Page 15 of Witch's Dawn
Grief filled my chest as I listened to my grandmother speak, watching the scene play out like a movie in my mind. How utterly unfair to have my mother taken away so cruelly. I felt heartbroken for a woman whose blood flowed in my veins, but who I barelyknew.
"She passed a week later from an infection that went septic but not before that God-fearing sperm donor showed up," Diana spat. "He made a convincing show of being the doting father, actually holding you and he even signed the birth certificate. But the moment Deidre died, he turned around and adopted you out to a couple from thechurch."
Diana shook her head as she reached for the bottle of wine. "It was like heknewshe would die. I don't know what he did but that coward didn't care what would happen. As long as he remained in good standing withthem.Pathetic."
"He wouldn't let you adopt me?" I asked, still bewildered by everything I just heard. "I mean, don't they try to place kids with familyfirst?"
"He was legally your father so the decision was up to him," Diana said sadly as she filled both of our cups. "I'm sure the adoption agency suggested it but he told all kinds of lies about how I was unfit to raise you. They already knew what we were so that put me on shaky ground from the start. I fought tooth and nail just to be able to visit you. To be honest, I'm surprised they allowed that for as long as theydid."
"Di-- grandma," I said, wrapping my hands around my drink as I tried to prepare for the information that was still tocome.
"Yes, love?" she beamed atme.
"What do you mean by what we were?" I asked. "Why did he call my mom a filthy heathen? Just because she wasn'tChristian?"
Her face fell as she blinked atme.
"My gods, Deja. Do you really not know?" She cupped my chin in her hand as she stared deeply into my eyes as if searching forsomething.
"Knowwhat?"
The left side of her mouth ticked up into asmirk.
"That we'rewitches."
9
DEJA
"Comeagain?"
Diana's smirk spread into a full-ongrin.
"We are witches,Deja."
She might as well have turned into an eight-foot-tall man with a long, dark beard and said,"Yer a wizard,Harry."
"What… do youmean?"
I must have been misunderstanding her. She couldn't have possibly meant that in the traditional sense of theword.
"This is what Imean."
Diana brought her hand in front of her face and rotated her wrist. Nothing happened at first. Then a flash of movement caught my eye, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when the wine bottle levitated into mid-air.
"What thehell!"
Diana flicked her wrist in a downward motion and the bottle tipped over, pouring more wine into my glass first and then hers. With another wrist flick, the bottle returned upward and gently settled on the coffeetable.
My heart pounded like a war drum in my chest, my ears, everywhere.How could this bepossible?
I snatched the bottle off the table, looking for a fishing line or something at the top or bottom that would explain what the everlivingfuckI justsaw.
"Magic is real, Deja," Diana said calmly. "I think deep down you've always known that, despite your adoptive parents trying all they could to suppress yourabilities."
I set the bottle down carefully as more faint memories flashed through my mind. Candlelight. A full moon. A warm blanket around my shoulders that smelled slightly smoky. And just for a second, red tendrils curling through the air like miniaturefireworks.
"You showed me witch… stuff when I was little," I said. "You tried to teachme."
