Chapter 1
My eyes snap open, my heart pounding hard in my chest and my breath panting out in short, sharp bursts.
For a moment, I’m disorientated, not sure where or—more worryingly—who I am. The last vestiges of the dream fade from my mind. It had felt so real, but the more I try to remember, the more I find the details slipping further from my grasp until all I can recall are intense emotions.
Fear. Hopelessness. Impotent fury.
Despite the cold air of the room, my body feels clammy and uncomfortable.
Sweat has pooled in the hollow of my throat and along the length of my spine.
I try to draw in slow, measured breaths as my heart rate begins to settle.
Everything I’d felt only a moment ago is now also fading, and I can’t quite recall what had ripped me from my sleep.
There’s a brief flash of an image in my mind, gone as quickly as it appeared. A man’s face… there something was wrong with his mouth.
Drawing in a shaky breath, I reach up, relieved to find my hair is still there, although I’m not sure why it wouldn’t be. My wrists ache like they’ve been bound, and I look down, expecting to see them bruised.
What had I been dreaming about?
I’ve struggled with nightmares since I was a child.
They’ve always been the same. Dreams where I’m someone else, locked up in a terrible place, always cold and hungry and in pain.
But I can never quite recall the details.
The dreams have always been so vivid when I’m caught up in the grip of them, but they fade quickly after, leaving me with only faint memories and a vague sense of unease.
For the past few months, however, the aftermath has steadily been getting worse.
I’ve woken up with phantom pains, more exhausted than when I went to bed.
I know I should tell my dads, but…
I shake my head at the thought. I don’t want to burden them. They love me, they always have, but I’m equally sure that I really wasn’t what they had in mind when they adopted a kid. Sometimes I wonder if having me put them off adopting any more.
I’m a lot, I know I am. After all, I’ve never been normal.
Shaking off the morose thoughts, I push the tangled covers away from me and swing my legs over the side of the bed.
As I sit and stare into the darkness of the room, my alarm goes off, making me jolt.
Slapping the button to silence it, I suck in another shaky breath as I feel an insidious coil of anxiety try to claw its way up from the pit of my stomach.
It’s early and still dark outside, so I reach over and switch on the bedside lamp, flooding my room with a soft light.
Today is the day everything will change.
I don’t know yet if it’s a good or a bad thing, but I know it has to happen. I’m a grown man, and I can’t keep living in my parents’ house because I’m too afraid to face the world and find my place in it.
My gaze sweeps slowly across the neatly ordered space, my childhood room. It’s huge. After all, we live in a massive farmhouse in rural Devon, and it’s only ever been the three of us rattling around. Us and the dogs, of course.
The room itself hasn’t really changed all that much. Long gone is the Thomas the Tank Engine wallpaper and bedding, which admittedly, I may have been slightly obsessed with as a child, but everything else remains more or less the same, despite the renovations Dad and Pop indulged in over the years.
I have a double bed now instead of a single, and it’s covered in deep blue bedding the colour of the midnight sky and scattered with subtle stars and moons.
The walls are painted a silver grey that has a faint shimmer to it.
Between the large, heavy wardrobe and chest of drawers is my desk, the same one I used for my homework when Dad so patiently homeschooled me.
Now it’s piled high with documents, files, copies of birth and death certificates, and old newspaper clippings.
Why? Curiosity, I suppose. About my mother.
My dads have always been honest with me.
I knew she lived in London and was very young when she had me.
My dad had been on shift that night in the hospital and had been the one who delivered me rather than one of the midwives.
He and Pop ended up adopting me, and shortly after, Pop was offered a pub, aptly named The Water Witch, so we moved to Devon, with Dad taking a position as a local GP.
For the first few years, we lived in the apartment above the pub. Then it became clear that I had certain abilities that made being around too many people almost intolerable to me.
I’m an empath. A true empath. I don’t read people’s microexpressions or sympathise deeply with them. I feel everything. The wind, the earth beneath my feet, the rotation of the planet, and most overwhelming of all…feelings.
Every random person that crosses my path broadcasts every single emotion they experience—loudly and often aggressively, even if they don’t realise they’re doing it.
It’s like being hit in the face by a brick. It’s excruciating and exhausting. As a small child in constant proximity to people coming into the pub to celebrate or wallow in their misery over a pint, there were days my head felt like it was going to explode.
I’m lucky my dads figured it out quickly and moved us to this farmhouse, which is surrounded by acres of land they lease out to the farm next door for crops. Living here has been so peaceful for me.
I did try regular school. Once I reached the age of eleven, with the help of both of my dads, I’d managed to gain enough control of my empathic abilities to function around people. Pop decided I needed to be around kids my own age. To make friends. To be a normal, even though I was far from it.
I managed a couple of years, but making friends was hard for me, and as soon as we all started hitting puberty, I couldn’t deal with the onslaught of teenage emotions. That hadn’t been the only reason though.
When I started going through puberty myself, I started manifesting…other abilities.
As if being tuned into the emotional frequency of every passing stranger wasn’t bad enough, now I had a whole load of new problems to deal with.
I began to exhibit magical abilities my dads had never even heard of, let alone witnessed before.
And my dads are no strangers to magic. Dad is a second-generation witch, and Pop is seventh generation. But me, I’m something completely other.
They consulted covens, elders, solitary witches, and yet no one had ever heard of anyone who could manifest the kind of power I can with nothing more than a thought.
I chose to follow the path of the witch, to follow in my dads’ footsteps.
I love the craft, the traditions and ceremonies, but it’s never been necessary for me.
Most witches I know and have met through the years need the craft—they borrow the power they wield, and even then, there’s a certain level they can’t surpass, as if the stipulation of borrowing magic is that parental controls are set on it.
But for me, it’s always there, bubbling under my skin.
Restless.
Limitless.
I suppose that was the point at which I began to become curious about my biological parents. Did the abilities I have come from them?
I have no idea who my biological father is.
There’s no name on my birth certificate, and Dad said my mother never mentioned him.
She’d given birth in the hospital alone, in the dead of night, and was gone by morning.
Once I started looking into her family, I became fascinated, convinced the magic that runs through my veins comes from them.
My second alarm goes off, and I hit the button again to shut it off, then scrub my hands over my face. My bladder is now protesting vehemently, and I know I can’t sit here much longer. I look up as my bedroom door is nudged open and a cute, furry little face appears.
Seeing that I’m obviously awake, she shoves the door open further and scampers into my room, tail wagging and bum wiggling close to the floor as she dances in excitement.
“Morning, Demeter.” I stroke her gently. “Where’s Circe?”
She gives a cute little snuffle before grasping the leg of my pyjamas in her teeth and tugging. I stand, and she pulls me in the direction of the door.
“Demeter, let go. I need to use the bathroom,” I tell her in the firmest voice I can muster this early in the morning. But really, I should know better. There’s only one person she listens to, and that’s Pop.
She yanks on me again to get me moving.
“Okay, okay,” I protest as the small but cute menace continues to drag me along like I’m a stick. “I’m coming, you can let go.”
She doesn’t. I roll my eyes and try not to trip over her. She leads me downstairs to the kitchen where I’m hit with the mouthwatering scent of bacon.
“There you are.” Pop looks up from the pan and smiles. Demeter finally lets go and makes a beeline for her favourite person in the world. “What a good girl. You found Harrison, yes you did. Who’s my clever girl?”
I watch as he picks up a piece of bacon from a stack piled high on one of the three plates lined up on the counter.
“That better not be my plate.” My eyes narrow as he fusses over the spoiled cockapoo. “Did you get her to fetch me? I’m not a bloody tennis ball,” I mutter, and Pop grins at me.
“Obviously not, but I know you too well. You would have been up there brooding. Am I right?”
I sigh and then stare at him dryly. “I need to pee.”
Turning sharply, I head out of the kitchen and almost collide with Dad, who swerves expertly and dances out of my way.
“Whoa, where’s the fire?”
“Demeter wouldn’t let me use the bathroom before she dragged me to the kitchen so she could be rewarded with bacon, and my bladder is really not appreciating her devotion to fried pork products right now.”
“Message received. I’ll just get out of your way.” He laughs and heads into the kitchen to give Pop a kiss good morning.