Chapter 6
 
“Oh, don’t you start!” Buffy rounded on Spike. “I get enough from Mom and Giles.” She sighed. “Whatever I do, I just don’t seem to be able to stop losing weight. As I keep telling them: however hungry I am, I can never eat enough to fill me up. I felt so hungry just now, I could have eaten five times as much pot roast as mom just tried to feed me, but when I’d only half finished the plateful, I just couldn’t eat any more!”
 
“Oh, but it’s not healthy for you to eat so much in one sitting!” Willow exclaimed. “That’s bingeing! That way lies badness and eating disorders!”
 
“Right now, Wills, I feel as if I could eat burgers and fries and pizza and ice cream and cake… oh, and chocolate…” Buffy’s voice trailed off as her eyes lost focus and a dreamy smile tugged at her mouth. Then she licked a little drool from the corner of her mouth and pulled herself together. She said flatly, “But after a couple of mouthfuls, I wouldn’t be able to eat any more.”
 
“Well, that’s good!” Willow insisted. “A healthy adult female of your height and build only needs a maximum of fifteen hundred calories a day to maintain optimum bodyweight. I looked into it that summer between High School and College when I saw how much you were eating.”
 
“You mean that incredibly busy summer after Faith and Wes had gone off to Cleveland and I was slaying all night every night as well as working shifts at the Espresso Pump?”
 
“Yes. Your diet was… well, it just wasn’t normal!”
 
Buffy got up and raised her sweater just high enough to display her concave stomach and prominent ribs. “And this, Willow? Do you call this normal?”
 
Willow’s eyes went wide and she slowly shook her head.
 
Spike’s suspicions were growing apace, and it looked as if Buffy was beginning to share them when without taking her eyes from Willow, she asked, “Giles? Explain again about the recommended diet for active slayers. You know, like you did right back when I first started training with you and I complained of always being hungry.”
 
Giles glanced between Buffy and Willow and said, “Why, certainly, Buffy. If you feel it’s necessary.” His voice took on a lecturing tone. “The slayer has an elevated metabolism to provide for her enhanced strength, speed and stamina, and accelerated healing. To fuel this metabolism, when the slayer is undertaking regular training and nightly patrols she should consume a recommended daily average of approximately two and a half to three and a half thousand calories.”
 
Over Willow’s quiet exclamation of shock, he continued, “If she experiences a particularly prolonged or strenuous combat situation, or has been injured, she may need to consume between five and seven thousand calories per day in the short term. This will enable her body to heal itself and regain optimum fitness as quickly as possible.”
 
“Oh, my goddess… You never said…”
 
“Why would I, Willow?” Buffy shrugged, allowing her sweater to fall and retaking her seat. “There are many drawbacks to slayerdom and I didn’t feel the need to share all of them.” Her eyes narrowed. “Or perhaps I should have. Willow, did you do something to control the amount of food I could eat?”
 
“I was helping!” Willow cried. “You were eating so much!”
 
“Whoa! I’m thinking not so much with the helping, Wills,” Xander put in.
 
“Oh, Sweetie. What did you do?” Tara’s voice was shaky with apprehension.
 
“It was nothing. Well, practically nothing…” Willow protested feebly.
 
“Giles?” Buffy asked with deceptive casualness. “What would happen to me if I was permanently limited by an outside force to fifteen hundred calories a day?”
 
“You would slowly starve to death, Buffy.” Giles glared at Willow who had shrunk back in her seat and gone as white as a sheet. “Willow? I must insist that you break forthwith whatever spell you used on Buffy.”
 
Movement in the doorway caught Spike’s eye and he turned to see the slayer’s mother standing staring at Willow in dismay. “Willow? How could you?” she cried. “You know how worried I’ve been for months! I don’t know much about magic, but don’t Wiccan ethics stipulate that you should never put a spell on someone without their full knowledge and consent?”
 
“Th-that’s right, Mrs Summers,” Tara confirmed, shifting uneasily in her seat on the couch so that none of her person came into contact with Willow. “I didn’t know…”
 
Joyce smiled at Tara. “Oh, Tara, honey. I know that you’d never…” Her gaze switched back to Willow who was now blushing furiously and she snapped, “You heard Mr Giles, Willow. Undo your spell now!”
 
“Um... I don’t have any of my stuff with me,” Willow stammered nervously.
 
“What do you need?” Joyce asked grimly.
 
Willow glanced warily at Buffy. “A teensy lock of Buffy’s hair…”
 
Buffy deliberately gripped a tuft of hair at her temple, yanked it out at the roots and held it out. “What else?” she ground out.
 
“A pure white pillar candle…”
 
Joyce turned and trotted upstairs and quickly returned with a candle. “Will this one do? I light it sometimes when I take a bath.”
 
“Y-yes, that should be fine.”
 
“What else?”
 
“S-salt and lavender. Oh, and some sage.”
 
“There’s salt and sage in the kitchen and I have a lavender sachet in my underwear drawer,” Joyce declared.
 
Once everything was assembled, Joyce placed a metal tray on the coffee table and stood back. She crossed her arms over her chest and fixed her ‘Momma Bear’ glare firmly upon Willow.
 
Willow took a deep breath. “Okay. This should just take a second.” She scribed a small circle on the tray with the salt and placed the candle in the centre. “I need a match…” Spike took out his cigarette lighter and flicked it alight, reaching to light the candle. “Or, I guess that’ll work.”
 
She started chanting quietly:
 
“Buffy Summers’ diet is restricted,
Let my charm be contradicted.”
 
 
As she recited the first couplet, she touched the wisp of Buffy’s hair to the flame and the acrid smell of burning hair filled the room.
 
“By the dark and the light
My spell ends tonight.”
 
With the second couplet, she crumbled a pinch each of the sage and lavender into the flame of the candle, so that aromatic smoke curled into the air.
 
And then she blew out the candle.
 
 
~*~*~*~
 
 
Buffy looked around at her friends, who one by one had drifted into the dining room, transfixed by the feat of gastronomy in progress. She found herself unable to look directly at Willow, who was sitting opposite her. Willow’s tear blotched face was still flushed as she persisted in alternately apologising and attempting to rationalise her actions as ‘trying to help’. Buffy wasn’t ready to forgive her yet.
 
Finally, smiling contentedly, Buffy sat back and rested her hands over her taut stomach. “Hoo boy, that feels so good.”
 
“Have you had enough now, honey?”
 
Buffy nodded happily back at her mother. “Couldn’t eat another bite.”
 
“Not even another slice of pie? I think there’s some whipped cream left too?”
 
“Perhaps later?” Buffy suggested hopefully.
 
“Whenever you’re ready, Buffy. I’m just so happy to see you eating again.” Joyce looked around at Buffy’s audience and asked, “Perhaps I could make us all some hot chocolate? Then I’ll leave you to get on with your meeting. I think I’m going to take a bath and have an early night.”
 
While everyone made appreciative noises, to Buffy’s surprise, Spike, who had remained in the living room lolling on the sofa and flipping idly through the books on the coffee table showing an utter lack of interest in the proceedings, poked his head out into the hall and smiled broadly at her mother.
 
He tipped his head to one side shyly and raised a questioning finger. “You got any of those little marshmallows?”
 
Joyce chuckled. “Let me look, William. I think I could probably put my hands on some.”
 
While Joyce bustled about in the kitchen, everyone drifted back into the living room.
 
“That,” said Xander admiringly, “was the most impressive thing I have ever seen. I’ve never seen anyone eat so much in one go they had to go to the bathroom in the middle to make room for more.”
 
“You should start entering those competitive eating contests,” Anya said brightly. “You could make a fortune!”
 
Buffy blinked in surprise.  Although Anya had been very vocal when Xander had first introduced her to the group, it had quickly become very rare for her to speak out in meetings, even when she was addressed directly. Buffy grinned back at her. “Yeah, I totally could!”
 
“Well, now that’s settled, perhaps we could get back to the main order of business for the evening,” Giles said, accepting a steaming mug from the tray that Joyce was passing around. “We really must try to work out who could have tampered with our memories.”
 
As she took a sip from her own mug of warm, chocolatey goodness, Buffy caught Spike’s eye. Raising an eyebrow, he subtly nodded towards Willow.
 
Buffy’s eyes widened in understanding. Surely not. Willow would never do such a thing. Would she? After glancing around to check that nobody else was looking at her, she mouthed, “Do you really think so?”
 
Spike slowly nodded back, one finger tracing around his shirt collar as he once more nodded in Willow’s direction.
 
Buffy’s forehead creased as she looked closely at Willow. She had become accustomed to seeing the narrow satin ribbon around her friend’s neck, but had never questioned what it was supporting. It suddenly struck her as strange. If Willow liked this pendant so much, why did it never hang outside her clothes where it could be seen?
 
“Willow,” she began uncertainly. “I don’t suppose you’ve done any other uh… helpful spells you haven’t told us about? Spells that might have gone just a little bit wrong?”
 
Spike snorted. “From what I’ve heard, the little witch’s spells don’t go wrong. Her trouble is they work too well!”
 
“Nuh huh.” Willow shook her head frantically. “No sirree. No helpful spells. Except, you know, when I helped with the spells.” As she spoke, her hand went straight to her throat and touched a small bulge in her sweater, right where the ribbon would dangle a pendant.
 
“She’s lying.” Spike said flatly.
 
“Look, I know you don’t know us yet,” Xander said irritably. “But if you did, you’d know that Willow doesn’t lie. If she said she didn’t do any other spells, then she didn’t!”
 
Buffy wasn’t so sure. Without taking her eyes from Willow, she asked, “Giles? That table razor spell. Didn’t you say that you could tell when it’d worked because the crystal would turn black?”
 
“Yes, that’s right, Buffy. Why do you ask?”
 
“I thought so. Willow, could I see that pendant you keep fondling? You wear it every day, but I don’t remember ever seeing it outside your clothes.”
 
Willow clutched at the pendant through her sweater and clamped her lips closed, shrinking back into her seat. Her eyes crinkled anxiously and a tear slid down her cheek.
 
“I - I never thought…” Tara whispered hoarsely. “It – it’s a black crystal. T - two of them, actually.” She turned to face Willow and asked sadly, “Oh, Will. Tell me you didn’t…”
 
Willow suddenly sat up straight. “Well, what if I did?” she asked defiantly. “You have no idea what was going on.”
 
Giles took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think that is the very crux of the problem, Willow.” Putting his glasses back on, he gestured towards Spike. “I’m guessing that you are the only person here whose memories haven’t been affected. That means you will have recognised our… uh… visitor.”
 
“Yeah.” Willow’s brow creased in puzzlement as she turned to look at Spike. “As a matter of fact, I’m kinda surprised to see him again.”
 
“So that means you were behind the Stay Away From Sunnydale compulsion as well. Right, Red?”
 
Willow nodded warily. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
 
“Undo it!”
 
“Um... I don’t need to. You’re here now, so you’ve broken it yourself. Any lingering effects will fade in a few days.”
 
Willow turned back to Buffy. “I’d just found this old herbal in the second-hand book store and one night when I was looking for a spell I could try out, I was flipping through it. When I saw the list of spells that Lethe’s Bramble could be used for, that’s what gave me the idea of doing something magical to help you. Look, I’m sorry, okay? I thought I was doing the right thing under the circumstances.”
 
Buffy was growing increasingly angry. “I think it’s time we all learned what those circumstances were, don’t you, Willow?” She got up and approached Willow, her hand out, open palm upwards. “Give me the crystal.”
 
Willow’s hands shook as she slipped the ribbon over her head and untangled it from her hair. She started crying again. “Please, you have to understand… I was only trying to help! Then when I realised…” She gulped down a sob. “It was too late to do anything about it.”
 
As the long shiny crystal emerged from the neckline of Willow’s fuzzy pink sweater, Buffy spotted the second, smaller, black crystal that Tara had mentioned, suspended from a fine silver chain. Buffy resolved to address the issues that that one raised as well, but later. First, she desperately wanted the holes in her memory to be filled.
 
As soon as she grasped the angular crystal, still warm from her friend’s body, Buffy looked around for the best means to break it. With a little shrug, she stepped to the edge of the rug and carefully placed it on the hardwood floor. Then she straightened up, raised her foot, and stamped on it.