Page 12 of Their Witch Bride

She scowls for the first time since entering the ballroom, holding her arm out to prevent me from touching her. Looking me up and down, she sucks her teeth. “Couldn’t you have worn something nice for tonight? It’s an important event.”

“I’m sorry,” leaves my lips before I know what I’m saying.

“You look like common garbage. Worse than common garbage. A poorly dressed whore with no sense of taste.” She shakes her head at me as if she can’t believe what she’s seeing. The arm blocking me pushes me to the side as she steps forward to get away from me.

It’s okay. I understand. I’m no one important to her. I’m no one at all, just an obstacle blocking her view. I shouldn’t have even tried to hug her. It was a nervous decision. A bad one. But still, I want to talk to her.

“I’m nervous about tonight,” I admit to her, when she looks like she’s just going to walk off and pretend I never approached her. “Am I going to be happy with my placement? Are you happy with my placement?”

My mother blinks a few times and looks at me like she’s trying to figure out why I’m still here. “What are you doing? Go sit down. We’re starting the ceremony soon.”

“But I–”

She leans in closer and pinches the back of my arm on one side so hard that if I wasn’t used to it, I would have cried out. Instead, my hands curl into fists, and I wait for it to end. It does, after a painful minute that seems to stretch on forever.

“Get. The. Fuck. Away. From. Me.”

I step back quickly. She’s right. I don’t know why I did this. It wasn’t the right time or place for this sort of discussion.

Walking back to the stage, I realize I’m rubbing the place she hurt me and stop. She doesn’t like when I act like a baby. She says it’s just pain. Not even that much. On the battlefield, she causes real pain, she feels real pain. Me showing weakness over such small things is pathetic. I know that.

Sitting down in my chair, I make sure I’m sitting up perfectly. I force a smile on my face and ignore my sweaty palms. So I’m going to learn my role with everyone else. So what?

“A Metal Witch,” Edna titters. The rest of the girls laugh with her.

“She’ll be the first one in what? A hundred years?” Lilac laughs harder.

“That’s because a Metal Witch is useless,” Clio adds, but she doesn’t sound like she has her heart in the insult. Something I appreciate.

“She’s so weird. She even set a tree on fire, then fell in a lake,” Edna tells them all.

Other women hear their words and start laughing too.

I look toward them. “Right? Can you imagine if I got the role of a Metal Witch? I might as well just drown myself in the river, huh?”

Everyone looks uncomfortable, and I focus back on looking like the perfect witch. The perfect daughter. The perfect princess. Because there are only two ways tonight can go. I can end up with a lowly job that no one respects, or I can be given a job I can’t do. Either way, I can handle it. I’ll make the best of it.

No matter what happens, I’m going to have a good life. Whether or not I deserve it.

SIX

Tara

With a wave of a hand, the torches grow dimmer. Everyone is seated except the people on the stage. The lights seem to move slower as they dance off the crystals in the room, and I know more magic is at play.

My mother’s dark blue dress sweeps the floor as she moves from the side to the center. Blue jewels spill from the necklaces around her neck, and her golden hair pieces glitter in her dark hair like gems. She somehow manages to be both beautiful and commanding all at once. Like a wickedly sharp knife.

Although it has been some time since my mother lost her temper and killed a witch…

Not a single person speaks. The air grows colder. It takes everything in me not to wring my hands together as I feel the moment my life will change dangling above my head like a noose.

“Welcome to the Crystal Ceremony. The most important day in any witch’s life,” my mother says, her voice like that of a crouching lion: cool, calm, and dangerous. “I have watched all your daughters grow up, just as my mother did before me. I have seen their moments of greatest strength, and their moments of greatest weakness. Believe me when I say that I know what their role should be in our society to my deepest core, and soon all of you will know too.”

The audience claps and cheers. The girls on stage sit like statues, trying to appear brave and excited, although I can sense their trepidation. Or maybe I’m just sensing my own.

“But first, Avyn,” my mother calls out.

Avyn, our head Crystal Witch, stands and the room quickly descends into almost complete darkness. The witches in the crowd ooh and aah, even though she does this every year. It’s always bittersweet for me to watch an expert use their magic. Without even using her hands, the crystals flicker back to life, and the sounds reverberating between the crystals sounds like music from instruments.

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