Ang and I stared at the wooden box in silence. The corners were worn round and raw ofvarnish, and dents and scratches betrayed rough handling. A swirly design with PYXIS engraved in old-fashioned, capital letters embossed the top. It looked harmless enough. But neither of us was especially eager to touch it.

     ​“So, this was your grandmother’s?” Ang said, squinting at the box.

     ​“Yeah, it was in a box with my name on it. There were two sheet cake pans in there, too.”

     ​The last cake we’d baked together was for my dad’s birthday. Coconut. Times like these I missed her so much it was a physical pain, pushing against my lungs. Tears blurred my vision, and I took a deep breath and dug in my hoodie pocket for a tissue. Ang laid a sympathetic hand on my shoulder while I dabbed at the corners of my eyes.

     ​“Okay, I can’t take the suspense,” she said after a moment, and clasped her hands together at her chest. “Open it!”

     ​I stepped forward and tipped back the lid. Six glass bottles filled the interior, each bottle containing a deeply pigmented liquid. The age-clouded glass bottles had round, bulbous bases with skinny necks about an inch long, and snug-fitting glass stoppers lodged in the tops. I’d discovered that the necks were designed to dispense only a drop of liquid at a time. The liquid was viscous, thicker than water but not quite as thick as pancake syrup.

     ​“Ooohhh,” Ang whispered, as if the box held beautiful jewels. She stepped forward for a closer look.

     ​I pulled out two bottles, one that contained liquid so inky-blue it was almost black, and one filled with a cloudy, opaque yellow-orange solution the color of pollen. I set them on the counter, and we regarded them for a couple of seconds.

     ​“I used these two to color the frosting. I just assumed they were homemade food dyes because they were with the cake pans.” I hesitated. A vague crawly feeling slithered over myscalp. “But I don’t remember my grandmother ever using them. I helped her bake all the time, and I’m sure we used food colorings. Not these, though.”

     ​I looked over at Ang. Her eyes were so wide I could see the whites all the way around her green irises.

     ​“Maybe… maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to use these,” I said.

Most of K.C. Neal’s days are filled with some combination of writing, reading, gardening, working, and watching stuff on Netflix with her husband and their maltipoo, Oscar. She has an irrational fixation with L.A., and during occasional trips there she pretends her life is more glamorous than it really is (“Entourage” is her guilty pleasure). She likes to surf and hang out on sandy beaches, especially where drinks are served adorned with tiny umbrellas.

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