“Madre visita a un momento de esperanza…” I whispered gently, murmuring to myself about last night’s date.

He had no idea what I was. And if he did, I would be faced with a simple choice: to either kill or be killed.

Pressing the spell book firmly against my arm, ensuring that it still remained intact, I could feel the cusp of my fingertips beginning to bleed. ‘Paper cut’, I thought solemnly. It must be…

Then, distantly, I heard a faint knocking on my door. I gasped audibly, hoping that I could defend myself against the candles, sigils, and crystals I was using.

For a witch, I sure was jumpy. But then again, humans were too when they ‘envoked the dead’ and heard a noise.

I knew deep down that sooner or later, my secret would be leaked, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t withhold it for now.

Reaching for a bottle of wine that I kept in my mini-fridge, I gulped it down as quickly as I could, drowning my sorrows, since nothing else would.

Who was I pretending to be, anyway? Who would actually be impressed with my lifestyle?

And who was I fooling with all my “psychic readings” that I offered to people? I felt like a fraud that only took money from strangers and led them astray. In spite of how “helpful” most told me I was.

I often felt like a good-for-nothing. Someone who gave and got nothing back.

But nothing, no one, could change who I was.

Born a witch, descended from the blood of those who had chosen me, I’d also die a witch. But before I did, I had to take the blood of someone I loved, and offer it to my God, or Goddess, of choice.

***

“Mom!” I called urgently from the upstairs bathroom. “Where did you put my toothbrush? Mom?”

And then felt a hand abruptly on my shoulder. “Oh! You scared me…”

“Listen.” Her voice lowered an octave so that she could softly but strongly be heard only by me. “I do not appreciate the secrets being kept around here. And had you told me earlier,” she lifted her hand from my back, slowly curling her fingers, “this never would have happened.”

“What would’ve—”

But I spoke too late.

Before I knew it, I was falling to the floor suddenly, clutching at my mouth. The sting of a million spider bites spread throughout my body as I felt the blood oozing from my mouth. I screamed in agony.

I couldn’t believe this. This was powerful dark magic, inflicted only by the worst of witches.

“Now do you see?” Wildly, I searched her face for any hint of remorse, but I could find none. “This is what happens when we keep secrets around here.”

“Make it stop!” I screamed as the spiders fell from my mouth. It didn’t help that I was arachnophobic, but Mother knew how to play on my worst of fears.

She coddled my face softly, a grim, empathetic façade planted on her expression, holding my pulled out teeth in her hand.

“The tooth fairy came a little too late, I see. But had you opened up to love, maybe you’d know how to stop me.”

“What are you talking about?” I growled.

She grabbed my face, reached inside my mouth, and squeezed a brown recluse to death until it screeched one last time. And then, she began to smear the blood all over my face.

“Mother!” I howled, keeling over, sobbing. “Why?” I yearned to scream, to curse, to fight back, to poison her as she had poisoned me.

But none of my pain, my rage, could possibly be expressed in words or physical action.

“Because,” she smiled sweetly, pure evil spilling from her lips. “You don’t understand. You are hanging out with people who are simply not for you. And I am trying to make you realize that punishment and correction are both for your own good.”

“But you are my mother. I thought…”

“No. That’s where you’re wrong,” she cut me off, her eyes softening considerably. “Your friends… they’ll never accept you. And your father, especially.” She shook her head, her eyes turning into rust-red pools of fire.

“You have tested me, dear Ashlee. And for that, I can never forgive you.”

And she walked away from me, leaving me to lie there in infinite agony. My palms began to ache, to sweat, as I experienced an itching sensation all over my body.

I needed a doctor—a hospital—but I knew that she would never let me go.

So with that option out the door, I was left with only one choice: to find a spell that would cure me of this poisonous illness inflicted by the spiders.

‘Damned if I did, damned if I didn’t’, I thought miserably, as I knew my mother would eventually find out.

Somehow.

But it still baffled, stunned me, that Mom had not only known my identity, but proven to be a more powerful witch than I knew, and one that belonged to an entirely different coven.

So I dragged myself helplessly to my bedroom – barely able to walk, but inspired faintly by the hope that maybe, just maybe, I could prove her wrong.

“Please let this work,” I muttered, lighting a cinnamon-scented candle. Part of me wanted so desperately to rush through the ritual – out of fear of being caught, or perhaps just the sensation that if I didn’t take action soon, I might not be alive for too much longer.

But then I heard a cracking sound penetrate the walls, spreading swiftly like a spider’s web.

“Hello?” I could feel my chest caving in even more than it already was. “Who’s there?”

And then, a figure moved toward me as I let out a shriek.

“Cecilia! God, you scared me!” But I was still on the floor, cinnamon candles and incense before me. “How are you possibly here? I locked my door."

Looking down at me with wild concern in her eyes, my best friend ignored my questions and lightly embraced me. “Ashlee, what happened? You look like you’ve been shot in the mouth.”

“Cecilia…” I sighed deeply, distress furrowing my brows. “Please don’t worry about me. What are you doing here?”

“Not until you answer my question.”

Just then, I heard a loud thudding sound. The sound of someone trying to break down my door…

“Go,” I stammered to Cecilia. “Now!”

Pushing her toward the huge crack in my wall, leading outside. She must have trusted me enough to listen, because she vanished right before Mother barged in, breaking down the door completely.

“What was that sound?” she coolly questioned, as nonchalantly as ever.

“Nothing,” I quickly muttered, trying all too late to cover up my spell books, grimoires, sigils, crystals.

“How did you know about the magic?” I finally deflected, realizing that it was no use trying to hide what she already knew.

Smirking steadily, she curled her lips and tilted her head back. “First, give me some of that wine you got in that fridge. I’m starving, but it’ll do for now.”

With a jolt, I realized the implications of her words. My head spun in dizzying fragments, and I could barely recall the next few moments.

And the next thing I knew, when I woke up, I was lying on my bed with an ice pack on my forehead, with Mother standing over me with wine in her hands.

I tried to get up, bolting upright, but as soon as I did, I could feel the searing-hot pain bleeding through my chest.

“What did you do to me? What are you?” I groaned through clenched teeth. “Tell me before I cast a spell on you and rip your head off.”

Laughing half-heartedly, clearly drunk, Mother pushed me back gently as I felt the sting once more. “Keep it closed, you semi-competent witch.”

Barely able to breathe at that point, I motioned toward the wine in her hands. “Give me some of that. Please…”

“And for what? Why shouldn’t I let you die before my very eyes? Withering away completely until I can revel in your very desiccation.”

Shaking her head silently, she tearfully, melodramatically passed the wine my way, while smearing my hands with blood from the broken wine glass.

Moaning loudly, I cried. “What do you want with me? Just talk to me already! I’m your daughter, for f*ck’s sake.”

“Fine. Ask away,” she coolly replied.

“And to answer your first question – what you see is what you get. It takes one to know one. Meaning…” She paused for effect, licking her lips. “I’m not the kind of witch you thought.”

“What do you mean?” I could barely contain my rage, bubbling over into my mouth, and onto my wretched face.

“It means that…. ‘tis better to reign in hell, than to serve in heaven.”

No, I thought in horror. It couldn’t be.

For if I was a white witch, that meant that she could only be…

“Dark, dear, yes. A dark satanic witch. We’re both so very close, and yet… we serve two entirely different masters. After all, we cannot serve two masters. We’ll either hate the one or love the other,” she cooed softly, quoting the Holy Scriptures.

“But the question is, if you identify as a witch, do you serve yourself, or another god?” Mother scoffed at me, spitting where I lie stilly on the bed.

“Well?”

But I, at that point, was nearly unconscious. That is, I felt a familiar crack in the wall behind me.

The one that Cecilia had entered through only moments before.

“What’s going on?” Mother scowled, enraged, reaching her hands up in the air to stop Cecilia from going any further.

But Cecilia had already grabbed her by the neck and knocked her to the floor. Mother was strong, however, and continued to put up a fight.

At last, Cecilia grabbed a broom from the corner of my room after dodging several of Mother’s hits. She throttled my mother by the throat, jabbing the broom through her collarbone, and watched as she fell to the floor, not dead, but unconscious.

“Cecilia…” I moaned faintly, barely able to speak or move. “What are you doing here? I don’t understand. I can’t see you… I….” I felt too shocked, too numb, too hazy in order to properly react.

“Ashlee, I heard you. I heard your cry for help. Let’s get you to the hospital.”

Too weak to protest, I nodded slowly, half-heartedly.

I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d die if I didn’t rush to the hospital soon.

And fast.