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“You don’t? Grace’s father told me he heard from her that you’re dating someone when I saw him at the rec center. Would have been nice to hear that from you instead of that gossip.” She sighs and takes a sip of her water.
“I don’t have a boyfriend. I was seeing someone but it didn’t last long enough to be serious enough to tell you.” I almost stumble over the lie. I did think it was serious. I was just too scared to tell anyone other than my closest friends because I thought it would jinx things. Turns out, I screwed stuff up even without spreading the word.
“Oh, I’m sorry you broke up.” Mom’s face softens with concern, forgetting any hurt that she felt over me not telling her about Max. “Is that why you’re here?”
“No. I…” Here’s where she tells me that I’ve lost my mind after spending too many years living alone and acting like a hermit. “I had a dream.”
A hint of alarm flashes across her face, barely there long enough for me to notice if I wasn’t paying close attention. “A dream?”
“Yes. At least I think that’s what it was. It seemed more like a memory, though. We were eating dinner with Grandma. Omar was still a toddler, and I must have only been 5 or 6 months old. You got into a fight, she said some really weird things, and then she left. Did that happen? Or was it just a strange dream?”
Mom’s eyes blow wide, and I don’t miss the slight tremble of her hand as she sets down her water. She doesn’t answer my question, but asks one of her own. “What did she say?”
“That she wanted you to come back to something. That she and Grandpa would teach me and Omar if you wouldn’t. That…that you were wrong about Dad’s death.”
Her freckled pink skin goes deathly pale like she’s seen a ghost.
“Mom, why did you say that magic was what killed Dad?”
Thick tears well in her eyes as she looks at me, stunned speechless. I wait for her to say something. And wait. The tears slide down her face and her breathing comes in gasping inhales. “I prayed you wouldn’t be like me. I thought that maybe you took after your father. That you were safe from that world.”
I reach out a hand to grab hers. “I know about magic. I know that monsters are real. Please just tell me what’s going on.”
The shocked look in her eyes confirms that she knows about that world too. She knows about paranormals because she’s one of them.
“Angel, how? How do you know? I tried to keep you and your brother safe.”
“The man I dated…” God, it hurts to say it in past tense. “He’s a witch. Well, part-witch, part-succubus. He didn’t tell me at first, but things happened that made it necessary to reveal his nature. Are you a witch, mom?”
She takes a shaky breath in and nods. “I was. I guess I can’t ever really stop being a witch, but I don’t practice magic anymore. Not after…not after your father’s accident.”
“Why? What happened? Why don't you use magic? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Mom’s chair scrapes against the linoleum and she stands, moving to the fridge.
“Where are you going? Mom, please.”
“We can’t have this conversation on an empty stomach.” She pulls out a glass pan covered in cling film, grabs two forks from the utensil drawer, and plops the dish on the table.
I look past the clear wrapping to see a partially-eaten chocolate sheet cake with peanut butter frosting. She rips the plastic off and passes me a fork. “Leftover from when I had the Gregsons over on Monday,” she explains, even though I didn’t ask. Like I’d judge her for keeping cake in the house.
I raise an eyebrow at her, almost as surprised at her wanting to eat from the pan as I am about finding out she’s a witch. Momnevereats anything without putting it onto a plate so she can make sure to eat a “sensible” portion.
She ignores me and digs in, shoving a huge chunk of the cake in her mouth. I follow suit and we eat cake silently for a few minutes before she finally sighs and sets her fork down. “Okay. Guess I’ve got a lot to explain, so I better get started.”
I nod and wait, watching her face as she goes to start speaking a few times but stops before the words come out. Finally, she exhales and begins. “The dream you had…that’s what happened that night with your Grandma. It’s not a memory though, it’s a sign of your innate magic.Ourinnate magic. You come from a line of witches who work through dream magic—we’re called somnari. It shows us visions of the past and premonitions of things to come. But it usually takes intention to manifest magic in dreams like that. I’d hoped that you and your brother hadn’t inherited that magic from me—it doesn’t always get passed down when both parents aren’t paranormal. I even put a warding charm on you both to keep anyone from detecting your magical lineage, just in case. That was the last spell I cast.”
“So Dad wasn’t…”
“Your father was a human. Though he knew what I was. He loved the idea of having a host of magical children. Teased me that with his good looks combined with my magic, our kids would be unstoppable.” She gets lost in the memory for a moment, her fondness tinged with ever-present grief.
Her voice gets softer, like the coming words are harder for her to let out into the world. “He trusted my magic. Loved hearing about the visions I had while dreaming. They all showed us happy together. They showed me you and Omar before you were even born. But dream portents aren’t set in stone and…I didn’t see what would happen to him. I was too blinded by my love and hope, and overconfident in my abilities. I didn’t look for danger, didn’t—” Her voice breaks and she looks away, unable to continue as emotion clogs her throat.
She’s kept this pain with her for almost thirty years. The guilt of knowing that she could have seen his death before it happened. Thinking that she could have prevented it. The weight of her shame hangs heavy in the air, and I grasp onto her hand tightly across the table. “Mama, it wasn’t your fault.”
“It was,” she says ruefully. “Not because I didn’t have a vision of his accident. But because I believed in the good of magic. I blinded myself to the darkness it brings.”
“I don’t understand. What darkness?”
