Page 14 of It's In His Hiss

I nod, feeling a flicker of hope. “Of course.”

“Let’s start from the beginning,” Dad suggests as I pull Gordy to the couch.

Mom and Dad exchange a glance laden with years of secrets. Dad’s jaw is set, his eyes beseeching me to understand before the words even leave his lips.

Mom’s hands flutter to her mouth, her tears threatening to spill. “Darling, it was never about hiding you,” she starts, her voice quivering. “It was about keeping you safe from a world that might not understand you.”

“Understanding starts with honesty,” Gordy interjects softly, his voice comforting.

I squeeze his hand gratefully. “Safe from what?” I press, needing to hear them say it.

“From judgment. From f-fear,” she stammers. “People can be cruel, especially to those they don’t understand.”

“Your powers, Alice,” Dad finally admits as if the words pain him. “You’ve always had them. We thought… Wehopedthey’d remain dormant.”

“Am I a witch?” My voice cracks over the word, disbelief wrestling with an odd sense of inevitability.

“We think so, yes,” Mom whispers, wiping away a tear. “After that silly movie about witches came out, everyone got paranoid. We couldn’t risk you being exposed.”

“Great,” I mutter, the sarcasm a thin veneer over my shock. “So my teen angst was actually witch angst? Guess I should’ve focused on learning to fly my broom instead of playing soccer.”

But my humor fades fast, my mind racing with the implications of their confession.

I cross my arms, trying to hold myself together. “So… where did this even come from? Who in the family had powers before me?”

There’s a beat of silence heavy enough to press against my ribs. My parents exchange one of those meaningful glances that screamwe’ve talked about this, and now we’re panicking because it’s real.

Mom lets out a long breath. “Her name was Theodora Hawthorne. She was your grandmother’s aunt. Technically, your great-great-aunt.”

“Theodora,” I repeat, the name curling around my tongue like a spell. “Okay, so she was magical?”

“She was more than magical,” Dad says. “She was… wild. Powerful. Unpredictable.”

“She didn’t belong to a coven,” Mom adds quickly, like that’s some kind of disclaimer. “She wasn’ttrained or bound by tradition. She followed her instincts. Her own rules.”

Gordy shifts beside me. “A wild witch, then.”

My parents flinch slightly at the term, but they don’t correct him.

“So you knew there was magic in the family,” I say slowly, trying not to let the betrayal creep back into my voice. “And you still chose to act like I was clumsy and overly imaginative.”

“We were afraid,” Mom whispers. “Your grandmother didn’t talk about Theodora much. Only that she disappeared—just vanished one day. No trace, no note. She was feared… even by other witches.”

“So you decided to erase her?” I ask, sharper than I meant to. “Pretend she never existed?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Dad insists. “There wasn’t anything to keep. No letters. No spellbooks. Nothing passed down. Just… stories. Hushed ones.”

I stare at them, stunned. “You never tried to findout more?”

“We were too afraid of what we might uncover,” Mom says, wringing her hands. “And when you were born—when we saw those first signs—we thought maybe the magic wouldn't take hold if we didn’t acknowledge it. That maybe Theodora’s blood would skip a few generations.”

Gordy makes a quiet sound in his throat, and I don’t know if it’s disbelief or sympathy. Maybe both.

I shake my head slowly. “You hid my truth because of a woman you barely knew. A woman you had no real evidence of, just stories and fear.”

“I’m sorry,” Mom whispers, her voice cracking. “We didn’t know what else to do.”

I look at Gordy, his hand warm in mine. “Well, I do.”

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