I've always seen raw magic. For me, it's just a normal part of the world, like the sun in the sky and the rocks beneath my feet. I didn't know what it was at first. When I got old enough to talk about it, Mom and Dad taught me that I wasn't supposed to. Ever. I grew up thinking the rainbows of floating light, the shimmering streams of fog, and the delicate gossamer threads that hummed like power lines drifting through the world around us were something everyone saw but we just didn't talk about them for whatever reason.
The adult world didn't make much sense to me in general, so I didn't really think too much about the matter. I just did what I was told.
Those lights were one of my only constant companions growing up. My entire childhood was roaming the Midwest, never staying anywhere more than a year. No matter where Mom and Dad dragged me though, the power was there. It told me the secrets of the places we lived with its silent swirling, and comforted me when I was alone which was almost always since we moved so much.
My childish relationship with magic ended rather abruptly with a drop of blood.
That day had been horrible from start to finish. I doubt there is a woman alive that had a particularly positive first period, and I was certainly no exception.
*****
Benji squirms and squeals. "That's gross, Aunt Erin!"
Meredith rolls her eyes at his protest. "Grow up." She says it with the world-weary exasperation only a fourteen-year-old can muster.
*****
I spent part of the day with a sweater tied around my waist, just praying no one would notice the problem before Mom showed up with new pants. The school nurse had been kind enough to let me hide in her office when gym class rolled around.
There was still no sign of Mom two hours after the office called her.
She finally arrived as lunchtime ended. Rather than giving me something to change into, she took me out of school for the day.
We rode in deathly silence to the drugstore. I was convinced that I was in trouble and it wasn't fair. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't like I'd chosen to hit peak puberty right then. No matter how much courage I mustered to defend myself from the injustice I thought I was suffering, looking at Mom would squash it. Her knuckles were white from how hard she gripped the steering wheel. Her lips were tight and thin.
She was shaking a little.
Things did not improve when we got home. Once I was cleaned up and changed, Mom went into her bedroom, closed the door, and locked it behind herself, leaving me to stew in my mortification. I didn't get the-birds-and-the-bees talk. I pretty much knew all that stuff anyway, but it would have at least assured me that everything was ok because right then it felt like I had really screwed something up.
I watched the Price is Right the rest of the afternoon, hearing Mom moving stuff around in their room every now and then. Our dog, Vicious, the best boy in this world and the next, was keeping me from picking a fight with my mother by applying all one hundred pounds of his slobbery self directly to my lap. I'm still convinced that mangy German shepherd-rottweiler mix knew when I got bad ideas and threw his weight around as a means of intervention. You can't get in trouble if you can't get up, after all.
It wasn't until Dad got home that things really blew up. He was fuming when he came in. I thought for sure he was going to yell at me when he stormed into the living room. All he said was, "Why don't you go play outside or something for a while." There was no malice in the command. Whatever he was mad about, it wasn't my fault.
I did as I was told, but didn't go too far. I could hear Mom and Dad yelling at each other inside as I sat on the porch. Only snippets reached me outside.
Mom yelled something along the lines of, "She wasn't going to be a child forever, Benjamin! You can't tell me you thought this would never come!"
Dad's response was, "What if she didn't get it? Your cousins didn't!"
"She HAS to know! It is part of her!"
"She's a Milharn! Stop trying to drag her into your family's bullshit, Mary!"
Every angry word hurt, even if I couldn't make it out and didn't understand the context. There was no denying this fight was about me. At least it didn't sound like they were fighting about my ruined jeans.
They carried on until nearly dinner, at which point the storm door clattered open and Dad stomped past me. He grumbled something about getting food as he went. Mom appeared in the doorway a moment later clutching that shabby orange hardcover to herself and watching Dad peel down our gravel drive. "Erin, please come inside. We need to talk."
Mom's idea of talking wasn't really helpful. She presented me with my first grimoire, which I affectionately dubbed Pat the Bunny for Magic since it had no official title. What she did not present me with was any explanation on why I needed to be of age before sharing this with me, why she was fighting with Dad, or really anything important beyond, "Those funny lights you see? You can make it do stuff if you want."
She said a lot of stuff about being discreet and respecting power, but I wasn't listening to most of it. The only part I really remember from her lecture was, "They don't burn witches anymore, Erin, but that doesn't mean the witch hunters can't hurt you in other ways." At the end of her speech, I still didn't really grasp the weight of the knowledge I was being gifted.
Dad was always better at getting through to me, and he made one last valiant attempt to keep me from going down the path that book had laid before me. After a tense, silent dinner, he told me it was time for target practice. I was unhappy to be separated from my new obsession, but it was clear I didn't really have a choice.
As I had so many times before, I trailed after him into the fields behind that house, toting my rifle and a grocery bag full of bottles, jars, and cans. Night was almost upon us, and I gathered from his lack of a lantern that we weren't really going plinking.
"What's the first rule of gun safety?" Dad said, breaking the silence.
The question caught me off guard. It took me a second to get my mind off a whole book of magic spells that was waiting for me back at the house. "Treat every gun like it's loaded."
"And the second?"
"Don't point your gun at anything you don't want to kill."
"Keep going."
"Seriously, Dad?"
"Humor me."
"Booger hook off the bang button and make sure you know what is on the other side of your target."
"Good girl." He was quiet again for a moment. "I want you to treat this magic shit your mom's on about just like a gun."
"Why are you two fighting about it?"
He sighed. "Just family stuff we left behind. Don't worry about it."
"Are you mad at me?"
He stopped and turned around. I could just make out his gentle frown in the fading light. "No. Not at all. You didn't do anything wrong." He ruffles my hair. "I just want you to know you don't have to study that stuff just to make her happy, ok? If you don't wanna do it, don't."
"Why wouldn't I?" Honestly, I didn't have the faintest idea of why I wouldn't. Having magic powers sounded epic.
His brow creased further and I felt a little of my enthusiasm die from it. "It messes with your head. It can get out of hand real fast."
"Is magic why we move so much?"
He shook his head. "Nah. It doesn't help things but it isn't why."
"So why do we then?"
"... You're too young to understand."
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