Kelani pov
The past two days in the safe house have been super busy. After Mama finally came up with her plan for the gala thing, we started unpacking all our stuff. Mama used her darkness to move things around—it looked like shadowy hands carrying my toys and her clothes into our rooms. I love watching Mama's darkness; it's pretty when she controls it, not scary like when it gets angry.
Even though I have my own room in the safe house, I only use it to play in. I can only fall asleep when I'm with Mama. The nightmares come when I'm alone—nightmares about Mama disappearing or about the bad people finding us. Sometimes I dream about the fire from the book, and I wake up crying.
Today, I was watching Mama get ready for tomorrow's gala with her so-called family. She kept calling them that—"so-called family"—like she wasn't sure they were really hers. There's this pretty all-black silk dress hanging in the closet. Mama stared at it for a long time, her face doing that thing where she's thinking too hard.
She looked really stressed out, her forehead all scrunched up and her eyes far away. So I ran over to her and tugged on her hand.
"Mama, let's watch a movie and bake cookies!" I said, hoping to make her smile.
It worked! Her face softened right away, and she nodded. "Sure, let's head to the kitchen."
She held my hand as we walked down the stairs. I had to take them one at a time because they're so big, but Mama was patient, never rushing me. When we finally made it to the kitchen, she picked me up and sat me on the counter.
"What kind of cookies would you like to make, baker Lani?" she asked, tapping my nose.
I giggled and thought really hard about it. "Umm... chocolate chip cookies!"
Mama got all the ingredients out and let me help with everything. She measured the flour and let me pour it into the bowl. I got to crack an egg (with her hands helping mine), and she even let me put in extra chocolate chips when she wasn't looking. Well, she was looking, but she pretended not to see.
After mixing everything together, we shaped the dough into cookies. I tried to make mine look like hearts, but they ended up more like blobs. Mama said they were perfect anyway.
After putting the cookies in the oven, Mama turned on the timer and picked me up. We started going back to her room, but on the way, she stopped by mine and grabbed my pajamas, fuzzy socks, slippers, and a towel. In her bathroom, she ran a bubble bath for me with lots of toys while she took a quick shower.
"Play nicely while Mama showers, okay?" she said, stepping behind the glass door.
I nodded, but I wasn't really playing with the toys. I was trying to come up with a plan to stop Mama from dying like she did in her other past lives. In the book, she always goes to S City and then something terrible happens. The bad people find her, or she fights with her family, or she uses too much darkness and it eats her up from the inside. I don't know how to stop it, but I have to try.
Maybe if I could sneak out and go with her to the gala? Or maybe if I told her about the book?
I was so deep in my planning that I didn't notice Mama getting out of the shower until she was already dressed and reaching for me.
"Daydreaming, little treasure?" she asked, lifting me from the bubbles and wrapping me in a fluffy towel.
"Just thinking," I said, which wasn't a lie.
She dried me off and helped me into my pajamas—the soft pink with ones with stars all over them. We hurried back to the kitchen just as the timer went off. Mama took the cookies out of the oven and put them in a bowl to cool down.
The smell made my mouth water so much that I couldn't help but stare at them. Mama laughed at my face, and it was such a nice sound. She doesn't laugh enough.
"They need to cool first, greedy girl," she teased, poking my tummy.
Finally, Mama grabbed the bowl of cookies, and we headed back upstairs to watch a movie. She let me pick, so I chose the one about the brave princess warrior who saves her kingdom. Mama and I snuggled under her big blanket, eating warm cookies and drinking milk.
Halfway through the movie, I looked up at Mama's face. The stress was gone, and she looked peaceful. I wished she could always look like that. Tomorrow she would go to the gala without me, and I was scared. What if she didn't come back? What if the bad people found her? What if her family was mean to her?
"Mama?" I whispered.
"Yes, my treasure?"
"Promise you'll be super careful tomorrow?"
She looked down at me, her eyes getting all serious. "I promise, Lani. I'll always come back to you."
I snuggled closer to her, trying to believe it. But I'd seen the book. I knew what happened to Mama in S City. And I was going to do everything I could to change it, even if I had to be sneaky.
The movie kept playing, but I wasn't watching anymore. I was planning. If Mama thought I was going to stay behind and do nothing she went to face her family alone, she didn't know just how stubborn I could be. I think having her shadows spy and tell me everything they see at the gala while I was at the safe house After all, I was her daughter. And Spellmans never give up.
At least, that's what Mama always says when she thinks I'm not listening.