It's Not Magic

Nineteen

Kane

I stared at Ralph as he took a deep breath. "Okay, first off, Amalia was always a horrible human being. I have no idea why Ben married her in the first place." Ralph's finger tapped the table, a nervous twitch, I figured. "Amalia, she, well, to simply put it, she was a monster. The only one she was ever truly kind towards was Cam, Lili's twin brother.

"Amalia despised magic, and anything that was associated with it. When Lili was first born, everyone thought that both her and Cam didn't have the MAG, but after a few months, it became apparent something wasn't right."

"Wait," I interrupted. "Matthews' eyes weren't always purple?"

Ralph shook his head. "For the first few weeks after she was born, her were an odd shade of blue. But soon after, they started to change. That was their first indication that something was off.

"And once Lili first flung one of her toys across the room without touching it, Amalia realized what was wrong, and started to neglect her, sometimes not even feeding her, even after Ben told her that she had to feed Lili. And even as she grew older, Amalia would often only feed her scraps, or what was left over from that night's meal." Ralph cringed, shaking his head slightly at the thought of it.

"Honestly, I think Ben is the only reason she is alive," Ralph added, sighing in relief of a happier thought. "He'd sometimes sneak Lili snacks, or even brought her in here after a Sunday mass." He smiled, chuckling at the thought. "I can still remember meeting her for the first time, her shocking me as she shoveled two giant cookies into her mouth, greedily grabbing for the next treats Ben was handing her." He laughed. "She acted like it was the last time she was going to see food, and I didn't know it then, but I guess it was for a week."

That's probably why she's okay with eating so little food, I thought, remembering the scarce amount of food I'd given her in the past day. Probably not okay, I corrected myself, but accustomed to it. I made a mental note to buy a shit ton of food when I went to the grocery store.

"But that wasn't even the extent of it. Amalia was a bitch to Lili. She made her do every single one of the chores in the house, hitting her if she didn't do it in a fashion Amalia liked, which seemed to be always. If Amalia could find an excuse to hit Lili, she would take full advantage of it. If Lili even said one thing Amalia didn't like, she was slapped. If she moved wrong, she was slapped. Sometimes, even if she was just sitting on the couch, Amalia would hit her just because she could. Whenever Lili came to town with Ben, it wasn't too often you saw her wearing something that didn't cover her face and arms. She was almost always covered in bruises and cuts from Amalia throwing something at her.

"Not only that, but Amalia would make Lili sit out in the snow during the winter, leaving her out there for hours when she "misbehaved,'" Ralph told me, putting an emphasis on misbehaved, meaning it was just Amalia's excuse to be a bitch. "After Cam died, it seemed Lili was always telling me how Amalia made her sit out in the snow, Amalia always telling her Cam's death was her fault, often making her repeat it to herself as she sat in the cold. Lili told me once how her mother's cruelty became even crueler during blizzards. Amalia would lock her out of the house for the entire night during some blizzards, not letting her in well into the next morning."

I sat there, horrified. "How is Matthews still alive then?"

Ralph shrugged lightly, obviously saddened remembering what his friend has been through. "She often would have to wait hours before her mother fell asleep, then either her father would let her in, or she would find ways to sneak in for a couple of hours to warm up."

"Didn't Ben stand up for her? Do anything to stop Amalia's torture?" I asked, concerned at the reality that Matthews grew up in. Not only had she grown up knowing she was a magician, but her mother tortured her because of who she was.