SLAP!
The slap hit with a sound that echoed through the entire room.
"What were you thinking, Arek?" A red vein pulsed in Dad's eye against the blue of his iris.
"It wasn't my fault." I forced myself to keep my arms crossed and my back straight against the chair.
His eyes.
I couldn't look away. That would've been like surrendering.
Another slap. Louder this time. SLAP!
Again.
"It wasn't your fault? It wasn't…"
SLAP!
Sound interrupted him and this time Tarin turned toward Mom.
"Mirina, dear..." His voice tense. "Could you stop torturing that dough for a moment? I'm trying to…"
SLAP! Flour flew with each slap on the ball of dough.
"No!"
Her answer cut through the air like a blade. Her eyes gleamed like those of an enraged Glow-cat.
She worked the dough violently, mouth slightly open, teeth clenched. Flour flew with each blow.
"I can't stop. I need to take it out on something!"
SLAP! Flour suspended throughout the kitchen like a thread of morning fog.
She flipped the heavy, damp ball of dough onto the table. With an expert gesture she spun it, spreading it slowly. The disc grew under her fingers, elastic and warm.
"You disappointed me very much today, Arek Grey."
When Mom used my full name it was never a good sign.
"But they started it!"
"It doesn't matter!"
The table vibrated under her blows. The disc took shape. The smell in the kitchen was slightly acidic but sweet at the same time. Tomatoes crushed in a bowl, transformed into liquid that vibrated on the table near my water glass.
"We'd just finished saying you need to be more... more..."
"Simple! Small! Normal!" Dad continued. "I swear I don't understand you, Arek! What the hell were you thinking? The fountain water was vibrating like it was about to explode. And then the statue?"
"It wasn't me!"
"Then who?"
Dad's eyebrow rose. He brought a finger to the bowl of sauce, stuck it in, then brought it to his mouth. His expression changed for a moment.
"You're right, it's not jam!"
Really? You think this is the time, Dad?
His attempt at lightness fell flat. I forced myself to smile but couldn't.
Mirina blew away a blonde lock from in front of her eyes. I didn't know if from exasperation or because her hands were dirty with sticky dough and she couldn't use them.
When she stared at Tarin for an almost too-long instant, the message was suddenly crystal clear.
She then resumed rotating the dough and the lock fell back in front of her eyes: one corner of the soft dough on the table, the other descending past the edge, her fingers pressing until it became thin, almost transparent. Leaving a kind of thicker rim.
"Everyone saw, Arek."
She didn't even look at me this time.
"Ten blue coins! To pay for the damage and convince the guard there was nothing... strange."
Her knuckles sank slowly into the dough. I felt like a pressure on my neck increasing at the same rhythm as she sank into the dough.
"Let's hope they're convinced."
"No, I don't know..." My voice came out small. Smaller than I wanted. "They just…"
"It. Doesn't. Matter. Who. Starts."
Each word enunciated. Dad hit the table with his open palm. Not hard, but the sharp sound made me jump and a drop of water came out of my full glass.
"Understand? It doesn't matter. Because you're the one who scares people."
The bowl of sauce vibrated with the second blow.
Mom turned to the shelf, hastily cleaning her hands on a rag. She took the flask of oil and poured a generous stream into the bowl of tomatoes. Then two leaves of a fragrant green herb she grew in the garden.
The scent that filled my nostrils was genuine and fresh.
She then set down the flask smeared by her still-dirty hands and took the ladle. A quick stir and she pulled it out full of red sauce.
She poured the liquid onto the dough, moving the ladle in circles, spreading as it passed. Red.
Like... blood?
Cold ran down my back. Sudden. A shiver that had no reason to exist.
No. Just tomato.
But that knot in my throat tightened even more. I tried to swallow but my mouth was too dry.
"I'm sure the guard pocketed some extra too, besides having a good laugh at our expense." Dad's voice cracked slightly. "Ten sapphire blue coins are definitely theft."
"Tarin..."
"Now I'll have to accept that job outside the city to recover that money..." He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Words drowned in the growing buzz inside my head. Money. Always money. Not the exploded fountain, not the fear in my voice, just the damn money they had to recover.
Mirina breathed deeply, running the back of her hand across her face, leaving a streak of flour on her forehead.
"And let's hope it ends there." Her voice dropped even lower. "It's not certain someone won't think your... power is too much. Small magics, like mine and your mother's, are common. But you..."
She hesitated and looked at Dad.
"You have something that doesn't go unnoticed."
Money again. Always that. I wasn't listening anymore.
A spark behind my sternum. Small.
Mom took the white, soft fresh cheese. Tore it with her fingers and arranged the pieces on the dough, one at a time.
"When a child makes too much noise with magic, people start wondering why the parents don't control him. Children with particular powers have to be sent away from their families."
She swallowed.
"...they could take you away. Put you in some church or worse."
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
The way she said it, like the word itself weighed too much to be spoken.
She stopped, hands motionless on the dough. Eyes fixed on the table, not on me.
"Where I come from, you couldn't use magic."
Her voice was different. Like she was talking to someone who wasn't there anymore.
"And those who used it..." She stopped. "...disappeared."
Silence that followed was heavy as stone.
Then she resumed working the dough, faster than before, like she wanted to erase the words she'd just said.
"But I didn't do it on purpose!"
I slapped my palm on the rough wooden table. Shock of the blow ran up my forearm.
A perfectly spherical water droplet rose from the glass. It remained suspended for a heartbeat.
Then it fell without making any sound.
I pretended not to see it. My eyes were fixed on Dad.
But he saw it. His pupils contracted, continuing to stare at the spot where it had fallen on the floor.
"Sweetheart..." She finally cleaned her hands carefully on her apron, leaving streaks of sticky dough. Her voice was gentle but something wavered underneath.
"It's not that we don't want you to use magic." She glanced at Tarin for a moment, then continued. "But you need to learn. When. Where."
Her hands froze mid-air.
"Better not in front of anyone until you know how to control yourself. Actually, better never."
"Never when you're angry," Dad added.
"And especially..." She turned toward Dad. He nodded slightly.
"Never that strong, Arek. Never that big."
"You know how they are. They see something strange and start asking questions. Demanding explanations."
Them. The word always came back, without a face, without a name. A shadow my parents saw and I didn't. Or maybe I saw it too, in their looks, in the too-long silences.
"You don't understand!"
Words came out bitter on my tongue, before I could stop them.
"Be normal! Be simple! Don't get noticed!"
My voice cracked.
"Talk less! Think less! Feel less! Be less yourself."
Heat was growing.
"But I don't know how! I don't know how to be less than I am!"
Inside the wood-fired oven, flame flickered. Visible from the door Mirina had opened. Just a flicker. Some sparks. Nothing more.
She rotated her head and looked at the oven. Her hands stopped mid-air for an instant.
Then she took that kind of flat bread topped with tomato and cheese that she called “pizza” with a sort of iron pan. The movement was quick, nervous. She shoved it into the oven and closed the door.
She turned, clapping her hands together.
Slap. Slap. "A few moments and dinner's ready."
Her tense gaze returned fixed on me.
"Sweetheart, when you get angry…"
"IT'S NOT MY FAULT, I SAID!"
Voice boomed in my ears.
My body was tense, crushed, but from inside out. Like something was pushing from within, looking for a way to get out.
"See?" Dad stood up. "This is the problem. You don't control yourself. You don't listen."
Air was tightening. Like before a storm, when the sky becomes calm and birds stop singing.
"Arek." Dad's voice had changed. Low. Careful. "Arek, calm down. You're getting angry."
Glass on the table vibrated. Crackling of fire in the oven increased. Oil lamps illuminating the room seemed to become more yellow.
“I'm not getting angry. I am angry!”
Rising. From my torso, from my stomach, from a place without a name.
Hot. Too hot.
Stop. Stop now.
But my mouth opened anyway.
"You only care about money!"
Words came out like a growl.
"Not about me! Not about how I feel! Just your damn money!"
Round, perfect droplets started coming out of the glass. They moved above me, starting to circle over my head.
A pot on the stove, that too. Water inside started boiling, making the lid vibrate, but the fire was off.
Oven flame roared. It came out from the small slit above the door.
Mirina backed up, raising her hands.
"Arek... calm down..."
Tarin looked at the flame, then at the water circling around me. His eyes opened. Too wide and they fixed on me.
"You want me to be normal!"
Water spheres spun faster.
"You want me to be small!"
Flame roared even louder.
Water spheres spun faster, frantic, uncontrollable.
Time dilated. One beat. Then another. The world held its breath.
"YOU WANT ME NOT TO EXIST!"
Air exploded.
Tears came out, but they didn't go down. They went up, upward, and started swirling together with the water spheres from the glass.
Oven door vibrated and screeched. Sound of strained metal, screeching, making my skin crawl.
Dad and Mom stared at me, motionless. Paralyzed.
Then words came out. The real ones. The ones that really hurt.
"I wish I'd never been born in this body!"
Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. Just smoke from the oven curling in the air, slow, and smell of burning filling the room.
My voice broke.
"I hate you!"
Then something changed.
The air itself seemed to tremble. Water spheres stopped spinning gently and started vibrating fast, frantic, like they were about to fragment.
The oven flame didn't roar anymore. It screamed!
The metal door bulged outward. The wood of the frame started to darken. Black smoke poured out.
Tears swirling in the air multiplied, no longer tears, but vapor condensing from nothing, drops born from the air itself.
Glass on the table cracked. A thin crack ran through the terracotta, then another, then another.
Water in the unlit pot wasn't boiling anymore. It was seething, foaming, making the lid jump off, splashes rising and falling like something under the surface was trying to get out.
Heat inside my ribcage, it wasn't heat anymore. It burned. It grew. It wanted out.
It hurts. It hurts.
My hands were trembling. No, vibrating. My skin couldn't contain what was underneath anymore.
"Arek…" Mom's voice, distant, distorted.
Dad jumped up. The chair fell backward with a thud.
"AREK! Stop it!"
But I couldn't hear him anymore. There was only noise, a growing buzz, the wind that stops before the great storm breaks.
About to break.
Not the magic. ME.
The oven door exploded outward.
CLANG!
Metal slammed against stone wall with a crash that made dishes in the drawer rattle. Black soot smeared across the white wall.
A flame leaped out, not a flicker, a column of fire that swelled rapidly, climbing toward the ceiling beams.
Heat exploded in the room. The air trembled.
Oil lamps flickered violently, projecting crazed shadows dancing on walls like demons.
Sparks fell on the table. On the floor. Everywhere.
Mom screamed something, lost in the roar of raging fire.
I was about to give. Not the oven. Not the house.
ME.
Dad moved one hand reaching toward me, the other raised…
SLAP!
Pain exploded across my cheek. Burning, sudden, real.
The world shook…
But it didn't stop.
Water swirled. Flame roared and lamps swung.
Magic hadn't gone out.
But finally, I could see.
I could see.
I looked at Dad. His hand hung raised. His eyes wide, staring.
I looked at Mom. Against the wall. Her hands over her mouth.
I looked at the room. Spheres of water rotating. Flame stretching toward the ceiling. Shards of the clay cup hovering in the air.
Everything about to go out of control.
Because of me.
The thought hit me as cold and final as death.
I could keep going. I could let anger burn and flood everything: the kitchen, the house, every single thing that made me feel trapped.
Then they'd understand. They'd understand how much it hurt to be small, to be different, to be their son who didn't know how to be normal.
But then what?
Where will we sleep tonight? How will what I broke be fixed? Will Dad have to rebuild everything from scratch?
Anger kept burning. But underneath, colder, stronger, something else pushed back.
They were afraid. Of me.
I terrified them.
I closed my eyes and clenched my fists. I felt the magic, hot and powerful, still mine. Instead of pushing it out, I reined it in and directed it.
All of it.
It hurts it hurts it HURTS.
It was like swallowing a storm. Like crushing a hurricane inside a stomach that was way too small.
But I did it.
Spheres of water dipped gently. I managed to guide most of them into the sink, but a few hit the floor, splashing me.
Flame retreated into the oven as if sucked back in.
Lamps went still, swaying only from inertia.
Silence hung over the room.
I fell to my knees. My chest burned. My throat tasted like ash.
The taste in my mouth: metallic and warm.
Blood. From the lip Dad had hit. And from inside, from where magic had clawed at me while I forced it down.
Dad stood frozen in the same spot.
Mom had started to cry.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
Shards of the cup lay scattered. Puddles of water on the floor. Smell of burning in the air.
But the house stood.
Their eyes had shifted. No longer fear.
Just shock.
Smoke from the oven curled in the air, slow, silent, and the smell of burning filled the room. I had stopped the storm. And I was the only one who knew what it had cost me.
How many SLAPS did Arek get?
