Timothy

I watched out the train window. I would soon arrive to Dale. It didn't seem to be raining.

I didn't really think he would kill me.

I bent to move the laptop from the table and put it back into my backpack.

It wasn't that Blizzard couldn't, I had actually seen him kill a human being. But to my knowledge he had no reason to do so. In that respect many a vampire resembled a wild animal, a cat maybe. It wouldn't attack, unless clearly provoked.

And I really didn't think I could provoke Blizzard even close to a point where my life would be in any danger. No, I would walk out the dojo on Tuesday with my own feet.

But would I walk out with my own free will? Now that was a bit more complex a question.

I pondered this as I stepped onto the platform and started my way to my parents' house. It was a Sunday morning. Twelve. My family would be at the the only church in town. As Atlantis wasn't really a Christian country, the Christian temples were few and far between. The oldest one was here in Dale and I more than suspected it was the reason for why my parents had wanted to settle here, intead of in the capital where they already owned a house.

My father wasn't really that religious. But my sister and mother were. And usually he felt like accompanying them. I didn't really get along with my mother, Sage. She had some clear ideas of what kind of a relationship a person should have with the divine. And I had disagreed since I was thirteen, old enough to actually miss any divine presence in my life.

"I think there are three types of people in this life," Blizzard said.

I looked up at the huge vampire. The night was late. Grass had gathered a layer of white frost that glistened under street lamps as we walked. My breath misted in pale clouds.

"There are people that have found a divine path to suit them, people that are preoccupied by other things... And then there are the lost ones, the ones that still hunger for something they have never experienced."

The memory stopped me in my tracks. And for the first time in over a year, I let myself feel the bang of loss. Blizzard had been... He hadn't been really like a father or a friend either. Maybe more like a big brother I respected greatly but with whom I could talk. Someone that had had time for just me.

I had met him at the start of high-school, when my father had temporarily moved to France for his work and the big house had been left for just Mimosa and me. I had been forced to learn to cook then.

At first Blizzard had seemed divine. Beautiful, powerful, and gentle beyond my comprehension. He had been substituting a teacher for an optional taiji course in the evening. The intended teacher had simply broken a leg in a less than graceful fall in the slippery time of winter.

I had taken the course for some extra credits, accompanied by three other students and a curious janitor.

Only later I had met Mo, the tribe leader of Breasinghae vampires. And that encounter had put Blizzard to perspective, immortal perspective. And Mo still came the closest I had ever been to anything I would classify as a god.

I furrowed my brow in thought and stopped to admire the autumn coloring by the river banks I was walking. Some leaves dropped to the water and were swallowed under the surface by the strong current.

I had met a man, an alchemist that could make a new body to one that had been without. Wasn't that now scarily close to creating life?

Before long I arrived to a nice neighborhood of wooden houses with big yards that were separated by green fences. I found the one I was looking for, with its two stories and gray green paint. I had done my share in repainting the house over the summer. My house in Breasinghae was of white tile. The wooden façade of my parents' current home needed much more frequent care. Fortunately wood was easy enough to paint. I wouldn't have known what to do if the mortar started falling at home.

I could see their car wasn't there. I didn't have a key, so for lack of a better plan, I left my bag onto the porch steps and took a rake that had been left by a small greenhouse.

Fallen leaves, small branches and even a cone or two from the neighbor's pine. I looked up the pine disapprovingly. Not one evergreen on this side of the fence, but the cones didn't really mind the human made boundaries.

I worked in high mood. Feeling I was leaving a small unexpected gift for my parents to find.

I took yet another rake full of moist leaves and sticks and pressed my bare hand to hold the load. I wasn't exactly sure anymore where I had left the gloves I had been wearing earlier.

"Why didn't you knock?"

I startled at the unexpected voice, leaves falling where I stood.

On the porch a young woman stood peering from the open front door. She was wearing an apron and a messy brown bun now apparently in fashion.

"Oh, hi, Mimosa! I didn't think anyone was home."

I tried gathering my load from the lawn.

"Just leave it. Mother kind of thought to do that in the spring anyway."

I ignored her and carried my cargo all the way to the compost box. I also made a show of ensuring the rake rested absolutely vertically against the greenhouse. When I went to the porch, Mimosa wasn't waiting for me anymore. Instead, as I entered, I was greeted by the delicious smell of freshly baked bread.

I tracked the smell to the kitchen where Mimosa was taking off her apron. A bread shaped form had been covered with a clean cloth. It looked and smelled delicious.

"How come you are here as well?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I don't live that far really. And when I heard my seldom seen dear little brother might come by today, I decided to make the hike. Also, I was promised a free meal."

"I get it. Free meals are the best."

I hugged her. And was surprised when she returned it bone crushingly tightly.

"What is it?" I asked as we finally parted.

"Are you going to disappear again?" She asked.

"What!?" I was taken aback. "What do you mean?"

How could she know?!

"Are you?" She insisted.

I looked at the hidden bread with longing. She stood in front of me blocking my access to the loaf.

My gaze drifted back to hers. Mimosa had raised an eyebrow.

"Why do you ask?" I countered the question.

"Because I have had a vision." She declared this as if it were the most natural of things. "I had one before you went last time. I ignored it the last time, but I saw the same dream again two nights ago, and now you just decided to visit mum and dad. So, are you going to disappear?"

"At least I am not planning to," I answered her lightly. "And you do know where I live, makes it hard to avoid people forever."

I circled around her and took a bread knife from a drawer.

"I lived with you the last time. I hardly saw you for a year, and not at all once I moved out the house. I don't think it helps that I know your official postal code."

I uncovered a beautiful almost steaming loaf of bread.

"Pass the butter, will you?" I asked her.

Mimosa snorted. But opened the fridge behind my back and in a moment I got what I had asked for. The butter melted onto my bread slices. I made a few for Mimosa as well. We sat around a simple wooden table by the kitchen window.

For a moment we sat in silence, but then I was won over by curiosity and had to ask, even against my better judgment:

"I am curious, what kind of a vision did you experience?"

I had never in my life experienced anything called a vison. And I wasn't sure I believed in their existance. But I had seen my fare share of magical things, so why couldn't there, in theory, be some kind of Christian magic as well? Taking the form of visions, for example. I was sure Mimosa wouldn't appreciate my interpretation of her God-sent visions as a type of foreing magic. But this reasoning made me openmined to hear her out.

"Well. Three years ago, I saw you walking into a dark house. You stopped on the door and looked at me. I made to follow you, but His voice told me to stop. So I let you go."

She took a bite of the bread. I followed suit. And wondered if there was anything quite as delicious as a warm slice of freshly baked bread. Such a cliché. Yet to my experience clichés weren't made out of thin air.

"And you went and disappeared for real," she said. Then she paused. Looked past me.

When she spoke again, she spoke carefully, choosing her words: "But Friday night then I was standing near that same house again. And in this dream His angel was there with me. You weren't there, there was just the house. And by the front door stood a man I didn't recognize out right. He just stood there. And the Angel told me the time was out, that the illusion was lifted. And I needed to walk away and accept my brother never came back, that I never truly even had a brother."

I felt my hackle rising.

"That I never came back..."

"Yes," Mimosa said evenly. "That's how He phrased it."

"And the man, the one I didn't recognize." She continued. "He seemed like an omen. And I had a name in mind when I woke up. Have you ever heard of Alfonso el Compostelano?"

The name rang some bells. I knew I had heard the name before, but couldn't place it.

"Also known as Alfonso Moura," Mimosa continued. "She was a merchant's daughter in Spain who made a pact with the devil to appear as a man and thus inherited her family estate at the final stretches of the 15th century."

"Mmm... But if she.. Or he was a Spanish witch, then how come I have heard of them?" I asked. I rose to see if the fridge hosted some cheese.

"Well. It is thought she escaped the Inquisition to Atlantis."

"Still no idea why I would have heard of the fellow," I said.

In the fridge there was a beautiful golden piece of cheese. I brought it to the table. My memory was tugging at something.

"No, but, yes... Of course." I finally remembered some little pieces from grade school history "The myth of a witch, a man, who protected Atlantis from both the Spanish and English Crowns for a full century or so, a nobleman of Spanish origin. Alfonso el Compostelano. Or indeed Mister Moura. The myth tells of a woman or, more often, of a man, white as a ghost, a magician with no rivals, who single handed turned the winds so the war fleets always crashed."

"The man in my vision was like that, fair haired. And somehow androgynous despite his long white beard, exactly like he is depicted in paintings." Mimosa took some of the cheese I had brought.

"Interesting," I said. Then I shook my head. "Though I hardly have any connection to witches..." I was half muttering to myself and realized my error too late.

"Hardly any." Mimosa's voice had gone cold.

I opened my mouth to defend my only witch related friend, Clover, when we heard the car.

"Hardly any." She repeated, rising from the table.

There were so many things I wanted to say. Starting from the fact that she knew none, and would never learn if they were decent people or not. Or even whether they existed in the first place. Because she was biased. She couldn't even remember if she had ever seen one. I also wanted to point out that I was humoring her, taking her visions for real, which not many did. I was listening to her. But she would never listen to what I had to say. Just because she thought her interpretation of an old collection of stories, also called the Bible, was right and out right gave her the high ground.

For a moment I felt furious for her high attitude. As if just admitting I might have crossed words with a witch, I was committing some high sin. Not to even speak of the sins of the witches, whose power wasn't from the God.

It was my anger that made me take some slow breaths. I arranged a smile on my face as my parents came in.

I hugged my mother out of duty. And my father with somewhat easier affection. He was a tall man, with a gray ponytail.

"Little one," He greeted me. And I smiled at the name. I wasn't exactly sure how it had happened that dad called us the little one and the tiny one, or why I was only little and my older sister tiny. We had tried to rid ourselves of such appellations for at least a full decade. But after I had come back from my obscure adventures, I admitted to myself I was fond of the belittling name.

I felt a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.

Until Sage had to ask: "How are you? How are the studies going?" And what she really wanted to ask: "Got your career plans together yet?"

My insides found the embers of the flame that neutral dad had for a moment quenched with his mere cool presence. I really had a problem with my mother. I knew she meant well asking after me, but it didn't help.

"Not yet, no. I still don't know what I am going to do. Let me finish even the bachelor's level first."

"And when will that be?"

I sighed internally, still maintaining a smile.

"I am not sure yet. I only get a few credits done at a time. Probably it will still take at least two years."

"I don't understand? Why does it take so long? Mimosa only went for four years?"

I took a breath, searching for a short answer. This conversation had gone awry in a dozen different ways before. I wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible, with as little injuries as I possibly could. Long explanations never worked.

I found out I was at an absolute loss for words.

"I'll get the sheets," was what came out my mouth. I walked past them upstairs.

No one came to disturb me as I made my bed in the guestroom. I lingered at the task longer than strictly necessary.

I descended carefully back downstairs. I stopped just by the stairs in the downstairs corridor. There was a mirror. I looked at myself, the brown common hair drawn in a short ponytail; the skin tinted slightly green, as was common to the native Atlantean. I wasn't bulky. Actually I would have probably profited of some gym time to be quite honest. I straightened to my full height. No one of the family was too tall, I was more or less of height with mother, while Mimosa reached dad's height maybe full five centimeters taller than I.

Everyone of the family wore glasses too. Except... I didn't. Not anymore. I considered the colorless gray eyes in the mirror. No one seemed to have noticed they weren't really mine. The tone was many shades lighter than it had been four years ago and absolutely colorless. Without the bluish shade it had previously shown in some lights.

Gray.  That was what I had told the witch that had been directing the making of my body.

And gray I had gotten.

I had never seen myself in a mirror as a vampire. And it was impossible to take a good picture. So I hadn't myself ever seen my own eyes. But I had seen enough vampire eyes to guess mine had been somewhere between yellow and carmine. Blood red was probably a safe bet.

"Do you want to take a round of North Star?" Mimosa asked, appearing ahead, framed by the door of the living room.

"Sure." I nodded. "A board game sounds good."

And it was. The North Star was a simple game of searching the lost star on a map of constellations. To win you really just needed luck as the dice rolled. So you could keep up pleasant conversation, especially since mum took her games seriously. It was easy to admire and feel charmed by this enthusiastic middle aged woman who got openly excited every time the dice rolled more than four for her. She could really be lovely...

As charming as a vampire if she wished.

As evening stretched toward night and our parents withdrew to the master bedroom upstairs, Mimosa and I stayed downstairs in the diner. She popped open a coke. I shuffled a card pack.

"The same, right?" I asked, when I started to deal.

"Mmm." She gave her consent with a nod.

And so I dealt the cards for even more mindless a game, so we would have something to busy our hands with while we talked.

"You know," she started. "That we are just worried for you."

"I know," I told her and smiled. Not one of my excellent fake ones, but a real sad smile from the bottom of my heart.

"I just... Don't always fit in. Just by coming, I seem to create friction and wreak havoc."

She shrugged. "I still hope you'll come again."

I nodded, beating the cards she had just laid on the table and setting them aside waiting the next game to come.

"Where did you disappear?" She asked suddenly.

I lifted my gaze from the cards in my hand, to her clear eyes.

"You are thinking about the vision, aren't you? Have you told mum and dad?"

"I told you. Don't try and distract me now. I can see you believe in what I saw. I've known you for over twenty years. And I am extremely worried about the fact that you take seriously a God-sent vision."

I thought about how curious it was that I could take her vision seriously because of what I had experienced when I had walked as far from the Christian God as could probably be found without leaving the country.

"When I was absent," I said slowly, placing my hand face down on the table as I thought, "I witnessed supernatural phenomena. Over and over again. There happened multiple impossible things and events I couldn't comprehend. After that I have been taking more seriously some of the less scientific stuff around me."

"Is that how you know witches... Did you..." She blushed red.

I smiled at her inability to even accuse me of witchcraft. Even as she probably didn't really believe it existed.

"I wouldn't say I got to do much magic, lamentably," I said. And felt like laughing at the relief on her face. Tired as I was, I found odd humor in this specific conversation.

I suddenly wanted to confess everything. I was almost overcome by the urge to wipe that relief off her face by telling what I had really seen. I wanted to tell of the red eyed gods. Of the tribes full of ghosts sustained by human blood.

I was so alone in the world. I craved to share this experience with someone. Even my very Christian sister that would be horrified, her world shaken by the evil forces of which I would tell.

And yet. I could never transmit in words to her the most important parts of my experience...

No. That wasn't true. The realization struck me. I felt a bubbling excitement building. It was exactly the important parts I could share.

"I am not proud of everything that happened during those years," I told her, picking up the cards again. I could feel her hanging to my every word. I had been tight-lipped on the subject.

"I went in search for the divine," I continued. "I have never been able to find a good true connection to God as you and mum have. But I am not indifferent as father either.

"I didn't find witches back then. But I have encountered a few as I go. I found another type of group of lost souls searching the divinity. But things got out of hand a bit too quickly. And I realized I might have made a mistake..."

It didn't feel right. I frowned.

"No. I mean: I felt I wasn't anymore in the right place. And, by an incredible miracle, I made it out of there. But I did find some faith, and magic, powers not explained by the methods of dad's science. For that I will always be grateful for the people there. My life has gained fullness and wonder with the experience."

I found my words now ringing true. Indeed, my misadventures to vampirism hadn't been a mistake. Just a path I hadn't wanted to follow to the very end. And yet:

"If I can help it, I would not like to go back. I don't think it would be proper now either. Not yet. If ever. But... Do you actually remember Blizzard? That substitute gymnastics teacher from my high-school?"

Mimosa nodded. "He was creepy. Does he have something to do with all of this."

I nodded. "He was my first link and is still a member where I left. But now he is involving a friend of mine in his world. And I don't want to let Valentina in there. She is just like father, happily ignorant as she is, with little need for anything... of divine nature to ruin her days."

I picked up my cards again and dealt some on the table. Mimosa looked at them and frowned. She was already losing.

"So... In regards to the vision... You wouldn't want to go back. But are afraid of what becomes of your friend without your intervention?" She summed up. And picked up some of the cards on the table.

"Yes. That's more or less the case."

A silence followed, in which we played. When the round was through, Mimosa took the deck and started shuffling in her thoughts. It was obvious she had no intention to deal.

"But... If you left the place, whatever it was, then what does it mean that you never came back?" She asked, looking at me with her head tilted to a side. She had opened her bun and the brown slightly wavy mass of her hair fell freely to the side of her face.

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe it simply means I cannot unsee what I have seen. I can never become ignorant again."

I looked past her to the clock on the wall.

Actually, it made sense, now that I had said it. I hadn't come back all the way. My eyes were just the tip of the iceberg, so where some of my ghostly senses. The thing was that I remembered. I remembered everything from by supernatural years. But there was more.

I remembered the present too. I could remember magic. Just a few days ago I had been by the river side when a mermaid had decided to splash onto a rock. Why it had come so far upriver was a mystery, but I remembered it crystal clearly, though no other passer-by could. They had maybe looked astonished at the creature for a few seconds, then turned their heads to tell about it to a friend and a glassy confused look would have passed immediately over their faces. People just couldn't remember magic.

No victim of a vampire ever remembered the marking. No bewitched knew who hexed them. No hiker told tales of elves and fairies. No sailor claimed to have fallen off the boat because of the merfolk.

Spirits and small signs of magic were everywhere. Just because I actively ignored them, didn't mean they weren't there, or that I couldn't interact with them if I just chose to.

In that sense I really hadn't come all the way back to the neutrality where I had been. I couldn't unsee magic. I couldn't stop believing in it. Quite as it was hard to stop believing in gravity.

"By the way," Mimosa said, stretching. "You do know they are going to sell the house, don't you?"

I was immediately brought back to the conversation.

"WHAT?! The house where I live!?"

"I take that as a no." She said smirking. "Time to move out the nest, Little One."

I just stared at her.

"Why hadn't I heard of this?"

"Can't tell." Mimosa shrugged. "They weren't planning to, if that's of any consolation. But apparently someone has made a rather handsome offer."

"Oh?" My shock was starting to fade. I was now listening to what Mimosa was saying. I sighed. "Well... Now that's inconvenient. But, off course. It's a big house. And I can't live there forever, I suppose. Though I can't think of where else I can afford to live. I hear the rents in the capital are exorbitant."

She smiled. "Community life waiting..."

I stuck my tongue out for her.

"Or maybe the new owner lets you live there if you do cooking..." She tapped the side of her head as if considering the option. I rolled my eyes.

"Well, I'd better start learning new recipes then... Do you know anything else of this supposed buyer? Any allergies?"

Mimosa shook her head. "Just that she has a foreign name. It was short. Seemed Asian."

"Asian?"

My heart skipped a beat. There were off course thousands of Chinese people living in Atlantis, and as many originated of other Asian countries, let alone those that just had foreign names, inherited from ancestors that had long since become locals. But immediately I had a face on my mind, almond eyes and straight black hair falling in long waterfalls, her pale complexion belonging forever to a sixteen years old girl.

Maybe I was wrong.

Or maybe Mo, the Queen, was going to buy my house for vampire territory.

I should have really picked my bone with Blizzard a long time ago.

Clover

"Oh! The dishes are still there."

I lifted my gaze from the science magazine I was holding and looked at my mother. She stood in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. I sighed. And put the magazine on the glass table in front of the sofa.

"I forgot," I said, rising.

There were downsides to living at home.

"How very convenient. To forget the dishes."

I didn't rise to the bait. Didn't say I had lost track of time while she was out. Yes, I forgot the housework. But was surprisingly reliable with anything study related. Very surprisingly reliable.

I took the detergent in one hand and the sponge in another. Then glared at the sink. I was fairly sure uncle Aconite didn't do his washing, a house spirit probably arranged his shoelaces in neat rows every morning too.

But uncle Aconite was a Shatter Hat. And I was a Moss Bridge. And the youngest. I had hardly enough magic in my blood to remember it existed, let alone bend even a spoon to my will. (I had tried, many times.)The Moss Bridge family had been low on magic for generations. And I was just hopeless.

Oh, father, Aconite's younger brother, had been brilliant. Whereas mother could maybe kindle a fire without modern help... And I couldn't do that much. Maybe, if I had spent the whole day at it, I could have persuaded the fat off the dishes, at least most of it. But I didn't fancy spending the whole evening at it, or carving the spells in dirty porcelain. I had better things to do. Things I could do right.

It was a funny little thing, the better a witch was with magic, the worse they became in time management, making it a hard task to integrate properly into the human society. Magic just did something to the inner clock of the witch.

Of course, I would never be like Valentina, always punctual everywhere. But I managed. Five minutes late was a lot better than showing up the wrong day.

I set off a wet plate onto a towel. Following it soon with another.

I wasn't actually quite sure how Aconite managed to keep his lecturer's position. He had once hinted that he wasn't exactly proud of the price he had paid for that, which had convinced me not to ask twice.

"Have you heard anything of your uncle of late? I haven't seen him for ages."

I turned to mum's voice. And frowned.

"Really?" I asked. "I thought he has seen granny frequently of late. My friend is..."

I didn't finish the sentence, just stared at my mother. She had raised one vividly yellow eyebrow in question. "Your friend is what?"

"She... She is a bit sick..." My voice faltered. "I thought granny told you everything..."

No... I was sure she and granny had no secrets. For some reason Granny Fern loved gossiping with her daughter-in-law. And Uncle Aconite and Granny Fern were supposedly at least polite with each other, if not close. After all, Aconite was the only living child of the Elder. 

But if my mother didn't know about Lavender, it meant that Aconite hadn't told about her.

The plate slipped through my fingers.

I cursed loudly as porcelain broke against my bare feet.

We both cried out. I jumped single footedly around the kitchen as the house spirit finally decided to lend a hand and some of the smallest shards flew unhelpfully back into the sink. Mum brought a bit more helpful vacuum cleaner.

Our house wasn't really plugged to the electrical network of the city. But electricity was for some unknown reason the one thing that came naturally to the two of us. I hadn't charged my phone ever in my life.

I hopped onto the coach I had just moments ago abandoned. The magazine lay were I had left it. There was a cloth waiting on the table. Brought by my mother, or the household spirit, I couldn't tell. I pressed it against the wound I had on top of my left foot where the plate had shattered.

It was bleeding surprisingly profusely.

I looked at the quickly spreading burgundy stain on the cloth.

"And you can't even be properly violet, now can you?" I asked the blood. Witch's blood was supposed to be almost blue. And mine could have fooled a mortal doctor no problem.

"Does it hurt badly?" Mother sat by me on the couch.

"No, not really." I took the small empty vial she held. As I was already bleeding... Yes. Why not.

I held the mouth of the small glass bottle against my bleeding foot. It didn't take many drops to fill it. Mother sealed the container. She gave me some dried fleawort leaves to press against the wound.

Why? Why wasn't Aconite talking to granny? He had said he was taking care of it. The all powerful, respectful, even feared uncle Aconite. Of course I had gone to him when Lavender had started to have nightmares. Of course I had. He was my Uncle and much more stable than mum, and easier to reach consistently, because somehow, despite all his immense powers, Aconite could be always reached with a simple phone call. He had always been there for me.

He had promised to take the word onward, of the situation.

But... If Aconite hadn't talked to Granny, who was a member of the Council of Thirteen, the Elders. Then... Whom did Aconite mean?

Lavender's condition was undoubtedly a matter for the Elders. Because clearly she was possessed by a very curious demon.

I removed the leaves. And wrapped some clean cloth over it. Modern plasters were handy. If you had them. But money was tight. The witches' community provided for its own, but there was little we could give back. Divorce wasn't really done among witches. But marriages were rare. And so father wasn't really responsible for us in any way. Especially now that he was dead. Sometimes he gave me stuff though, the laptop, the glasses... But day to day it was just me and mother, magicless witches.

I lifted the vial of blood from the table. I would drop it to Hellebore's the next day.

Maybe I would ask him what he knew of Lavender's condition. He must have faced it before. I hoped. Surely the immortal knew all the demons there were.

Though, maybe I wouldn't ask. I wasn't sure I could afford the pay for that favor. Hellebore wasn't really a witch. But when he dealt with us, he played by the same rules. Quite as when he dealt with vampires he was bound by their code of honor.

I felt a bit sick by it. I liked Hellebore. And I couldn't quite understand why he did what he did. Why he kept his door open. Everyone was welcome. Even creatures like Blizzard.

I sighed.

I would never tell it to my mother. But sometimes I wished I could forget, everything. Be like Valentina, always brave and straightforward, efficient and fearless. And not a complicated confused mess of a witch.

Especially, since I had long since stopped wishing I would somehow grow to be a skilled and loved witch like my father was with his optical charms. For that I just didn't have what it took.