I woke and it felt like my tongue was swollen and dry. I cracked open my sore eyes and look around. I was not in my dorm anymore, I didn't recognize where. I was. I sat up and my head felt like it had an extra 10-pound weight tied to it. I flopped back down into the pillows and fragrance wafted up from the pillows. Lavender for sure, another scent that seemed familiar but I could not place. I rolled my head to the side and saw a glass of water sitting there. I reached out and was horrified to find that my hand was shaking. I very carefully pulled myself to the edge of the large bed I was in and tried once more to reach the glass of water. It had to of been put there within the last 3 minutes because it was still cold, the condensation on the outside of the glass had not begun to drip yet. Which meant I was not alone in this house. I looked around again this place didn't even seem familiar to me. The door swung open and my attention was diverted momentarily from the glass of water. Uncle Ben walked into the room and I felt my anxiety relax.
"Uncle Ben..." He smiled calmly at me, but there was something different about him. Something I could put my finger on, but he wasn't outgoing excited. We hadn't seen each other in over a year. I was so focused on my studies that I never went home for the holidays and he never came up to visit because of work. He stood at the end of the bed with his hand on the wireframe of the footboard.
"Hey Champ, feeling better?" I nodded and sat up pulling myself back to rest sitting up on the mound of pillows behind me.
"Yes. What happened? Why didn't you take me to a hospital?" He smiled knowingly at me and I waited for a response.
"Because they would have been able to help you. In all seriousness, they probably would have made it worse or killed you, to be honest. Humans are not the sharpest tools in the shed." My brain went on high alert.
"Excuse me," I chuckled nervously. I wanted to think that fever damaged my eardrum.
"Did you just say, humans? Like we aren't included in the mix?" He nodded.
"I wasn't sure about you until you called me last week..." Last week!! I was asleep for a week?
"A week? That's how long I was out?"
"That's how long we had to keep you under, we had a hell of a hard time getting your body under control, even Amanda struggled to control your power."
"Power? Please I don't understand. Uncle Ben—" He sighed and grabbed a chair from the corner of the room.
"Okay, let's start from the beginning...the very beginning. Just bear with me okay?" He drug the chair over next to the bed. Close enough that I wouldn't be able to get up and run out of the room without him grabbing me. But far enough away that I didn't feel crowded or threatened.
"When your mother dropped you off with me, it wasn't because I was her brother. Which I am in a way, but not by blood. I was a part of her coven, she was the most powerful witch I had ever met until she decided to elope with some man she had met. She never told me who it was, and the information was never recorded on your birth certificate, her life rapidly went downhill after she left. The Board had stripped her of her powers. Afraid that with them she would be able to expose us to the humans." I held up a hand and I felt my heart rate double. Coven? Witch? I mean, all things considered, my mother was a little eccentric, but I wouldn't have gone as far as saying she had magical abilities.
"Stripped her? Why did she drop me off then?" He looked a little guilty and rubbed his hands on his pants.
"Because we forced her too." Simply put, but it was still a shock. My mother didn't give me up she was forced. Some part of that made me feel better about the lack of relationship I had with her.
"Forced her?" He shrugged and kept eye contact with me.
"Yes and no. As soon as you display signs of having any kind of significant power she came to me. Gillian was many things, a teacher she was not. She wasn't in a place to be able to teach you how to handle your abilities. She was able to bind them inside of you, which is why it took so long for them to flare back to life. In all honestly, we were not sure that they would,"
"I thought my mother was a drug addict." I looked at him and wanted him to at least confirm this fact.
"The woman you met several times was a paid actor. We had to be able to break your bond with her, we were hoping that would release any kind of spell she had put on you." I felt my entire world crumble at my feet, and I tried to mentally process everything. And as I felt my emotions stir out of control things started to vibrate in the room. The glass of water rattled and the windows began to shake.
"Easy Evie...relax. It is okay, you are not in any kind of danger. You know that! I would never hurt you." My eyes turned up to his.
"No, just lie to me my entire life." I looked at him and he flinched and hurt entered his eyes. I don't think at this moment I cared anymore.
"Please leave. I want to be alone." He stood from the chair nodding his head.
"Okay. I understand take as much time as you need, I would like you to meet the coven when you are ready...they have been asking about you for a long time."
I laid in that bed my mind swirling in circles. Witches...power...coven...my uncle has lost his mind. But at the same time saying it to myself explained so much. It felt right to think of myself as something more than just regular. It clicked somewhere deep inside me. I sat up in bed and pushed the blankets back. Restless energy filled my limbs, I needed to pace. I moved my legs off the bed and walked to the door, I tried to turn the knob but the door was locked. I frowned thinking maybe I had done it by accident, pushed when I turned the knob, but upon closer inspection the doorknob was facing backward. I was locked in. My uncle had locked me in the room! Like he expected me to run away. I pulled on the door hoping maybe it wasn't latched the whole way, but it was. I looked around hoping they had at least thought to put in me I a room that was connected to a bathroom. I walked around the corner and there was a closed door. I had a 50/50 shot. It was either a closet or a bathroom. I pulled the door open and sigh with relief. Bathroom. I took care of my business and saw fresh towels and my clothes were set out. Witches....I guess. I got a shower and as I was drying my hair after getting dressed I felt a tremor from outside. I pulled on my shoes and the bathroom door flew open. I flinched away and the door shut. I looked at the man in front of me, I had never seen him a day in my life. He looked up at me his green eyes blazed and he looked startled to find me there. He reached out to me, and I flinched backward.
"I don't have a lot of time before they pull me out. I know you don't know me, but I have spent my life looking for you, learning your face, voice...Evelyn come with me I can take you to your mother...real mother. She has been looking for you since they had taken you..." He held a hand out and I looked at him and then to the door behind him. There was no way I would be able to get around him into the bedroom. I heard my uncle come up against the door, and then it sounded like a lot of shouting. The mystery man made quick motions with his hands, and a beautiful pale blue seal came over the door.
"I won't harm you...I promise."
"Don't go with him Evelyn he is working with dark Magicians, please. I may have kept things from you, but I was just protecting you." I looked at the door and then to the man in front of me.
"How do you know my name?" He gave me a half-smile and held his hand out a little closer to me.
"I am a part of your mother's coven, we have been looking for you. Please, Evelyn, I have very little time left, you have to make a decision." My uncle pounded on the door and the blue lining began to crack. I lifted my hand and hesitated. Uncle Ben lied to me, kept things from me. The woman I thought was my mother was not, I had no idea what she was really like. If she had really wanted me in the first place. How could I really believe what he said?
"She is dying to meet you, Evelyn..." I reached out and he took my hand pulling me into his arms.
"Hold tight, and take a deep breath." I wrapped my arms around his waist and squeezed my eyes shut taking a breath. His arm wrapped around my waist pulling me tighter to him. A large pop sounded in my ears and my feet slammed onto the ground, I stumbled but he didn't let me fall. I released my hold on him, and he kept a hand at my elbow to steady me.
"Thank you, Evelyn, we weren't sure you would come. But we had to try."
"What is your name?" He gave me another half-smile.
"Greyson, but most people call me Grey." I looked around taking in my surroundings. We were standing in front of a large forest, he turned to walk into the trees.
"Come on, we have been waiting for you." I followed a few steps behind him and once inside the trees I felt a calmness settle around my raging emotions and I looked a little closer at the trees. We weren't in Western Arizona anymore. There were no trees like this there.
"Where are we?"
"We are in Northern Montana, close to the Canadian border." I felt the shock filter through my system. Magic I would assume is how we got here. He led me on a walkabout 3 minutes in and I saw the clearing open up to cute houses. We stopped on the hill, and there was a crowd of people waiting.
"Grey..." He looked back at me, seeming to pick up on my anxiety and unease. He reached back and touched my shoulder.
"It's okay, they are harmless I promise." As we got closer to the group, I saw a woman standing separated slightly in the front. Grey stopped a few feet away and her eyes were glued to my face, tears shimmered in her blue eyes that seemed so familiar. Because they looked like mine, the same shape, and hue. I took a step forward and she put a hand over her mouth to cover a sob.
"Mom?" She nodded and opened her arms to me. I took another hesitant step towards her and a week of not eating, stress, and fear caught up to me. And my brain folded in.
I groaned and my hand came up to my forehead which was covered by a cold rag. I opened my eyes and my mother sat on the edge of the bed I was lying in. I look at her and she was smoothing my hair back from my forehead.
"Evelyn..."
"I want the truth. Please." I looked at her and she nodded at me.
"Okay, please eat while I tell you..." She reached for a tray that sat on the table next to my bed. And sat it on my lap. Grilled cheese and tomato soup, my favorite. I looked at up at her and she smiled sadly at me.
"Ben let me watch, from a distance of course. I was never allowed to contact you. But he would send me pictures every year...I never wanted to give you up Evelyn. The Board forced me, they took from me the one thing I had to protect you...it was a dark night in March, we were sitting down to eat dinner. Me, you and your father. You were about 3 at the time, playing with your father at the table, and they burst in from the front door...wolves sent to hunt us down...your father fought for us..." A tear slipped down her cheek, and she reached forward to touch my hand.
"I can show you if you would like..." She waited for me to accept her invitation. To be able to see her memories,..magic.
"Okay." She touched a single finger to my temple and it was like a movie playing in front of my eyes.
The house was warm, my father smiled at me and tickled me while I ran around the table. My mother called to us from the kitchen to settle down, dinner was almost done. He scooped me up and I squealed with laughter. He pressed a kiss to my mother's cheek as she started to set the table. Placing me in the high chair between the two of them, strapping me in. Serving out the food he started with my mother then sat my own plate down in front of me, and then served himself food. We sat together, forgoing a fork I ate with my hands, my hair is strawberry blonde ringlets and my cheek red from running around the house. I looked between them and the bang came from the front of the house, and they are moving before I could even lookup.
"Andy..." My mother pulled me from the high chair and I stared at the large beasts that started in from the living room. Too scared to make a peep, I clung to my mother. I saw my father's form shift and bones cracking as he too turned into a large wolf, red-brown fur covered his large body. He stood between us and the other animals.
"Andrew and Gillian Hardy, you have both been found guilty of the crimes against the Board. Hand over the innocent and prepare to face judgment." My mother clung to me like a lifeline. My father backed us into a bedroom, and my mother slammed the door. Peach colored magic rose from the floor securing the door much like how I saw Grey do earlier. My father had turned back into a man, and he hugged my mother tightly, and the turned towards me. He stared at my face for a good long minute, and then hugged me as well.
"Daddy loves you, Buggy. Never forget that. Daddy loves you." He pulled back and my mother sobbed he touched her cheek, and she kissed him and he squeezed her tightly.
"Leave Gillian...take Evie and disappear...take her somewhere safe...somewhere the Board won't be able to touch her. She is special." He moved towards the door changing again from a man to a wolf.
The vision jumped forward to Ben's front porch. And he looked like he had been woken from a deep sleep.
"Gill?"
"Ben thank god. Please take her, she needs protection. I bound her magic before leaving the house. She will be useless to the Board, but she still needs love, Ben." She handed him my sleeping form and he looked from her then to me, and there were two men walking up the sidewalk behind her. She turned and the peach magic flared to life in her hands, and they stopped approaching.
"Leave my daughter alone!" Her voice boomed and then they attacked her dragging her from the porch and she fought them struggled against him as Ben hugged me to his chest.
The place changed again she was chained to the floor the iron shackles rubbed against her wrists.
And I blinked trying to clear the tears that fell from my eyes. She didn't drop me off because she wanted to leave me, she did it to protect me.
"I loved you more than life itself, so did your father. They just didn't believe supernaturals can get along that being together creates in their eyes abominations...but you were and still are the most beautiful thing to ever happen to me or your father."
"Did they kill him?" She shuddered breath and shook her head.
"No, they didn't. They took him to what I guess would be equivalent to jail in some sense. They took his humanity and locked it away. He could no longer change back into man, I haven't been able to locate him since that night, but that is the punishment for the crime. And my punishment was the removal of my powers. Which they took almost everything I had, left me just enough to live if a witch is drained of every drop of power in her it kills her. It would be the equivalent to draining someone of all their blood." I felt anger rise up in my gut.
"Why did Uncle Ben not let me come back to you after?" She smiled sadly at me and traced my cheek.
"I came to you, and he refused me. He told me that you were safer where he could protect you physically and magically. Also that I was unfit in the eyes of the Board now that they had taken my power from me and that I could have been a danger to you. Try to siphon off your power to make it my own." She spoke the words as if they were dirty and she loathed to even think them left alone say them.
"I think that the Board got to him...they paid him somehow gave him something he longed for...to keep me from you and with no real power of my own I could do nothing. I bound your power tight enough that even the Board could not undo it. Which might have saved you from a lifetime of pain and misery, I am thankful for that. But at the same time, your power grew unchecked and untrained under the blanket I had put on it. I tried to get to you again through a different means...but obviously those attempts were also ineffective. I wanted to help you before the dam inside you burst as it did in your dorm room, but they kept you on a tight leash."
"You came back for me." She smiled and moved the tray off my lap.
"Of course I did. I have never stopped trying to come for you. The only reason I sent Grey instead of coming for you myself was because I am no match for your Uncle. But Grey....he is powerful. A good boy, but powerful. He volunteered after hearing about you for so long I think he was just curious about you." She sighed and looks to the window.
"Are you tired?" I shook my head, after all of that I don't think I could sleep, be honest.
"I have so many questions...Uncle said that I was powerful...that you gave me up because you would not be able to train me..." She threw her head back and laughed.
"You are powerful, showed signs of it from in the womb, to be honest. And there is a lot of me in you, but you inherited your powers from our ancestors. It was extremely hard to manage when I did have my power, but even after I still wanted you and I knew you wanted him. He allowed me to watch which was was the cruelest torture he could have created to watch you struggle and grow but be unable to help you or hold you when you cried. To try and help you when you were sick...but yes dearest, you are more powerful than even your Uncle knows. And that is why I fear the Board won't be far behind Grey. Once your Uncle alerts them that you have been taken they will come for you, I just pray we have enough time to train you to defend yourself."
"I want to find my father..." Her eyes shined with unshed tears.
"Oh sweetie...even if we did find him I don't think..."I shook my head and I felt my anger rise.
"If they took it from him there has to be a way to give it back." She ran a hand down my cheek.
"There is so much you don't understand about magic...it's give and take. There is nothing done without giving something in return." I frowned, that didn't seem fair. How was I to use my awesome powers if it meant harming myself...I looked out the window.
"I want to try." She sighed.
"We will teach you what we can...and what we can't...we will figure out on the way. Come...we have just enough daylight left to take a small tour of our grounds."