Bloom

by Delilah S. Dawson

The modern world is severely lacking in magic, and those who crave it are at a constant disadvantage because they are desperate and it’s in short supply. Some places—amusement parks, country fairs, museums, old bookstores—can temporarily fill the void, but there will always be people who check every armoire for a door to Narnia, every rabbit hole for a road to Wonderland.

SO TRUE this was me as a child.

Right here, right now, she wants to be the kind of woman who carries a jute tote bag as the summer breeze blows through her long, loose hair, the kind of woman who knows exactly what to wear and where to go and what to say. She has always longed to be effortless—effortlessly cool, effortlessly confident, effortlessly thin.

The absolute dream. i long for this - even though i'm enby and hate when my hair gets long enough to touch my ears - i still have a femme figure and i dream to have the long flowy hair and cute fluttery clothes and to just be cute easily effortlessly softly confidently cute

Ro would like to be breezy, but she seems to swing between periods of dedicated, obsessive effort and slothlike, stubborn inertia.

Girl this is untreated ADHD - trust me i know.

Erik

team #FuckErik

She feels eyes on her, a soft and curious prickle like moth feet, and she turns to find the most beautiful girl in the world staring at her. While attempting not to flatten a child, Ro has somehow managed to stumble into a stall she hasn’t seen before, and the girl behind the counter looks like a goddamn elf, like the apotheosis of cottagecore, like if a Studio Ghibli heroine could be a pale white girl with long hair as tawny and true as corn silk.

i love the descriptors, "the apotheosis of cottagecore", "as tawny and true as corn silk" delightful absolutely delightful Oh and of course we cannot forget "the most beautiful girl in the world"

Before this moment, she was fairly certain she was straight, but now she is thrown into utter chaos.

#queerlove

It does not escape her that the girl has just quoted Shakespeare at her, which is practically foreplay to a literary scholar.

“I always come back for good cupcakes.” Yes. Yes. That sounds suave.

“I’ll take that, too,” she says softly, tamping down the urge to bite the soap.

girl please do not bite the soap just because the pretty lady is right there

A girl has gone missing—a pretty girl with a pixie cut and glasses, a junior at the college. Milla Fairfax.

i can see foreshadowing when it's printed so clearly.

She names him Tybalt because he is small and spiky.

i love you so much Ro

“Have you seen my daughter?” she asks, holding up the same flyer Ro found under her windshield last week.

The foreshadowing is shadowing harder! i'm sure this will be an important plot point, has to be, right?

strawberries

Also another mention of strawberries, hmmm, is this a red herring or is this important information or am i reading too hard into this as i always do

To make an eight-year-old kill and eat her pet? Horrifying. And that was, what? 2004?

O_O Wow. Yep. Mhm. That sure took a turn. Like i get it, circle of life and all that, but jeeze you can teach a kid a little bit softer than "hey go off your favorite - and also cook it for dinner tonight"

“For this, and all we are about to receive, make us truly grateful. Amen.”

But where is the snail?

“I have an industrial kitchen in the barn. Lots of expensive equipment. Hence the lock.

Only now does Ro realize she has slept with a woman with no last name, a woman who doesn’t seem to exist.

“Write me another poem and bring it over here right now.”

how much meat Ash has stored within, seemingly endless hams and loins wrapped in plastic.

“My name,” she whispers, “is Ashlyn Gund.”