Page 54 of Forgotten Arcane

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my parents, and I love that they care about me, and the others like they do, but they can get a bit intense at times.

I press call and hold the phone to my ear, it doesn’t even ring once before my mom picks up, and I smile.

“Hey, Mom,” I greet her.

“Evander,” she replies, and I can tell that she’s smiling. “Hang on, let me put you on speaker, your dad is here as well.”

“Hey, son,” Dad greets me. “I’m proud of you. You did really well in the Choosing, you all did.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I reply, with a smile.

“Are you all okay?” Mom asks, sounding concerned.

I nod even though she can’t see me, “Yeah, I’m good. We all are. We’re just taking it easy for a while before we go back to work.”

“Good. I was going to make sure that you weren’t intending to go back to work too early,” she replies. “Ty told us that you were continuing to work at SID.”

“Yeah, it’s where we’re happy, and we can trust Ty. With the recent developments and everything that has happened, that’s really important,” I reply. I narrow my eyes slightly, “What else did Ty tell you?”

I hear Dad sigh, “That you are now aware of who we are.”

“Yep.” I say, passive-aggressively popping the ‘p’ a little too hard. I sigh, “We can talk about that tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Mom asks excitedly.

I can’t help but smile, “Yeah, if it’s okay with you guys, we thought that we would come over for dinner tomorrow? We all want to see you, but there are a couple of things that we want to talk to you about too. Things that are probably best not to be spoken about over the phone.”

“Of course,” Dad replies. “We’re always happy to have you here. It’s been far too long since we saw you all.”

“We will also answer as many questions as we can,” Mom adds. “But I’m afraid that there may be some that we can’t answer.”

“We understand that,” I reply. “We’re coming to see you guys mostly,” I grin, as I add cheekily, “And to get a home-cooked meal. We’re not that great at cooking.”

My mom gasps dramatically, “Don’t tell me you’ve all been eating takeout since you got back?”

I grimace slightly, but it quickly turns back into a smile as I reply honestly, “Well, yeah, but in our defense, all of the food had gone bad, so we didn’t really have a choice. We’ve got a grocery order coming tomorrow.”

My mom hums thoughtfully, and my dad chuckles, clearly knowing what she’s about to say. I decide not to say anything else and risk digging myself into a deeper hole, as I wait to see what Mom is going to say next.

“Right, that’s it. I will get some of my easier recipes together and write them up, and I will teach you all a couple of them when you come over for dinner tomorrow. You can help me prepare a couple of the dishes.” She adds excitedly, “Oh, I know, we’ll make it a banquet. We haven’t done one this month yet, and everyone will be excited to see you and Neith.”

The compound's banquets happen at least once a month, and it’s where the whole compound and any guests eat together. There is this huge table that they set up and stretches out from in front of my parents’ house, which is in the middle of the compound, straight down the middle of the main part of the compound, and everyone brings something, and food gets shared. There’s always music and laughter.

It was always one of my favorite things about growing up on the compound, and to be honest, it still is.

“That sounds great,” I reply. “The banquet, I mean, the cooking makes me nervous. Are you sure that you want to risk it? Some of us can cook decently enough, but there are a couple of us that shouldn’t be allowed near the kitchen.”

Mom and Dad burst out laughing, and I don’t bother telling them that I’m probably one of the ones who shouldn’t be allowed near the kitchen. I’ll let them figure that out on their own.

“Don’t worry, your mom won’t leave you alone,” Dad replies, trying to be reassuring.

“That’s a smart move,” I agree seriously, making them laugh again. “Alright, I’ve got to go, but we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay. You will need to get here just after lunch so that we have enough time to cook what we need to. I’m kind of throwing you in the deep end. You’re going to be cooking on a massive scale,” Mom says, sounding a little bit apprehensive, and I can imagine the face that she’s pulling.

“That’s okay. There are nine of us now, and any meals that we manage to make are on quite a big scale. Especially as none of us has what anyone would call a small appetite,” I reply. “Although admittedly, the meals that we prepare aren’t on the same scale as cooking for the whole compound.”

“Oh, thanks for reminding me. I’ll write out the recipes for ten people, and that way you don’t have to worry about trying to increase them to make enough, and I will make sure the portion sizes are big enough for you all as well.”

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