Witch in Hiding (#1 in the Witches Trilogy) (EDITING)

Twenty-One: Broken Streak

I only realise it's Thursday when I try to order pizza and find out their weekly Wednesday deals aren't available, because it is, in fact, not Wednesday. Then it takes me another hour to realise what that means.

Sans laptop, I call Ver instead. She picks up surprisingly fast. "Vinni! Thirty-eight weeks!"

"Er... what?"

"We had a thirty-eight week streak of Wednesday calls, which you just broke!"

I didn't realise she'd been counting. "Sorry, I was kind of busy."

"Doing what?"

"I, uh, had a bad fall. I've been in the hospital; I'm still here, actually."

"You're in the hospital?!"

"You're not in school?"

"I snuck out of class," she says dismissively. "Vin, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, ish." I wedge the phone between my cheek and shoulder and twirl spaghetti. Hospital food isn't actually too bad. "Mom's really worried about me, though."

"I can't believe neither of you told me," she huffs.

"I can't believe Mom didn't tell you. I was unconscious." I make a note to ask Mom how much she's hiding from Ver, too.

"Unconscious? When did you fall?"

"Uh, like, two days ago."

"And no one told me? Don't you think I should know this stuff?"

If that doesn't sound familiar. "Sorry. We were all kinda... busy." Ver doesn't look convinced. Is this what Mom feels like dealing with me on a daily basis? It almost makes me want to repent. On one hand, I'm frustrated because I care about Ver and don't want her to be shortchanged, but on the other, I'm shielding her from something that could very potentially harm her.

Are you really protecting her? A part of me asks. The line between Mom and Me is very very thin at this point.

"I had a dream while I was unconscious. My seventh birthday. The fireworks."

Her brows furrow. She was three, she'd barely remember anything. "Oh," she says slowly, "I think I remember. You were weird."

"Yeah. And I've been having another dream, too." I set down my fork. "It's us, and Mom and Dad, and we're at the zoo. I see a giant snake in the enclosure. Then suddenly I'm inside the enclosure. The snake attacks me. I do... something, and the next second, the snake's dead and I'm outside again. Sometimes, at the end of the dream, I become the dead snake."

She eyes me critically. "Have you been reading too much Harry Potter?"

"No! I'm serious! I killed a snake, Ver. Mom said a snake did die the day we were there. But she doesn't believe it was me."

She blinks. "Vin, you're weirding me out."

"I killed it. I don't know how. But it was attacking me, and I killed it."

"That's impossible."

"I know." Magic or not, I didn't even touch it. How could it just drop dead?

Vera chews her bottom lip. "Maybe you're just really stressed," she guesses. "No horror movies?"

"No."

"Hey, I'm nine, not a psychiatrist."

"And yet." I tap my temple.

She shrugs. "You're not getting any less weird. Have you told your friend, the one from the club... Rae?"

My mind slips for a second. "What club?" Then— "oh. Right. The club. Rae. Yeah, no, it... never came up." I flex my wrist and practice feeling the energy flow. Rae dropped by this morning, upon request, and told me how to make a shield from solid energy fields. The great thing about the twenty-first century is that none of this is hard to imagine, because I've seen it all on screen. Now I just have to bring it to life, and after hours of practice, I kinda got the hang of it.