The Witches War: A Crown of Blood

On the Thirteenth Block

Phe's POV

(Written by Sug4rplum )

Phe might have called New Orleans home, however, that didn't mean she enjoyed her visits. Or that she always had the option of deciding when they would occur.

Life on the road was easier than dealing with nonsense back there. Not knowing where the wind would take her, Phe Aster thoroughly enjoyed the unexpected and unknown. Home always came with rules, home always came with expectations, and home always came with her...mother.

Yet knowing this, Phe still borrowed her friend's tin can of a car to make the twelve hour drive from Raleigh to New Orleans because she was told to.

The Aster family would soon be saying farewell to one of their own and god forbid she miss the chance to say goodbye.

Sitting in front of the two story house, paint chipping off the sides and loose shingles hanging from the roof, Phe could see through the screen door, the front door held open by a large porcelain hare. She groaned in disgust as she thought about going in there.

Her family was going to act like nothing had changed. They'd act like she just went away for college, something normal like that. They'd act like the last family reunion didn't end with Phe's mother wishing her dead and Phe wishing the same on her. They'd act like this wasn't her final chance to put things 'right' with her mother, as her aunt had phrased it. Phe just couldn't see what she had to put right.

The wrong she'd committed was being born, something she'd had no control over. So how was she supposed to right this involuntary wrong?

I'm not going in there, she thought as her hands tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles whitening, staring straight ahead and looking at the bottle trees in the neighbor's yard, their house in similar disarray as her mother's. I have better things to do with my Sunday, she added, nodding her head and moving a hand to the keys that swung at the side of the steering wheel.

She could head down to Bourbon Street, there was always a party down there, there were always people there to welcome her. She could find someone there who'd welcome her into their bed, she wouldn't have to worry about the tattered mattress she'd be expected to sleep on at home. She could drink away the dwindling time that hung in the air, the supposedly very little time that her mother had left on this earth.

She decided.

I'm not going--

A knock on the window of the driver's side shook Phe out of her thoughts, her aunt staring at her, expectantly. Her words from the phone call played in Phe's mind as the woman tried to open the car door, 'If you ever considered yourself part of this family, come and make things right, before it's too late.'

"What's keeping you, cher?" Phe inwardly cringed at the term of endearment. She knew it was home when she was called 'cher'. She didn't hate it, she just needed time to readjust to it.

Like she would need the time to readjust to her family.

All of the slammed doors, the raised voices, the accusations, the tears all came flooding back as Phe was dragged into the house. The smell of chemicals brought tears to her eyes and made bile rise in her throat.

If she was so sick, why wasn't she at a hospital?

The matriarch of the family came to greet Phe by the living room door, already dressed in black, arms wide but closing the second she saw what her youngest granddaughter was dressed in. Cutoffs and a crop top probably weren't appropriate for seeing her dying mother and family for the first time in over a year, but it wasn't like she'd been given time to change. Or reapply her makeup. She'd done her best in the car, however, hints of smeared lipstick and liner were all the proof they apparently needed to know she was still up to her old tricks.