Tears cascade down Mom’s face as Dad stares forlornly at his plate of bacon. Meanwhile, I chew on my ham, observing her.
“Why bother making breakfast if we can’t partake?”she murmurs. “Do you hate us?”
I scoff. I’ve long yearned for a genuine family—a family that isn’t glued to their iPhones, doesn’t plan child-less vacations, celebrates when said child wins the storytelling contest at school. The memory lingers, it shattered my heart. Who would rejoice in my triumph? No one.
Those days are gone, forever changed by the fateful encounter at that ancient Wiccan shop.
The decrepit hag caught me holding The Book of Spirits.
The spontaneous question that escaped my lips seemed to arise from my very soul. “What if you never wanted the Spirits to leave you?”
She turned her cloudy eyes towards me, mischievously sparkling as if she KNEW. “Dark magic always exacts a price that few are willing to pay,” she cautioned.
“I would sacrifice anything,” I declared, and sacrifice I did.
Call me traditional, but moments spent with family are priceless —regardless of their unhappiness. They’re here, after all.
“If I’d hated you, Mom, I wouldn’t have gone to such lengths,” I assure her.
Dad’s voice trembles, “When you love someone, you let them go, let them move on.”
Nonsense. “No! When you love someone deeply, you’d do anything to keep them close.”
And so, I did. I slice into my ham, using the very knife that I wielded to carve into them.