Chapter 2

My fingers lace together as I wait patiently for my mother to come back over to where I sit on the couch. When she does enter the living room, a waft of Black Opium perfume gravitates to my awaiting form.

"Eris. You're ready to go?" She seems surprised that I had gotten up so early, though, I admit, my mind was ready to go to the library and my body was physically exhausted from the company we had over the night before.

Our Coven had stayed for dinner last night, and I had begun to feed a sinking feeling that they were all talking about me. I was turning seventeen; I had a year's worth of time, a small interlude, before I take the spot as the leader of my coven: The Sangre Coven.

I had been eating a piece of broccoli during dinner, and Noni had mentioned something about a boy, one single boy at the grocery store, and the entire table of old hags and men were pointing fingers and gasping. I would have to be matched sooner or later with a mate. Where I come from the family chooses suitable candidates for my heart and I get to pick and choose.

Everyone was asleep still; separated into the three guest rooms that each contained conjoining beds for our guests. This left time for my mother and I to escape the house for a moment and visit our local library.

Double-checking that I had my library card and a couple dollars worth of cash in my chocolate-stained cream-colored satchel, I sigh: "Ready."

We headed out the front door, locking it, and slipping into our modern blue farmer's truck. It wasn't anything special: a thin coat of old paint on a new body, slick and shiny with a little bit of a bust. With blunt ends and greased carvings, it was a spectacle of sorts.

We head down the road, my mother's hands gripped around the leathered black wheel of the truck, her knuckles morphing into a sickly white. Her sunglasses reflect the sunrise in the east: the direction toward the center of our town in Greyden, Nevada.

"You know, we have to start finding you a job." My mother splits the silence open: making the truck feel tighter than it already was.

I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from seething in a breath: to stop my body from mocking her unsatisfied tone. I swallow the pit, and turn to face the passenger window to my right. "Do you have any idea where I could work?"

"No." She replies disdainfully, "But I think we can get you an easy job here in town with minimum wage."

I'm a powerful witch and I still have to worry about work.

Thanks mom.

I roll my eyes, making sure my eyelids were shut, before opening my eyes and watching numerous cars pass by. My head rests on my gray seatbelt- making a nice pillow out of it. The weight of my eyelashes became immense as they drag my eyelids down over my solid green eyes. My brain was working to stay alert, but just one night with old people was enough for me to stay up all night.

Our family has problems when it comes to sleeping in the middle of the night. No, I don't mean to say that they fart every twenty minutes- though I would not be surprised...

"Eris. Get up. We're here." My mother doesn't bother to shake my arm to get me up and, instead, hops out of the car without any other thought: slamming the door in her wake.

Our town library was a large and old brick building with white pillars to hold the second story above. No graffiti had infected the walls of our hometown so it was always cleaned up pretty nicely. The glass doors hissed open automatically when we entered a range of three feet, lending us passage into the large building. As old and damaged as it looked from the outside- the inside was quiet and empty. The only thing that looked normal were the stacks and stacks of bookshelves divided into different categories: Fiction, Children, Teen Fiction, Nonfiction, Science Fiction, Romance, Dark Romance, and down toward the back of the library, next to the front counter, is a metal-barred door. This door was used back in the day for witches, such as us, to hide our belongings from humans (i.e. Books, vials, or even our children).

We approach Mrs. April, her head buried into a large romance book. Her lips were darker than I last remembered them to be, and her skin was the same mocha-chocolate shade. She was not black in skin, but her Hispanic tone was still dark which surprises me because she never goes outside the library walls.

We did not have to speak a word to her as she pokes her head around her little fingers. Her glasses hung around her neck by little chains, and her hair framed her heart-shaped face in black waves around her shoulders.

My mother clears her throat decisively and Mrs. April bobs her head up, peering up through the pages of her book.

"Eris, my beautiful girl, happy early birthday!" For a librarian who has been working in a library for roughly twenty years, she had the loudest voice: making her a naturally ironic person. "Are you ready to get this year's book?" The inquisitive strain on her face was forced, as if she was threatening some oncoming supernatural force. The expression leaves just as soon as it came, an both my mother and I were being led down to the 'cellar'.

The cellar is great for witches, it resisted most magic, like dark magic, and protects it's depths against violence and rage. It was our own personal witchy sanctuary.

I take in the room: tracing my hands over each shelf level. Up to eighteen different rows, each row of books was a level. The levels go by years of practice, and most babies start as soon as they are born. Generally, most witches are naturally gifted in one topic or another and they stay in their level of power. But I was a special case and I liked to dabble each year.

Levels of Magic:

1. Pyrokinesis - mastery over fire.

2. Aquakinesis - mastery over water.

3. Geokinesis - mastery over earth.

4. Aerokinesis - mastery over air.

5. Fulgurkinesis - mastery over lightning.

6. Telekinesis - ability to move objects with your mind.

7. Projection - ability to transmit images and feelings to the minds of other.

8. Therionology - ability to command animals. Practitioners are usually known as animal mages. Rare.

9. Harmonizing - ability to arrange one's environment to invoke a specific feeling or mood.

10. Elenchus - ability to distinguish lie from truth, also known as truthseeking. Extremely rare.

11. Enerkinesis - mastery over magic energy.

12. Summoning - ability to cause manifestation of creatures.

13. Animating - ability to impart life to inanimate objects.

14. Binding - ability to fuse or bind something found in the arcane realm to human host with purpose of giving the host new magic powers.

15. Rituals- the practice of group magic

16. Shapeshifting- ability to shift into an animal

17. Potions- ability to combine everyday foods and resources to powerful substances

18. Dream Conjuring- ability to create dreams into others, or take away/implant nightmares.

Not everyone can perfect every single level. The normal magic rate for a Witch/Wizard is to master two or three and continue to learn about them in school.

My mother sends me a pointed glare and a purposeful snort: "Get a Potion book." She was so controlling.

Mrs. April snaps, stopping us at the end of the level sixteen section: "Let her choose."

One more step on the stone ground would be right into level seventeen. Once I pass that line I can choose one book to take home. I don't listen to my mother as I step by April, right to a book made of gold, silver, crystal, and dragon scales. My feet, while traveling down the aisle, slapped against stone slabs, echoing down the long parallel shelves.

April doesn't follow me but she does look at all the other unique books surrounding us: "A potion book, is that what you want? Do you see anything else you would like to take back?"

Soon a smile eradicates the perplexed expression from my lips. I had spotted something else, but in thinking this April continues to keep my mother from chasing after me. My mother doesn't like to let me make my own decisions; it must have been hard for her to watch me go up to the shelf without consent.

I plucked it from the waves of books that surrounded it. I carried those books with pride, and much joy.

"I think I got what I need for this year." I said.

"Ok." April nods once.

My mother reaches for my left shoulder, hurrying me along to the front of the cellar gates. "Lets go pay."

Mrs. April Shakes her head behind us and a deep feeling that she was angry swelled around me. I second-guessed myself and figure that it must be some rat's emotions I was picking up on. April was a family friend; she would never project anger toward me or my mother.

It was just a rat.

But before we got home: I felt a presence. It was neither light nor dark, but a being who hovered and watched.

I was being monitored.