I'm just going to jump in and post the clean copy of this week's draft! If you want to see the changes in process, check out this week's Part 1 post. I hope you enjoy the changes.
“Black as night. Light as day.” Azami choked on her tears as she draped her upper body over the lid of her mom’s casket. “Extinguish the candle of the past. Today we celebrate the present and prepare for the future of tomorrow. We protect our coven, we love our family, and we care for those who cannot care for themselves.” Azami whispered the coven’s prayer, a group she’d never met. Her aunt’s arms wrapped around her waist and tugged, but Azami refused to let go of the cold metal beneath her hands.
“Azami, it’s time to go.”
She shook her head. “No. I can’t leave her. She promised everything would be all right.”
One finger at a time, Azami was pulled away until she twisted around and buried her head in Aunt Charlotte’s stomach.
Azami sniffed once more then backed away. She needed to get out of the stuffy funeral home. Why do they call it a home? No one would actually want to live here. The white walls and red scratchy benches closed in until she couldn’t find a breath. A burn built in the bottom of her lungs and pushed out through her eyes. While searching for an escape Azami realized most of the people who’d come to say their final goodbyes were strangers.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. It will get better.”
Words she’d heard over and over the last few weeks. Ever since the day Mom breathed the last breath she’d ever take. The day Azami lost the person she admired the most, the one who promised to teach her everything about being a witch.
Sunlight streaming through a stain-glassed window across the way gave her something to focus on until the walls quit caving in and the fire in her lungs cooled. She tracked the light to a house off in the distance. One etched in her memories from the many trips she and her mom had taken during the summer. Pieces of siding dangled from the front and sides. Gray shutters hung on by a single nail. Mom always said it wouldn’t take more than a gust of wind to blow the off. Except, that wasn’t true because every time they visited, nothing had changed. No one cleared the dead weeds from the front of the house or repaired the hole in the middle of the second step. The front door was the only piece of the house that didn’t look like it was five hundred years old.
Ghosts lived in the haunted place—or so the people in town said. Even if there were ghosts, it didn’t mean they were evil or filled with darkness. They were supposed to have a sleepover before school started again.
Without thinking, Azami took off to her left toward a door to get out of the place.
“Where are you goin’?” Aunt Charlotte called out.
“To the bathroom.” She swiped a hand across her cheek to dry the last of the tears she’d let fall. Aunt Charlotte nodded then turned to an old man and some kid about her height standing off to the side. He turned to face Azami. He was older than she expected, maybe twelve or thirteen like her. His eyes, the color of a lime, caught her attention only to be outshined by a gold aura outlining his body. Auras and their meanings were the first lessons Mom taught her.
He was different though. Most of the guests’ auras were black or gray, not a brilliant gold. Shinier than the gold ring Azami wore on her middle finger. A gift from Mom after she completed her first potion. He lowered his chin with a half-smile, half-frown. He took a step toward her and the hair on the back of her neck raised. Azami turned on her heel and headed toward the hall for the exit, something about him felt familiar, but wrong. About halfway to the door a picture on the wall fluttered.
Azami looked over her shoulder to the boy with his hand waving in the air. Had he done something to the picture? She stopped to inspect it.
With one finger, Azami traced the frame of the painting, then glanced around to see if anyone watched her. No one, not even the boy was there. She touched the spark of light smack dab in the middle. Like the flame of a candle, but not, it was a flare. It sent electricity down her arm. Azami gasped, but continued to trace the light to the hand holding it, and down the arm of a woman with long black hair similar to hers and silver eyes like her mom’s. The woman held onto a pole at the edge of a white cliff.
A voice eerily like her mom’s came from the open window at the end of hall. “Come in. It’s time.”
She ran out the door and up the street to the house. The click clack of the low-heeled shoes against the pavement calmed the ache in the middle of her chest. A gust of wind lifted her skirt, but it didn’t matter, she’d worn shorts underneath—even if Aunt Charlotte said she was old enough not to have to wear them anymore.
Azami stopped at the bottom of the steps to the house, placed her hands on her knees and laughed so hard more tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Mom. Are you there?”
Of course she wasn’t. Azami fell to the ground, gripped her hands around her knees, and buried her chin in her chest.
“I miss you so much. Why isn’t there anything I can do to get you back? A spell. A potion. Something. Anything. I don’t want to be alone.”
The screen door squeaked open then banged shut. Azami jumped to her feet and backed away.
“Who’s there?”
“Me.” The boy with the gold aura stepped from around the corner of the house. “Your mom sent me.”
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