intended to keep this very much a secret after all they'd endured with the Great Incident, which also explains why they didn't outright state what was happening on their paper. It simply read the following:

PATTERNS WE'VE NOTICED:

Think it's coming from Scarlet

So, it must not be related to the Great Incident (!!) as she wasn't alive then.

It only seems to last a few weeks, always starting up again though on Scarlet's birthday.
*Sometimes it lasts longer than a few weeks; so not bound strictly to time.

Happens anywhere.

Seems to cause Scarlet just as much pleasure as it does pain

Seems to happen when Scarlet thinks she or we really NEED something to survive

It wasn't until Scarlet could talk that they could confirm point number one, which is why before the point was prefaced with "think." And it wasn't until she was around eight that they could make a guess at point number six, which was still, five years later, only a guess, though it seemed quite likely to be true. Every year on her birthday inordinate amounts of of non perishable food would pop into the air, which Wendy would spend an hour or two logging down in her Groceries For The Year spreadsheet on her computer before proceeding to store them neatly in the kitchen cupboards. To the point, this was always a huge relief for the family, as in those last few days in December before Scarlet's birthday they had never failed to dwindle down their stash from January—scraping by on a couple small bowls of lentils per day. They were very much over oatmeal by this point.

So, in a way, it was true that the family did need Scarlet's gift to survive. As Oliver and Wendy, ever-shunned by their community, had long ago lost their sources of income and given up trying to get new jobs. They may have had a better chance if they'd surrendered their beliefs, agreed that Oliver must have indeed imagined it all back then, that it was impossible as everyone said, but they refused. And when Oliver second-guessed it all, Wendy refused for the both of them.

It would be wise to think about what this reliance on a young girl and her mystical abilities—which shall hereafter be referred to as magic—would do to her mental state. It may be quite possible, in fact, that her parents' dependency on her magic led her to bare far too much weight on her delicate, underdeveloped shoulders. And, if that be the case, it would also be wise to think about how she may resort to relieving this pressure.

"You're going to be fine," Lizzie said.

Scarlet smiled a tight smile. "I'm not so sure about that," she muttered quietly to her friend. Mrs. Ierullo was wrapping up her speech now. In a matter of seconds she was going to be called onto the stage. Why did I agree to this, she chided herself. She could feel the heat crawling up from her stomach and onto her chest already.

Lizzie gave her shoulder a squeeze and whispered, "Think of it this way, Mrs. I wouldn't have asked you to do this if she thought you were going to embarrass her. Or the school for that matter. Your poem's fantastic. Show it off!"