Written for the game Spelling Bee, Writing Prompt #10

 

“Magnets,” she said, her eyes lighting up as she pushed her flowing golden sleeves back. “It’s exactly like magnets.”

“…Right,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. Chanterelle was wearing some sort of golden kimono thing today. It wrapped around her curves, tied at the waist with a leather belt inlaid with amber and red stones. They glittered in the light. As always, she fit the witch stereotype perfectly.

“You don’t get it, do you?” The suspicion in her eyes tried to cut into me but I waved it away.

“We’ve already established this, Chanterelle,” I shrugged. “You do magic. I don’t. Magic doesn’t like me.”

“That’s because you don’t let it,” she lifted up a finger and the pages of the books open in front of us shuddered and then ruffled, flicking through themselves. “You have to feel it–let it attract to you, as I said–like magnets.”

“This is stupid.”

“Mother 3 said this is important,” she narrowed her eyes. “It is.”

I jumped to my feet. “Well how am I supposed to understand when I don’t know why? No one’s told me anything.”

“Neither have–”

“Don’t you lie to me,” I snapped. “The Mothers told you. You know.”

The fire in her eyes crackled right back at me. “Don’t assume what I know.”

“You know everything. I know you do,” I hissed, jutting my chin out at her.

She slammed her hand down on the table, letting off a blast of hot air that sent me reeling back a few steps into her stack of records.

I’d had enough. Mother 1 was still gone. Mother 3 kept looking at me like I was going to die. And the perfect girl from the window had disappeared.

I lifted one of the black disks and flung it at the floor.

“I hate you. I hate everyone in this house. I just want to be normal–I have nothing special about me. Why can’t you all just leave me be?”

She hesitated, her eyes softening to dark pools. “You aren’t normal, Nymphira. You can never be normal.”