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I mean. I guess not Branna.
    Clearly, she needed help with love. I had experience. She might think that love shouldn’t be helped along, but I knew better. In my case, it had been enough to bat my eyelashes, take Mark’s arm, and eat yogurt slowly while I laughed at his jokes and leaned really close to him.
    But for Branna, it was time to go to the source of all truth. The Internet …
    I found a site called www.lovepotionsandmore.com that had a recipe for a love potion from someone who claimed to be a “real witch.” It sounded like the kind of potion I’d seen my mom put together, and I thought it was worth a try. The other reason I thought there might be a chance it was real was that I knew the magic wasn’t in the ingredients, and the Web site didn’t claim it was, either.
    Whenever I peeked in on my mom making potions, I knew that her magic came out of her as she stirred the ingredients together. And the Web site claimed that if you paid the money, the witch would send out magic through the Internet. All I had to do after that was make sure that I “activated” the potion by putting in a hair or fingernail clip-ping from each party.
    I knew I didn’t have magic like Mom did, but Mel Melot had bought that magic wine bottle. He wasn’t a witch him-self or anything. He just knew enough to go looking for magic and pay for it. My mom didn’t want other people knowing about her magic, but not all witches had to be that scrupulous, right? Besides, the recipe was guaranteed to work within the week or my money back. So either Branna would be happy with the right guy in time for the home-coming dance or I’d have my ten dollars.
    The ingredients were:
    2 T cayenne pepper
    1″inch cube fresh minced ginger root
    1 cup red wine vinegar (not balsamic—the sourer, the better)
    The instructions were simple.
    Mix with bamboo spoon over a double boiler until just steaming. Then cool gently, without ice. Add one item taken from each of the lovers. Can be hair, saliva, fingernails, dried skin, etc. Stir and strain. Then add to a drink of any kind except milk.
    Why not milk? I didn’t know. I wasn’t going to use any-thing alcoholic, however, especially on school property. It said any kind of drink, so I had a bottle of Sprite. It was sweet enough to counteract the vinegar and strong enough to disguise other flavors.
    I had Branna’s comb. I’d taken it from her after school. It was easy, since we sit together on the bus. The day before I made the potion, I distracted her by pointing out the window; then I dug into the little pocket on the side of her backpack and slipped the comb into my front coat pocket. There was only one hair caught on it, but I figured it would be enough. I didn’t know who the other particle would be from yet, but I could worry about that later.
    Mom was scheduled to be at the hospital the next morning for at least six hours, so I had time to practice. Once I’d had breakfast, I got to work. I put on the double boiler, and then I stirred in the ingredients with a bamboo spoon. I wondered what Mom would put into a magical love potion.
    Most of her potions were for strength or healing, some for happiness or a positive attitude. I think she once even made a potion to make someone sick, but I wasn’t supposed to know about that. Mom muttered something about him confessing an evil plan to her while in the ambulance, and she wanted to make sure he couldn’t go through with it. But that’s not the way it usually works.
    I thought about it, and then remembered Mom didn’t call it a love potion at all. She said it was a love “philtre,” a French word for an originally French recipe. A few years ago she made one to give as a wedding gift to the daughter of one of the doctors at the hospital. After it was finished, as it was cooling on the stove, she said she was conflicted about it.
    â€œIs it because you’re