I cover my ears, trying to block out my mother’s humming. The eerie, raspy tune echoes throughout the whole house, though that wasn’t very surprising considering how small the house was. And old. I sigh and climb out of my squishy, narrow bed. The headache that had caused me to go lie down in the first place flares, making me squeeze my eyes shut and making my hands fly to my temples. A familiar length of silver fur slinks through my doorway, and it rubs against my legs comfortingly. I bend down to stroke Maika’s silky fur. Maika lets out a soft meow and stands still for a moment before she springs away and up towards my bed. I sigh again and start toward the door slowly, and I sing my own soft tune under my breath to try to and drown out my mother. “Witches brew, witches stew, none of them understand. They give us a bad reputation, and burn us all across the land!” I sing quietly as I make my way to the kitchen to see what my mother is doing.
The floor creaks ominously under my bare feet as I emerge from the ridiculously long hallway into the small kitchen-dining room combination. My mother is standing by the fireplace, stirring a cauldron that is filled with a suspicious looking green bubbly liquid. As my mother circles the liquid around with a dated wooden ladell, she continues to loudly hum the off-key tune. My mother looks up for a moment, just slightly acknowledging my presence since she was busy with her mixture, which smells like dirty feet. My mother and I aren’t exactly close, but it’s not like we get into arguments regularly. We kind of just, well, deal with each other. Well, it had been like that until just a few months ago, when I had discovered that I had inherited my mother’s magic blood. That had changed everything.
