Page 10 of Muddled Magic

“Which is exactly what this hornworm is doing,” Mom said, gently steering the lecture back on course. “Nibbling at this and that and leaving all this destruction in its path. That’s why we call it a pest. And that’s when our friend the parasitoid wasp comes in handy.”

The straw pointer drew Mom’s students’ attention to the rice-like protrusions from the hornworm’s body. “A parasite is something that lives on or in a host, either plant or animal, and gets its food from that host. The parasitoid wasp may be our friend, but it most certainly is not the hornworm’s friend. It lands on it, implants its eggs, and they use the hornworm’s body to grow.”

“While it’s still alive?” Marigold gasped.

Kit grasped his stomach. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“It’s even worse when they explode,” Marten said.

Clover whimpered and turned her head back into my thigh.

Mom had mastered the stink eye more so than any other woman in the entire Hawthorne line, and I was convinced it was solely because of Marten. She fixed her son with that practiced look that might just make his own head explode until he looked away, scowling.

“But that’s so mean,” another child protested.

“It’s the way Nature made them,” Mom explained. “It’s not right or wrong, it just is. And without these wasps and other such creatures, our garden would be overrun with all sorts of nasty things eating our food. That means no tomato sauce, no zucchini flower fritters, and most certainly, no apple pie.”

“Not the pie!” the children wailed.

Kit, having gotten over his nausea, puffed out his chest. “So the wasps are good for the garden but not for the hornworms. I never would’ve guessed that.”

“And why’s that?” Mom asked, coaxing him to comprehend his conclusion.

He scrunched up his face as he thought. “Because… it looks mean. A-and it is, I guess, but not for the reason I thought. I guess I didn’t see the whole story?”

“Exactly. There might be other forces at work in a situation, so we don’t want to jump to conclusions, especially if something seems strange and repellant at first glance. We must think things through and look at all the facts, right?”

“Right,” her class replied in unison.

“So what happens to the hornworm?” Marigold said, still quite disgusted.

“Well, we can leave it where it is and let the wasp eggs hatch, or we can removed this branch that it damaged to preserve the rest of the tomato and place the hornworm on the ground under one of Aunt Hyacinth’s growing containers. That will protect the young wasps but let them escape out of the holes when they’re big enough to fly.”

“I say we save the tomatoes!” Kit declared. “Aunt Peony’s sauce is the best!”

And just like that, the entire herd of children stampeded to swarm Aunt Hyacinth for a container and a pair of pruners to salvage the tomato vine. She gave the pruners to the eldest child, then sent the rest of them out to search for more of the pests. For every hornworm they found and put in a bucket, she promised to give them a quarter. The hornworms that had been infected by the wasps, however, were to be placed under growing containers, and well, they knew where to find extra containers now, so they were to help themselves.

“I think you and I need to have a chat,” Mom told Marten. “Now.”

He sent me a glare as if this was all my fault, and before I could smirk at him, a rumble sounded in the distance. Marten and I glanced at each other before we both bolted to the dead hedge and peered off into the distance between the hills and the trees that lined the path of the driveway.

“Marten!” Mom exclaimed.

The weather had not turned cold yet, so the maple trees were still green, flaring to red and orange when Grandmother’s Rolls-Royce Phantom sped past us and up the drive. It would swing around to the back and park in what used to be stables, then Grandmother would be off straight to her office.

“Meadow,” he warned. “No—”

But I’d already taken off in a sprint, knowing this was my last chance to salvage my fate.

CHAPTER FIVE

While it was strictly forbidden to attack each other with magic unless it was during one of Dad’s supervised training sessions, there was no rule about using magic to defend yourself. So the second I passed under the pole bean arbor into the flower gardens, I zapped the beans to create a net.

Marten shouted as his pursuit was abruptly halted by the thick mesh of vines and pods, but I knew it would only delay him a few seconds. Hawthorne men were built leaner than the women, like drones to a queen, often excelling in any physical feat such as this sprint to the house. But that just made the women craftier, more creative with their magic.

With a flick of my glowing hand, I urged every purple coneflower head to rupture, spraying the air with its seeds and chaff. While the seeds resembled beige puffed rice, the chaff of the exploding cones was sharp, needled, and hit like a swarm of stinging hornets. What didn’t strike skin fell to the ground to be trampled on, and since we went everywhere around the manor barefoot, it didn’t take long before Marten’s curses turned into shrill yips of pain.

There was a grunt, then the earth beneath my feet undulated as if it had suddenly become a turfy wave. That wasn’t defensive magic, not when that wave shot out from where Marten dug his hand into the ground and sent it out ahead of him at someone actively trying to get away. I gritted my teeth, using the crest of the wave to help launch me into the air. The weeping cherry tree on the edge of the manor’s courtyard stretched and caught me, swinging me up to one of the many balconies on the second floor. As the rain of pink petals fell in the air between us, Marten still running across the lawn, I gave my brother one sassy salute before climbing over the balcony railing and disappearing inside.

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