Dark Arts, Oliver Wood

One: Cruel Summer

DARK ARTS
Act One, Chapter One:
Cruel Summer

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rule #1 of necromancy: first impressions matter. even the dead have standards, you know.

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Mae's not, like, proud of it, or whatever.

When she was little, she was the apple of her parents' eye, is the thing. Mabel Courtley was supposed to be this perfect version of the both of them, the right mix of her mother's smile and her father's eyes and all the things that make a person a person. But genetics is a lot like rolling the dice, right? Mae knows that better than maybe anyone on the planet – hell, probably in the whole universe – because she was supposed to be a lot of things.

Instead of flawless student or brilliant witch, she's staring at a newspaper clipping with her face on it in the bathroom of a gas station somewhere in Wales. The only light in the bathroom is a pretty pathetic overhead LED bulb, the glow blocked by the movements of several small insects across the glass. But it's just enough for Mae to stare at the newspaper and wonder why in the ever-loving fuck she decided to wear that shirt. It's hideous. Her vision swims, more from sheer exhaustion than emotion.

All she knows is that they left London maybe two hours ago, and since then, her dad has become fucking Columbo, or whatever. They've spent the entire ride so far in complete silence, him gripping the steering wheel of the rental car with white-knuckles. It's some sort of psychological manipulation trick, Mae's sure of it – they'll sit in silence until she breaks down, throws open the passenger side door, and hurls herself into the August air. Not that that would solve many issues. Her dad's got the whole robotic Auror thing down to an art by now, and though Mae would never admit it to his face, it's grinding away at her defenses.

"Tituba's sake," Mae says aloud to absolutely no one but herself. All three of herself, she supposes – real Mae, newspaper Mae, reflection Mae. They all sport the same blonde hair and gray-blue eyes, but they are fundamentally different people. Mae Courtley has been a different person every day for the past two months.

Like, raising the dead wasn't supposed to be this big thing. It wasn't supposed to blow up quite so catastrophically. Retrospectively, Mae can ask herself what the hell she was thinking, but in the moment, there'd been no self-preservation instinct, no sense of right or wrong. Of course, here she is now, one summer older and even less wise, if that's possible. God, Mae is so fucking done.

At any given moment, there are a thousand questions running through her mind, most of them in her father's voice and being some variation on why have you decided to nuke your whole life? Right now, though, the most pressing question is just what, exactly, she's going to do once they get to their destination. The car will pull up in the driveway of some little house in Cardiff, and her dad will walk her to the door and introduce her to people she's never met before, and then what?

Mae's never met anyone on her dad's side of the family. They don't really talk about that at home. Like, ever. Even Mae's mom – a rare ally – has told Mae off for bringing it up on several distinct occasions. So yeah, it's weird that her dad doesn't mention his parents for fifteen years, and then he's suddenly all too eager to dump his juvenile delinquent daughter on their doorstep? Mae's honestly completely humiliated about the entire thing. She's going to be living with them for the foreseeable future, and she doesn't know a single damn thing about any of them, just names: Bronwen and Ed Courtley, their late daughter Eira, and Eira's daughter Gwendolyn. And somewhere, somehow, Mabel Courtley is supposed to fit into this family.