I wasn’t quite finished with the story I was telling by the time 2025 ended and so decided to continue it until it reached an ending point. Then I will start a new one. Besides, I kind of want to see where Penelope ends up. And so we have…
Day 195: As she pulled the package close, the phone rang.
As she pulled the package close, the phone rang. Penelope saw the number. Jeanette. She thought her step-mother would be too busy to call. “Maybe she heard about my broken arm.”
Penelope decided to answer the call.
“Well, I hope you are happy,” Jeanette said as soon as she picked up, not waiting for any form of greeting.
“About what?” Penelope asked.
“We are meeting with the lawyers today,” She said. “It is so humiliating. All our friends know. Assets have been frozen, I can’t show my face and poor Trinity, she is heartbroken over the cancelations. Just heartbroken.”
“I had nothing to do with any of that,” Penelope said.
“Please, we know you are the one who instigated everything. You need to call an end to it right now.”
“I didn’t start anything. All I did was come of age and then the legal things started on their own.”
As Jeanette continued to complain about Penelope’s actions in an attempt to reverse the currently unfolding situation, Penelope found her temper growing. Remembering the plant in the bank manager’s office, Penelope looked around. There were no ferns, no Ficus, not even a cactus in sight. She looked up to the ceiling as though able to see through the building to the roof top garden. Could her emptions push her magic through the building? She didn’t know.
‘Best to send it and control it quick,’ she decided.
“Look,” she said, stopping Jeanette mid tirade. “All of this has been brought down on you because you stole money that didn’t belong to you. You are thieves and these are the consequences of that theft.”
“Theft,” Jeanette squawked. “You ungrateful…”
“This is not my problem,” Penelope said cutting her off. “It is yours.” She pressed the button to end the call and set the phone down. Onder her skin she could feel her emotions boiling. She could almost feel the magic in her roiling from the heat of it. She thought of it like magma under her skin. She was the volcano and she needed to keep from spewing liquid fire.
‘Or at least super growth for plants.’
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She counted to three as she inhaled, held it for a count of three and then exhaled, counting once again to three. She made sure to count the numbers in her head. The repetition of the one, two, three breathe helped to settle her.
The phone rang again. This time when she looked at the screen it was Trinity calling. As the last time she dealt with them they alternated who called to yell at her, Penelope felt no need to answer. She pushed the phone aside and again reached for one of the mystery packages. As she lulled it close she realized that with all the tape and paper on it and her with only one good arm, she would need a pair of scissors to open it.
She slipped off the stool and walked around the kitchen island to the drawers. As she walked she noticed that her arm was throbbing less. ‘I guess the ibuprofen kicked in,’ she thought.
She took the scissors from the drawer and returned to the stool. She used the scissors to slice through the tape.
Ten til Midnight 