The Prophecy

The sun warmed my face as I stared out the car window, I brushed a few strands of my caramel colored hair away from my face as I watched the trees and other scenery blowing past me in a blur of colors and shapes. I wasn’t really paying attention, simply resting the side of my head on the glass as I was being driven to my new home. It all still seemed to be a dream… the hospital, the funeral, the lawyers office. Our families attorney informed me that day of my parents will, that read if anything were to happen to them before I was a legal adult my care would be entrusted to their oldest friends the Whittens. Margret and Arthur Whitten grew up with my mother and father, even though they served as maid of honor and best man at their wedding I don’t remember ever meeting them but had heard enough to know they were good people. Apparently after my parents married and moved from Georgia to Tennessee both couples got busy with starting families and living their lives that they hardly saw one another but kept in touch over the last 18 years with random phone calls and letters. They sent pictures and presents at Christmas and birthdays. It didn’t help that my momma kept us sheltered away for some reason. I knew all about them and their three sons, living in the deep south on their old plantation. Mr Whitten was a professor at one of Georgia state perimeter Schools and taught something in the arts, and Mrs Witten was a mother and a house wife but came from a family like my mother with old southern money. She always told me to call her Aunt Marg but it’s hard to feel like someones your aunt when you have never seen their face in person. I’ll never understand why the fates decided that my parents were meant to be in that car, on that road, at that exact moment that night in the path of that drunk driver… and I hated them for it. As I felt the anguish and anger wash over me I felt the leather seat under my legs radiating with heat, I felt the hairs on my arms stand on end, and suddenly my eyes flew open and I saw in the review mirror they were glowing an emerald green they only were when I was casting, my natural hazel green eye color was less mesmerizing and I realized I was letting my emotions get the best of me and I was using my powers without meaning to, last thing I needed was to accidentally blow up the damn car or blind the driver.  I immediately calmed myself before the driver could sense what was happening and give me away. I took a few purposeful deep, slow breaths and turned my head to look back out the window. That’s something else I was struggling with. Not only was I going to live with a family I didn’t know at the end of the summer entering my senior year of high school, but how was I going to survive without my mother. My mother was a witch, and so was I. I inherited my powers only a year ago and we had only scratched the surface of what she was supposed to teach me before the accident, I had no idea what I was doing. The witches in our coven gained their full powers under the full moon after they turned 16 and they spent the next 2 years studying the elements before having their devotion ceremony to the mother goddess when they turned 18. Most of them mastered one element, a lucky few could master two, only the coven elders were known to ever master more than that and there hadn’t been a witch in recorded history that had been able to fully control earth, air, fire and water in over 1,000 years. Legend says the founder of our bloodline Diana was the only person they knew of to have this gift. My mother was an earth witch, my daddy mastered water. Not only could mama move the earth at will, but she had a green thumb unmatched by any I’d ever known. Her green house was filled with rare herbs, plants and flowers that aided in her spells and incantations and people came from all over to trade, buy and barter for her stores of ingredients, for her connection to the earth gave her the gift of being able to grow things others could not. Her down to earth personality and connection to nature were due to her elemental magic, she was loyal and passive, nurturing and mothering, but steadfast and stubborn like the roots of a great oak. My father and her rarely had an argument because he knew if she ever really put her foot down there would be no changing her mind. She once told me My Aunt Marg was a fire witch, impulsive and quick to anger like a wildfire, spontaneous and protective over the ones she loved, she and my mother were opposites but as young girls forged a bond and balanced one another out perfectly. Where my mother was a woman of routine and habit Aunt Marg would bring fun and laughter and where Marg was wild and carefree my mother would reel her in and keep her from going too far and letting her impulsive nature get her into trouble. Then there’s me… I can’t seem to get a handle on any of the elements. Apparently baby witches in most cases show signs of elemental magic as early as birth, nothing crazy but a child with an affinity for water magic could summon their bottle of milk from across their bed, or a baby fire witch could, in the throws of a tantrum snuff out a burning candle, or in rare cases the opposite and cause a flame to grow and catch something on fire. But Im not special, I never exhibited any early signs of magic, in fact I was convinced that once I turned 16 I wouldn’t be gifted with any powers under the goddess because of just how average I was. Every time I try to create a whirlpool I end up getting splashed in the face, every time I attempt to throw a rock at a target I’d do something awful like hit my fathers car window. Then there were times like these where my emotions took hold of me and seemed to be calling on the mother goddess without me even knowing. Mother was alway harping at me to try and concentrate and check my anger, she would mutter things about my inability to focus being the death of her, I just don’t think I’m gifted like her. But now that she’s gone I feel like I’ll never know, Marg will be in charge of my teachings when I arrive but with her 3 boys she most likely won’t have time for me.  Finally I came back to reality when I felt the car take a corner and saw us heading down a long drive way. In the distance I saw a gorgeous white house, but it looked more like a mansion. Monstrous white pillars stood at the entry way like giants from the old stories, standing 3 stories high it was almost as if they were pushing the roof to the sky with their hands. Orchards stood on either side of us as we slowly made our way to the Witten plantation, I could see workers picking vegetation from the branches and tossing them into crates at their feet. It made me feel like I was driving into a fairytale. As we neared the end of the drive and came close enough for me to see the door I saw a woman wearing tan slacks and a ratty white shirt tied at her waist come gracefully onto the porch. Her fiery red hair was swept up into a messy but elegant updo and she looked as though she’d just returned from the orchard after a long afternoon in the sun. She was gorgeous, she laid her hand about her brow to block out the sun and see who was nearing her home. I recognized her immediately as Margret Witten. As she saw my face in the window she dropped her hand and spun on her heel and screamed “BOYS SHE HERE COME QUICK! ATHEN! CALLEN! WAYLON! ARTHUR! HURRY!!”  The car finally came to a gentle stop and Aunt Marg was running to come greet me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before I whispered to myself “alright then, here we go.” I reached up to touch the handle of the car door to exit the vehicle and enter my new life.