Trouble's Brewing (Stirring Up Trouble Trilogy 2)

He high-fived my mother as the laughter continued.

Since we’d had a nap, Milo and I decided to watch a movie before bed. Mom went on upstairs, with one last, “Stay away from potions, Zoe.”

“Stay away from potions,” I mocked in a high-pitched voice after she’d gone.

“Wow,” Milo said. “You’re losing it, aren’t you?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t generally discuss my problems with my mother’s friends.”

“Ouch,” Milo said.

“Seriously. How am I supposed to wait until Monday? It’s been forever since I brewed a potion. Days and days and days.”

“I thought you weren’t talking to me.”

“Be careful. I might take out my rage on you,” I warned.

I watched Milo’s eyes as he considered messing with me some more. He wisely kept quiet.

“I looked into what we talked about before,” he said. “You know. Your theory that Finn discovered the substitution for dead man’s toe. I didn’t find anything online. The closest I came was an old textbook of my dad’s that said a woman, whose name was being withheld for safety reasons, had made the discovery.”

“A woman? Maybe they said it was a woman so anybody guessing it was Finn would be thrown off the scent.”

“I guess it’s possible,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

“What’s the safety thing about? Safety reasons? Is that exactly how it was worded in the book?”

“Of course. I memorized it because I knew you’d ask.”

“Whose safety? Hers? Ours? The Witch World? The planet?”

“I don’t know,” Milo said. “It could mean just about anything.”

“I think I might just ask him.”

“Who? Finn?”

“Yeah. I think he should tell me whether it was him or not. Instead of all this theoretical, ethical, mumbo jumbo.”

“Good luck,” Milo said. “I think mumbo jumbo is his thing.”

I pressed play on the remote and the DVD player roared to life.

“You aren’t going to fall asleep on me again, are you?” Milo asked, sneaking a glance at me.

I froze. “I didn’t think you knew.”

“I woke up when you started drooling.”

“I did not drool!”

“No,” he admitted. “You didn’t.”

“Did Jake see?”

“I don’t think so.”

I sighed with relief.

“He may not know, but I do,” Milo added.

I grabbed the throw pillow and swatted at him.

“Hey,” he snapped. “We’re missing the movie.”

Milo kept giving me weird, unsettling looks as we watched the movie. I hoped he was just trying to give me a hard time. I didn’t want things to change between us, and things definitely felt off-kilter right now. He was just messing with me.

Either way, I knew better than to fall asleep again. I got up and got us each a soft drink. Milo ignored his, so I ended up drinking it too. Then I got up once to run to the bathroom, and another time because I caught myself nodding off. Stupid L-tryptophan.

As added insurance, I practically draped myself across my end of the couch. Surely if I drifted off, I’d gravitate that way. I was starting to enter dangerous territory as the characters in the movie began interacting in my mind with my own family. This happened a lot, and it meant I was half asleep. Struggling to keep my eyes open, I started to push myself up into a seated position.

I didn’t have the strength. My body was heavy. In fact, there was a large weight draped over my back. It felt somewhat like the heavy apron they put on you when they took x-rays at the dentist. Only warmer. Hot almost.

And moving. The weight was moving rhythmically as if it were breathing. I stopped struggling and focused. Milo lay against me. Asleep? Or just trying to torture me? I wasn’t sure. I turned slowly to roll him onto the back of the couch as I slipped out from under him.

When I finally accomplished my task, Milo lay snoozing on his back on the couch. I squinted at him, trying to see if he had really fallen asleep.

I went upstairs, making sure my footsteps were loud enough to let Milo know I’d gone up. At the top of the stairs, I stopped and squatted to look through the railing.

Milo didn’t stir. I waited, determined to catch him awake.

Nothing.

Finally I gave up, no longer caring whether he was asleep or not. I crept the rest of the way to my bed and collapsed.

I wasn’t sure what to think about the falling asleep stuff. We were friends. We were comfortable with each other. Would Anya and I curl up like that if we fell asleep? No. Not on the couch. But in the backseat of the car, on a long trip, I vaguely remembered it happening. Normal, I assured myself. Perfectly normal. And I’d cuddled up with Milo instead of Jake because I always slept on my left side. I checked myself quickly to confirm and realized I was curled on my right side. Oh crud. It’s because I’m all freaked out, I told myself. Now I’m just making myself crazy.

I pulled the cover over my head in hopes of blocking out my racing thoughts. Stupid turkey, I told myself. All that Thanksgiving food was messing with my mind and my sleeping habits. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized I hadn’t once thought about the limestone in the shed. I had forgotten all about it.

Since the mountains were a ridiculously popular day after Thanksgiving destination, Mom had scheduled a trip to the lake where we could find some walking trails. We had a “light” breakfast which involved pancakes with lots of choices from fruit to yogurt to syrups. Then we drove up to Norris Lake and walked for about an hour. We’d bought tickets for a double feature at the movies later.

“I almost feel human again,” Milo’s mother said as we returned to their van. “I think I ate so much that my system was threatening to shut down completely.”

“Not the prettiest time of year for the lake though,” I said.

“I thought it would be preferable to walking around the track at the high school.”

“Definitely,” Milo’s parents agreed.

“It’s nice to get back to nature,” his dad said.

I wasn’t so sure. The sun wasn’t shining, and we could have been back home already. Of course, I wasn’t in a hurry. A weird notion for me. I didn’t need to hurry because

I couldn’t work on my potions anyway.

“I saw something interesting online this morning,” Bill said as we headed home.

I expected him to describe some new computer gadget, but instead, he said, “A village in Africa made a huge amount of money by capturing and selling a rare toad.”

“A toad?” As in, one of my toads?

“That’s right, Zoe. You may have caused a few problems…”

My mother coughed from the front seat.

“…but it appears some actually benefited from the Frog Fiasco. They’re using the funds to build a school and a clinic.”

“Oh, how nice,” Marjorie gushed.

“Cool,” Milo said.

Nobody mentioned the less positive results, and I found myself very thankful that they held their tongues.

Back at home, the parents started arranging the leftovers so we could each fix a plate. Milo eyed the stuffing and turkey. “How can it possibly look so good to me after all I ate yesterday?”

“Because it is good,” his father said.

The phone rang, and Mom answered.

“Hello.”

“Yes, of course. How nice to hear from you, Paulette.”

“Sure. Just a moment.”

Mom turned to Milo’s mother. “I need to take this. Can you guys excuse me for a moment?”

“Sure,” his mother said.

Mom went into the living room.

“Where’s the gravy?” Milo’s father asked.

“Annie has a jar somewhere,” his mother said. “I’ll find it.”

Since Milo’s dad was practically drooling on himself, we let him heat his plate in the microwave first. Once ours were heated, Milo and I went to the dining room table.

I was savoring a bite of cheesy broccoli casserole when my mother came into the room. The tension she radiated slapped me from across the room. I swallowed the casserole and put down my fork.

“Zoe Miller!” She held up her iPhone, her arm shaking with anger. “Did you do this?”

As I stared at the dating site profile on her iPhone, I tried to get a grasp on the situation. How could she possibly have found out already?

“I asked if you did this.” Mom’s face grew red.

I pushed away from the table and stood up.