Sugar and Spice

Contrary to what she claimed, it wasn’t grass and new parchment and spearmint toothpaste she smelled. A mind-boggling amalgamation of confusion followed by a peripheral realization, and then instantaneous fear made her flush so severely that the room went fuzzy around the edges of her vision as she choked out the lie. It was old parchment housed in the restricted section, tart green apples, and something spicy—not cinnamon, cloves?—that lingered inside her nostrils. She was woozy, her lids drooping heavily, even as a small part of her brain screamed at how wrong this was. A larger, louder part of her shoved the shame down in favor of baser instincts. Those instincts dampened and dissipated and the shame crowded in the further removed she was from the delicate, unmistakable scent wafting from the cauldron.