Witch in Hiding (#1 in the Witches Trilogy) (EDITING)

One: The Day Men Forget, OR, The Day We Forget Men

Valentine's Day is a depressing event around the house.

See, not only is it the day when every storefront and TV channel and social media feed and advertisement is bombarding you with a whole spectrum of romantic ideas—ranging from the cutesy pink teddy bears with I HEART YOU on their chests to the gorgeously extravagant rose bouquets. It's also the day when when my mom pretends the only person she loves in the world is me (and Vera, who gets mailed a gigantic care package)— she's overly cheerful, buying me boxes of chocolate and taking me out to dinner and huge ice cream sundaes. It's the day that, harbouring idealistic romantic notions, my parents chose to get married.

We have a whole routine sorted out, mom and I, set into stone by unspoken agreement. I go to school. I come back and find her shut up in her room, doing work, poring over old photographs. I tend to myself for a few hours, give her space, sometimes play Taylor Swift, depending on how vengeful I'm feeling towards my dad. Then, about six, I put on something nice. Six-thirty, without fail, like nothing happened, she sweeps into my room and announces our grand dinner plans for the year. It's always either fancy or exciting or both, and then after that is sundaes, and after that we go home for mother-daughter bonding time over crosswords and puzzles and whatever romantic comedies/tragedies are airing that night.

The part of my ritual mom doesn't know about comes after she goes to bed (early sleeper, early riser). It's ten thirty over here, eleven thirty over there, and I Skype my little sister. Aged nine, she's a bona fide prodigy currently on scholarship to study in a school for gifted kids somewhere out of this small, nondescript city. While I'm failing maths, of course.

Her curfew is actually eleven, and she's generally good about following it ("Sleep is important, Vinni." Yes, Mom.) but today she makes an exception. She's online before I am, and she makes the call. I accept, and soon we're staring at each other. She's like a miniature version of me, skinny, dark hair, dark eyes, pointy chin—just without the glasses and with blissfully smooth, pre-puberty skin. She's wearing a Star Wars shirt that's like five sizes too big for her, and she's holding a pen so I know she was just doing work.

"Hey, Ver."

She leans forward so she can reach the keyboard and starts typing. She has this thing about using the IM feature even though we're literally face to face. I think it's because she likes the emojis.

Vera: HEY :D

I shake my head, smiling, and send the same emoji back. "How are you? You were having some quizzes, right?"

Vera: yeah :(

"Okay, you've got to stop that."

She giggles and types no >:(, but relents. "The quizzes were fine. Basic algebra, and stuff. They're annoying to do, but they're not hard."

"Sure, basic algebra," I say like I'm reminiscing. I'm still grappling with basic algebra. "You open it yet?"

"Nope." She pops the 'p' and reaches down to get something from under the table. It's a rectangular cardboard box, a foot long and eight inches on the other sides, sealed carefully with tape and with her name written across it. Mom's yearly care package. "What did you get?"

"Chocolates, and a necklace."

"Hmm." She's eying the box, eyes bright. Brilliant she may be, but she's still a nine year old who follows gift-giving traditions religiously and gets excited if you hand her a taped bag. "Shall we?" She's impatient to open it, bouncing up and down slightly.

"Rip it."

She doesn't, she uses scissors, but she flings it open with urgent animation. She stares fervently at the contents for a moment, drinking it in for herself, then she sits back and straightens. "Okay." With professionalism, she removes the first item. A book. It's Something Wicked This Way Comes. "Mom remembered!" She beams and starts flipping pages after showing it to me. "I said I wanted to read it a while ago, but they didn't have it in the bookstore at Christmas."

I wonder if mom's trying to be funny or life is just giving me another warning. One Year Left. Something Wicked This Way Comes.

"Cool," I smile. I'm being paranoid. "What else?"

The usual: granola bars, chocolate, candy, a handwritten card. Stationery, pot pourri, sunblock. Also: a knitted sweater with her name on the sleeve. I'm not surprised, I saw mom packing the thing and I knew exactly what was in it, but it's different seeing it on the table and seeing it on the other side of a screen—like a window I can't open—as Vera pulls it over her head, grinning. It's ginger and cinnamon and I know she's thinking about Harry Potter; I'm thinking about how I said I was too old for knitted sweaters and how I kind of want one now.

Vera doesn't notice; she's slipped the card out of its envelope and is reading it. She starts giggling and reading out certain lines—"'Remember, you only live once!'—Mom is five years behind, seriously", "I'm fine, mom... maybe I shouldn't tell her about Melchisedec?". Mom's card—no, letter—is three pages long, so it takes a while. She shakes her head at Mom's cheesiness, but she's smiling, knees curled up to her chest and slouching, forgetting I can see her. With the floppy sleeves and slightly mussed hair it's adorable.

"Hey, Ver," I interrupt. She glances up with a distracted 'mmm?'. "Mom got a weird present today."

"Stalker, boyfriend or blackmailer?"

"...Ex-husband."

Vera jerks her head up. She sets down the letter. "Really?"

And there it is, the reason Mom came in at six forty-five today, the reason I beat her in Monopoly and the reason she messed up my sundae order. She wouldn't say anything, but now that I have it's real. Dad sent a present. After three years of nothing.

"A necklace, a really pretty one. With amethysts." I saw it in the mail pile, saw her open it. I checked the trash afterward but it wasn't there; either Mom found a more permanent destruction... or she kept it.

Vera frowns. "Was there a note?"

There was. I didn't get to see it—it wasn't in the trash, either. "I wish you were here to help me get it."

She smiles. "Operation Doppelgänger?" We taught her the word when she was six—it's our tried and tested plan of one of us simultaneously distracting Mom while the other sneaks off to do something forbidden. Doppelgänger, as in, we are identical; doppelgänger, as in, we are interchangeable.

"Operation Doppelgänger." I tease a grin out of her. "Except now my skin is not as great as yours."

"It's fine," she says dismissively, the girl who's never had a zit or a bruise or a scar in her life. I get scars from knee scrapes—she gets a fishing hook in her palm and nothing. "Can you try and get the letter?" She asks keenly. "Maybe see what brand the necklace is."

"I'm not digging through Mom's personal stuff," I say patiently. "Not for this, it's private."

Her face falls. "Check her jewellery box?"

"Vera." Good role model Vinni strikes again.

She sighs dramatically. "Okay, okay. How's school?" She scrunches her nose up the way we both do when we mess up. "Maths?"

"I am determined to pass this term," I say firmly. "I'll get Jess or De to help me."

She pauses. "You can always text me."

Yes, I have asked my little sister for help before. She's not learning all the topics I am, but if she's got the concepts she can figure out problems and spot patterns a lot faster than I can. "Oh don't worry, I will. And how about you? Still slaying all the other kids?"

She laughs and scrunches her nose. "I'm not. Everyone is super smart here." She sticks out her tongue. "I'm okay."

We talk a bit more, about my new classmates, about the girl she's competing with in her Biology class, the dog Mom still won't let me get, the new owl Vera's adopted in loco parentis in lieu of her mouse, Melchisedec, running away. It's relaxing, it's easy; Ver laughs at all my jokes and doesn't care if I say something stupid. Then a sound I can't hear alerts her and she twists around. "Shoot, they'll yell at me." She drops her voice suddenly, scampers off to throw the lights so the screen goes pitch black except for the light of her laptop. "I'll see you Wednesday," she whispers at me.

"Yeah. See you." She goes offline; the silence is sudden, deafening, and kind of lonely.