Ghost... Witch?

Birthday Month

October

1st

Sara POV

"Bye Di!"

"Hi Di!"

I bid farewell to Jaz and hello to Rach as I leapt out of our room's window at my sister's command.

It wasn't quite 4 AM but I had to go. It was May's birthday.

May is the baby of the family. She's only a couple of years younger to me but she's the only one of us who isn't a Clan member and we've all bonded over protecting her. She's probably the safest, and the most rigorously trained, descendant of Clan bloodlines on this planet. And today's her 3rd birthday!

We get to the MacNamara estate and get to work. I work with the sparse kitchen staff - this early in the morning there's only a couple of people, to bake a cake for our little girl. Rach is decorating 'our' room with Drake's assistance. Cait is sorting through costumes for all of us - there's a Disney Princess theme. I'm Rapunzel. Mum has been roped into entertaining May until we're ready for her and then bringing her in at the exact right time. They're being dressed up as the Fairy Godmother and Cinderella. Rach is Snow White. Cait is Ariel. Drake is Prince Charming.

I never knew how much effort went into putting together a party. I'm hot, sweaty, sticky and irritable. Why don't kitchens have air conditioning? Drake's complaining. He has been doing so for the past two hours. In his defence, I guess falling off a chair and making the welts you got from last day's torture training bleed entitles you to be a trifle whiny. Rach is snarling at Drake. Their conflicts have become less numerous over the course of the last few months but these small power struggles still occur. Rach is used to prompt obedience or well-reasoned arguments. Drake is having a hard time getting over the fact that he has to constantly take orders from someone who's younger but still better than him. His history of being compared with Cait makes being outshone by someone younger to him a sore point. Cait is going frantic over matching accessories and hair ties and hairstyles and all the other paraphernalia of her craft. She's now screeching at us to start getting ready.

I release a happy sigh. The cake's done and no one can complain to me in the bath. I pack Drake off with a reminder to call Cait in to rebandage his back and hop into the shower.

An hour later, we all stand in our room, dressed in our costumes, ready to sing 'Happy Birthday'. My head's weighed down with extensions, my feet are killing me due to the torture devices Cait calls shoes, (I'm serious! In fact I think I saw these in the torture chambers less than a couple of weeks ago!) and my face is threatening to split apart under the pressure of the biggest grin its ever known.

I feel a small pang of envy, true, when I compare this bonanza with my third birthday with the single, stolen gift and the secretive subdued affair that had passed for a party in our room but it is overwhelmed by the joy that floods my heart as May walks in, her face lighting up as we clap and sing furiously.

About an hour or so later, I lean against the wall and watch my family play. The game is musical chairs and I and Mum are out. The others continue.

My heart swells. Dr. Mishra is now my mum. She asked me to call her that once I and Jaz confessed the state of affairs at our home. Jaz gets to call her that too, and it feels SO good to be able to give her something after all these years of her giving me everything. I know my family so much better now. Rach is a closet nerd. She reads anything and everything and is a computer whiz. She's gonna design robots when she grows up. Smart ones, like in Star Wars. Cait is not just an air-headed fashionista and socialite. She's smart in her socialising and builds contacts for all of us. She's also a designer and whenever we need (or, to be more accurate, she thinks we need) to make people 'extra-jealous' (her words, not mine) all we have to do is slip on one of her creations. Drake's fire control has improved dramatically. We figured out that his problem was not in targeting and shaping but in volume. He always sends out far too much fire. Now that we allow him to go big I've seen him shape his fire into true works of art. And I... I have realised that I CAN laugh and sing and dance. That I have a roof under which I can dare to LIVE without fear of punishment.