Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Fantasy

Chapter One 
The Young Witchkin
    The weather warranted a jacket, but not much more and the sky was an overwhelming shade of white but fading fast to blue. Chatter came from the woods where the game hunters went looking for dinner and some extra strings of game to sell. The men cajoled and joked. I could just hear them above the crackling of the fire in our wood-stove. Sharp calls from the vultures after their catches could also be heard. That’s why the hunters kept their guns ready, even as they walked home. That, and other reasons.
    Father and I were sitting on opposite sides of the room. Father was by the wood-stove stirring some sort of soup in our largest pot with the hand of a skilled chef. It smelled wonderful. His umber brown fingers were complimented by the tan wood of the spoon. I sat on the stool by the window peering at the world outside with an odd mixture of curiosity and boredom. Mother was out working. She wouldn’t be back for another hour or so. Mother and Father’s job was to take care of our family and use their gifts to help those with none. My job was to stay put, that was it. The story of my life would be titled “Ororo A. Okezie: The Stay-Putter”. Not entirely truthful, as I was often asked to help with dinner and the garden, but sometimes it felt that way. 
As I looked out the window, I realized that, in spite of my best efforts, my eyes kept finding themselves stuck on the house directly across from ours. A medium-sized brick house with a red door and yellow shingles. It was the house belonging to the Kennicotts, a family of hunters. I stared with at their house with a mixture of anger and fear. I couldn’t stand the couple or their loyalist son, Zackary. I despised them almost passionately. However, my loathing was not without good reason. The Kennicotts were not hunters of game, but hunters of the witchkin race. And my parents and I are exactly that: Witchkins. Well, I wasn’t quite a full-fledged witchkin yet. I was only fifteen and my powers hadn’t emerged yet. I wasn’t worried, most witchkins’ powers didn’t begin to emerge until they turned sixteen.
    Now, you may be of the belief that all witchkins are evil. Many believe that. You’re welcome to keep that popular belief, but I’ll to tell you first hand that it is a false one. A witchkin is simply a type of human who is born with the ability to develop magic powers. These powers correspond to the witchkin’s element and come with age. We are not inherently bad or dangerous. Some magic paths are more questionable than others, but it is how each witchkin chooses to use their powers that determines whether they are good or evil. Some, however, never get that part right. Every group has heroes and every group has bad seeds. In my opinion, we are no different from “ideal humans” in virtue. But saying things like that out-loud could get me in deep trouble.
    A better example of bad and dangerous would be, again, the Kennicotts. They were my family’s worst rivals. We have been at odds for over a century. Stones were thrown, curses cast, ancestors imprisoned - and even killed. However, both sides have kept an agreement of nonviolence and neutrality for almost two generations. The terms of the truce being that no one from either family will act against the other so long as no actions have been made against them by the other family. It could be called a ceasefire of sorts.


    The quick slapping of shoes belonging to hurried feet on cobblestone snapped me out of my daze. I turned my head in the direction the sounds had come from in time to see Mother running down the street with an unusual lack of grace. She looked worried, but I could only tell because I knew her face more than my own. Hopping up from my stool, I ran and unlocked the front door for her. A few moments later, she came bursting into the house in a manner that made me jump even though I’d been expecting it. Father was standing next to me before the door was closed, stopping the messy spinning of the spoon in the pot with a quick twitch of his finger. Mother glared at him, but didn’t say anything because she was still catching her breath. His face was a question along with mine. She was walking frantically around the room, closing all the curtains on the windows. 
“What’s wrong, Katrina?” Father asked, confused and concerned.
Mother turned in place to face him. Her flush reddened her pale, freckled complexion.
“I was spotted, Obi.” Her tone was grave and didn’t fit the words she was saying.
Father visibly suppressed a chuckle.
“That’s what’s got you all worked up? People see us all the time, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to report us. Most don’t even know what they’re seeing. Did you flush the memory from their mind?”
I was smiling, Father’s lighthearted words having filled me with relief. Mother was the only witchkin I knew besides my grandmother who’d learned memory swapping: replacing what a person had seen with what they would have expected to see. I noticed that Mother didn’t look at all amused and my smile quickly faded away. 
“You don’t get it, do you?! Of course I didn’t swap his memory; I couldn’t.” Her voice was a harsh whisper and her pale cheeks flushed red with frustration.
I saw a bit of the light fade from Father’s dark eyes as he leaned in closer, sensing the urgency.
“Katrina, my sweetheart, what on Earth do you mean?”
“What do you think?” Mother said, gesturing toward the imperial flag hung by mandate on our wall. 
“No!” Father’s voice was now also a harsh whisper.
“Yes.” Mother said, nodding her head as if the words weren’t enough.
Now I understood the seriousness of the situation. Mother hadn’t simply been spotted by a random stranger. She had been seen performing her magic by one of the octavianist Secret Angels, our nation’s secret police. Mother paused in her pacing just as Father began wringing his hands. She took a couple deep breaths.
“We must remain calm.” She said in a rational, reassuring voice. 
Watching Father wring his hands was giving me anxiety, though I could see him consciously trying to stop, particularly when he noticed me watching.  He took a deep breath and opened his mouth a couple of times before successfully producing words.
“You’re right.” 
“I know I am.” Mother replied with a half-hearted smirk.
Father laughed with the same half-heartedness.
“I’m glad to see this hasn’t dampened your pride or dulled your wit.” He paused, concern returning to his face. “Unfortunately, there is still the matter of what we do now.” Father sighed.
“That’s simple.” Mother said. “We go about our lives like nothing even happened.”
“That’s far from simple.” Father grumbled, shaking his head.
“You worry too much.” Mother accused, her voice rising a bit.
“You don’t worry enough.” Father retorted quietly.
The two had a wordless exchanging of looks, the meaning of which I could not decipher, and then they both parted ways. Mother went to their bedroom upstairs, Father went back to the wood-stove, and I stood for a moment before going to my room to calm myself.