Forget-Me-Not

Chapter XI: The Healing Dish

Another day in Abellana residence. Dorothy was dead busy trimming down the overgrown leaves of her plants in their mini garden in front of their rest house. The satisfaction that the sight of the florae getting artistically shaped gave a certain feeling to many people including her mom which Phoebe herself couldn't discern. Even so, she didn't turn down her request for her help for some odd reason, though Phoebe must have been aware of it, she must have known the sole reason. Reconciliation had never been part of her life since she'd never had any acquaintance that she could have had a conflict with, so supposedly she wouldn't have been able to make out the aftereffects of it. Surprisingly, it turned out that it did affect her somehow based on how she miraculously followed her mom without throwing a fuss.

The ryhthm of the pruning shears snapping as they deprived the excess parts and the rustling of the leaves and shoots as they rubbed against each other were wriggling through the air, creating a magnificent garden melody. Phoebe was not really putting her heart on the job. However, she'd been thinking about the two and that was actually the first thing she did as soon as she opened her eyes earlier that morning. She was nonchalantly cutting off the unnecessary parts of the plants as what her mom had told her while in the midst of thought about different foods that could help reduce the healing time of an injured person.

"Phoebe, what are you doing?", her mom suddenly asked.

Phoebe snapped out and stared at Dorothy, clueless. "What?"

The woman stared at the Jungle Flame bushes that her daughter was working on. "I told you to trim it, not to get rid of the flowers."

Phoebe immediately shifted her gaze to her assigned bushes, and she got dumbfounded at the sight. Almost all of the flowers had either been cut in half or completely plucked out and now resting on the ground. She heaved a sigh and carefully put down the pruning shears.

"Mom, is there a food that can help reduce the healing time of an injured person?", she asked, she worded out the exact same question that had been troubling her mind for a while now.

For Dorothy, it was no doubt out of the blue because Phoebe had never shown any curiosity about things to her. The girl would either have solved it on her own or just left it like that, unknown, undiscovered. She stared at her for a moment, trying to make out the strange reason as to why such was happening.

"What has gotten into you?", that was the first sentence that came out her mouth.

"What do you mean?", Phoebe asked as she patted down the dirt on both of her hands.

"What's with the sudden bizarre question?"

For the record, the girl didn't roll her eyes. With that mentioned, no one could blame Dorothy for finding everything bizarre. It's not like she hated it nor did she want the act to be dropped, but she just felt utterly unsettled by the thoughts.

Phoebe stood and straightened the wrinkles on her pants and sweater. "I want to bring one to Ray, he's... not well."

Dorothy's eyebrows arched. "Ray...", she mumbled. "Raine's brother?"

Phoebe nodded.

"What happened? Was he the one you were referring to as injured?"

Phoebe nodded again. "She just got into a fight and... I know it's weird, but it was all my fault."

The woman tilted her head to the side as she examined her daughter's face. "You were the cause? How on earth could that happen? What did you do? You beat the hell out of him?"

Now Phoebe failed not to roll her eyes. "No mom, when did you hear about me beating kids up? It's a long story."

Dorothy went silent for a second as she crossed her arms over her chest. "So, you want to bring him food that can aid his recovery to make up for it?"