Seeing Aria pick up the potion, Penny eagerly picked up hers and drank it first.
She then immediately retched. The liquid was bitter and sticky like medicinal tree sap mixed with dirt...and she knew a lot about that subject.
Her stomach turned, and her mind spiraled back to a memory from when she was seven, not long after Adam had come to live with her. He was only eight then, quiet and tense, always tugging his sleeves down to hide the bruises his older siblings had left behind. He never talked about it, but Penny noticed. She noticed everything.
She had wanted to make him laugh. Or at least blink.
So one afternoon, she'd grabbed three plastic cups from the kitchen, filled them with dirt from different parts of the yard, and tracked him down behind the old shed.
"I'm a dirt aficionado," she had announced with a dramatic bow. "Nay! A dirt sommelier."
Adam had blinked at her like she had grown antlers, but she continued anyway.
