Chapter 1

I struggled to wake up from the deep sleep of the dead. Someone prodded my

arm, pulling and tugging. I blinked my eyes open and struggled to focus on the person

sitting on my bed.

It was Rose. Her blonde hair hung lank and heavily around her face and her

emerald eyes were wide. She tugged at my arm again until she realized she had gotten

my attention, then leaned forward.

“Lizzy?” she breathed, “are you awake?”

“Obviously if my eyes are open and I’m looking at you,” I muttered, taking my

arm out of her grasp. “What’s up?” I blinked at the clock. “What are you doing up so

early?”

Her eyes unfocused. “I, uh—” she hesitated, “there’s something you need to see.”

“Can’t it wait until—” I began.

“No, it can’t, Lizzy,” she said, “I need you to come now.”

I sighed. I waved her off my bed and pulled myself out. The chilly air hit my bare

arms and I pulled on a sweater. Then I followed Rose out of my bedroom, watching as

she led me anxiously down the hall to the stairs. We went down the stairs to the bottom

floor, the basement of our house. There were a couple of lights on in the den and she sat

me down at the computer.

Windows Media Player was open. I stared at the black screen of the video as Rose

struggled to get the video to play. I noticed a harsh whirring start and realized she had a

CD in the disc drive. The video sprang to life. I turned to the screen to find a familiar

face peering into a video lens in our old house. It was all so familiar, so wanted, that at

first I didn’t even hear what the object of the video was saying.
 “Hello, girls,” Mom breathed. She smiled a full but anxious smile into the camera.

“I really wish I could have done this in person. It would have been so much easier. But I

don’t think I’m going to be alive long enough to tell you about this.

“I, um... First off, I hope you’re well. I hope that you are all still together and that

you’re getting along.” She chuckled. “I hope that whoever took you in is well and that

you have had an amazing life with them. But, I have important news.

“Whoever took you in should have given this video to you when Rose was

eighteen. The reason for that is because I hoped that with Rose’s coming of age, the five

of you would be able to handle this better. What I mean to say is that the five of you are

witches, sister witches, and you need to stick together, protect each other.

“When I say witch, I don’t mean green hags flying around on broomsticks.” She

chuckled again. “That’s just a fantasy of the entertainment world. I also don’t mean

Wiccan, the neo-pagan revival movement that worships the God and Goddess, although

if you want to, you can also become Wiccans. When I say witch, I mean that you have

magic, real magic. You can cast spells, you can make potions, do rituals, and each one of

you will have a special gift, or ability, that will help you as a witch.

“My craft-cast is necromancy, and I’m sure that one of you will get that ability.

Your father’s craft-cast is telekinesis, so one of you will get that as well.

“We raised you in ignorance of your magic because we didn’t want your lives to

become so entwined with the supernatural world as ours has been. You’ll find that the

supernatural world, more commonly known as the hinterland, is a lot different than the

normal world. There are different people, there are different rules, and as much as we’ve

tried to change that, it hasn’t worked. And we’re in danger because of that.
 “We wanted you to be normal. Free from danger. But your abilities are going to

come some day, so the point of this video is to warn you of that. Magic is fun, but is also

dangerous. Once you understand that, you can take measures to make sure you are safe.

“Learn as much about the hinterland as you can, and about magic. Learn magic

like you learn your schoolwork. It is just as important as everything you learn in the

normal world. Find our grimoires and study them, use the spells, perform the magic. I

want you to have fun with magic, but I also want you to be safe. Make sure you balance

that.

“If you are living with your grandmother on your father’s side, then I’m sure she

will be able to explain all of this to you. She will have her family grimoire for you to use.

And tell her that your father and I say hi.” Her voice cracked and she paused. When she

began again, she took a deep breath before speaking. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I wish we

didn’t have to leave you like this but I don’t have any...”

Mom got up and returned with a Kleenex to blow her nose. “I have to go now. I

love you all so much, and your father does too, and we wish it didn’t have to be like this.

But no matter what, I will find a way to get back to you. There will be a way, I know

there will be. Bye girls.”

The screen crackled and the video stopped. I stared at it, transfixed. All of my

sleepiness was gone. Millions of questions swirled around in my head and none of them

had any answers except what was in the video. The idea that the five of us were witches

and that Grandma had failed to tell us wouldn’t leave my head.

When I looked up at Rose, she was turned away from the screen, silently crying

into a Kleenex. When she saw me looking at her, she turned back to me and asked, “Do

you think she’s telling the truth? That we’re... witches?”

 “I think so,” I breathed. I paused, twirling the ideas in my mind. “We have magic.

Magical abilities. And no one even told us. Until now.”

“Maybe Grandma was too sick to tell us,” Rose mumbled. She sat down on the

arm of the couch.

“She was supposed to tell us when you were eighteen,” I pointed out.

Rose nodded slowly. “Yeah, but...” She sighed. “Maybe she didn’t see the point of

it. Would we have believed her if she hadn’t shown us this video? I don’t even think she

knew about it.”

“She had to have known about it,” I told her. I considered her. “How did you find

out about it?”

“I found it in Mom’s stuff,” she told me. “You know, that box of stuff of hers we

decided to keep when we moved her, yet we never unpacked it.”

“What were you doing going through Mom’s stuff at 1 in the morning?” I asked.

She froze. I tensed, realizing that whatever it was must have been big to get this

reaction from Rose. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft. “I had a dream,” she

began. “Not like the nightmares I used to get when we were younger, but it was scary

just the same. I saw myself coming down here and pulling out the box of Mom’s stuff

and finding that CD, putting it into the computer, and finding that video on it.” She

looked at me. “When I woke up, I was still in my bed. At first, I thought I was having a

memory of sleep-walking or something. But I decided to get up and investigate, and I

found that.”

She stopped and shivered. I couldn’t picture Rose having a dream like this, but I

didn’t say anything. I turned to the screen and considered the last image of the video.

Then I turned back to her. “Did you find anything else in that box?”
 She shook her head. I doubted she knew what to look for, so I got up and went

over to the box sitting by the door to the storage room. It was filled with clothes,

jewellery, papers, etc. Rose joined me, kneeling beside the box. We took the stuff on top

out to see what was on the bottom of the box. There wasn’t anything magical looking. I

sat back, disappointed.

“Maybe Grandma took them,” I said.

Rose got up and returned to the den. Then she reconsidered and went upstairs. I

paused at the bottom of the stairs, looking at the computer. Then I went up as well and

found Rose sitting on the couch in the living room, arms folded over her chest. She

looked up as I came in.

“I don’t want the others knowing about this,” she said.

“What?” I said, shocked.

“I don’t want them knowing about that video,” she repeated. “Mom said that

magic was dangerous—”

“She also said it was safe,” I cut in.

“Oh, come on,” she muttered. “How safe could it be if Mom was scared it was

going to kill her, going to hurt us, and Grandma didn’t bother to mention it to us?”

I swallowed. “Safe or not, we need to know about this,” I told her, “we have to be

prepared. Mom said that we have to learn magic. That was the whole point of that

video.”

“It’s too dangerous,” she said.

“You don’t know that,” I shot back. Rose shook her head and stared at the wall. I

steeled myself and went to sit on the coffee table in front of her so she couldn’t avoid me.

“Mom wants us to learn magic, and I think we should. Rose, she made a video. She cried
in that video. She wants us to become witches. Or are you just going to ignore Mom’s

wish?” Rose lowered her eyes. I sighed. “Well, if you want, you can remain ignorant. I’m

not. I won’t do it, I won’t disobey Mom. And neither should you.”

I left the room and headed back downstairs. I took the CD from the drive and put

it into the empty sleeve sitting on the desk. Then I took the CD, shut the computer off

and returned upstairs to my room. I slid the CD into my desk drawer so that Rose

wouldn’t get it into her mind to destroy the evidence. I wanted to know. I needed to

know. Even if it hurt, I was going to know.

I laid on my bed thinking about that video. I thought of how to find Mom’s

grimoires, as she called them. I thought of how the others would react to the news. And I

thought of our past, all those memories, all of those times when we could have been

witches and we didn’t even know it. Our parents and Grandma must have gone through

so much to hide our identities from us.

Mom and Dad had been witches, and so had been Grandma. Such an odd and

distracting thought.

Our parents had died when I was thirteen. I’d been with them in the car when

something had happened to send the car into another then off the road. Somehow, I’d

survived. But our parents hadn’t. And all because I’d wanted to be taken home from a

slumber party. I wish now that I hadn’t even gone to the slumber party in the first place,

or that I’d been brave enough to tough it out. Then our parents would be alive.

Rose was only fifteen so we went to live with the only relative we knew of,

Grandma, Dad’s mother, who lived in town. We sold our big house and moved into

Grandma’s split-level near the centre of town. She welcomed us in with loving arms and
she did her best to parent us, despite being so fragile herself. But it fell to Rose to parent

us when she couldn’t.

I can understand how hard it must have been for Grandma, even if she neglected

to tell us that we were witches. She got saddled with five girls to look after in her old age

because no other relative would come forward. We didn’t even know where Mom’s

parents were and she never spoke of any siblings.

As for us, we were quite a large family. Rose was the oldest, and I was the second

oldest. Then came Mona, our reclusive middle sister, then the twins, Emma and Alix,

who were a lot more trouble than they were worth.

As I thought about how the twins would react, I realized that maybe that was why

Grandma never told us. Her health had been failing for awhile, and how could she

handle five girls coming into their magic? The twins were twelve when Rose was

eighteen, and they would have made chaos of our small, comfy house. I suppose it was

better now that they were almost seventeen. Grandma was gone now and she didn’t have

to deal with the chaos. Rose and I could deal with it, if Rose would only grow a spine and

admit it was for the best to become witches.

As if on cue, my door opened. Rose slid in quietly, her face grim. She made sure

the door was closed behind her before coming to sit on my bed.

I waited patiently. She took a deep breath before she started. “This would be

really dangerous for us, Lizzy.” I rolled my eyes at the nickname. “If what we see in the

movies is true, we could get ourselves killed. I just want us to be safe.”

“You think I don’t want that?” I asked her. “You think I want to die?” I shook my

head.
 “You’re just confused, Lizzy,” she murmured, not looking at me. “Because it was

Mom who made that video. I know you miss her, we all do. And we all miss Dad too, but

that doesn’t mean it is in our best interests to follow this through.”

I sat up, shaking my head again. “Rose, think about it: if people in this world can

spot us for being witches, how safe is that going to make us if we’re ignorant of it? What

if the twins were attacked by a...” I racked my brain for a scary creature, “a werewolf

because they were witches but didn’t know it? How would they defend themselves?”

Rose tensed. She hadn’t thought of that. Bully for me.

“You could be risking our lives by forcing us to live in ignorance of our magic,” I

told her. “And what if the twins embrace becoming witches? Are you going to force

them to stay normal against their will?”

I could tell I’d gotten Rose’s attention. I laid back down, glancing at her to see her

expression. After a long silence, she asked, “Do you think the twins would want to

become witches?”

“Yeah, probably,” I said. “But you should give them a choice to become witches.”

She nodded. “I want to think about this before I finally decide,” she said.

I bit my tongue to keep from saying anything stupid. I didn’t need time to decide,

my decision had already been made. I wanted to scream that there was nothing to

decide, that she didn’t need time. But I’d spent the past few minutes convincing her it

was right to give the others a choice and I’d be stupid to tell her she didn’t have a choice.

So I nodded and told her I wouldn’t tell the others. She gave me a small smile as

she left and closed the door behind her. I waited on my bed for half an hour, hoping she

would fall asleep quickly. Then I crept past her room to Grandma’s room and opened the

door.