HUMAN - The Son

Chapter 1

Aili

"Aili? Are the packages packed?", my mother shouted from the hallway.

"Yes, Mom", I replied. "Packed and ready for transport." For about two hours, I packed packages for my parents so that they could be distributed throughout the country. And this completely alone, since my younger siblings could not stop arguing.

What they were arguing about?

Well. Yesterday was my seventeenth birthday. The last piece of cake had been set aside for Gitte since she wasn't feeling well yesterday. But someone had secretly eaten the cake. So, my siblings sat next to the boxes I had packed in the basement (without their help) and I listened to Birger, Syltje, Gitte, and Iker blaming each other.

In fact, I had seen our father eating the cake late at night. At night, he was often hungry. He had probably forgotten that the piece was intended for Gitte. But since I did not want to interfere in the quarrel of my siblings, I remained silent.

Our mother now came into the small room in the basement and looked at my work. Two hundred packages, packed and ready to be loaded. Our parents had been dealing in special goods for several years. We children helped where we could. Whether we wanted to or not. Our parents did not want to leave the precious goods to the staff. Or pay them for packing.

"Good!" Mom nodded. "You all did well. I'm proud of you." That's what she always said when we did exactly what she asked us to do. Mom had never been a particularly loving mother. Hugs? Kisses? A rarity. Unlike our father, who liked to shower us with those.

"Birger ate the cake!", complained Iker. The twelve-year-old looked at her with big, green eyes. Mom's eyes. He had inherited his dark blond hair from our father. Just like Gitte, who now nodded meaningfully.

"I didn't!", hissed Birger. "Why should I steal Gitte's cake?"

Our mother wrinkled her nose. "Children? Stop arguing and bring up the packages."

Syltje moaned annoyed. "Do we have to?"

Mother just gave her a warning look and left us alone.

"You can bring it all up!", I snorted. "You let me pack everything on my own!"

"What? Aili!" Iker shook his head. "We all are supposed to carry up the packages!"

"We should all pack them too! And what did you do? Arguing over cake. It was just cake!" Annoyed, I left them alone.

"But it was my cake!", I heard Gitte protest. At the age of fourteen, she was supposed to have outgrown such uprisings, but she didn't. And Iker was excellent at engaging my other siblings in childish quarrels. A true talent.

I walked along the seemingly endless corridors of our basement until I reached the small staircase that led first to the employees' rooms and then to the kitchen. And from there another staircase up into the corridors of our property. The large front door was open. In the front yard, I could see some carts that would transport the goods. My father talked to the coachmen.

Mom was standing next to him. She wore a beige dress with black embroidery and a very large pink hat. She looked terrible. When it came to clothes, our mother was unteachable. Luckily, she left the choice of clothes for my youngest siblings to the nannies. We older kids dressed ourselves for a long time. Birger, who was our mother's image, had inherited her strange taste. Shaking my head, I walked on. To the top floor, where all our children's rooms were. And also a large playroom, from which I heard the voices of the four nannies and my youngest siblings. Five-year-old Camila and two-year-old Alma.

The two also argued. Apparently, Alma had destroyed a tower that Camila had painstakingly built from old building blocks. The nannies now tried to end the quarrel. But Alma in particular was a sweet but stubborn child. And currently, she loved to knock things over. She took advantage of every opportunity. Camilla, on the other hand, liked to build towers. Both interests did not go well together... Alma, of course, saw this differently.

Not wanting to be part of the next argument, I went to my room. On my bed lay the book I was reading at the moment. A romance novel that Syltje had lent me. She liked cheesy stories and insisted that I read the book too. Actually, I preferred to read eerie haunted stories, but the novel wasn't uninteresting so far. Too cheesy, but easy to read.

I made myself comfortable on my bed and opened the book. I liked to read. Preferably until late at night. But in two weeks, classes at the academy would start again, a little later than the normal start of school, and it would rob me of the time to read. My second year at the Academy.

My parents had been throwing a big party when magic showed up on me a few months before my sixteenth birthday. Mom hoped that this meant that I would be a very powerful witch, but it didn't turn out that way. I wasn't one of the lucky ones for whom the later appearance of magic meant great things. No. With my sixteenth birthday, my magic stopped growing.

I had only a weak aptitude for healing magic. Magic was rare. And even rarer were those who could use all three types of magic: healing magic, visionary abilities, and manipulative magic. I was able to heal small scratches and let bruises disappear... I couldn't do much more. Therefore, in the second year, I would no longer attend classes in magic. Like all other unfortunates with weak magical gifts.

Yet I liked this lesson the most. In addition to math. Birger called me a boring nerd. I guess, I was one.

And I was the only witch among us siblings. A seer toldthis to our parents. Except for me, a weak witch, none of my parents' childrenwould inherit magic. Not a single one. No matter how many more they broughtinto the world. Mom had called the seer a liar. But so far, the words seemed tocome true. Magic manifested itself between the ages of twelve and sixteen. Butneither Iker, Gitte, or Syltje had shown magic so far. For Birger, who was nowsixteen, there was no chance for some magic left.

(c: sasi)