Page 128 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

How do you know when being careful stops being smart and starts being rooted in fear?

The question changes something in me so quietly that, at first, I only notice because I stop breathing normally.

My mother shifts on the couch beside me, tucking the blanket more securely around her legs. From the kitchen, Fausto announces that someone has stolen his charger, and she tells him, without looking away from the soap opera on the television, that no one wants his broken charger badly enough to steal it.

Their voices move around me while I keep staring at Primavera’s question.

The Third Fairy

I think maybe it’s when being careful starts making the decision for you

I send it before I can improve it. Then I sit there looking at my own words.

Because I know exactly what they mean. After Alison, being careful had felt like wisdom. I needed boundaries and my own life again.

So I became careful: with my time, about the people let close enough to disrupt my routines, about wanting anything that could grow large enough to demand something from me. It worked because my life became mine again, but the problem is that I never decided when I would stop protecting it.

Primavera1959

Gosh, that’s annoyingly good.

I smile, although the feeling sitting in my chest, tucked under my ribs, isn’t amusement.

The Third Fairy

Occupational hazard

Primavera1959

Does that apply to you?

At this point, a question like this one shouldn’t surprise me. Somewhere in the last couple of months since she first ordered the spell, something has started changing.

I look at my mom, who is still watching television, then back at my phone.

The Third Fairy

Yes

She doesn’t immediately respond.

When she does, though, the question is charged.

Primavera1959

So what do you do when you know fear is making the decision?

I look at the words and realize I don’t have one of my usual answers ready.

It’s easy to tell someone to notice what they want. Harder to tell them what comes after that, when wanting doesn’t make the risk disappear.

The Third Fairy

I suppose you decide whether the thing you want is worth doing afraid.

Primavera1959

That’s a terrible system