Family Magic, Chloe Price [christmas read aloud .txt] 📗

my body, the more normal I felt. Somehow, soccer shut down my worries about magic and set me free.

Plus, I was addicted to the rush, the smell of fresh cut grass, the impact of hurtling bodies that only turned to pain hours later. I lived so much in the moment on the field. I’m not sure what it was about soccer in particular, especially considering I sucked at all other sports I tried. Maybe it was just the one normal thing I was good at. And I was really good at it. So much so the coach pushed me way harder than the rest of the girls and they knew it. No wonder I wasn’t popular.

But, on the field, I didn’t care about popular, probably the only place I didn’t. On the field all that mattered was the ball, the grass and getting it in the net.

I packed up reluctantly at the end of practice, dragging my butt, wishing I had anywhere to go but home. I longed for friends to hang out with, to be normal and not the girl who lived the life of a cloistered nun. None of the other girls offered, as usual, going their own ways in their little packs of twos and threes. I tried to insert myself when I first arrived but took the hint pretty quickly. Their clubhouse was closed to new members. So, I made the return trip a lot slower going than coming.

I was almost home when I noticed with horror the hunched, skinny old woman across the street. My stomach clenched into immediate anxiety. I almost dropped my backpack in my haste to get to her before something awful happened. Even from thirty feet away, I recognized her hair, white and wild. In daylight, Gram’s paper-thin skin almost glowed with the veins underneath. She stumbled to a halt in front of a mailbox, dressed only in a thin, flowered nightgown brushing her bare toes. She proceeded to have a heated conversation with it, gesturing wildly. I rolled my eyes as I reached her, waving at a passing car whose driver watched with concern.

I gently touched her arm. She glanced up, pale blue eyes almost white they were so washed of color. Her lips pulled back into a grimace. She clutched at me, thin hands surprisingly strong.

“He won’t apologize,” Gram gestured at the innocent mailbox.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it, Gram,” I said softly to her, wishing I at least had a normal grandmother, not the disabled witch clinging to me, offended by a box on a stick.

“He said some horrible things, Miriam,” she whispered. “Horrible.”

“It’s Syd, Gram,” I sighed and tried to pull her away. “Let’s go home, okay? Mom will be worried about you.”

“Lewd things,” she hissed, eyes flashing, “vulgar and suggestive.”

“Really?” I tried to distract her. “Maybe Mom will want to hear it.”

“Maybe I do, too!” She cackled, hopping up and down on one foot to the other, face splitting into a huge grin. “Say it again, sweetheart!”

Gram reached out to grab the mailbox as I spotted the twitch of the living room curtain across the lawn. I waved, trying to appear harmless, tugging in earnest. I yanked at her even harder when I spotted a huge black dog. Yikes. This family had obvious protection issues to need a monster like that in the family. I felt a sudden shock of recognition. It was the same dog I saw the day before outside my house. Only this time, I paid attention to what he looked like.

Shaggy, thick and massive, more pony than canine, he stood by the corner of the house, staring. The way he watched me made me shiver. I wasn’t sure if Gram’s antics would trigger an attack or not but I wasn’t about to hang around and find out. Man, that dog was huge.

“Let’s go, Gram, the mailbox doesn’t want to play today.”

She pulled free of me, shrieking. “Let me go! Leave me alone!”

I pulled a little harder, not wanting to give her the chance to take off on her own. Who knew what the dog would do if he saw her run away?

A wicked gleam appeared in my grandmother’s eyes.

“Witch!” She cackled happily. “She’s a witch! Help, she’s evil, evil!”

“That’s it,” I grated through clenched teeth, keeping one eye on the dog and the other on her, “no more nice Syd. Here, Gram,” I fished out a large milk chocolate bar from the front of my backpack. I had been saving it for a rainy day of pajamas and bad TV, but this was way more important. Thank goodness I had it with me in the first place. Besides chocolate, the only other distraction that worked was tequila and I was too young to carry it around. Guess the Boy Scouts have the ‘be prepared’ thing all figured out after all.

Her gaze lit up like a child as she tore into the wrapper. I managed to turn her around and start her walking the block back to our house. I glanced over at the dog, but he was gone. Dodged that bullet. We slowly made our way without much incident while Gram sucked and smacked at the melting chocolate. One glance at her and I knew it would take a whole lot of scrubbing to get her clean. But, at least she was quiet.

She stopped at the end of our driveway and I flinched. I took her by the arm again, hoping to head off another outburst, wondering why the chocolate hadn’t done the trick when she turned to me, face blank and serious.

“Darkness comes,” she said softly, wetly around the chocolate in her mouth.

“Yeah, Gram, sometime today.”

She turned to me and pressed her index finger into my chest. I looked at the smear of chocolate. There was no way I was getting the stain out of my pale blue jersey.

“Nice, Gram,” I said.

“No light has it seen,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “none will it see, for it chooses the dark.”

I stopped tugging.

“Gram? What are you talking about?”

“From within, but without,” she whispered to me. “Its goal is power, its joy, pain. Darkness comes, Sydlynn, and you must stop it.”

I shook my head, not sure what to say. This was the most lucid I ever saw my grandmother, if you could call it lucid. She even managed to get my name right for the first time ever. Here she was after decades of living in her own little existence, attempting to communicate, and I had no idea what she was trying to say.

“Gram,” I said. “Who is it, can you tell me?”

“Beware,” she said.

Our conversation ended with the banging of the kitchen door. Mom ran out into the yard toward us, her face a combination of anger and fear.

“Mother!” She reached for Gram, spotting the chocolate. “Syd!”

“Mom!” I fired back.

“Did you have to give her that?” Mom tried to take the last of the bar from Gram but the old lady was quick. She managed to stuff it into her mouth with a squeal of joy. I half reached toward her but the woman I just spoke to had gone, leaving the damaged mind in control. Part of me wondered if it was the ravings of a crazy woman after all, but I needed to be sure.

“Mom,” I started, “Gram—“

“Is a mess and who knows what she’s been up to,” Mom snapped at me. “Really, Syd, is it too much to ask for you to watch out for your grandmother? I was gone an hour and this happens!”

I froze, letting the familiar anger wash over me. I was used to being blamed by now, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.

“Not sure how I’m supposed to do that from soccer practice,” I snapped back.

“Your family is far more important than some game, Sydlynn Thaddea Hayle,” Mom used my full name to push my buttons. “She could have been hurt. Or worse, she could have hurt someone.”

“I’m not her babysitter,” I said. “I have a life. Be grateful I found her and brought her back.” My anger had the better of my mouth.

Mom’s face turned a shade of purple.

“Get in the house, young lady, right now!”

“Fine, I was headed there anyway!” I snapped back. I stomped past her, and shoved the kitchen door, making it squeal on its hinges.

“Get back here and help me clean up this mess!” Mom yelled after me.

“Only when you get around to making up your mind!” I kicked the door shut and ran up to my room before I completely lost it.

I slammed my bedroom door without gaining any satisfaction. I leaned against it, shaking with anger. This would never work. What was I thinking? She was impossible and I was sick of trying. I was done reaching out to her, before I even had the chance.

Magic or no magic, I couldn’t wait to cut myself loose from my crazy family. Chapter Twelve

In bed, I poured over the day, finding it hard to shut down my mind. Now that I made my decision about school, I couldn’t wait. I was looking forward to talking to Brad, to making friends, to stop volunteering as a punching bag and just be myself. And if they didn’t like me? No big change there. I was mad at myself for letting the years of bullying get to me. When had I gotten so weak, so unwilling to stand up for myself? When did being like them become more important than being me?

My mind shied away from the answer. I think I knew wherever it came from was at the core of my distaste for magic. Ever since I could remember, I felt an aversion to using my power, like something inside me screamed “No!” every time I tried to tap in. It didn’t hurt or anything, aside from making my stomach queasy and giving me a brief case of the dizzies. It almost felt like my conscience trying to stop me. Over the years I’d grown to listen to it. Maybe it meant I wasn’t supposed to be a witch after all. Whatever the reason, even though I’d told Mom about it years ago, neither of us had ever found a malignant influence, so I learned to live with it. But not my power.

Mom. Yeah. I also had no desire to ponder my relationship with her either. How was it I could love her so much one minute and hate her guts the next?

Instead of digging deeper, telling myself I did enough personal exploration for the day, thank you very much, I drifted to the memory of talking to Brad Peters, of walking with him, of the way his soft hair moved in the breeze, how his eyes shone open and honest, his smile, his voice...

I was so lost in the fantasy, it took me a few minutes to see my bedroom wasn’t as dark as it had been. Light from the back yard poured through, sparkling from the crystals of my chandelier.

I rolled over and to my knees, leaning over the windowsill and peering out. It only took a heartbeat to register what was about to happen. I leapt from bed and hit the floor running, praying I would not be too