Not That Familiar

Chapter 1

Deception.

Deceiving others.

That is what the world calls a romance.

As my mother drove me to the state
border, I rolled the back windows up in a desperate attempt to warm my face. It was negative two degrees in Albany, New York, the sky a depressing, snowy grey. I was wearing my father's worn-out Airblaster Workhorse jacket – the only thing that schmuck left for his seven-year-old daughter after Mom found out about his extramarital affair and divorced him. I wouldn't have worn it had Mom kept the windows rolled up like a normal person – but what did I know about normalcy, anyway? Everyone in the car – including myself, the only person huddled in the backseat of the SUV, shivering like one of those Taco-Bell dogs on TV – were far from normal.

Apart from us already being seen as weird and unusual for being a broken family in our old-school, traditional, small-town, we were also different from everybody else in the sense that we were witches. My mother was well-known in the community for being an A-list (or full/pure-blooded) sorceress, and many revered her for her authentic lineage. Humans came from both near and far just to get a consultation with her and buy love spells... hoping for true love, yet paying for deception... but me? Not so much.

Probably because I looked so much like the man that duped my poor mom, or perhaps because I sucked at casting spells and performing other things that other enchanters could. For whatever reason, I'm sure those two reasons had a lot to do with Mom driving me out of the state – to catch a bus to the infamous boarding academy my mom attended when she was a teen that made her "famous": the Proctor Institute.

"Maleah," Mom said to me – the last of a thousand times – before we crossed the state border into Massachusetts. "You're going to love the institute; it's the finest witchcraft academy in the U.S.A!"

"You think so?" I peeped.

"I know so!"

I wished I looked like her. Hell, even remotely like her would do. With thick, long, charcoal-black hair that dangled past my butt, I looked nothing like my sun-kissed, California-looking babe of a mom. She was the sun, while I was the moon. I felt a spasm of unease as I stared at her wide, baby-blue eyes from the rear-view mirror. How could I even think about stepping foot out of this vehicle and attending an institute one-hundred miles away from my mother when I never even attended a normal, human public school before? How could I ever leave my loving, wonderful mother when I'm all she – and I – have left in this world? How would the bills get paid, who would prepare dinner every night, put gas in her car, or talk to her when she got bored or lonely?

"Ahem," a deep voice cleared itself. "She has me."

Blood rushed to my face. "Oh, God... did I say all that out-loud?"

"You sure did," Mom replied, expression deadpan but her tone amused. "It's a shame you believe I am so incapable of dealing with everyday tasks... when you're the one who has never stepped out of your own comfort zone and made friends." I pulled a face, and she stuck her tongue out at me. "But don't fret, my baby. I do have Jettison, after all."

Jettison – the owner of the deep voice – was Mom's familiar spirit. When he wasn't playing the role of the family's ghostly pet cat, he was Mom's companion. In his human disguise, he was nearly six foot five – and, unlike Mom and me – he hadn't aged at all over the past seventeen years. When I was a child, I thought him, too, would gray and wrinkle like Mom, but I was wrong. Familiars are animal specters that the Elders – the most ancient and powerful witches of the community that formed the paranormal council that essentially governed us all– made and assigned to spell-casters to follow and aide them throughout their life.