Grace's Memories

“Aurora, we’ve got one!”

Grace giggled to herself as her dad announced her into the backyard. Mum was, as usual when she had the time, gardening. Her siblings were out doing something; she hadn’t paid attention to what it was, but she got to be home with Mum and Dad all by herself.

Her giggling turned into greater peels of laughter as Dad scooped her up and spun her round. Sometimes the all-magical kids made fun of Dad, but he was just as fun as Mum was. She waved her arms in the air as Dad said something about un papillon, a butterfly. Grace didn’t care. She was going fast!

“John, she’s going to be sick!” Mum laughed as she stood up, a soft sound that was barely audible over Grace’s excited shrieks. “Gracie, come over to Mummy.”

Perhaps Mum was hoping that Grace might float, as her slightly-older sister did on occasion. Instead, Dad set Grace down and she ran over to Mum, who held her hands up.

“Oops, hold on a second, sweetheart. I’m all dirty, see?” Mum held her hands up for Grace to see, and then made eye contact with her husband for just a second and grinned at him. Grace nodded. Mum’s hands were indeed covered in dirt. Mum shook her hands off, and when that didn’t displace the dirt, retrieved her wand and muttered a spell.

Instantly, her hands were clean.

“You could’ve gone inside and washed them off,” Dad said, in the way he always did when he was teasing Mum about the magic she used. Though since the triplets’ sixth birthday was coming up and Grace still had yet to show any traces of magic, perhaps his concern was more for her.

None of this registered to Grace, who was more excited about squeezing her mum as tightly as possible.

Mum let out a gentle "oof," mostly to make Grace proud of her strength. “Do you want to see Mummy’s plants?”

Grace nodded vigorously. Mum’s plants were always colourful and pretty, even if Grace and her siblings sometimes weren’t allowed to touch them.

“Okay, let’s go see.” Mum gripped Grace’s hand a little tighter than normal as they walked towards the garden. Mum unlocked the fence with her wand, as Grace already began standing on her tiptoes to get a peek at the plants.

Grace didn’t really pay attention to the names of the plants as her mum described them to her, as well as some of their usages at Mum’s job as a healer. She was much more focused on the bright colours, the fluffy leaves, and one of them even released bubbles that Mum let Grace pop.

The whole time, Dad stayed back, holding his breath. As Mum and Grace returned from the garden, he relaxed.

“Dad, Dad, Dad!” Grace bounced up and down as she got closer to her dad, “Did you see? Did you see? There was one with bubbles, and the yellow one, and I think my favourite is the one with the puffy flowers, but Mum said I couldn’t touch it yet and I have to wait until it’s ready.”

“Wow!” Grace’s dad said, smiling, “That’s pretty cool.”

“Mm-hm.” Grace nodded, satisfied that her efforts had been noted. When she got some alone time with her parents, all eyes were on her. For the most part, she liked that feeling, especially when her parents seemed to think that whatever she was doing was awesome.

Just as she finished thinking about how much she liked her alone time, it was over. Grace heard her siblings coming in through the front door, and Dad called them out into the backyard to be with the rest of the family.