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

Six: When In Transylvania, Do As The Vampires Do

In our entire year of friendship, I've never had lunch at Mel's. In fact, I've never been to Mel's house. Van has, De has and Jess has, but somehow whenever I'm free Mel's house is mysteriously unavailable. Except, well, today.

It's just as unexciting as everyone else's on the outside, and, stepping through the door, it's not especially remarkable on the inside either. I start to wonder if she has a secret basement or something, and that's why she's never invited me over.

But no. As it turns out, Mel's big secret is the meat locker with the dead cow.

"What happened to the pig?" Jess asks, glancing over my shoulder briefly.

"The cow's been there since last week, Jess," De says, not even looking.

"I ate the pig, remember?" Van, in the other room laying out plates, has a muffled voice.

I snap my fingers to get their attention. "This is normal?"

They all blink at me, like I'm the weird one. "Mel is a vampire," Jess says slowly, "what did you think vampires ate?"

Beef? Then I refocus my eyes from dead Buttercup a moment, and spot the obvious. The blood. In clear plastic. "Exsanguination," Mel explains (it means being drained of blood, I looked it up), "but don't worry, it doesn't feel a thing."

Okay. Vampire. Blood. Makes sense. But what about the cow?

"Kids!" Mel's mother calls from the kitchen. "Get here before your beef bolognese gets cold!"

Oh.

We traipse into the kitchen and take seats. Everyone digs in to steaming plates of pasta, but, suddenly queasy, I eye my food. Mel notices I'm not eating and puts down her fork. "What's wrong?"

"I told you you shouldn't show her the pantry before eating, Melbourne," her mother sighs. "Are you all right, Vinni? A lot of people feel a little nauseous the first time."

"It's not the cow." The fork hangs limply in my hand. "It's, um..." I wonder how to phrase it without being offensive. Tentatively, I poke at the pasta. "Um, there's no... blood in this, right?"

Everyone bursts into laughter. Mel's mom quickly reins it in, although she's still hiding the chuckle as she says, "no, no. Melbourne's does, but yours is perfectly normal."

I look at Mel's plate, then look back at mine. It's practically the same. Jess nudges me. "It's fine. Really." She wipes tears from her eyes. "Sorry, Vin's a little new to this."

"It's all right," Mel's mother laughs. "You girls enjoy lunch, and you're on dishes, Melbourne!"

"Yeah, mom," Mel calls after her mother's retreating back. She spoons pasta into her mouth. Blood and dead cow. I flirt briefly with the idea of vegetarianism, then tear my eyes away from her utensils.

"So are your whole family vampires?"

"Yeah. Vampires and werewolves both. Unless you were bitten, it's pretty safe to say that vampirism and lycanthropy comes within the family."

"So there are others? Around here? Like a pack?"

"Hmmm." Mel considers. "Magical creatures have communities—the fairies, the gorgons, the elves, the mermaids—they do have central homelands with reigning leaders, all over the world. Then there are territorial pack creatures like us and werewolves that don't have a specific homeland but have different groups presiding over separate territories. Within those territories they integrate into society. I mean, my parents are lawyers. Our territory is pretty big; the clan leaders aren't anywhere near, but there's another vamp family fifteen minutes' drive away."

"What about witches?"

Jess takes this one. She seems to know the most. "The thing about witches is that it's just an umbrella term for someone with undefinable powers." She scrunches up her nose looking at me and I can tell she's thinking about the teacup again. "Hmm. Well, anyway, powers that can't be categorised. I guess you could say it's not so much a species as a label. It's definitely not hereditary as far as anyone knows, although you have to have some pretty powerful parents..." She trails off, looking at me expectantly.

"My mom's a dryad."

Everyone's silent, not wanting to ask the obvious, but it gets so awkward I answer it anyway. "I don't know what my dad is. My mom said I got it from him."

Jess exhales in relief and nods. "Witches don't pop out of nowhere. All that potential energy, you have to get it from somewhere."

"Can we change the subject?" I say firmly. "Please?"

Van screams. "Centipede!" She yanks her legs up onto the chair, pointing in terror at the ground.

Crawling across the kitchen floor is the hugest centipede I've ever seen in my life, over a foot long, snaking its way towards us. "MOM!" Mel shrieks. Apparently the undead are not immune to gigantic evil bugs. "I THOUGHT YOU THREW OUT SYDNEY'S ENGORGEMENT POTIONS."

"Someone do something!" Van yells. It's nearest to her, and unfortunately, she's the most terrified of bugs.

No one does anything. I stare at it from across the table, semi-transfixed. It's horrible, legs tapping out a skittish rhythm on the floor, brown black, glossy, hard, evil. It comes towards us, seemingly growing in size, swelling to fill my vision, quickly, quickly...

A flash, a burst. A jolt, like when you wake up from the sensation of falling.

Van stops screaming.

"It's dead," she says breathlessly. She doesn't get off her chair.

It's half stuck in the garbage disposal. It's dead. Nausea rises in me. I push away my food and stand up, scraping the chair. "I'm gonna go home," I say, my voice a little thick. "I'm, uh, not feeling so good suddenly." I grab my stuff and head for the door, pointedly winding away from the centipede. "Thanks for the invite."

"Vinni?" Jess calls, concerned. "You sure?"

"I'll be fine. Must be a reaction to the... cow." Hurriedly, I head home. Light-headed, I collapse into bed.