eight mother's daughter

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         AS SHE STARED AT HER REFLECTION IN THE MIRROR, SHE NOTED THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN HER AND HER MOTHER. There was a stiff upper lip, the gentle eyes which could turn so cold too quickly, the warmth fading from them in only one instant to be refilled with flames. Juliana used that skill perfectly with her, being a nurturing mother one second and a cold-hearted Elder the other, terrorizing her childhood memories.

It was strange, how you can remember someone after they're gone. They can be the nicest person in the world and yet you still remember their cruel nature in a split second for a moment in time forever. Evanora didn't mean to call Juliana Hathaway a saint – she was far from one – but she wasn't a devil either. She was in the middle, a human being, and she had her ups and downs.

While Juliana was strict with heavy expectations for her future, she was also flowing and willing to let Evanora control herself and her magic. There was no pressure to use magic and become a powerful mage, only the expectation that she would one day take her place as an Elder when Juliana retired. That dream was long dead, if it ever had a chance of survival in the first place, since now Juliana Hathaway never had the chance to retire.

There was no growing old and grey for her, only young and beautiful forever – or, middle-aged and withering forever. She still held beauty, and whenever Evanora saw a picture of her mother while in youth she was surprised by how similar she looked to Evanora now, she certainly was not as young as she was in those photos.

It was true: Evanora loved her mother, but part of her always would despise her. She could never forget those disappointed looks when she mingled with muggles and turned away from witches even though she always loved to use magic. The sighs of displeasure whenever Evanora didn't call something by its actual name but what she wanted to because it reminded her of something else – like titling herself a water bender.

And even though Juliana was insist that she wasn't, that it was water manipulation, Evanora was still fierce in her belief that she was a water bender. She had the same skills as Katara, after all, and that made her one.

No, she was not her mother, but she was her mother's daughters, and even though part of her would always despise her deceased parent, she could never forget her when they shared the same face and characteristics.

Evanora...

There was a whisper behind her, right into the shell of her ear, a voice she had never heard before yet still felt frightened of – it felt like a voice she should know, someone she should have met before, and someone she should never see again. She turned around, but there was nothing.

She looked back into the mirror, and there was only herself, but she couldn't help but feel like she was staring back at the ghost of her mother.

☆

SHE TUCKED HER ARMS INTO THE POCKETS OF HER JACKET, FEELING HER EARS BEGIN TO FROST AS SHE STARED AT THE LAKE. She sat on a bench beside Maggie, looking over the railing to see the body of water that she could already feel pulling at her. It was her natural instinct to be as close to the water as she could, becoming it and allowing it to flow through her and out of her hands. Second nature, but one she couldn't divulge into since she wasn't alone.

Tommy took photos of the water, and then of Diana posing in front of the railing, not-so glamorous shots and glamorous shots alike. It was too cold to be out at the park, November air always coming to bite their asses, but still they sat outside willingly and allowed themselves to be cut deeply by the cold.

Evanora hated the cold, but she liked hanging out with her friends, so she was willing to pay the piper as long as she got to spend time with them. At least, for now, but if they thought she would willingly subject herself to December coldness then they were wrong. In December, it was finally time to stay the fuck inside and never leave the house. But for now, since it was so early into the eleventh month, she was willingly to suffer a little bit.

"Brian asked me to the Christmas dance," Maggie announced as she picked at the loose thread from her sweater. Evanora felt her heart drop.

It was illogical. It wasn't like she ever had a chance with the cute girl, and they had only known each other for a few months whereas Brian had known her for years. And it was illogical because she knew that Maggie didn't even like him back, she liked someone else, and that also pained her. But Evanora was a sucker for cute girls with puppy-dog eyes, and Maggie had that, so she fell way too fast and didn't know what to do with herself.

So she had these illogical feelings, and she wept on the inside at the fact that Maggie's was not hers and never would be, but that was fine. Because at least Maggie was her friend, and they would always be friends.

"I'm sorry...what?" Diana blinked, part of the girl disgusted and the other part just plain shocked, "Why? When the fuck have you ever expressed to him that you wanna be his date? I mean, shouldn't breaking up with him scream I don't wanna be your date ever again?"

Maggie shrugged, "I don't know, but at least he didn't go full out like he did last year."

Tommy turned to Evanora, "He got someone to disrupt every single class to give her a flower until after school he gave her a bouquet and a sign asking 'Christmas Dance?' It was even worse for Prom."

Evanora frowned at his explanation about how far Brian had gone. "Sounds terrible."

"It wasn't," Maggie frowned, "I...well, I liked it. You know, last year, when we were dating. It was really cute and he knew that I wanted something special instead of just asking...I liked it."

"But now, you're not with him," Diana finished up, taking up a seat on the other side of Maggie and reaching up to touch the girl's arm, "Come on, what did he do?"

"He just asked me," she responded.

Diana raised an eyebrow. "He just asked you?" the girl repeated with large amount of suspicion laced in her voice, "Nothing extra, no other little thing that we ought to no."

Maggie turned a little pink, looking away from her friend. "Nothing," her voice was a bit higher.

"A-huh," Diana nodded, "Well, if I know anything about Brian Gilbert, it's that he doesn't do anything simple. Especially not for you. No, he always went full-out for you."

"Well, people can change," Maggie frowned.

"Not that quickly," Diana shook her head, "Oh, come on, Maggie, we're your friends, just spit it out."

Maggie bit her lip, not wanting to share, but eventually she did let out a sigh and said, "Okay, fine, so he might have gotten the whole football team to send me on a scavenger hunt to find him yesterday and then he might have gotten me a really big sloth plushie and then he might have tried to serenade me into going with him to the dance."

"And then you politely kicked him in the balls and walked away, right?" Diana sweetly asked, though her words were not sweet. Tommy made a noise at the suggestion, blocking his own crotch away from her. Evanora huffed a bit of laughter at the gesture and he sent her a smile because she noticed.

"Diana! You sound like Mel," Maggie scolded her.

"What? He deserves it if he did all that to you when he knows that you aren't interested in him anymore!" Diana defended herself, "And you said it yourself that even Mel agrees with me."

"Well, Mel actually went a bit further..." Maggie muttered, "But it doesn't matter because I'm absolutely not doing that and neither are you."

"But you did turn him down, didn't you?" Evanora spoke up, locking eyes with Maggie. Her heart was beating inside her chest because part of her thought she was stepping over her place since she wasn't as close to Maggie as Diana or Tommy, and maybe she shouldn't be asking this, especially since she thought the girl was just so positively pretty, but she couldn't help herself.

She had to ask, and she had to hear Maggie say that she turned him down.

Maggie looked down. Diana gasped, "Tell me you didn't."

"I just – he went through all of that...and he looked so hopeful, how could I turn him down?" Maggie frowned, her cheeks flush from embarrassment and shame.

Evanora felt her shoulders slump and her heart to deflate even more. It was just more confirmation that she was never going to have a chance with the girl, not that she ever really thought she would in the first place. Those were only pipe dreams.

"It's really simple, actually," Tommy looked at her, "You just say 'no thanks' and turn around and leave. He shouldn't have wasted his time."

"Well, it's too late now anyway, I already said yes," Maggie said, a bit of discontentment in her voice.

Diana shook her head, sitting up straighter. "No, it isn't. It's not the Christmas dance yet so you can still tell him that you changed your mind."

"But that's rude," Maggie objected.

"Who cares? You don't wanna go with him and you know that if you go with him he's gonna ask you out again or think that there's a still for the two of you when there's not. You really wanna keep stringing him along?" Diana questioned.

Maggie shook her head. "Not really."

"Then tell him that you changed your mind. Come on, I'll be there to educate him on how to properly ask someone to the Christmas dance, basically stating that asking your ex is not appropriate at all and that luring a girl through a scavenger hunt to you with all your buddies around to pressure her isn't appropriate either. It'll be very informative," Diana nodded her head, already looking proud of herself, "It's like what your mom always says: you can always say no. So, say no."

Evanora wanted to sneer at the mention of Marisol, that bitch. But what she said was right and she didn't feel as though it was appropriate to sneer at that, inside her mind or out on her face. Instead, she nodded along. "Diana's right. If you really don't wanna go with him, don't force yourself. And we can come if you need extra support."

Maggie smiled at her appreciatively and her heart swooned for it. God, this girl was making it even easier to fall for her and harder to kill of those pesky feelings.

"Thanks, guys," Maggie told him, "I'll...I'll tell him on Monday before school."

"And we'll be there to make sure he gets the message this time," Diana nodded, smiling at her friend gently even though her eyes had fire in them from how she was going to completely kill Brian and make sure he never went to Maggie again and tried to force her into anything.

☆

HER MOTHER'S SPELLBOOK, OR, WELL, IT WAS HER'S NOW, HAD A LAYER OF DUST OVER IT. It hadn't been used since Juliana Hathaway's death because Evanora couldn't stand the sight of it, especially not with how she found it when packing up all their belongings before the move.

Opened to a spell; the last spell that Juliana Hathaway used before her death, the one she needed to see written down, and the one that haunted her daughter now. It wasn't even for her, but for Evanora. Or, at least, that's what Colleen believed. A simple protection spell that would hide her away, untraceable, undetectable, from someone – an unknown figure or force, presumably the demon that killed her mother that fateful night months ago.

That page was opened now and Evanora's fingers ran across the words, fluttering over the ones that Juliana must have chanted to herself only minutes after she had left that night to go and have sex with a girl. While her mother was being murdered, she was having a good time, unaware to everything that was happening in her childhood home. Ignorant to the fact that she was being cloaked by her mother, ignorant to the fact that blood was staining the ground in her old kitchen.

This page...it haunted her. The meaning behind it haunted her, and she hated the sight of the blood that her mother once clung onto to tightly. So fearfully. Juliana Hathaway was nothing without her magic, so she protected it like it was her child. She was so fearful of losing her magic, of being an ordinary human – she was a witch before she was human.

Evanora was the opposite. She relied on her humanity, on blending in and being human. While she loved her magic, she could be something without it. She could exist and belong in the world without any magic flowing through her veins, and it was her greatest pride. She could thrive in a realm her mother never could, and she prided herself in it more than anything else.

But now...now her mother was gone and the same magic she protected was now being used to protect Evanora. And that haunted her – the spell, the spell book, magic itself...it was all so haunting.

Evanora...

There was another whisper, and it felt like a hand was inching closer to her, far enough that she could run and it would never touch her, but closer than it had been before, still just a calling, not a demand, but still, she felt like the ghost of her mother wrapped herself around her daughter and the whisper was gone.