NaNoWriMo: Chapter One: So That Went Poorly

Road Trip: So That Went Badly

The Fool: The Beginning

“If we are witches why can’t we just fly there? Falcore is a little basic” Mel is not happy about what her mother assured her was an adventure. She does not see adventure in state after state rolling past her window in corn, plains, and flat long blue skies. To punish her mother she created a game of seeing how many states she can go without speaking. This is the first time she said anything since Idaho.

Her mother looks at her from under sunglasses, “She speaks. Even my tarot couldn’t have predicted it and don’t insult Falcore.” Her mother pats the peeling vinyl dash of the Subaru that outdated both of them. She waits for Mel to speak again. Eleanore’s knuckles turn pale on the wheel “I only know how to do so many things but the second you learn the flying thing, teach me.”

Mel finds a particularly fascinating piece of skin on her thumb. She swoops on it, an owl gnawing grasping the white skin under teeth until dots of blood bead around the flag of skin. “I still don’t think we should have had to move.” Her mother’s body becomes stiff with every bit of her energy focusing away from Mel's words and on to the road. “It was only a little thing and no one got hurt.” Tom’s face when he had stood back up a cocktail of yellow and purple knotting above his eye flickers behind hers. “Well, not permanently hurt. I could go to the other school.”

Her mother breaks eye contact from the road a sharp inhale of breath as the mask of calm but amused mother of a teen slips, “What school?” Her voice snakes and coils choking the words.

“The one my cousins go to.”

“Who did you hear this from? Was it Kitty? I knew we shouldn’t have gone to the funeral.”

“It was for your mother. The one I never got to meet. I know you said for good reason.”

“I was trying to protect you.”

“Since when? Besides it was a little fun seeing everyone. Did you know Kitty can make stuff move? She wouldn’t teach me.”

“She can’t teach you.”

“You could elaborate.”

“You have your own gifts.”

“Dead things aren’t a gift.”

“Everything is a gift if you hold it right.”

“That’s tools and weapons.”

“Same thing.”

“It’s really not. I bet the school could teach me how to move things.”

“That is not what the school does.”

“So it does exist. Kitty wasn’t just trying to tease me?” Her mother says nothing. Her breath is too controlled. Too deep. Too long. “Kitty says she got her ring, or she will get a ring.”

“Of course it was Kitty.” Eleanore did not have an overwhelming connection with her youngest niece. On the rare times they had gone to the regular family Sabbath’s and Equinoxes her mother had spent more time with Kitty’s twin sister Mary who tended towards shadowed soft corners with large books. “Why would Kitty assume it was her and not Mary that would go?”

“Like I would know. They barely talk to me.” Mel looks out the window exhaling her feelings as a fog on the pane watching the Kansas corn turn itself to chaos and back to order as her eyes focus and unfocus. “Besides Mary says she wouldn’t want to go anyways.”

“That school is not an option. Not for you. I will teach you everything you need to know. I’m sorry I’ve been so distracted. I should have taught you control better, then maybe the frog thing wouldn’t have happened.” Mel wanted to shout back that control was not the issue. The issue was the way Tom had begun to take the frogs body and make it dance. The way the frog’s belly was pale and soft and so easy to cut. The way its’ entire life had ended with a stupid boy making fun of its’ death that made her do it. Made her glad to do it. Strong to do it. “The house is a new start, for both of us. Besides it has been uncared for too long” Her mother squeezes her knee. A smile starts thin and uncertain dying quickly at Mel's expression. “We only have another state and a half for you to be silent in, make the most of it.”

Mel glares “I told you to stay out of my head.”

“Then don’t think so loud.” Her mother turns on the radio full blast and as usual her mother’s favorite song just happened to be playing. “After three states of sermons what are the chances?” Her mother’s voice carries out the window and over the fields. There is nothing left to do but read the book her mother had given her, The Grimoire for the Young and Respectable Lady Witch.

The house is perfect. Miles away from anyone and haunted, her mother promised. All sorts of ghosts all sorts of ages. Surely she would find some friends. Someone who might have been even more angry about being there than she was. Before they left, her mother gave her newspaper clippings of all the unsavory incidents that the house had been a stage for from kidnappings, drownings, and deaths that ran the range of suicides to murders. They were dead Mel felt dead inside, they already had so many things in common. Or so her mother assured her. A peace offering of sorts to convince Mel that leaving the only place she had known would be an upside. A “good thing”. Something that should have been done ages ago if only Eleanore had thought about it. A bright side as she was so very found of saying.

The house defied description. It was a backdrop, a prop, it was something that architecture and physics warred over into existence. Generations of magicians built wings, towers, and raised families of a disproportionate number of twin girls there.

Mel spills out of the Falcore, giving it a pat on the side of its’ door as a thanks for safety and  tries to accept the entirety of the structure that refuses to be seen in one glance.

“Can I have a pet?” Images of a house full. A zoo of creatures to slither under finger or perch on shoulder or curl warm on a lap made the massive space feel less gaping void.

“You don’t need to ask me.”

“Not a familiar, a pet. A regular cat who hunts mice, plays with string, meows.”

“Bastet hunts mice.” Bastet stretches and exits the car looking over the house with quiet feline approval.

“You know what I mean.” Bastet steps on Mel's foot staring directly into her eyes while licking her paws clean.

“How about a frog?” Eleanore smiles picking up Bastet and walking into the house.

“That’s not funny.”

“You’re right, it’s hilarious. Last one in has to make dinner. Boil boil toil and trouble.”

“We don't even have a cauldron anymore.”

“True, never enough space for it. We should get one here. Just for appearances sake.”

“Your a nerd.”

“A nerd who loves you.” Her mom wraps her arms around Mel who allows herself enjoy it for exactly five seconds.