Luna's Awakening

6

I expected Mom to either gasp, scream, cry out or all three when she saw all of my objects hovering in the air in my room when I opened the door.

She took me completely by surprise when she started chuckling. We stepped in and she closed the door behind us.

"What's so funny?" I asked, trying to gage her reaction to whatever this was.

"This happened to me when I was having my awakening phase," she said with a chuckle. "It brings me back. I had snuck in one of my high school boyfriends and everything in my room started to float. He saw the whole thing and started freaking out, so I hit him over the head with my lamp, knocked him out, and ran to your grandma for help. She was furious, but got everything to settle down and cast a memory spell. At the time, I was upset and horrified, but now I find it funny."
The whole thing surprised me. Number one, Mom actually had a boyfriend she snuck in in high school? I couldn't believe she could be that rebellious, and the fact she got him past Grandma Marie completely floored me. The old woman had eyes like a hawk and nothing got past her. It was a stroke of luck she hadn't heard Madison when she snuck in my house.

Number two, despite knowing she was a sorceress, she seemed like she wanted nothing to do with magic, so it was weird to talk to her about it.

And number three, I still couldn't get over how calm she was about the whole thing.

"So how do we get everything to come down?" I asked her, glancing nervously at the door, waiting for Dad to barge in here and see all of this at any moment.

"I got it," Mom said. She made a circle motion with her hand, whispering something so low under her breath I couldn't hear it. Everything started going back into place, like it had before instead of just falling to the ground.

I watched in amazement. For the first time in my life, I actually thought my mom looked cool.

"Wow!" I said, staring around my room in amazement. "You need to teach me that!"

The amused look abruptly vanished from her face, replaced by a remorseful one. She was silent for a moment before saying, "Your grandma can teach you that. You know I don't practice magic anymore."
She turned to leave, but I reached out and gently caught her arm. She looked back at me with a questioning look.

"Mom, can you tell me why you don't want to use magic anymore?" I asked gently.

I didn't think she'd tell me, but I was burning with curiosity. She opened her mouth, more than likely to tell me she didn't want to talk about, but she closed her mouth and pulled me towards my bed.

We sat down. She took my hand and said, "It's not easy for me to talk about, but I figured you have a right to know."
She paused, and I waited patiently, not wanting to force it out of her.

"I decided to not use magic when your grandma told me what happened to her. Sometimes, the world of magic and spirits can be very dangerous, and it can be hard to balance your life between being a regular person and a sorceress.

"At first, as I went through my awakening phase, I was excited, thinking this was going to be an awesome adventure. But, it was hard to keep things from my other friends and family who had no idea about magic. I would have to lie to them, which caused them not to trust them anymore.

"I was in school for nursing and my magical abilities and duties kept getting in the way of being able to pass. Going to a nursing school was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, one I couldn't afford to mess up.