FirstLineFiction beta

from Contest #2

All the trouble began when my grandfather died and my grandmother - my father's mother - came to live with us.

I had heard my parents arguing about it for days before we “took her in,” as they put it. Strangely, it had been my father who fought against having his mother come, though he had never before, in my presence at least, said anything against her. In the end, it was my mother who won the argument, saying that helping the old woman was the right thing to do.

I was twelve at the time, the younger of two girls, and feeling very alone in the world. I had only met my grandparents once before, when I was eight. We’d travelled east and stopped briefly to see them, and I hadn’t realized then that there was any sort of problem between my father and his mother.

What I did know was that having another person living in our household would likely complicate my life in ways that nobody else could understand.

The first day Grammy was with us set the stage for how things were to be. She was still in the midst of mourning for Grandpa. After all, they had been married for nearly fifty years – a time that to me seemed like longer than forever. But Grammy wasn’t one to let a little thing like personal tragedy keep her down.

“What in the world is the matter with this child?” Grammy posed, in her most tactful voice, as our family gathered around the dinner table that first evening. Naturally, I assumed the question referred to my older sister, Susan the Drama Queen. Susan was practically sobbing over the end of her personal happiness. It seemed that her boyfriend, Steven Crabtree, wasn’t paying any attention to her. Since I was aware that Steven thought the entire world spun on its axis only because of sister, I was fairly certain she was upset over nothing.

 “Susan is fine, Mom. She’s just a teenager. Have a little patience.” Even I couldn’t miss the edge in my father’s voice as he jumped to Susan’s defense.

“Not her, the other one. She hasn’t said a word all day. Is she sick? You never mentioned that she was retarded, so I’m assuming that’s not the problem.”

By then, I’d been working on my poker face for at least two years, but I hadn’t managed to control my biological responses. I felt the sudden warming of my skin as my face reddened. To my credit, I still managed to maintain silence and a blank expression. I determined to let my father handle this.

He did, pounding his fist on the table so that the gravy boat sloshed and we had to grab our milk glasses to keep them from falling over. “There’s nothing wrong with Haley, either, and we might as well set some ground rules right now. I’ve managed to keep their lives normal and keep them out of trouble. If there is even a suggestion that you might be doing something to change that, I will find another place for you to live so fast you won’t have time to finish packing. Are we clear on that?”

Well, that was just about the most astounding thing I had ever heard my father say. He was such a gentle and caring person that he wouldn’t even disturb a spider web for fear of upsetting the spider. But there he was threatening his own mother with eviction… and for what? What was it he was so afraid she would do to his daughters? I was so curious, I nearly asked. Of course, I didn’t have to.

“What do you think Grammy is going to do to us?” Susan was clearly as intrigued as I was, because she had completely forgotten that her life was at an end because of her boyfriend.

“Nothing. And I don’t want to hear another word about anything from anyone. Muriel, where’s my coffee?” This last was directed at my mother, who continued to be strangely silent. I thought perhaps she was taking a lesson from me.

Grammy went silent as well, but I knew she watched me out of one eye as we all tried to eat. We were all feeling the stress, I was sure. That must have been why the sugar bowl turned over and several dishes dropped to the floor through the course of the meal. My mother just kept cleaning up the spills, without even admonishing us to be more careful.

As soon as she finished eating, Grammy went upstairs to the room my mother had set up for her. Since I’d helped arrange the room for her, I knew it had its own TV set, radio, and even a hot plate. Grammy would be fine. Besides, I told myself, she was probably still very sad over my grandfather’s death.

Steven Crabtree showed up on our front steps soon after Grammy went upstairs, and Susan, remembering how upset she was, burst into a fresh paroxysm of tears. After a few angst-filled moments of loud discussion, she allowed Steven to persuade her to take a ride with him to talk about their problems. My parents let them go, even though it was a school night. I knew they were as relieved as I was at the silence that followed.

In my own room, just down from Grammy’s, I tried to concentrate on math homework, but my mind kept making a u-turn toward the memory of what my father had said at dinner. Just how did he think Grammy could interfere with our normal lives? Besides, it wasn’t as if our lives were so normal, anyway. Certainly mine wasn’t. Why, for example, did things keep moving around when I hadn’t even touched them?

The next morning I woke to find more of my things disturbed than usual. Upset because it was going to take me a long time to put things right, I grew careless, muttering to myself as I rearranged rumpled piles of clothes. As I picked up my small desk lamp and set it in its place, I once again felt that I was being watched. Looking up, I saw Granny with her hand on the knob of my slightly opened door. With no apology for intruding on my private space, she said, “I can help you control that, if you’d like.” When I stared back in silence, she closed my door and left me once again trying to find the meaning behind what was being said.

Over the next several weeks, a fine tension settled on our family like a gauze bandage. As with any bandage, this one covered up what was wrong, but also kept out the fresh air that might have speeded the healing process. Even so, to an outsider it probably would have seemed that Granny was finding her place among us.

Things were getting worse for me, though. I left a path of destruction behind me each day at school; erasers fallen from chalk boards, papers blown off desks, lockers popped open as I passed. It was becoming harder to pretend I didn’t notice what was happening all around me, and I was more than ever certain that everyone knew it was me that was causing the chaos.

On the third week of Grammy’s presence in our lives, I came home to find her laying in wait for me. By the time I saw her, sitting in the chair by my bed, it was too late to escape. I would have to talk to her. Well, I’d have to listen to her, at least. I just wasn’t prepared for what she had to say.

“You’re a witch, you know.”

“Wh… what?” I stammered.

“There’s nothing wrong with it. There’ve been witches in the family for as long as anyone can remember. We used to be quite well respected in the old country. People came to us all hours of the day and night when they had a problem no one else could help with. But here, in this country, it has been difficult. Even some of our own family members, like your father, find shame in what we are. So we keep it secret. I never thought that he would try to keep the secret from his own daughters, though.”

As Grammy spoke, the tears had begun to pour from my eyes. I was crying not because I was ashamed of what she’d said, or even fearful. No, these were tears of relief. It was the first time that anyone had acknowledged that something about me was different. It was the first time anyone had put a word to what was happening. Witch. Yes, I was a witch.

“Oh you poor dear,” Grammy said, seeing my tears. “I just want to slap my son for putting you through this. Maybe I’ll put a spell on him and turn his ears green.”

“No!” I was horrified at the thought, and more horrified when Grammy started to laugh.

“Don’t worry, little one, I was only joking. We can’t actually do things like that, you know, and most of us wouldn’t even if we could. But we do have some abilities, and I can help you understand and control them.

That very day my lessons with Grammy began, secretly, and they continued each day after school. It wasn’t long before I learned to control the erratic movements that had threatened anything breakable in my vicinity, and I began to grow comfortable, knowing that I couldn’t cause any damage. I even began to learn how to use my abilities in ways that would help people without intruding in their lives. Grammy was all about ethics, and for her that meant that, like a doctor, she vowed to do no harm.

My father and she continued to keep their distance from one another. I could see that he still watched her carefully, and I understood the importance of keeping what was between Grammy and me a secret.

Until the day that Susan didn’t come home after school.

We didn’t worry at first, figuring she had stayed late at cheerleading practice. (Yes, of course she was a cheerleader.) But when several of the other cheerleaders showed up on the doorstep to ask why she had skipped the practice, it began to look like something unusual had happened.

My father headed for the high school and began looking for her there. She wasn’t anywhere close by, and it turned out that Steven Crabtree was missing, too. Father came home to call the police and start a search for both of them. My mother was nearly hysterical by this point, and I couldn’t stop trembling at the thought that something might have happened to Susan. It was the first time I ever realized that I loved my sister after all.

Around midnight, my parents sent me to bed, but there was no way in the world that I could sleep. I slipped next door and into Grammy’s room. She was standing in front of some candles and seemed to be muttering to herself. I didn’t think she even knew I was there until she spoke.

“It’s about time you got here. You and I need to combine our talents. I can show you how. We can find her, you know.”

With that, she took both my hands, and I felt a shock of connection surge through me. I began to visualize a scene. “Yes, that’s it,” said Grammy. “Do you recognize this place?”

The question helped me focus on details of what I was seeing. Yes, I did know the place. It was close to a lake outside of town, and I knew that sometimes kids from the high school went there for picnics and other meetings. I didn’t know this particular spot, but I could see a sign off to one side, and I knew I could find the spot if someone would take me there.

Grammy and I walked into the living room together. My father was there, talking with one of the police officers. My mother was on the sofa, trying not to cry.

“I know where she is,” I said, letting them jump to their own conclusions about how I knew. “I can take you there.”

To my father’s credit, he didn’t waste time on questions. We went in the policeman’s car and, within an hour, we found the place where Steven had lost control of his car and driven into a ditch. Both he and Susan were injured, but both would recover. My parents spent that night and the next at the hospital, leaving me in Grammy’s care. I knew we would both have some explaining to do soon enough.

The time for explanations came the day after they brought Susan home from the hospital. My father asked both Grammy and me to sit with him in the living room. I expected a scolding like none I’d had before, and I knew Grammy was ready to pack her bags and leave. Instead, my father began to apologize to both of us. It seemed he had figured out how I knew where Susan was, and he knew that Grammy and I had worked together.

“It was wrong of me to try to hide things from my daughters,” he said after we’d talked about things for awhile. “And it was wrong of me to cut you out of my life.” This last was directed at Grammy. “I thought that if I could just keep everything under wraps, I could protect both of my girls. I should have realized that if one of them had the talent, there would be nothing I could do to keep it from developing.”

“Was growing up with me really so hard for you?” Grammy asked. I realized that they had a lot of hurts to make up for between them.

“Mom, I… it’s just that I’ve tried so hard to keep the secret, even from Muriel.”

“You mean, your own wife doesn’t know?”

“Of course I know.” It was my mother’s voice, from the hallway. We hadn’t realized she was there. “I’ve seen what’s been happening to Haley, how dishes jump off the table when she’s around, and how she’d nearly stopped speaking altogether. I’ve been so worried about her. And I figured out a long time ago why you avoided your mother. There were witches in my family too, you know.”

There, the word was out in the open at last. I watched the emotions kaleidoscope across my father’s features – shock, sadness, regret – until he finally settled on what looked to me like acceptance. It was then that Grammy reached her hand out to him. He responded by drawing her into his arms.

So it was that Grammy came to live with us in full love and belonging. My lessons with her went on, every afternoon. It turned out that Susan also had some talents that she’d been trying to ignore, and she joined our sessions as well.

Over the next few years, Grammy taught us both to be good witches… very good witches indeed.

back to Contest #2