Page 12 of Bewicched

“She’s twenty-one now and has been seeing a new young man. According to Hester, who hadn’t met him, he went to school with Pearl. Your aunt might not be the strongest of wicches, but she knows in her heart something’s happened to her daughter.”

I took another sip and closed my eyes, trying to bring back the face of the woman on the beach. Shaking my head, I opened my eyes. “I can’t see her clearly. It’s been years, but the woman in my vision had blonde hair. Pearl’s a brunette.”

“Not anymore,” Gran said.

“She went blonde a few weeks ago, when she started dating this guy,” Mom added.

“Do you have a picture?”

Gran and Mom exchanged glances. “Yes, but—” she shook her head and pulled out her phone. “That doesn’t matter.” She scrolled through a few and then tapped an image, handing it to me.

My stomach dropped. I zoomed in, just to make sure, but I already knew. That was the face I’d seen. “She looks so different. I remember long dark hair that she hid behind while she stood silently in corners.” Granted, it had been years, but this was a huge transformation.

“Hester was so happy that Pearl was finally coming out of her shell,” Mom said, her voice weighed down with grief. “She was a sweet girl.” My mom stood, taking the phone back from me. “Her mother’s going out of her mind with worry. I need to call her.” She walked down the hall and into a guest room.

“This is why you need to join us.”

I turned from the hall to Gran. “What?”

“You have a gift, Arwyn. A prodigious one.” She leaned forward in her chair. “It’s your gift. We know that. But our gifts are handed down from generation to generation, to every wicche in this family. Responsibility comes with that gift.” Gran gave me the look that made the strongest amongst us wilt.

Gran had always been in my corner. Through all of the petty backstabbing bullshit among the cousins, the side-eye from the aunts and uncles, the nightmares and depression, my Gran has stood beside me and dared any to come for me while she was around. I loved and respected her, but…

“Do you understand what you’re asking me?” I knew Mom and Gran loved me, but asking me to do this felt like my whole life had just been a fattening of the lamb for slaughter.

“Of course I do. I’m asking you to finally step up and take your rightful place on the Council, to help us stop these tragedies before they happen. How can you choose inaction when it means the loss of an innocent like Pearl?”

“No, Mom.” My mother emerged from the guest room, swiping a hand down the front of her sweater set. Even delivering horrible news, every hair was in place. “No one is to blame for Pearl’s death but the man who killed her. Don’t lay that at Arwyn’s feet.”

“We can’t do anything after the fact. We need to know beforehand,” Gran pushed back, rocking angrily while staring into the flames. “I defended your excursion to England,” she said to me. “You had to go. You needed to create your chess set for some werewolf and vampire. Why you had to go there to do it is beyond me.”

She shook her head and then turned back to me. “I defended you to the family. We needed you but you wanted your art. Okay. We waited. Finally, you’re back now. You have your studio and gallery. All we want is your help.”

She stopped rocking, the anger draining out of her as she set her empty teacup aside. “I never thought you were a selfish girl. I’d never have believed that of you. Until now.”

My vision blurred. Standing abruptly, I blinked away the sudden tears. “You can say this to me when you know there have only been a handful of wicches like me in all of Corey history. We live short, miserable lives, usually dying by our own hands. You know this.”

My grandmother turned back to the fire, her jaw set. My mother held out her hand to me, but I stood alone, separate from both.

“I know I told you this when I was little, curled up on my bed, too sick to move, but perhaps you’ve forgotten. I don’t just see the visions. It isn’t as though I lie down for a nice nap and have a scary nightmare. I mean, I have those too. Every night of my life. But I live the visions. I’m the one pushed under the water, my lungs bursting, gasping water. I’m the one lost in the woods, scared and alone, being lured from home. I’m the one on fire. My skin bubbling and blackening. I live through the most horrendous experiences imaginable and then I come out of it and am expected to pick myself up and carry on like everything’s okay.

“And you sit here in judgment of me because I don’t want to end up like all the others before me, trapped in the horror and pain, looking for any way to make it all stop.” I exhaled slowly, needing them to understand.

“You want me to join the Council, knowing you’re asking me toinvitethe visions that will ultimately drive me insane. The visions that torture me. You want me to have more of them if it will benefit others. My pain isn’t important, only how I can make myself useful to others, is that it?”

The women were silent, my mother’s gaze willing me to relent while Gran stared into the fire. I went to the front door and picked up my backpack. “Ask yourself this: Would you be so cavalier with my sanity and my life if both my parents were wicches?”

Gran turned to me then.

“Am I expendable? Disposable because of the fae blood?”

“Arwyn, you know we love you.” Mom stood tall, but her right hand trembled.

“Sure.” I swallowed. “But you love what I can do more.” I walked out, closing the door with a quiet click.

I don’t really remember the walk home. It was long and cold, the wind whipping over the ocean and tearing at my clothes and hair. My chest hurt, my stomach hollowed out. I couldn’t get Gran’s expression out of my mind. I’d thought she was the one person firmly on my side, no matter what. It wasn’t that, though, was it? She’d been biding her time until my gifts could be put to her use.

A truck blew past me, almost hitting me in the dark. Stumbling into the sand and tall grass by the road, I stopped to think. I was only a quarter mile from home. I’d paint tonight. I had images in my head I needed exorcized through the canvas. First, though, I’d fix a shitty thing I’d done. I pulled out my phone and placed a call.

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