Chapter 6 #2
I watched as her shoulders dropped before she twisted the knob and opened the door, her body welcoming me past the doorway of my room into the rest of the house. “You’ve been bedridden for too long. Come help us make dinner.”
She waved her hand, inadvertently wafting the smell of what Emily was stirring on the stove into the room. My nostrils flared. It smelled so good.
My knees buckled a bit. I wasn’t used to standing for so long—not since I’d been bedridden.
“Emily!” the woman called out. “Can you help our guest to the table? I’m going to have her trim the fat while she sits.”
Her daughter hurried over. “I’ve got you,” she whispered, grabbing me, her arm reaching across my back under my arm. “We’ll fill your stomach with more than moose broth tonight, okay? My mom’s a great cook. We’re having venison.”
I let the scent and Emily lead me out of the room and back into the small kitchen.
We passed the woman—Annabel, she told me—stirring the pot on the stove before Emily pulled out a chair, her support leaving me right before my body dropped into the seat.
With strength I did not have, she pushed my chair close to the table, my stomach flush with the edge.
Annabel quietly spoke to Emily before she nodded, grabbing a bowl from the fridge, a clean cutting board, and a knife. She set the cutting board in front of me along with the knife and bowl of what I could now see was raw meat—the venison.
“Can you trim off the excess fat?” she asked right before she turned around and made her way to the sink where she began washing dishes.
I stared at the knife. They’d once again given me, a stranger, a knife in their own home. I wasn’t going to use it for anything other than cutting meat like they’d asked, but that Emily’s mother also trusted me with such a deadly weapon made me further relax.
They trusted me not to hurt them.
They weren’t going to hurt me.
I was safe here.
Dumping the meat onto the cutting board, I got to work cutting off the fat.
Annabel came over to the table, clucking her tongue in approval before gathering everything and bringing it over to the counter.
I’d cut the meat thin and small enough that it would cook quickly in the broth Emily and I had made.
The exterior door next to the kitchen opened, revealing Luke, who walked in looking tired.
I hadn’t noticed the bags under his eyes or the dirt staining his off-white coveralls when we’d scared each other earlier.
He paused for a moment; his eyes locked with mine before I looked down at the scratched tabletop in front of me.
I watched the three of them, Annabel, Emily and Luke, work in tandem to put together the meal. While their mother finished cooking the soup, Emily pulled out bowls from an upper cabinet and Luke gathered the utensils from a drawer. They both walked around me as they set the table for dinner.
When the soup was done, Annabel brought the pot from the stove to the table, placing a woven potholder on the tabletop before setting down the steaming pot of what was now a stew. She took a seat next to me, between Luke and myself.
Emily set a glass of something purple in front of her mother before taking a seat beside me, filling the last empty seat. Some kind of drink?
The place settings looked worn but obviously cared for.
The glossy sheen of the bowl was scratched from the scrape of knives and forks.
A spoon and fork sat on either side of the plate, the silverware tarnished.
I kept my eyes on my bowl, my ankles crossed underneath me and my hands folded on top of my apron, trying to make myself small.
“Let’s thank the higher powers for the food and for bringing this girl—” Annabel paused.
My face warmed from the eyes staring at me, waiting for me to say something.
“Dafni,” I croaked, swallowing, trying to wet my throat.
“For bringing Dafni to us. May she continue to regain her strength to undertake whatever tasks await her.” Her eyes bore directly into mine when I lifted my head. A shiver traveled down my spine to the end of my tailbone. “Let’s eat!”
She stood, bending over the pot at the middle of the table, giving it a stir before reaching for each of our bowls and ladling heaping portions into them.
The steam from the stew traveled up to my nose, my nostrils twitching at the scent.
I waited until everyone had picked up their spoons before I picked up mine.
My hand shook ever so slightly as I dipped into the stew and brought it to my lips.
It was flavorful, with chunks of venison and spices.
I swallowed, quickly bringing another spoonful to my mouth.
My chest began warming as the food slid down into my stomach, and my hand became less shaky with every mouthful.
Spoonful after spoonful, I ate.
I put my hands around the warm bowl, lifting it to my lips to drink the last of the broth. I closed my eyes as I swallowed, savoring the last drops.
My eyes opened as I put the bowl back on the table. Everyone was staring at me. Emily sat frozen, holding her steaming spoon between her mouth and her bowl. Luke looked at me, his bowl still full and his spoon resting on the side. Annabel stared at me from across the table with a smile on her face.
“Would you like more, Dafni?”
I almost said yes, opening my mouth to speak.
Instead, a gas bubble I couldn’t stop scaled my throat and exited my open lips.
I slapped my hand over my mouth, eyes wide.
Emily dropped her spoon into her bowl, the metal clattering against the ceramic, a laugh escaping her.
Luke looked down at his stew, a smirk on his face.
“Now, now. There’s nothing embarrassing about a full stomach.” Annabel shushed her children before lifting a spoonful of stew into her mouth. She chewed, eyeing her children before she spoke again. “So, Dafni, Luke tells me you’re a witch.”
I froze. What had he told his mother? That I’d used my wind magic on him? Carried a frozen cat in a pail? But then I remembered she already knew about the cat. It was in her freezer. That hadn’t prevented her from helping me.
My mind raced. Maybe they were just nursing me back to health to use me and my magic.
Grandmother had told me stories about those without magic capturing a witch.
The story she’d liked to tell me was about a witch the humans trapped and kept in a cage in their kitchen.
I looked around—the surroundings looked so much like the story she’d told me.
They’d prodded her with hot pokers until she did whatever magic they’d asked of her.
The witch outlived her captors, still stuck in the cage as their bodies rotted around her.
I’d always asked Grandmother to tell it again, even as my eyes were heavy and sleep took over my body.
Little did I know, the story would become so familiar.
No, those were stories. Nothing about fairy tales were real.
What was real was that I didn’t have anywhere to go.
There wasn’t a handsome prince coming to save me—there was no one coming to save me.
I’d somehow ended up in a silver trailer with this family.
Maybe I was lucky. They’d nursed me back to health for a week.
They were feeding me and provided me with clean clothes.
They’d given me a knife…twice. What would be the point of all that if they were just going to kill me?
“You don’t have to share anything you don’t want to, Dafni.”
My eyes went back to Annabel. She knew who was in the freezer—it was understandable that she had questions and wanted answers.
“I’m a witch,” I whispered.
Annabel took a moment to chew another spoonful of stew, all while staring at me, studying me. She took her time looking at my nose, my eyes, my mouth. I looked down at my empty bowl, not knowing where to look.
“Luke tells me you have two powers,” she said.
Emily choked for a moment, coughing over her stew. Luke stared at me, awaiting my response.
“That’s rare in a witch, you know.”
I was rare? I’d only known two witches my entire life—my grandmother and my mother. Both women had more than one power. Like them, I had multiple: air and water.
“There was only one line known to produce witches with more than one power,” Annabel said. My throat expanded as I gulped down more air. “Matilda’s line.”
I pulled my eyes away from the table and settled them on my hands—they were shaking in my lap.
“You’re Matilda’s daughter, aren’t you?”
No one at the table breathed.
“I’m here to take her place in the Coven,” I said.
Luke choked on his food. “You can’t just show up and take over. There are too many customs…traditions… They’re super stri—”
“Witches don’t just walk into the Coven,” Annabel cut off Luke. “There’s a process. It’s extremely controlled.”
Luke cleared his throat. “To enter the Coven, you need to graduate from the Academy.”
The Academy? I’d heard that word before…
“What do you know about this…Academy?” I asked, looking at each of their faces for answers.
Both Luke and Emily looked to their mother, their lips closed.
“You already know Luke works there,” she began.
I nodded. That was what he’d told me when he’d found me.
“The Academy isn’t far away…in fact, we’re on their property now, above the soil instead of under it.”
I looked down at my feet, to the linoleum floor of the trailer. I’m already here? I looked up, my mind simmering with even more questions. “So you are part of…it…” I waved my hand in the air trying to find the right word.
“No, no…” she tutted, waving her own hand at me. “We live here under the protection of the Coven; we aren’t a part of it.”
“But if you’re under their prot—”
She clicked her tongue at me, the same way my grandmother had done to hush me. “That’s all I’m going to say about that.”
I bit my tongue between my teeth. I had so many questions, but I didn’t want to push my luck. They were giving me food and shelter—I’d just have to take whatever information they were willing to divulge.
“There are two ways to enter the Academy: parent presentation or scouting,” Luke began, glancing at his mother, who nodded at him to continue.
I let out a sigh of relief. It didn’t matter if they didn’t tell me about their situation; what I cared about was information about the Coven. I listened, ready to commit every word to memory.
“Witches can only enter the Academy once a year,” Luke continued, “during the freshening.”
“And since you don’t have witch parents to present you…” I couldn’t help but notice that Annabel’s eyes darted to the freezer as she paused before looking back at me. “You’ll have to wait for the scouts to gather this year’s group of human-born witches.”
“This year’s freshening happened last month,” Luke said. “They won’t do it again until next year.”
“That was only last month?” His mother grimaced as she took another sip of the purple liquid in her cup. “Time sure moves slowly around here.” She glanced at Luke before looking back at me. “That’s probably for the best. It’ll give her time to prepare.”
“Yeah,” Luke said. “She needs time if she thinks she’s going to enter the Academy…”
I watched them talk about me back and forth, trying to follow their conversation. I’d have to go to the Academy? But I needed to get to the Coven.
The Academy…I’d heard that before, only mentioned briefly in conversations between my mother and grandmother.
It sounded like a school—maybe that was where I needed to be.
Maybe that was where I could learn about this world I knew so little about.
My grandmother had trained me the best she could, but if the few days I spent in the woods alone had taught me anything, it was that I knew nothing of the world outside the cottage or the shifters’ packhouse. I needed to learn.
Annabel quieted, tilting her head, giving me a soft glance. “No one ever told you about the Academy?” It was like she could read my mind, like she knew me.
I shook my head. No one had ever told me anything directly.
“Witches have to go through the Academy to join the Coven. The process, as Luke said, is called freshening. When witches turn eighteen, their witch parents present them to the Academy for tutelage in their given magical ability.” She looked at Luke, who bowed his head, looking at his lap.
“Also during this time, the Coven’s scouts find those without magical parents—witches who might not even know they have powers.
Many of the witches with non-magical parents grow up seeming odd or delinquent in the human world.
When the scouts find them, they promise the human parents they’ll take them to a prestigious college preparatory academy for the summer.
They also promise a place of safety and acceptance.
Many parents of these children are relieved that there’s a place for their…
unusual children.” She looked at me, her eyes softening.
“I think you know the outside world mistreats people with magical abilities.”
My grandmother had told me countless stories about the outside world and their hatred of those of us with magic. It’d been the fuel for childhood nightmares.
I nodded, looking to my lap. “Yes, ma’am.”
My fingers fidgeted as I kept my eyes down, feeling everyone’s stares on the crown of my head.
I waited for someone to say something—anything to interrupt the silence in the trailer.
The refrigerator hummed, and the radio had been turned down for dinner.
But those sounds did nothing to break up the loud silence here in the trailer.
Slowly, I lifted my head, my eyes bouncing around the table before I realized that Luke and Emily were staring at their mother, who was staring at me, studying me.
The moment our eyes met, I swallowed a gasp, not wanting to show how intimidated I was by her. It felt like she was looking beyond my eyes—reading my thoughts, my memories. Staring into my soul.
We held eye contact for what felt like hours…but probably lasted only minutes.
When she looked away, I wilted in my chair as if I’d been released, as if she’d been holding me in an upright, locked position while she’d studied me. My upper arms hit the side of the table, my eyes still watching her…waiting for her to do or say something.
Annabel looked over at Emily, gazing at her for a moment before looking at Luke, taking the same amount of time to stare at him.
Nodding slightly, she turned to look back at me. “We’ll do our best to tell you everything you need to know about the Coven and the Academy in the coming year.”
“Does this mean she’s staying?” Luke asked.
“Yes,” Annabel said. “She’s staying until the next freshening.”