Magic and Blueberry Muffin

"I can't sleep." 

"Chamomile should help? Or something stronger?"

"My worries for you will not let me fall asleep! Which young woman of your age, of your intelligence, spends the whole day idling about, staring at that TV screen with eyes that have no spark of intelligence left in them-"

"Funny, I thought that I was an 'intelligent young woman'."

"-and gives up on life entirely! Our family does not do that – especially not the women! Up you get now, Rojin; I cannot get a shuteye until you explore the island under the moonlight."

"But you had the TV for the entire day! We watched ten hours straight of every crime reality; we basically did a PhD on it! And they are showing a rerun of all Pride and Prejudice shows. Pretty please?" 

"Get up now, or else I will make sure that this TV never shows any Darcy ever again."

"You heartless, soulless woman…"

"I will also call your parents."

"I am up, grandma. What shall I wear then? Is it chilly outside?"

And there went my enticing rendezvous with the couch and the box of chocolates I discovered under the kitchen cabinet, where she thought that she hid so cleverly – not from this bloodhound. But now, all of that effort went to naught!

As the fluffy blankets slid off of me, my reindeer one-piece was revealed, making her shake her head. Pushing my feet into my bunny slippers, which she couldn't condemn in good faith as we got a matching set on last New Year's, I threw one last look at this perfect setup before accepting defeat with the grace of a reindeer and lowered my face to the floor. 

"Hah, you look like you got dumped; except, you don't even have a boyfriend!" 

"Because none of them measure up to Darcy."

"How do you know? Have you talked with one recently?"

These old women… They could be more brutal than war generals, more sarcastic than courtesans when they wanted to be. Of course, I adored her so much so that her house has been my refuge this year to escape the nagging of my dad, who wondered if her daughter who quit her lavish Wall Street job had a single adult bone in her body, and the pity of my mom, who was very gently looking into a psychologist. So, my grandma wisely kidnapped me to her house. 

I was grateful as I felt her piercing gaze behind my head all the way across the short corridor and into the small room that became my habitat for the last month. I was grateful, but I would be infinitely more so if she let me wallow in my misery. But that wouldn't fly by my general-of-a-grandmother, so I walked out for inspection. 

She was already leaning against the wall with a faraway look.

"I think you will find that there is some magic left on this island under the moon."

"It has been two decades, grandma. I grew out of magic." It was true. For the briefest time, I thought that I did somehow find magic on this island. Then, it vanished. I couldn't remember why, or how; every time I thought too hard about my childhood days spent on this island, a terrible headache started behind my eyes. So if magic came in the form of a migraine, I was not too keen on going after it anymore in the old and weary body of a twenty-five-year-old.

A small smile made its way to the wrinkles framing her eyes, and she was transformed to the deceptively-sweet grandmama image, complete with her flop of white hair. But I knew the evil gleam in her dark eyes. "What a lovely girl you are underneath all the wallowing! Maybe try to tame that beast on your head.". 

"You will lament these last words after I get tortured and killed by murderers lurking around at this ungodly hour, old woman."

"It is only nine. Thank you for your concern for my feelings, though. Now off with you."

Just as I was closing the door behind me, keys doing the shimmy in my pockets, when I heard her cryptic direction: "Visit the old bakery! I feel bad for confiscating my chocolate back."

"Didn't that bakery close years ago?" The door was shut in my face. 

While walking onto the brisk but clear December air, I was wondering whether my grandmother or I was growing senile. It was likely the latter. The bakery was shut by the time I was leaving the island at the age of five, and my kindergarten friends on it, to start my formal education at a more ambitious institution on the mainland. I remembered the despair of the island folk upon hearing that the baker had to leave overnight with his family, without an explanation to even the greatest gossips. I remembered loving the treats he carried for us in his pockets, our island's very own Santa with his huge belly and kind eyes. 

It must have reopened then, I mused as I passed by my old kindergarten. It looked eerie in moonlight, something sinister on the faces of the paintings of children. It wasn't even that late, just the winter making it pitch black earlier. The shadows of the countless branches, reaching their crooked fingers up and down were just that – shadows. When an owl on one of those branches turned its head all the way around to watch me, I only hastened my steps. If my heart was beating too fast to stay put in my chest, that was due to how sparsely streetlights were placed. Suddenly, my surroundings did not seem familiar at all. Overconfident, I didn't even think of taking my phone. I yelped and jumped into the air when a dog started barking behind the fences of one. Now, I was admittedly running. The first sprint in years, as the burning in my muscles made painfully clear. At this speed, I missed a lone figure standing just in the shadow of one of the last lamps along the street. That is, until I collided into a body of hard bones. 

For a second, nothing moved. With long limbs flown in ridiculous directions on grass, his silhouette looked like a childhood drawing of a crime scene. Struggling back up onto my feet and ignoring the black dots in my vision, I backed towards the perimeter of light cast by the lamp, and assumed a stance I only ever saw in my father's favorite action movies. 

"Be warned that you picked the wrong target tonight: I am well-versed in karate! And my carnivore dog is only a block behind." 

For a moment, nothing happened. He could be taking out his knife, or his gun, or his saw. Just as I began to wonder if I accidently killed him, a groan of pain came from the figure. He slowly began to sit up, rearranging his long legs. Putting one hand on the ground, he was searching for something in the grass. Perhaps he was crazy? Only when he put it on his face did I recognize what he lost upon impact. His glasses.

When he stood on wobbly legs, he was two heads taller than me, but so lean that I stood a fighting chance. Then he stepped into the light. He had the open face of a scholar, or a baker. He appeared nearly as ridiculous as me, with his chestnut hair sticking out in a thousand directions. And he looked oddly familiar behind those miraculously-uncracked glasses, like the echo of a childhood memory. Or it could just be the honey-colored eyes of his, glittered with specs of gold. Did he smell like gingerbread? Until then, I was too busy searching his soft eyes for anything remotely sinister to realize that he was wearing an apron. It was not just any apron; it was covered in irregular patterns of flour and smears of chocolate. His eyes, in turn, were flickering all over my face, from the tip of my proud nose to where my sweaty mess of curls started. They stopped still upon landing on the little star-shaped scar next to my left eye. I got it as a child, when I pushed a friend out of the way of our kindergarten bully's fist. His ring had a star; now, I got to keep his lovely forever. Funny enough, I couldn't remember much of the friend I saved.   

"Rojin?"

"You know me?" Before I could ask any further, a wave of dizziness hit me so hard that I only registered having fallen onto grass when he rushed to my side, fear written all over his features. This old bastard of a feeling couldn't choose worse timing. It took me another minute to register that he was about to call an ambulance. "No need, I am just diabetic. This much nightly adrenaline must have made my blood sugar drop too fast – I just need something sweet."

"Oh, how could I forget! Let's get you into the bakery. I think I remember your favorite." As he supported me from under my shoulder, I had no idea where we were going exactly. Or who he was. So it was a terrible idea, really, especially for an Ivy League graduate. However, instead of worrying about these essential matters for survival, my mind was wandering in drunk humor: did he realize how dirty 'nightly adrenaline' and 'your favorite' sounded? 

As we approached a cute wooden cottage right by the cliff not twenty steps from where I crashed into him, my steps started to get all tangled – and not because of a sugar low. I knew this place, knew that fairy lights lining the windows would come to life as soon as he turned on the lights. I knew these ruffled blue curtains and white-and-purple sign – I had painted some of the letters myself. Even the couches by the tables were all the same, down to the last embroidered pillow. Displaying strength that I did not expect from those arms, he put me on a couch. In an instant, a blueberry muffin and a glass of milk materialized in front of me. I must have gone mad and mentally stuck in a memory. I took a bite, and it was unreal. It was a cloud, if clouds tasted like the best blueberries and milk.    

"Are you a wizard?" His bell-like laughter made me stop chewing midway into my third bite of pure bliss. It was even softer than I remembered! It was warm too – the muffin. His laughter even more so, although I grew too shy to admit.    

"Is it the glasses? I get that a lot."

"Oh no, I am not about to pull a Potter on you, not when I am the one with the scar."

"That is how I knew it was you," he whispered, incapable of meeting my eyes all of a sudden. A dusty color painted his cheeks and nose, as he was not a blessed, non-blushing brunette like myself. "It couldn't be anyone but you." He somehow knew me, closely too; but was he a welcome acquaintance or a psycho stalker?  

"Were you trying to ambush me?"                  

"Ambush you?! No, no I was just trying to stop you from throwing yourself off the cliff. Locals know better, but you were running straight to the edge, so I was silly enough to think that I could stop you from up close. I did my job so poorly partly because the closer you got, the more familiar you looked. I was still fishing for words when we collided."

"You were just trying to stop me." Recovered back to my manners, it was my turn to blush. Or it would have been, if I could blush in this olive skin. "You know me. You even know my favorite dessert. You have Hawre's bakery, and I suspect, his apron. Who are you?"

"I never told you – no wonder you were so wary! You may not remember me… I am Hawre's son. Rebin."

Up to that point in my life, I thought that it was a cheap movie trick when the main character had a thousand memories flash in front of their eyes upon seeing a book or smelling a perfume. I was wrong. The word Rebin was the key, the missing piece of the mosaic; remedy to a secret wound in my heart, forgotten as I left my childhood memories behind. 

A shy boy with huge glasses, who painted the sign of this bakery with me. My partner in crime in sneaking into the kitchen, then sneaking out with biscuit-filled pockets. Then my desk partner for arts and crafts, always letting me get the first pick on supplies. My creative playmate, creating pirate swords from sticks and valiant adventures from thin air. My savior when I almost drowned in the deep end of a cove, and the one I saved from the punch that gave me my scar. But then… Then he left, all of a sudden, without saying goodbye. He took my memories with him, as a fairytale curse, leaving me to believe that I was always alone when I watched the sea, always lonely when I drew on the mud or made snowmen – until I left this island behind too.

"Rebin." There was too much emotion in one simple name. Unshed tears were burning in my eyes, urging me to blink rapidly to banish them and to stare at my muffin rather than at him.  

"You remember?" 

"I do now. I-I don't know how I forgot. As revenge, perhaps."

"Revenge?"

"You left. You all left, and it looked like an emergency, I know, but…" When did I become such a ball of emotion?! I got up and paced in the room, before stopping in front of a Rebin anxiously on his feet now. "You could have said goodbye."

Suffocating silence followed my whisper, too thick to breathe properly in. I was being immature, sentimental over what took place a lifetime ago. I took a deep breath, one deep enough to fit an apology, when soft sniffles pulled my eyes back up. Tears were quietly streaming down Rebin's face, dropping to the apron on his lap.

"I should have. But it was a whirlwind after I got diagnosed. Leukemia. My father lost his mind, packing our bags and moving us to the mainland overnight. He didn't think to tell anyone. It took three years until I was done with treatment." He looked up then, apologetic despite what he just said. "When I returned to the island, you were gone. Even your granny had moved out. I tried to look for you for a while, asking anyone and everyone. But after a couple of years, it occurred to me: why would you remember a childhood friend? And a weak one at that, not nearly as brave as you, who couldn't even stop you from getting that scar." His fingers timidly ghosted over the little star. No amount of blinking could hide my own tears anymore, making rivers on my face. He cupped my face with the same hand then, his long thumb drying my tears with the softest caress, as he cried on too. Quite the pair we made, sobbing and lost in the sensation of meeting again.

I couldn't take it at last, so I sobbed out, "Why do you look so sorry, when I should be the one begging for your forgiveness? I didn't know, and neither did anyone on the island."

"I know. You have done nothing to be forgiven for."

"No one told me anything."

"I know."

"Or else I would have found that hospital you were held in, and left a few scars on those doctors for healing you so slowly!" That drew a wet laugh from him despite himself.

"None would look as beautiful with those scars as you do." He froze solid, the fond smile slipping off his face. He looked fearful in fact. "I am so sorry. I crossed a line." He actually had the audacity to start removing his hand, when mine moved faster to land on top of it. How dare he hesitate when my entire memory was stitching itself back together to reveal how much he had mattered to me, how much he still did? How dare he get leukemia in the first place?! And how dare he miss me, when I didn't even know what I was missing for all this time?

"How dare you?" I held up my free hand in the air, dangerous flames burning inside my eyes. He closed his eyes instinctively, readying himself for a slap. So those eyes flew open when I grabbed the back of his neck instead, and brought my lips to his. The bravest thing I had ever done. It was his magic, really, this island – it has always been. 

When I got back home, at midnight, dropped off by one lovely baker-in-training who also happened to be an excellent navigator by looking at the stars, my grandma was watching Pride and Prejudice. I was doing a terrible job in hiding my smile when I closed the door. Taking one knowing look, she beckoned me over with a commanding hand peeking under the blanket.

"Tell me everything. Especially during commercial breaks."

"Oh, I will."

"Just tell me one thing first: was he as handsome as Darcy?"

"Grandma, I am speaking objectively: he was not. He was entirely unlike any Darcy, and still better than all of them somehow."

"Hah, I knew it! I knew it the moment I moved back into the house this year and got the word of their family returning. I wouldn't have sent you out at an ungodly hour if I didn't think you two needed some alone time, to catch up, away from the terrible gossips here."

Perhaps my grandmother was magic too. How else would she work such miracles?