Witch After Time - Chapter One

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Chapter One

The way I saw it, I had two options and neither of them was ideal. I could use a forbidden spell and make this strange kid disappear or I could ignore my motherly instincts and let him walk out the door with my one and only daughter.

Had I not said goodbye to my penchant for snooping, Camila wouldn’t have thought she could make a run for it with a boy her father and I never met. If I’d held on another year, this all could’ve been avoided, but, no, I ignored my suspicious nature and embraced life as a normal. A lot of good that did me now. My kid had crossed the line and broken our trust. Nothing would ever be the same again. From now on, I’d never leave her side.

“Mother?” she pleaded, but I needed a minute. I had to wrap my head around what had transpired before I could respond accordingly. My gut reaction never did me any favors in stressful situations. In fact, it almost always made matters worse. I had to tread lightly or suffer the consequences, which in this case meant, two more years of teenage girl angst.

The bright child who’d spoken her first word at five-months-old said nothing about this kid to us. Not once. She hadn’t said a word before I made a special trip to the grocery store for her because she was a vegan again today.

Man alive! When a teenager goes all Jekyll and Hyde, I knew to be wary, but I let my guard down. That won’t happen again.

“Did you hear me?” she asked.

I resisted the urge to yell at her.

“Mother?”

This afternoon’s events came back to me. I thought it was odd she’d asked me for anything because she was so pleasant about it. She even said, “thank you”, which for her, was a lot. After the last several months, we’d learned she was no longer the polite bundle of joy I brought into the world. These days she was more like Attila the Hun on steroids but with better clothes.

I believed she’d made a change for the better. I thought the “terrorizing teens” were a thing of the past—something we’d boast about on homemade t-shirts. I survived Camila’s teenage years. Boy, what a joke! Who knew how far she’d take things?

Had it not been for our keen-eyed next-door neighbor, who’d spotted them in her backyard and called me to tell me about it, Camila and her awkward Romeo would be long gone.

What made this debacle mildly comical was Camila forgot I wasn’t born yesterday. With two brothers before her, neither of them particularly ingenious, I’d seen it all. Little went unnoticed in our household. Someone would eventually squeal to gain leverage on someone else. That’s the way my kids operated. The power dynamics shifted daily.
Sometimes hourly.

“Earth to Mother. Are you there? It’s me, your daughter,” she groaned.

I arched a brow. “So, you like to live dangerously?”

She rolled her eyes.

“How attached are you to those eyebrows?” I made a cutting motion with my fingers.

She gasped.

“Don’t push my buttons. You’ve already buried yourself in a deep, deep hole,” I warned.

I did have a third option to consider, but it was drastic. Way beyond what my family could handle. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I could handle it. The last time I’d used a deflection spell, things hadn’t gone as planned, and none of the witches in my family let me forget it. Never! Family reunions, Sunday brunches, special occasions, it didn’t matter. They found a way to work my epic failure into a conversation.

Based on today’s events, I could see my long-term relationship with bad luck was still alive and well. My inability to nip this in the bud before it became a problem would embarrass my ancestors if they heard.

Only I would snub my family legacy right before a major crisis. I abandoned my role in typical dramatic fashion. Some called it a scorched earth moment, but in my defense, I didn’t start the fire, and no one got hurt. I said goodbye to the witch life. Now I wish I’d held on a little longer.

“She’s not even listening to me,” Camila whined to her date. “How am I supposed to change her mind if she can’t pay attention?”

Oh, the irony! I’d spent almost two decades of life wondering if my kids had hearing problems. She had no right to complain about me.

Reverting to old habits would come with a price. I was out of practice and way out of my element. I’d never cast a spell on my children, not even when they refused to sleep through the night. I was always afraid I’d turn one into a goat, or worse, a witch.

I’d grown up hiding my witch ancestry, and it made everything more complicated. Not only did I have to keep it from strangers; I also had to hide it from the people I loved. That included my husband and his family—the people I liked to call the Goon Squad because they behaved like a bunch of entitled bullies.

When you grow up in a house full of meddling witches, you learn a lot about life, like how upside-down things can turn if you don’t learn to control your abilities. That was one of my problems. Another was my inability to keep my mouth shut when the Goon Squad made an appearance, which was more often than I could tolerate. They were always eager to point out my flaws.

“Fine. Since you can’t answer me, I’ll decide for myself,” Camila declared.

That got my attention. Her decision-making skills are what landed us here.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Sure. Let’s go with that. Why not add another lie to the mix?”

“What’s your answer then?”

She didn’t know when to quit.

“That’s a joke. Right?”

“No.”

I turned away to collect my thoughts. So many scary scenarios ran through my head. I couldn’t see anything but disaster at the end of the road. Not that I didn’t trust the young man. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know anything about him. He never gave me an opportunity to get to know him. Encouraging my daughter to sneak out of the house wasn’t a great beginning. And now I’m supposed to hand her over to him? I don’t think so.

A spell could solve everything, though.

I shook my head at the thought. My secret would ruin our lives. That’s not to mention what it would do to my husband’s mayoral campaign. We didn’t spend the last two years pretending to be the perfect couple who’d raised perfect children and made all the right decisions for nothing. Rob had worked hard to win the nomination. It was my job to make sure things ran smoothly at home. It was the least I could do after what happened last year, but that’s a story for another day… years from now. Like when I’m dead.

“Mother, please?” Camila pleaded with her amber-colored eyes wide like serving bowls. How quickly times had changed. One day, she’s an adorable curly-haired toddler, who couldn’t get enough of me. The next, she’s dressed like a Real Housewife, begging me to let her make the biggest mistake of her life with a guy who hadn’t even looked me in the eyes yet.

How did we get here? What had I done to deserve this? I thought I’d have a little girl and she and I would be best friends. Two peas in a slightly wacky, hilariously funny pod. When did she decide it was better to be sneaky? How had I missed that? It’s like I blinked and the whole world changed.

“Can’t do it.” I glimpsed the discarded bags of groceries on the floor. “Is that why you asked me to go to the store? You thought you’d hightail it out of here before I came back?” Rage burned inside me. “Do you know how humiliating it is to get a call from the nosiest woman in town about something your kid did?”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s why you won’t let me go? Because you’re embarrassed?”

“You know that’s not what I said. You don’t get to make this about something it’s not.” I took a breath. “What you did was wrong. And you know what else?” She pursed her lips. “I think you know it was wrong. You wouldn’t have tried to sneak away if you didn’t.”

She shuffled her feet as a smug grin grew on her face. She thought she’d outsmarted me. She must not have understood I was a teenage girl once too. And I was so much better at it than her.

My downfall was my mother. She wasn’t like other moms. She didn’t have the eyes in the back of her head thing. Nope. She had much more aggravating skills. Special, if you will. The one she loved to use most was read minds. I could never get away with anything.

“That’s not why I asked you to go,” Camila protested.

“Really? It’s not. This is what we do now? We lie, manipulate, and—”

“I didn’t lie!” She raised her voice to a level she knew would prompt a sharp reaction from me. To throw her off balance, I quelled my anger and smiled. She tried again, “It wasn’t a lie. I never said I’d be here when you got back.”

Priceless. To think I’d waited thirty years to have a little girl of my own. Four months of morning sickness and an eighteen-hour-long labor and this is what I got in return?

“You said nothing about him, that dress, those heels, prom, or anything else. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but conveniently forgetting to share your plans with your parents isn’t an adult way to behave.”

She rolled her eyes. That was her superpower. Too bad for her, I had a few superpowers of my own—all of which wouldn’t help her win this argument.

“No prom for you,” I said in my best angry soup guy from Seinfeld voice.

Her body shook with teenage rage.

“And if you keep that up, you’ll never leave this house again.”

She stomped her foot. “That’s so unfair.”

“Your abysmal communication skills are what’s unfair. We make the rules. We decide if you leave this house.”

She held her breath.

I stifled my laughter.

She exhaled a gush of air. “Dad’s never here. How am I supposed to talk to him about anything?”

Talk about a gut punch. We were all aware of how little time her father spent at home, but he had good reason to be gone. He wanted to make a difference in the world and take care of his family. No one could fault him for that.

I didn’t trust my voice not to shake if I spoke, so I arched a brow at her instead.

“You can’t do this.” Her tone shifted to a whiny ballad like a sad old country song.

Was that the best she could do? Puh-lease!

“The answer is no. End of discussion. Game over. End of the line. Better luck next time.” Satisfied I’d done the right thing, I turned. I didn’t know this boy. I didn’t understand what his intentions were, and I never gave her permission to go to prom.

She looked at Prince Not-So-Charming as he wrestled with a gnarly fingernail, then looked at me as if I was the one who’d told him to put his finger in his mouth.

“Charming,” I mumbled. “Now I see what the appeal is.”

“Mother! Can you not? Like, he’s right in front of you. He can, like, hear every word you say.”

“Can I not what? Can I never let you out of my sight again?” I mentally patted myself on the back for that one, then continued, “Sure.” I blinked like the genie from the old television show—the one who lived in a bottle and married the handsome Air Force guy. “There. It’s done. You’ll never leave my side again. You and I will be besties.” I threw my arms around her.

Boy Wonder belched, oblivious to the debate.

I was so taken aback by what Camila had on her back; I hadn’t noticed his fancy get-up—black jeans, black Converse gym shoes, neon green socks to match the stripe on the side of his head, an over-sized shirt with a starched Dracula collar and a thin red Bolero tie with the devil imprinted on it. Snazzy in a Ducky from Sixteen Candles sort of way.

In addition to his questionable style, his five o’clock shadow made my eye twitch.

“How old are you?” I asked. I suspected he had a few years on her based on the facial scruff.

“Nineteen,” Camila answered for him in a tone that made the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention.

He winked at her like she’d done something adorable.

Did he not have one clue? Come on, even a toddler could sense danger.

“And you’re still in high school?” I ignored the eye roll from my young spawn. “Why? Did you start late? Get held back? Love high school so much you couldn’t bear to leave?”

Camila answered for him again, “Why do you have to be so nosy? Yes, he’s still a student. He had to do the tenth grade twice. It’s no big deal.” I arched a brow again. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to be the smartest person on the planet to get a job these days. It’s not like we’re in the Dark Ages.” I could see she hadn’t paid attention in Social Studies class. “He plans to be his own boss someday.”

Funny, I didn’t recall ever dropping her on her head. Maybe I was wrong.

Camila made her next move, and it wasn’t a good one. “You can’t convince her of anything when she’s like this. Let’s go before she finds something else to yell at us about.”

 “Excuse me? I don’t recall yelling. Do you?” I asked the fake Ducky.

Count Lackluster quirked a brow up like he didn’t understand the words that had come out of my mouth. “Huh?”

I took a cleansing breath before I blew up on this man-child. “Let me try that again. This time I’ll say it a little louder and slower so the people in the back can hear me. Do. You. Always. Let. Others. Speak. For. You?”

“Nah, I can talk.” He sucked his teeth. “She don’t have to talk for me.”

See? A real charmer. What was I worried about? He’s the ideal guy for my daughter. He speaks so eloquently.

“You mean she doesn’t.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, that’s what I said. She don’t have to talk for me. I can talk for myself.” He laughed. “See, I just did.” He snorted as he spoke, “Get it?”

Don’t blow up. Keep your cool, Mariana. He’s a child. Remember the Golden Rule.

“So, explain. Why did you have to repeat your sophomore year?” I asked.

Apparently, that was a bridge too far for Camila because her cheeks turned a deep shade of red. “Mother! That’s none of your business. It’s like personal.”

If she said like one more time, my head would explode.

The ever-present nagging voice of my late-mother whispered in my ear, “Why are you worried about him? Look at the kid. I doubt he can even tie his own shoes. He’s harmless.”

“You can’t know that, Mama. You don’t know him. None of us know him,” I blurted without thinking.

I got a reaction out of the future Rhodes scholar—small but enough to make me rev up the crazy. “You will not take her anywhere tonight, tomorrow, or any other night—at least not until she gets a refresher course in how to communicate with her family. Is that clear?” Thankfully, he didn’t question me about the Mama comment. The last thing I needed was for a stranger to know I held conversations with my dead mother. I hadn’t even told my family she was still with us. Why would I tell a kid I didn’t know?

Camila looked at me like I'd sprouted an arm out of my head. “And you think I have a problem? Maybe you should, like, look in the mirror. You, like, threatened a teenager. Isn’t that against the law or something?”

She was brave in front of her little friend. Too bad for her I wasn’t in the mood to indulge her.

I fanned my face to shoo unpleasant thoughts out of my mind before I said or did something I’d regret.

“You’re a big, fat chicken,” Mama scolded. “I blame your father for that. He coddled you. I told him that would come back to bite us in the—”

I stepped away from the kids before they caught on to our conversation. “Watch yourself, Mama. You want to see those pearly gates someday, don’t you?” That almost always worked with her since her death. She may have been ornery, but she wasn’t ornery enough to risk eternity. “Let me handle this. And for the record, I’m not fat.” I stepped into the dining room—close enough to keep an eye on the kids but far enough away that they wouldn’t hear me.

“You’re not exactly skinny either.”

“You would think death would make you kinder and gentler.” I exhaled out my frustration. She wasn’t the one who’d upset me, but she sure did like to push my buttons. “I don’t know why you always make me remind you that Dad is still alive. You know that. I’m sure you mess with him all the time too.” A thought occurred to me. “Have you?” I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer, so I went back to the original question. “Why do you talk about him like he’s gone? He’s alive and well. The last I checked, he was still very much in love with you, so don’t talk about him like he’s a bad guy. He’s the best. He loves you to the moon and back.” A lump of emotion nearly choked me. “Ugh! Why do you make me do this?”

“Without me,” she said with a hint of sorrow in her voice.

“Do what without you?”

“He’s alive and well without me,” she clarified.

Emotion welled in my throat.

“Besides, he’s moved on. I see him. He stops everything to watch what’s her name on television. When will he get it through his head, it will never happen? She’s happily married.”

“Who?”

She clicked her tongue. “Don’t make me speak her name out loud.”

“You’re jealous of a movie star?” I never understand how her brain worked. She could go on a tangent about anything. It didn’t matter. When she got something in her craw, she never let go. “He hasn’t moved on without you. He’s grieving. We all are.”

She clucked her tongue. “He has. You know how I know?” I shrugged. “He put that ugly leg lamp up in my picture window. Do you know how much I detest that lamp?”

I knew. It was a whole thing for most of my life. My parents bickered like no other couple ever had before, but they also loved deeper than anyone I’d ever met.

“Kinder and gentler is for old people. What happened to you? Just because you volunteered to bake cookies for the band doesn’t mean you have to eat them too.” She laughed as if what she’d said was remotely funny. “That woman is Salma Hayek and she knows what she’s doing.”

I’d forgotten about her issue with Salma. “Mama, he’s not obsessed with her.” Was this for real? Did I really have to reassure his wife of almost sixty years? “He thinks she looks like you.”

Mama didn’t have an off button. If she had an opinion, she made sure everyone knew about it.

“She wishes she looked like me!”

I couldn’t do this. “All right. Enough. She’s happily married to a billionaire.”

“Fine. Whatever. Don’t believe me. When it happens, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, Camila isn’t your problem.”

“Then who is?”

The sound of her laughter made my throat swell with all the emotions I hadn’t yet allowed to come to the surface. I missed her so much. Even though she was the biggest pain in my backside, she was also the person I turned to for everything. Having her here in spirit wasn’t enough, though. Sometimes I needed her to walk me through this whole parenting gig. I don’t know how she did it. She and my father had six children. Six different personalities. Six mouths to feed. Six kids with wonky attitudes and more hotheadedness than a forest full of angry bears.

“Your problem is your gut.”

I shrugged. “In case you forgot, I got these curves from you.”

“Not your curves. I mean your instincts. You don’t trust yourself enough.”

“I don’t know what that means.” She always suckered me into a conversation. I poked my head around the corner to check on Camila and her friend. Neither was interested in me. They both held their phones in front of their faces, seemingly oblivious to each other.

Mama chuckled in that I-told-you-so way. “Yes, you do. You always do. They told you they’d come back for you.”

“Who?”

Camila poked her head around the corner. “What?”

“Huh?” I turned, embarrassed. “Who do you think you are?”

She shook her head. “Can we get this over with already? We don’t have all night.”

“Let her go. I’ll explain what I meant later,” Mama said.

I shook my head. “No, I can’t. If I do that, who knows what she’ll try to pull next. Besides, when did you become the softy? You never let me go anywhere.”

“That’s because you never listened.”

I covered my ears. It was better to keep my mouth shut.

She grumbled something unintelligible.

“Bye, Mama.” I closed my eyes to get my thoughts together and wait for her to leave.

When I opened them, I found Camila and her friend locked in a too-close-for-my-comfort embrace in the hallway.

“Do you mind?” I signaled for them to separate. “Leave room for—”

“Ah, give it a rest. They think they’re in love,” Mama said. “Don’t act like you and Rob never sucked face in public. I don’t know how many times I had to spray cold water on you to tear you guys apart.”

That never happened. She always confused me with my sisters. I never understood why. Both my sisters were heads taller than me and entirely different people. They were Ying and Yang; I was Sasquatch.

“Sigh all you want. It doesn’t mean I’m wrong,” she said.

“But you are,” I whispered.

She ignored me. “Here’s what you have to do. Let the girl go. It’s a dance, not a wedding. Drive them there. Who cares? The more you protest, the more she’ll rebel. If you don’t want that kid to be your son-in-law, act like it’s not a big deal. Trust me. I learned that the hard way.”

I gasped.

“Oh, don’t act surprised. You remember how I felt about Rob when I first met him… Well, not him—his father and the demon woman.”

“Rosie, his mother,” I corrected her. “She’s not a demon.”

“Who? Me?” Camila turned in a huff. “You can’t call me a demon. I’m your daughter.”

“No one called you a demon.”

Camila’s bottom lip quivered.

“See what you did? You made the girl cry,” Mama scolded.

“No, I didn’t,” I whispered. This was a disaster. As difficult as it would be, I had to ignore my mother, or I’d lose my daughter. I couldn’t let that happen. “Sweetheart, you are my baby. Me and you against the world, remember?”

She sniffled.

I walked over and draped an arm over her glitter-covered shoulders. “Never mind what I said.”

“So, I can go?”

“No. Let me finish.” The scowl returned to her face. “If you’d done this the right way, I might have let you go.”

“How am I supposed to do it the right way when you never told me what the right way was?” She thought she had me, but she was wrong.

“You think your father and I didn’t teach you right from wrong?”

She signaled for her date to follow her out the door.

“Don’t you dare.”

It was two seconds, but it felt like an hour-long standoff before she chose her next move.

“Mother,” she started, “I want to go. It’s a dance. We have a limo and everything. You’re the one who always says not to waste money, so why force me to waste his?”

My gaze floated down her flimsy dress to the stripper heels on her feet.

“Don’t say a word,” Mama warned.

“Did you forget about what Harriet told us?” I asked.

That threw Camila off guard. We almost never spoke to the kids about anyone associated with Rob’s campaign.

“What?”

“Let her go,” Mama said again. “She’s young. She’ll learn.”

I couldn’t believe these words were about to leave my mouth, but I was desperate. My gut told me prom was a bad idea. “We promised Harriet Not-the-Spy we wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize your father’s campaign.”

Camila was a smart girl. She knew how much I detested being handled by a woman who knew nothing about children, but Rob insisted she was the best in the business. A scandal would ruin him. It was bad enough we had to distance ourselves from his father’s dubious business practices. If something went wrong tonight, not only would it net me a jail sentence for killing Camila’s date, but it would kill Rob in the polls.

“Seriously? I thought you didn’t like her,” Camila said.

“I never said that.”

“Yes, you did.”

I couldn’t think of anything to defend my sudden change of heart. Desperation? Perhaps.

“Okay, so just so you know, she’s the reason I decided to go to prom.”

Mama and I gasped at the same time.

“Wait, what?” I asked.

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