The Reluctant Witch: Paranormal Women's Fiction

by Bernadette Walsh

Genres: Paranormal; Witches; Ghost; Occult & Supernatural; Siblings

Synopsis

TWO POWERFUL WITCHES. TWO POWERFUL STORIES IN ONE BOOK

SEE ME

Fiona Morrissey learned from an early age not to trust her magical powers and certainly not to trust the spirits her “gifts” allowed her to see. Mama always said, “Spirits may act like they are giving you something, but they will take from you a hundredfold anything they give you. Spirits always want something and are not to be trusted.”

Being a good girl, Fiona followed her mother's advice and for years steered clear of spirits and magic. That is until the spirit of gorgeous John Callahan, Fiona's ex-boyfriend and the only man she ever truly loved, decided to camp outside her door. Now Fiona must decide, can she trust the spirit of her beloved boyfriend or was John like all the other selfish and dangerous spirits her mother warned her about?

FOLLOW ME

DNA is destiny. Or is it?

Nell Donahue was born an echo witch — a weak witch with just enough magic in her to read the tea leaves of bored suburban housewives. Nell's spent her life envying her more gifted sister and chasing magical powers she could never attain until an unexpected trip to hell increased Nell's abilities ten-fold.

Now Nell has more powers than she ever dreamed of. She's also being haunted by the ghost of a slain college student, threatened by a pack of semi-human demon-worshipping ghouls and harassed by a brawny detective who's awakened something in unlucky-in- love Nell that she'd much prefer remained dormant. Too late to return to her status as an echo witch, Nell must learn to harness her enhanced powers before she loses everything, including her heart.

Release date: April 8, 2020

Publisher: Bernadette Walsh

Print pages: 157

Sample

PROLOGUE

 

 

Auntie Nuala almost never came over to our house. When we were younger she used to make excuses: the train ride out to Long Island from Brooklyn was too long or she needed to stay home and take care of Granny. After a while we stopped asking. But she was here now, and although it was Mama who’d invited her to our house for lunch, Mama did not look happy.

But then again, Mama seldom looked happy.

Nell, my identical twin, never noticed, or even cared, if Mama was happy or not. As soon as Auntie Nuala walked in, Nell engulfed her in a bear hug while I held back. There was something about Auntie Nuala that always made me nervous. 

After Nuala disentangled herself from Nell, she noticed me. Her smile disappeared.  “Fiona,” she said.

I guess I made her a bit nervous too. 

But I make a lot of people nervous.

I forced a smile. Daddy said it was my sourpuss that drove people away. “Look at Nell,” he’d said only yesterday. “She has a million friends. And why? Because she smiles every once in a while. Unlike you. You look at people like you want to —”

“Want to what?”

He forced himself to meet my gaze, something he seldom did. “Like you want to eat them. Swallow them whole.” Daddy pulled my ponytail. “Lighten up, sweetheart. The world is not such a terrible place.”

I practiced my new smile on hippy dippy Auntie Nuala but the smile seemed to have the opposite effect on her. Nuala took a step back and coughed.

Without looking at me she said, “Is your mother about, girls?”

Nell grabbed Nuala’s hand and led her to the kitchen.

I looked into the hallway mirror and practiced my smile. Same pink lips and newly straightened teeth as Nell. Same pale skin and freckles. Same curly red hair. We were identical. Why then did Nell attract while I repelled? 

I moved closer to the mirror and stared into my eyes. My pupils were pitch black and, at that moment, seemed to take over the green. My eyes were transformed into two deep black hollows. Staring into my own eyes it was almost as if there was someone else there at the bottom of those black holes, drawing me in deeper and deeper. Into what, I didn’t know. Something dark, something cold, something…

“Fiona,” my mother barked. “For God’s sake, stop admiring yourself and come in here and set the table.”

I blinked. Whatever had beckoned me into that endless cavern was gone. I tore myself from my reflection and smiled at Mama who, unlike most people, didn’t shrink from my smile. Like the good girl I always yearned to be, I said, “Yes, Mama,” and followed her into the dining room.

My father had taken my two older brothers golfing. He didn’t want to be  around the coven he’d said to my mother as he walked out the front door. My father laughed as he said it but Mama was not amused. 

I set the table for four using our chipped everyday dishes and not my great-grandmother’s delicate china. The china was just one more thing that Nuala felt Mama had stolen from her. I knew this, of course, like I knew most things without being told. Just like I knew that Nuala with her long flowing skirts and ever present tarot cards and incense was playing a part she had chosen for herself. Just like I knew it was my mother in her cashmere sweater sets and pearls that was the real deal. 

Nuala and Nell joined me at the table as my mother thumped the plate of rolled cold cuts and iceberg lettuce on the table. My mother was a gourmet cook who often slaved for hours over the simplest of meals. A lunch sourced from the deli around the corner was meant as an insult and even Nuala must’ve picked up on that. If my sister could ever see beyond her own freckled nose she’d have known as well. But the two of them slathered mustard on the hard rolls and munched on the tasteless roast beef and yellow American cheese as if they were dining on caviar while Mama and I nibbled on our bland sandwiches. 

After I cleared the plates and Mama served us each a piece of cold apple tart, Auntie Nuala finally wiped the false smile from her face and looked into her identical sister’s cold green eyes. “So, Kathleen, why am I here?”

Mama pushed away her plate of cold apple tart. “You know why you are here. Stop acting like you don’t.”

“The birthday, yes, of course. Tomorrow, right?”

“Oh, Auntie Nuala, have you organized a surprise for us?” Nell asked, her eyes gleaming. “A surprise party, maybe?”

“I told you already, Nell,” Mama snapped, “they’ll be no parties this year. Next year you can have a party but not this year.”

“But why? We always have a party for our birthday,” Nell whined. “Why not this year?”

I said nothing. Our birthday parties filled with Nell’s cheerleader friends were always torture for me. I’d be perfectly happy if I never celebrated another birthday again.

“Thirteen. Can you believe it, Kaky? Our girls will be teenagers.”

“My girls, and yes I can believe it. Haven’t you felt it coming?”

Nuala’s dreamy smile returned. “Of course I have. The sixth generation of identical twin girls born in the sixth day of the sixth month? This Investiture will be like no other. Who from the family is coming?”

“No one. I’m sending Danny and the boys out to the beach house for the week. You and I will hold the ceremony on Saturday and will lead the girls through their Renunciation.”

“Or Acceptance. Even though Mama made us reject our gifts at their age, there is no reason why they can’t accept theirs. Can you imagine, Kaky, how powerful I’d be if Mama had let me accept my full power at age thirteen?”

“Stop calling me Kaky, and no, Nuala, you wouldn’t be any stronger even if you had received the gift at thirteen. As the second born you were always destined for the scraps. You know that. Why you’ve wasted your life chasing after your little sliver of power, I’ll never know.”

Nuala face went hard then, as if carved in stone. “You know nothing, Kaky. You rejected your power and it had to go somewhere, didn’t it? So it went to me. Mother Holly said —”

Mama rolled her eyes. “Mother who? Oh, no, not another one of your charlatans.”

“Mother Holly has a true gift. She is helping me reach beyond the veil.” Auntie Nuala paused and then dramatically said, “Soon I will see the other side.”

I swallowed my dry sandwich and thought, The other side of what?

“I barely have time for the living never mind the dead,” Mama said. “If you’d done something worthwhile with your life, you’d feel the same.”

“You’re so negative, Kaky.”

“And you’re delusional if you think the power went to you. You know who it went to.”

“I have power,” Auntie Nuala said, her voice shooting up an octave. “Everyone can feel it at Mother Holly’s circle.”

“Compared to those nobodies of course you have power. A fat lot of good it’s done you.”

Her lips trembling, Nuala said in a weak voice, “I’m not afraid, Kaky. I’ve embraced my gift not like you.”

Mama sighed and then said, “And I’ve embraced the real world, Nuala. I wish you’d done the same. Maybe then you wouldn’t be stuck alone in the house with Mother running up credit cards that my husband has to clear for you. These girls are going into high school next year. They are going to study hard and get into good colleges and get good jobs and marry nice boys. They’ll have children, hopefully boys so that this whole mess will die out with them.”

Nuala turned to Nell. “You make your own decision, Nellie. Don’t let your mother convince you that you are second best. You are a wonderful, magical girl. I know you are.”

“What on earth are you both talking about?” I asked.

Mama looked at me with her stone cold green eyes and a shiver went down my spine. In a calm even voice, Mama said, “You are a witch. We all are but you will be the most powerful because you are the first born.”

“By five minutes,” Nell spat. Nell has always been jealous of my five extra minutes of breath.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mama said. “She was first born. My power went to Fiona and if she rejects it then it will go to her first born daughter if she has one or it will burn out. It will never go to you, Nell. Know that. You are like Nuala with only an echo of the gift.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Witches aren’t real.”

Nuala’s dreamy smile returned. “Oh, but they are. There are many of us and more all the time as women explore their own innate power.”

My mother’s eyes burned into me as she said, “True witches are few and with any luck, their numbers will wither away to nothing.”

“You are a self-hating self-righteous bitch, Kaky, and you always have been. Don’t pass your hangups onto your daughters. Let them make their own choices. That is what the Investiture is for. The daughters make the choices, not the mommies.”

We were all silent then. Nell and I stared at Nuala and although I’d never liked her, I suddenly felt very frightened for her. No one spoke to Mama that way. Not my grandmother, not my father, not my big burly uncles. No one. There was something about my fierce mother in her delicate ladylike clothes that made people hold their tongue. Nuala was the only one who ever talked back to Mama but she’d never gone this far. She’d never dared call her a bitch.

Mama finally broke the silence and asked in a controlled even tone, “What time is your train, Nuala?”

Her face now beet red, Auntie Nuala choked out, “There’s a train at three.”

Mama stood up. “Well, we don’t want you to miss it. I’m sure Mother will be expecting her dinner on time. You’ll be back here next Saturday for the ceremony.”

Keep your mouth shut, Nuala, I thought as I looked at her. If you have a brain in your head, you’ll keep you mouth shut.

Of course, Nuala was incapable of ever keeping her mouth shut. “Why should I participate in such a travesty? You’re stealing something so very special from these girls. I don’t think I want to be a part of that.”

My mother stared at her twin and the temperature in the room instantly dropped twenty degrees. Nuala’s face turned pale beneath her garish makeup and her eyes went vacant. My mother blinked and then looked away.

Like a robot, Nuala stood up and followed my mother out the front door without another word.

When the front door closed, Nell looked at me and said, “What was all that?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know but I think we’re about to find out.”

When Mama returned home from the train station after dropping off Auntie Nuala, she told us to meet her in her bedroom. Mama hardly ever allowed us in her bedroom. Not even Daddy was allowed in there without a special invitation — he normally slept in the guest room down the hall. Mama’s room always smelled like lavender with an undertone of the dried sage she burned every week. The combination sounded lovely but smelled awful. If I didn’t close my bedroom door the stench would reach my room. Between the smell and the many religious pictures, some of them frightening really, I never voluntarily entered my mother’s room.

But when summoned, of course I had to obey. 

For once Nell had enough sense to not crack silly jokes and she kept quiet as we entered Mama’s room. Despite the bright late afternoon summer sun outside, Mama’s room was dark and cold, lit only by the candles that illuminated the holy pictures. Mama sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed with a large leather bound book in front of her.

“Come here, girls,” Mama said. “I want you to try and open the Book.”

Nell leapt onto the bed and tried to open the Book but couldn’t budge it. I slid onto the bed’s satin duvet and also tried to open it.

Mama then easily opened the Book. “See, girls, the Book knows who is authorized to open it and who is not. Tomorrow at 6 am, the hour of your birth, both of you will be able to open the Book. That and other powers will come to you, which is why, Nell, the last thing I wanted to do was to throw you a birthday party. You will have one week to engage with your powers. Explore them. Then on Saturday we will have the ceremony and you will either accept or renounce them.”

“What kind of powers, Mama?” Nell asked.

“I can’t tell you that, Nell. Every witch is granted different powers. I do know that Fiona will have more powers and they will be stronger than yours.”

“Unfair.”

“There’s no fairness involved, Nell. The powers go according to the law. But instead of being jealous of your sister, you should feel sorry for her. Very sorry.”

“Sorry for her? But she’ll be able to do all kinds of cool stuff. Like, will she be able to fly? On a broomstick?”

My mother pursed her lips for a moment and then said, “Some witches do have the power of flight although I never had that power myself. Nell, you will be able to reject your powers and lead a perfectly normal life if you so choose. Even if Fiona rejects her powers, she will never be entirely free of them. They are too strong and they will seep out at times, unbidden. Fiona will never be normal.”

“Like you, Mama?” I asked. “Are you normal?”

My mother shook her head and in the candlelight I could see the pain in her eyes. “No. Not entirely. But I’ve tried, Fifi. I’ve tried to be normal. I have a husband who loves me. I have children that I love. A few friends. That’s more than most full witches can achieve.”

“What about Granny? She got married and had children,” Nell said.

I poked Nell’s arm. “You know we’re not supposed to talk about Granny.”

“It’s all right, Fiona. You’re both old enough to know what happened to your grandmother. Granny embraced her powers. When I was growing up she was a proud and powerful witch.  People would come from all over the country to hear her prophecies and buy her potions. She cured the sick and comforted the lovelorn. Our kitchen was always full of strangers seeking solace and my mother gave it to them. She emptied herself to strangers and sometimes, at the end of a busy day, she would be so drained of her life force she appeared transparent. Your grandmother never knew how to protect herself and conserve her energies.”

“So if Granny liked being a witch why did she make you and Auntie Nuala reject your powers when you were thirteen?” Nell asked.

“Because by then she’d taken things too far and finally realized the dangers of the gift. Another witch introduced her to necromancy.”

“What’s that?” Nell asked.

“Communicating with the dead. But Granny didn’t just communicate with the dead, she became enamored by the dead. One spirit in particular. She spent so much time on the other side that one spirit was able to drain Granny of her life force. The first night of every full moon that spirit would take over her physical body while Granny’s spirit danced with spirits of the dead beyond the veil. Before our thirteenth birthday, before Nuala and I were to receive our gifts, Mama realized what this evil spirit was doing while in her body. She tried then to renounce her powers and undo what could not be undone. By then it was too late for her. She didn’t want it to be too late for us.”

“But,” I said, “if Granny realized what was going on then why is she still….”

“You cannot spend so much time on the other side without losing part of your own mind, your own self. Plus she had made a pact with that evil spirit so that he can still inhabit her body the first night of every full moon. She will never be free of him. That is why I am always with Granny on the first night of a full moon, me and the other witches, so we can contain him. So he doesn’t kill anyone else.”

“Kill?”

“Don’t ask. It doesn’t matter. That was a long time ago. What does matter is what you girls are going to experience this week.”

“I’m scared,” I said.

“You are right to be scared, Fiona. The two of you will receive your gifts tomorrow. You will be able to open the Book and learn all of its secrets. If I could, I would have you renounce your gifts immediately. Unfortunately, that is not how it works. You must have your gifts for seven days before you can renounce them. Also, you have to have them while you are out in the world, doing your normal activities. You can’t just hide in the house. You have to go to school. Do everything normally, otherwise the Renunciation won’t take.”

“I don’t want to see ghosts or spirits,” Nell said.

“You likely won’t. Fiona may see them and she may not. Every witch is different. Just remember, Fiona, if you do see them, spirits always want something from you. They may act like they are giving you something but they will take from you a hundredfold anything they give you. They are hungry for your life source. They will want to control your gifts. Spirits always want something and are not to be trusted. Any other questions?”

“No,” Nell and I said in unison.

“Then off to bed, girls.”

The next morning, Nell jumped on my bed. “Wake up, wake up. They’re here!”

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “What?”

“The gifts! The gifts! Check this out!” Nell snapped her fingers and the overhead light tuned on. “How cool is that?”

“Yeah. Cool.”

“Come on, show me what you can do.”

I snapped my fingers to turn off the light but nothing happened. I snapped them again but the light remained on. 

“Ha, ha, I can do something you can’t do, Fifi. Maybe I’m the real witch and you’re the echo witch.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Even though it was Sunday, we didn’t go to church. Mama didn’t want us around a “spiritual realm” while our powers were so unsettled so instead we ate bagels on the back porch. Nell tried to levitate the container of cream cheese but it didn’t move. 

“I guess you’ll have to be satisfied with turning on lights,” I said.

“At least I can do something. What can you do?”

“Nothing, I hope.”

My mother looked at me. “Do you not feel any different, Fifi?”

“I have a headache and a constant ringing in my ears.”

“Hmmm,” Mama said.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. We’ll find out what it means soon enough. Now after breakfast I want the two of you to take the Book into the den and read it.”

“I thought you wanted us to renounce our powers?”

“Yes, Fiona, but you can’t renounce something that you don’t understand and fully possess. This week is about bringing forth your powers so that you can renounce them and Nuala and I can bind them.”

“This is all crazy. It makes no sense,” I said.

My mother stroked my arm, which was unusual because she seldom touched us. For some reason, my arm burned from her touch. “It is the law. I know it’s hard but hopefully after this week we can all go back to our normal lives. You just need to trust me. Okay, sweetheart?”

I nodded.

We spent the rest of the day reading the Book. Nell discovered she could shut doors with the snap of her fingers. She could also kill a houseplant by touching its leaves and picturing the plant withered and dead. After Nell killed two of Mama’s spider plants, Mama made her stop practicing.

Mama shook her head as she looked at us. “You’re strong, Nell. Stronger than I expected and much stronger than Nuala. What about you, Fiona? Anything yet?”

I rubbed my temple. It felt as if someone had shoved an icepick through my left eye. And my ears — the ringing was almost deafening. “No. I have a headache, Mama. Can I go to my room and lie down?”

Once again Mama touched me on the arm and her fingers felt like molten lava against my cool skin. “Of course, Fifi. Go upstairs and rest.”

Nell tried to rouse me for dinner but I couldn’t open my eyes. I didn’t wake up until morning when a woman in an old fashioned bonnet and a white apron dug her ice cold fingers into my arm. “Wake up. Time to milk the cows.”

“Mama,” I screamed. “Mama, come quick!”

The woman scowled. “Always crying for your mother. Well, she’s dead! She’s dead and you have to earn your keep. Get out of the bed and do what I say!”

“Mama! Please!”

My mother flung open the door and ran into the room. “What is it, Fiona?”

The woman pulled the comforter off my bed and growled, “I will not ask you again.”

I couldn’t say anything. I just looked at my mother and pointed to the end of the bed.

“Are you moving the comforter, Fiona? Is that what’s scaring you?”

“Get up!” the woman shouted as she threw the comforter to the floor.

“Not me,” I managed to choke out. “It’s her.”

“I can’t see anything, Fiona. Is someone there?”

The woman was now so enraged she picked up my alarm clock and threw it at me. Mama held out her hand and the clock came to her instead of smacking me in the face. Mama then began to murmur in some type of strange language. Slowly, the woman faded from view.

When Mama ceased her strange chants, she sat on the edge of my bed and asked, “Is she gone?”

“Yes. What was she and why couldn’t you see her?”

“I don’t know who she is. I couldn’t see her because seeing spirits is not one of my gifts.” Mama rubbed my shoulder. “I’m sorry that it’s one of yours.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because that means you are a very strong witch and seeing spirits, well, that is the greatest affliction of all.”

“Mama, I’m scared. I don’t want to go to school.”

My mother bit her lip for a moment, as if contemplating my request. She then shook her head. “You have to, sweetie. I’m sorry but it’s the law.”

“Then teach me that chant so I can make spirits go away.”

“My chant only makes them go away temporarily. You’ll have to find another way to control them.”

“What does the Book say I should do?”

“This power goes well beyond the Book, I’m afraid. You will have to be strong and figure it out for yourself.”

“I wish I could just kill plants like Nell.” 

Mama smiled. “So do I. Come downstairs and I’ll make you breakfast. You can’t defend yourself against spirits on an empty stomach.”

After breakfast, Nell and I slung our knapsacks over our shoulders and walked to school. When we reached the corner, two of Nell’s cheerleader friends were waiting for her, and without a backward glance, Nell left me behind and walked with them. Normally I didn’t mind, but on today, of all days, why couldn’t Nell walk with me?

“Because she’s a selfish bitch.”

I looked to my right. A pretty blond girl wearing an old fashioned cheerleader uniform and saddle shoes threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, jeepers, you can hear me now? That is so cool! I’ve been walking with you for so long and answering your thoughts but now the day is finally here!”

“Wait, you can read my thoughts?”

She smiled and her teeth glistened in the sun. “Sure. I am your best friend after all.”

“I don’t even know you.”

She linked her arm through mine and her touch, while cool, was not ice cold like the scary bonnet lady. “But I know you. I’ve been walking to school with you since you were in first grade. Remember when that dog chased you and you were afraid it was going to bite you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And then it stopped and turned around? Well, that was me!”

“It was you?”

“Of course. I couldn’t allow some smelly mongrel to hurt my best friend, could I?”

I unlinked her arm from mine. “What’s your name?”

She smiled again. “You can call me June because June is my favorite month. Do you know why?”

“No, why?”

“Because that’s the month my very best friend was born, silly!”

“Why are you saying I can call you June? Is that your name or isn’t it your name?”

June’s eyes narrowed then and her smile faltered. I felt a chill run down the back of my neck. “Just call me June, okay?”

I am a powerful witch. I don’t have to be afraid.

Who was I kidding?  Of course I was afraid. Terrified, but she didn’t have to know that.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” June said.

How does she do that? 

I forced myself to smile. “I just want to walk by myself today. Okay, June?”

“Suit yourself.” June flounced off down the street with her long blonde ponytail swinging until she gradually faded from view.

The last two blocks from school I saw a nearly transparent man in an old-fashioned policeman’s uniform try and direct traffic while the cars drove through him. He glanced over at me and tipped his cap. 

On the school’s front steps a woman wearing a miniskirt with a mile-high bouffant cried out, “Johnny! Where are you, Johnny?” Tear ran down her face. She stopped crying and ran towards me as I walked up the steps. “You know where my Johnny is, don’t you? He didn’t come home from school yesterday.”

I murmured in a low voice so that no one else could hear, “I don’t know where Johnny is.”

“Yes you do! Help me! You have to help me!” Her ice cold fingers froze my arm and I stopped. 

“Get out of the way, geek,” shouted a boy from my algebra class.

“I, uh, I…”

June appeared out of nowhere and linked my arm. “Beat it, Mrs. Maloney. Johnny was blown to pieces in Vietnam. You know that. He’s never coming home. Now stop bothering my best friend.”

The woman looked confused. “Johnny, where’s Johnny? He didn’t come home from school yesterday. Help me find my son.”

June snarled at the ghost. “Johnny was blown to bits in a rice paddy. He ran off and joined the army to get away from you and your empty vodka bottles. You killed your son, Mrs. Maloney, as sure as the Vietcong. You killed him!”

The ghost fell to her knees on the crowded school steps as the boys from the basketball team walked through her. “Johnny? Where’s my Johnny?”

June pulled me up the stairs. “Come on, you’re going to be late to homeroom. Good thing you have your best friend to help you, huh?”

I nodded and whispered, “Thank you, June.”

June pulled me closer to her. “You’re welcome, Fiona.”

For the next few days June was my protector, my confidante and, yes, my very best friend. June sat beside me at the lunch table with my only two friends at school — girls admittedly so awkward and shy that it was hard to even really call them friends since they barely spoke and we all usually ate our lunches in silence. June whispered in my ear the whole lunch period and spilled all the secrets of the lunch room: which one of my sister’s cheerleader friends was caught kissing another girl’s boyfriend behind the gym, who had been caught cheating on a math test. June shared darker secrets too: who’s father was going to die next week in a traffic accident, who’s older sister was going to have a miscarriage, who’s mother was having an affair with the next-door neighbor. 

June told me things that were interesting unlike my lunch table friends who could barely manage to choke out a few sentences about next week’s English test. And then June started telling me secrets about them. Why Susie didn’t invite people back to her house. How much Anne Marie’s father drank. The girls would stare at me as June whispered their secrets in my ear, as if they could somehow sense that I now knew their innermost thoughts. By Wednesday, Susie and Anne Marie had found seats at a different table so that I was alone with June. I didn’t mind, really. June was the only person I wanted to talk to anyway.

June couldn’t come into our house. My mother and Nuala had put on some type of protection spell — a warding spell they called it — to prevent uninvited spirits from entering our house. June was not happy about it. “Invite me in, Fiona,” she begged. “I’m your friend, not some stranger.” Much as I wanted June to come into my room and stay with me throughout the night, I knew if I asked, Mama would be mad. She and Nuala had gone to a lot of trouble gathering the local witches to band together in order to protect our house. Much as I loved my new friend, I feared my mother more.

My father and my older brothers were still away, so it was only me, Nell and Mama at the dinner table. Mama had cooked our favorite meal — macaroni and cheese with bacon bits. 

“So, girls, did you develop any new powers today?”

With her mouth full of macaroni, Nell said, “I killed some weeds in the garden, Mama, just by thinking about them. I didn’t even have to touch them.”

Mama didn’t look terribly impressed but she nodded and said, “Well, that was useful. Thanks.”

Nell continued, “And I made Mike Farrell’s bunsen burner flare up in lab today. It almost burnt his eyebrows off.”

I rolled my eyes. “Still mad about him asking Tiffany to the Homecoming Dance instead of you?”

“I told you girls, you can’t do anything that hurts anyone or that brings any attention. You know better, Nell.”

“Aw, he wasn’t hurt. Besides, it’s too late to not draw attention to ourselves.”

“What do you mean?” Mama asked.

Nell laughed. “Fiona whispers to her imaginary friend all day long. She sits alone at the lunch table and laughs and talks to the thin air. I heard one of the lunchroom monitors say that she was going to tell a guidance counselor.”

“Fiona, is that true?”

I threw down my fork. “Nell, you are such a loser. Why don’t you go kill the ficus in the hall and show us all what a powerful witch you are?”

Nell laughed again. “I’m the loser? Yeah, right.”

Mama placed her hand over mine and it was all I could do not to snatch my hand away. The burning sensation brought tears to my eyes. “Who are you talking to, Fifi? Who is your familiar?”

“My familiar?”

“Your familiar spirit. I assume you’ve established a bond with a particular spirit?”

“Bond? I don’t know. June is my friend.”

“Who is June? What does she tell you? What has she asked you to do?”

“June’s just a girl. A cheerleader, actually, from the fifties. She wears these really cool saddle shoes. She’s nice and she doesn’t ask me to do anything. June protects me from the other ghosts — the scary ghosts that keep asking me to do things. June doesn’t ask anything of me. She’s happy just to be my friend.”

“June wants something from you, Fifi. Ghosts always want something from the living. They may scare you or seduce you to get what they want but remember, Fifi, they can’t be trusted. They always want something.”

“You’re wrong, Mama. Maybe other ghosts are like that but not June. She said she’s been waiting for me to inherit my powers for years so that we can be friends. She loves me.”

Mama looked frightened then. For the first time in my life, my mother actually looked scared. “What secrets has June told you, Fifi? What has she told you about me? About Granny?”

“Nothing.”

Mama increased the pressure on my hand and the searing pain was almost unbearable. I finally pulled my hand away. “She tells me thing, Mama. Things you’ve never told me. Secrets.”

“Like what?”

“I can’t tell you. June says I can’t tell you.”

Mama held my chin and stared into my eyes. Her pupils overtook the green and her eyes became two black pools. The bottom of those pools drew me in deeper and deeper. I was cold and my skin was wet, damp, as if I was trapped at the bottom of a well. “Tell me,” Mama said. 

Almost against my will, my mouth became to move. “Granny killed a man with a black beard who had pledged his children to the One. Then she strangled a woman who had reneged on the pledge of her soul to the One. June showed me Granny’s hands around the neck of a baby…”

Mama looked away. “Enough. No more.”

But I was still within that well, the dank air dug into my skin and entered my veins until the poisonous vapors coursed through my entire body. Until I was the poison.

“You wasted your gifts. You ran from them. The One is not happy. He will come to collect, one of these days. He laughs at you. He laughs at your pearls and your weak husband. He’s took your first two babies. He will take from you again…”

Mama shook me by the shoulders so violently that my top teeth crashed against the bottom. “Stop it. Get out of her!”

But still the poisonous words spilled out of my mouth. “The One is not finished with you. He’s not finished with any of us and He will soon have your daughters.”

Mama held out her hand and the Book flew through the air from its place of honor upstairs on her bedside table to her open palms. She murmured to it as my prophecies spilled forth. “Before Samhaim, the One will squeeze your husband’s heart until it stops beating. Your sons will move far away. Your sister…”

As Mama chanted the ancient words the Book gifted her, my eyes closed and my limbs became like lead. Nell caught me before I hit the floor and lost consciousness.

The next morning while I was still eating my scrambled eggs, Nell put on her backpack and headed for the front door.

“Wait for your sister,” Mama said to Nell.

Without looking at me, Nell said, “Can’t. I have math extra help.” Before Mama could say another word, Nell ran out the front door.

Mama turned to me. “She’s scared.”

“Of what?”

Mama stared at me a moment before she added more eggs to my plate. “Of you.”

“I don’t know what happened.”

“I’m not sure myself. But only one more day and then, by the grace of God, you can renounce your gifts and things can return to normal.”

“If I renounce my gifts, does that mean I won’t be a able to see June anymore?”

“Yes.”

“But I love June. She’s my best friend.”

“You met her five days ago and she’s not a friend, she’s a creature taking the form of a friend.”

“That’s not true, Mama. If you would just meet her, you’d love her as much as I do. June wants to come into the house.”

“I’ll bet she does. Whatever you do, Fiona, do not invite her in. Stay away from her and stop listening to her lies.”

“They’re not lies,” I mumbled.

“They’re not the whole truth either, miss. They’re a twisted version of the truth. But you’ll do what you want. I can only pray that you make the right decision.” Mama sighed and then said, “Finish off your breakfast before you’re late to school.”

June wasn’t at the corner to meet me so I walked as quickly as I could with my head down past the transparent policeman and wailing Mrs. Maloney. When I left homeroom, June was waiting outside the classroom door. “You have a sub next period so you can skip class.”

“Why would I skip class?”

“Because I have someone special for you to meet.” Without waiting for me, June walked through the throng of students toward the steps down to the basement.  Her white blond ponytail shone like a beacon and despite the sudden pain in my head and my mother’s warning, I felt compelled to follow her.

When we reached the basement, I said, “You know we’re not supposed to be down here.”

June laughed as she walked towards the boiler room. “Oh, no, maybe I’ll get detention.”

Like a duckling following its mother, I too walked towards the boiler room. “Who are we meeting?”

June opened the heavy iron door and then turned to me, her eyes glowing red in the dim light. “You’ll find out soon enough, you stupid bitch.”

Before I could turn around and run, something lifted me into the air and flung me into the boiler room. I landed hard on the cold cement floor. I scooted along the cement like a crab until I was wedged in a corner. 

Trapped. I was trapped in that boiler room with June and an enormous man with glowing red eyes dressed in the tattered remnants of a school janitor’s uniform. His black hair was plastered in swirls around his enormous head while his tattooed arms bulged out of the torn sleeves of his shirt. The man looked at the open door to the boiler room and it instantly slammed shut.

June bowed her head. “Did I do well, Father?”

“Ah, yes, my love,” he growled in a voice that was not quite human. “Very well.”

“June,” I whimpered, “I want to go home.”

The man peered at me and I realized this was no man. Not even the ghost of a man. 

The voice of my Granny echoed in my ears. “It is the One. You have to get out of there.”

“Get her ready,” the man growled.

June lifted me up as if I were a bag of feathers and landed me with a thump on the wide bench beside the boiler. I was so frozen with fear that I did nothing to resist as she chained my feet to the side of bench and then held my arms above my head. As June touched me, images flew into my head:

June as a young girl, playing with an orange kitten.

June being pushed on a swing by her pretty blond mother.

June laughing with her friends at the lunch table, surrounding by smiling girls in ponytails and poodle skirts.

June walking through the school’s hallway, followed by the black-haired school janitor.

June spread out on the bench, the same as me, as the janitor tore her asunder, limb by limb. He laughed while her blood poured onto the cement floor.

“June,” I whispered. “Help me.”

My mother’s words rang in my ears: Spirits always want something from you. They may act like they are giving you something, but they will take from you a hundredfold anything they give you. They are hungry for your life source. They will want to control your gifts. Spirits always want something and are not to be trusted.

Why didn’t I listen to my mother? 

Second by second the man looked less like a man. His skin wore off in patches until he was a black swirling mass of power and pain, stench and rot. He had fully transformed, I somehow knew, into the One.

I knew then that I would die in this boiler room as June had. Would I spend my eternity walking the halls of this middle school with June, searching for prey to feed to the One? Would my parents ever find my body? Would Nell even miss me?

I hadn’t heard a single coherent word from my Granny in years yet it was her voice that shouted into my ear: “June was a girl. She was weak. But you, Fiona, are a strong, powerful witch. The strongest of us all. Get out of this room now before the One swallows you whole. Get out of this room, Fifi, and live!”

The One had expanded so that what remained of his head nearly touched the ceiling and his girth blocked the trickle of sunlight from the boiler room’s sole small window. I somehow knew that he would expand until his poison sucked all the oxygen from the room, until his poison entered my lungs. He wasn’t going to rip me apart like he had June. He was going to enter me, take my powers, use me.

“To kill,” my Granny shouted. “He’ll use you to kill girls like June, girls like your sister!”

His hot sour breath filled the room and scorched the skin on my cheeks. I closed my eyes and willed my power or whatever it was within me, to gather in the center of my chest. A red hot ball of pure energy coalesced in the center of my being. Growing, gathering, until every cell in my body hummed with golden energy. I willed the skin on my ankles to shoot out these golden rays, obliterating the iron shackles that bound me. I opened my eyes to find the One with his burning red eyes only inches from me. June’s weak ghostly hands were no match for me now. I held out my palms and pushed. Pushed against the weight of the One’s black power until the One instantly shrank in size, until he was no bigger that the diminutive June. With one strong burst of power, I flung June and the One into the corner. Without looking at them again, I leapt from the bench, flung open the heavy iron door and tore up the steps.

The halls were filled with students. I pushed my way through them to the front entrance. Nell shouted after me, “Fiona? Fiona, what happened?”

I ran down the front steps. I had to get home. I had to get home to Mama. I ran faster and faster until the houses and the cars were only a blur. Until my feet had somehow left the ground. Until I found myself above the houses hurtling towards my own backyard.

My mother was standing in our back garden, her mouth open as I flew towards her. She caught me in her open arms and we both tumbled to the ground.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I cried, “I renounce them, Mama. I renounce my gifts. Take them from me. Forever!”