Free Little Blackbird by Jennifer Moorman Page B

urge to tell him to put it back if he wasn’t going to eat it. Making disgusted faces at someone else’s food was rude.
    Charlotte lifted a cookie from the plate. “They smell lovely.”
    “Thank you,” Kate said, looking away from Ted and smiling at Charlotte.
    “They’re good,” Geoffrey agreed.
    “Why would anyone want to cook with flowers?” Ted asked before taking a bite.
    “Lots of flowers have healing and healthy properties. People have been using flowers in their cooking and medicines for thousands of years,” Kate explained, knowing she sounded like a defensive and pretentious know-it-all.
    “Who? Witchy people?” Ted asked and guffawed, but no one laughed with him.
    Everyone gaped at him, and Kate knew why. He was voicing out loud what everyone in town already whispered. Mrs. Muir and her daughter were witchy people . Crazy, Indian folk. Sure the architect father and the poor, dead son were okay, but those Muir women…
    Kate’s dark eyes narrowed and her lips thinned. “I’m sure I don’t understand the question. Are you implying that people who use herbs are witches? If that’s the case, then you might want to tell your mama to stop dabbing peppermint oil on her windowsills to keep out evil or negative spirits. It’s actually only keeping out the spiders since it’s obvious you’re still coming in and out of the house.”
    Geoffrey choked on his pimento cheese sandwich. Matthias snorted and then laughed so loudly that the glass bottles hummed. Martha sprayed soda from her nose and squealed.
    Ted stared at Kate—mouth agape like a bass on a riverbank—and then he looked at the cookie in his hand. He nodded at her. “Point taken.” He lifted the cookie in a salute and shoved half of it into his mouth. “These are pretty good.”
    Matthias’ laughter spread like a contagion across the quilts. Soon everyone was laughing and snickering, even Martha as she dabbed the soda from her dress. Kate looked around at their happy faces and thought, I did this? Is this what it’s like to have friends? Geoffrey’s arm pressed into hers, and she looked at him. Summer warmth unfolded in her chest like a fern frond, rolling out slowly, stretching, testing the limits before spreading completely.
    “I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered.
    “Me too.” And she meant it.

    T HE HEAT OF the afternoon never relented. Instead, it seemed to intensify, and they dried out on the quilts like plucked rosemary stalks in the sun. Kate wiped sweat from her forehead as the sun dipped behind the clouds and illuminated them in October orange and fuchsia.
    “I promised your dad I’d get you home before supper,” Geoffrey said after the conversation lulled. “It would be best if I didn’t break that.”
    “Agreed,” Kate said, but she wasn’t ready to leave.
    She wasn’t ready to give up these moments of finally feeling as though she belonged . She hadn’t skirted the outsides of this group; she’d been pulled inside. Going home meant returning to her little shoebox house with her childhood room that hadn’t grown up as she had. One of her bedroom walls was still papered with crayon drawings she’d sketched as a kid, the ancient quilt on her bed had been handmade by her grandma, and her closet was stuffed with rainbow-colored clothes her mother had sewn. Kate doubted any of the other girls’ rooms looked like hers, as though it belonged to a first grader.
    Kate looked around at the group. During the afternoon, they had gone for walks, tossed around the football, taken refuge in the shade, and now they were rearranged on the quilts. Matthias sat next to Charlotte, who had graduated in the spring with Geoffrey, and Charlotte stared at Matthias, mesmerized by the conversation. She recognized the expression on Charlotte’s face. Kate feared she had given the same look to Geoffrey. Kate lifted her hands and pressed them to her chest. Hold onto your heart , she thought for Charlotte. Unless … unless it’s