Inheritance, Part 7 - Easel

Rowan carefully opened the book. The first thing she saw was that it was indeed a book, despite the fact that even when it was open you couldn't see the pages on the outside edges like you did with a normal book. She tipped the book a bit to check that. The edges were oddly smooth, like a stone that had been in the water for a long time.

The second thing she saw was that she couldn't read the text in the book. At first she thought it was something completely foreign, with even the letters unfamiliar, but she realized after a moment that wasn't true. The letters were the normal letters, though the words they formed were unfamiliar. Despite this it seemed there was something odd about the letters, but Rowan couldn't put a finger on what it was. It was as if the letters felt foreign despite the fact that she could look at every one of them and recognize them as the same letters she used every day. It seemed to her that if she wanted, she would also be able to read the words out loud without any difficulty, even if she had never seen or heard anything resembling them.

The third thing she saw was that it was it was all in her mother's handwriting.

She stared at the page. So did the others.

"Oh, look," Kelly said, running her fingers through her hair. "That's text I can actually read."

Rowan turned her eyes to a bit on the margins of the page. There was more text with her mom's handwriting, this time in a familiar language, like she had added a comment next to the actual text. For the brush, it said.

"The brush?" Aksa asked.

"The paint brush, maybe?" Rowan answered quietly.

Siina nodded. "You said your aunt said she painted, right?"

"Don't..." Rowan cleared her throat. It felt tight. "Don't call her my aunt, ok? I don't think I'm ready for that." The others nodded. "But yeah, she said my mom used to paint when she was young."

"But what is it?" Aksa asked. "What for the brush?"

"Maybe it's a spell?" Kelly suggested.

"For the paint brush?" Aksa asked. They all thought about it for a moment. Then she added, "But what does it do?"

"Only one way to find out," Siina said grinning. "Do you think she still has some of her art supplies here?"

They set off searching again. About a quarter of an hour later Kelly broke the silence again.

"I think I got something."

They gathered around the box she had found. It wasn't very full, but the only things in there were paint brushes, paints, and a small wooden easel that was folded in on itself to take up less space. Siina unfolded it while the others went through the other things. The brushes were old, but seemed well made and not likely to lose any of their hairs anytime soon. There were some acrylic paints that had dried so they could probably not be used again, but the watercolors seemed fine enough, since they were dry by default. There was also an assortment of both charcoal and colored pencils, and some sponge-like things that Rowan didn't know what to do with—having never been that interested in that kind of art—and some old, paint-stained palettes.

"Well, let's see it," Kelly said, holding up a brush for Rowan. She looked at it doubtfully and hesitated.

"I don't know what to do to it," Rowan said. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to make happen."

"You say the words, obviously," Siina said, " And then we see what happened."

Rowan sighed and took the brush and held it in front of her. She looked at the book and read. First two lines, then three. The words felt weird in her mouth, slippery and fleeting. When she fell silent she was left with a feeling she had understood something vital about something, but couldn't quite figure out what it was.

They all stared at the paint brush. Nothing happened.

They kept staring. Nothing kept happening.

"I guess just saying the words isn't enough," Rowan finally said. "Or maybe I said them wrong. Or the wrong words, there are a lot of them here."

"Oh, well," Aksa said.

~x~

It was late when Rowan heard the front door open. She heard her father talking with Letitia for a while, then they went their separate ways to sleep.

She had been going through her mom's pageless book, sitting on her bed and leaning against the wall. It was filled with text in the same language the thing for the brush had been written. The margins were full of notes from her mom, but they were notes a person wrote themselves: they were nonsense unless you knew what the person was talking about.

She was just about to go to sleep herself when she turned the page and found something different.

Rowan, the margin said. She froze, and quickly read the rest of it.

If you are reading this, I guess I must be dead. In that case, this spell is for you. There are some of my old art supplies in storage. You will need a brush, and an empty canvas, and my old easel.

Rowan stared at the page. Then she was moving, so fast she almost tripped over her own feet springing from her bed towards her door and the attic.

She stood the easel near the attic window and set on it the only blank canvas in the art supply box. Then she picked up one of the paint brushes and felt the words on the page rolling over her tongue.
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The next topic is Shine.

~matu

Inheritance, Part 6 - Boxes

They met at the park, where they wondered around for a while as Rowan recounted what had happened in the past 24 hours. Her friends listened carefully and offered some commentary and after Rowan had finished they spent a moment in silence, absorbing everything she'd told them.

"That's pretty heavy," Aksa said.

"I wonder what she was hiding," Siina said, voicing everyone's thoughts as per usual. "You know, aside from her magic and twin sister. Or maybe, why was she hiding those things."

Another silence.

"I was thinking of going through some of her stuff today," Rowan said after a moment. "She had a bunch of boxes in the attic and me and dad haven't had time to go through them all yet."

"Do you want help?" Aksa asked.

"Oh, you don't have to—"

"We know we don't 'have to'," Kelly cut Rowan off, "but we want to be there for you. I know this whole thing must be hard for you."

Rowan nodded. Kelly had lost her father when she'd been 8, so she knew at least a bit shat Rowan was going through.

"Thanks," she said, managing a smile that, albeit small, was truly grateful.

~x~

They got back to Rowan's place. No one else was there. Arthur and Letitia had probably gone somewhere to sort out things or do some other important grownup... stuff. Rowan wasn't too interested in seeing either of them at the moment though, so she ignored the empty house and lead the other three girls up the stairs and into the attic.

It was dusty. It was always dusty in the attic, and as far as Rowan knew, "dusty" was the standard state of all attics. At the moment it was slightly less dusty than it usually was, since they had had to move around boxes and other things recently. Still, there was a pretty thick layer of dust on most things.

Rowan pointed out all the things that had belonged to her mother, and all the girls started to go through different boxes and cupboard et cetera. The attic was quiet except for the shuffling of paper and the occasional sneeze.

The box Rowan was going through was filled with photographs. Old ones, but not old enough to feature her mom's family. Most of them were of Rowan's parents, and they had descriptions written on the backs with a handwriting Rowan recognized as being her mother's. There was a group photo where the both of them were, sitting on opposite sides of a long table. "First meeting", it said. Rowan knew they'd met through friends, but she'd never seen pictures of them. They looked like nice people. Most of them had attended the funeral, too.

There was a bunch of photos from when they had just started to date, she noticed. She wondered who'd taken them all, there were some that were of very intimate moments. Maybe they'd had a really close friend who sometimes liked to drop in on their dates? She'd have to ask her dad later.

She also found baby pictures of herself, as she dug through the box. At first she was horrified to discover that, but it turned out they were actually pretty cute. She had been an adorable baby. Those pictures were clearly taken by Felicia, most of them featuring just Rowan or both her and her dad, but there were a few with all three of them together.

Rowan swallowed down a lump in her throat as she looked down at the photos in her lap.

"Found something."

She blinked rapidly, yanked back into the present. A single, small teardrop spilled over her eyelid, but she swiped it away with the sleeve of her shirt as she stood up. Everyone had gathered to the old trunk Siina had been going through.

"What is it?" Rowan asked.

"I think it's a diary," Siina said, grinning. She waved a simple looking book in her hand.

"Really?" Aksa asked, squinting, and snatched the book. "It looks like a box to me." She turned it around and pointed at the sides. "See, it doesn't have pages."

"It is a diary, look at that," Siina said, sounding a bit annoyed to be questioned. She pointed at a metallic clasp that went around from one cover to the other. It did look like something you'd use to keep your diary locked, but...

"It doesn't have a keyhole," Rowan said.

"How are you supposed to open a diary lock without a keyhole?" Aksa said, shoving the supposed diary at Siina.

"Magic?" suggested Kelly. They all turned to look at her. She shrugged.

"Magic," confirmed Siina. She offered the book to Rowan. "Here, try to open it!"

Rowan looked down at the book, a bit hesitant. Sure, she'd hoped she might find something like this, but this seemed almost too good to be true. Although, she supposed, if you had to keep a super big secret, writing about it might help, and if the lock was magic it would be an easy way to keep prying eyes out. But still...

"Rowan?" Aksa's voice was gentle, as was the had she placed on Rowan's shoulder. "You okay?"

"If this is too much, we can not look at it," Kelly said.

"No, no I'm fine," Rowan assured them. "I'm just nervous... and kinda scared."

"Don't worry, girl, we're here for you," Siina said and winked. She offered the book again.

Rowan took a deep breath and accepted it. A power surged through her, leaving a soft tingling sensation after it. There was a glow on the metal clasp that could have been in the shape of a keyhole, but she wasn't sure until it faded again. Everyone held their breath in anticipation.

Then there was a "click" and the front cover flew open.
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Yay, cliffhanger! Your next topic is "Easel".

Bye.

Inheritance, Part 5 - Colors

"Everything?" Letitia asked after a moment of silence. "Everything is a lot."

"Why don't you sit down and have some breakfast," Rowan's dad said and pulled a chair from under the table. Rowan sat, staring at Letitia.

"Everything," she said.

"Chronologically?" Letitia asked, raising an eyebrow. "Well, she and I were born on July eleventh, me first and she a little after."

"Fine," Rowan said. Her stomach rumbled and she reached for a piece of toast. "Not everything."

"You want to know about the magic? Because she never told you about it, and now you have it," Letitia asked.

"And why she never told us about you," Rowan nodded and spread some strawberry jam on her toast. Her dad gave her a look that said you're really going to start with jam?. Rowan shrugged at him.

"I don't know what to tell you. I don't know why she never told you about us. Like I said yesterday, there was a falling out between her and our parents, but no one ever bothered to tell me what it was all about," Rowan could hear old hurt under the words. "I didn't know there was something going on with her, and then she left and my parents never talked much about her again, and not at all about what had happened between them.
"And about the magic... Like I also said yesterday, she got them when a great-grandmother died when we were four. She grew up with it. I remember hating her having magic when we were old enough to go to school, since it meant we had to go to different schools."

Rowan was chewing her toast slowly.

"But there was nothing special about her magic? Nothing that could have made her hide she had it at all? Even from us?" Rowan asked. Letitia shook her head.

"Her magic was nothing more special that anyone else's magic. A lot of the time that I saw she used her magic for making beautiful things. She made these amazing paintings, weaving the magic into them and using it to make them even more beautiful. She loved the way she could make the colors. Her best paintings weren't even pictures of things, just colors and weird and fascinating and beautiful patterns."

"I remember seeing one of her paintings," Rowan's dad said suddenly. He stared at his plate for a moment, remembering, then looked up at the other two. "She had it on her wall in her first apartment after I met her. I mean, I'm not sure it was hers, but it was like that. All colors, and patterns, and sometimes when I wasn't looking at it directly it seemed the colors were alive."

Letitia nodded, "Probably one of hers."

"I think I asked her about it one of the first times I was at her place, but I can't remember what she said. I haven't seen it since she moved out of that apartment. And she hasn't been painting since we met. She has occasionally written some poems though."

They were all silent for a while. Letitia took a sip of her coffee.

"I think what ever reason she had for hiding her magic made her stop painting," Letitia said, putting her cup back down on the table. "I can imagine she didn't want to paint if she couldn't use her magic for the work."

"So you don't actually know anything," Rowan said flatly.

"The answers you want? No. I'm sorry. I told you, I haven't been much in touch with her for over twenty years. You know her much better now than I do," Letitia said.

So you're useless, Rowan wanted to say.

"Why didn't you ever come to meet us before?" she demanded instead, reaching for another piece of toast.

"She never invited me over," Letitia answered. "Of course I asked, after the first letter she wrote me telling she had a husband and child now. I wanted to meet you. But she said it wasn't a good time. The way she had written it seemed to imply she'd ask me to come visit when she was ready for it. She never did. I didn't want to push it. I didn't know what was going on in her life and I was afraid even the letters would stop if I kept asking about it. I invited all of you over a couple of times too, but she never gave any reply, so again I thought it better not to push it."

"How long are you going to be in town?" Rowan's dad asked, changing the subject.

"I was planning on leaving this morning," Letitia said, not showing any sign of confusion at the sudden change of topic, "but I suppose I could stay a few days, if you want me to."

Rowan's phone buzzed. Aksa.

«And when are you at the bottom?»

«Apparently not today.» Rowan wrote back. «Let's meet in the park in a half an hour?»

She got a couple of yeses back while she had a go at some yogurt.

"I'm going out," she informed her dad and Letitia and headed back to her room to get dressed.
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Your topic for the day after tomorrow is Boxes.

~matu

Inheritance, Part 4 - Friends

She had unsettling dreams.

She’d had unsettling dreams ever since her mom died. She could never quite remember what happened in them when she woke, but the weird feeling that settled into the pit of his stomach didn’t quite dissipate, carrying into the days. She also often woke up with at least one, sometimes more things floating around her room. Mostly it was harmless stuff, but one morning she had woken up to the glass of water she kept on her bedside table falling on her head, so it wasn’t ideal.

Today, however, she just woke with an emptiness in her chest.

She laid in her bed for a long while after opening her eyes, just staring at the ceiling. Downstairs waited answers she simultaneously wanted and didn’t want.

Her phone beeped under her pillow.

A message, from Siina. And a few others, from Aksa last night. And one from Kelly.

Rowan smiled, just a little. It was good to know her friends were there for her.

She sent a message into the group chat, telling them all that she was fine and that she’d tell them everything once she’d gotten to the bottom of it herself. With a new vigour she got up from bed, put on her clothes and marched downstairs.

She found them in the kitchen, finishing off breakfast.

“Alright,” she told Letitia, who set down her coffee cup, “tell me everything you know about my mother.”

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Holy shit, two days in and I'm already late. Sorry about that. I had a case of parents over yesterday and I thought I'd have time to write in the evening but I didn't. But here's something I guess. It's really short, I know, but I don't have time to write anything else atm, I'll invest into the next part.

Your next topic is "Colours"

Bye.

Inheritance, Part 3 - Dad

For a moment, Rowan and her dad simply stared.

"I..." Rowan's dad begun, then shook his head. Rowan was still staring. "She never told us about you. I can't deal with this right now. Could you... Uh. I'm sorry, but could you wait, until the people leave? It seems rude to ask, you were her sister, I guess, so this can't be easy for you either, but... Just wait outside, the weather good, or somewhere..." he trailed off. Then he added, "So we could talk. Or I suppose you could just leave, if you don't want to stay, but I just can't... right now."

If Letitia was offended by being asked to wait outside for what would probably be a long while, she didn't show it. She sighed and nodded.

"It's fine. I understand," she said. "My existence must come as a bit of a shock. I'll give you some space. But I would like to talk with you, later. I'll be outside."

She left. Rowan stared after her.

"Wow," she finally said quietly. She didn't know how she felt about anything anymore.

"You should get back to your friends," her dad said. She stared after Letitia for a moment longer. Then she nodded.

Her friends were looking in her direction as she headed back to their table.

"You looked shocked. Who was that?" Aksa asked as she reached the table.

"Apparently," Rowan said slowly, "that was my aunt. One that I had never heard of. Because my mother never told me or my dad she had a twin." They stared at her. "I... don't want to talk about it right now."

They nodded. After a moment of possibly awkward silence they started talking about other things. Rowan nodded along but didn't really hear what they were saying.

~x~

It was a couple more hours until it got dark and everyone started leaving, and Rowan and her dad could finally head home too. As they got outside, they found Letitia, reading a book on a bench in front of the restaurant. Rowan's dad beckoned her to follow them to the car. The drive home was spent in silence, Rowan sitting in the front seat, clutching the urn that was the only thing left of her mother.

The car pulled to the driveway, and they went in. Her dad headed towards the living room from the door, and Rowan followed him, seating herself in the armchair in the farthest corner of the room. He had said earlier he couldn't deal with it at the moment. Now it was Rowan's turn to not want to deal with it. She was exhausted, and empty, and she wanted nothing more than to go to her room, close the door behind her and lay on her bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling. She just wanted to be alone. But she knew she would regret it later if she didn't listen to what Letitia had to say, so she stayed, to listen. She was too weary for talking herself.

"Do you want anything? Coffee? Tea? I think there's some cinnamon rolls or something in the freezer too..." her dad said as Letitia sat on the huge couch Rowan had picked out with her mom when they had first moved to this house.

"Just water, if you insist on getting me something," Letitia said. He left for the kitchen and she turned her attention on the room. She eyed the bookshelves, the chairs, the photos on the walls. After a minute he returned with a glass of water and handed it to her. She nodded in thanks.

"So..." he said, sitting down in an armchair next to the end of the couch Letitia was sitting on. He hesitated, at loss for words.

"How did you find us? Felicia never mentioned you, and as far as I understand... Well, I thought she didn't have any siblings. And that her parents were dead, have been since before we met." He paused. "Your parents are dead, right? We shouldn't expect any more surprise-relatives bursting through the door?"

"They are," Letitia said, with hesitation in her voice. "But they haven't been dead for that long. Dad died about fifteen years ago of lung cancer, and mom got a bad infection a few years back. Felicia really never said anything about us?"

Dad shook his head.

"Uh. Well..." Letitia paused, as if trying to remember. "Arthur, right?" He nodded. Rowan was slightly surprised she knew his name. "She had a bad falling out with our parents... over twenty years ago now. Then she disappeared. None of us heard from her for a decade. Then out of the blue she wrote me, told that she had gotten married, and had a daughter. We have been in touch a little since, but she never got in touch of our parents again. And I haven't seen her since she left either. All the communication has been letters. I considered trying to find her a few times, but... the way she wrote her letters... she felt like a stranger. And I didn't want to intrude. And truth be told, I didn't trust her. She had walked out of our lives once already, and I didn't want to get a sister back just to lose her again."

She sighed. She looked tired.

"You knew she had magic," Rowan heard the words come out of her mouth before she could stop them. Letitia turned to look at her, disbelief clear on her face.

"She didn't tell you she had magic?" she asked. She looked at Rowan, waiting for an answer, but Rowan didn't feel like answering. After a few heartbeats she gave up and turned back to Arthur. He shook his head

"Oh Felicia, what have you been doing these past two decades?" she said quietly, to herself more than to them. "Our great-grandmother had magic, she died when we were four. I don't know why she would hide them from you though. But then again, I haven't actually known her for twenty years."

She shook her head. Rowan's eyes met her dad's as he turned to her, looking like he was about to say something. Seeing her he stopped himself, and clearly started on a new thought.

"Honey, you look exhausted. You should go get some sleep." Then he turned to Letitia, and said "It's getting late, and it's been a rough day. I should go to sleep myself soon." He hesitated for a moment. "You're welcome to stay here for the night if you want."

"Thank you. I would appreciate it. I didn't have time to book a room. I figured I'd walk in somewhere and hope they have rooms available for a night," she said. "I happened to spot the obituary in the paper yesterday, that's how I knew to come. I'm sorry to appear so unexpected."

Arthur shook his head. "She was your family as much as ours."

He walked to Rowan and pulled her up from the chair. He took the ashes from her and hugged her tight. "Go sleep."

Rowan moved tiredly to her room and closed the door. The tears came again in the dark of her own bed.
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The next topic is Friends.

Inheritance, Part 2 - Lies

The wake was small.

That didn't really come as a surprise to Rowan though. Her dad's side of the family wasn't that large, and her mom's side was smaller still. At least she assumed so. Her mom's parents had apparently died even before her father had met her, and Rowan had never met anyone else from her side either. There might've been someone, Rowan supposed, but you couldn't invite people you didn't know existed.

As such, the funeral guests were their family friends, Rowan's best friends and whatever little family could make it. Nice and private. Her mom would have liked it, Rowan thought.

Nobody had known Rowan's mom had had magic. Not Rowan's dad, not his family, none of their friends. Her own family might've known—or at the least her parents—but that didn't exactly help. Not even Rowan had known, and she'd thought she knew everything about her mom. It was unsettling that there could be something this big she hadn't known.

She was also slightly worried about the fact that her mom had felt it necessary to keep something like this hidden. It didn't make sense to her. Magical powers weren't all that uncommon, especially in a big city like this. Sure, they weren't super common either, but that hardly mattered. Magic wasn't a secret. It wasn't illegal. So why lie about it? Why hide it?

What else in her life had been a lie? How much of Rowan's life was a lie?

She was hoping that something would turn up as they went through her mom's things, but there had been no such luck yet. Of course, they still had a bunch of old boxes in the attic to rummage through, so she hadn't given up yet. Maybe a secret diary or something, with all her mom's secrets, that would be convenient. A bit too convenient, the little skeptic in her head scoffed, but she hushed it, because there wasn't exactly much else she could trust on at this moment.

She looked over to her father. He looked down at her and gave her a tired smile. His eyes were puffy. So were hers, probably. He placed his hand around her shoulder and she leaned into him. The tears had run out much earlier, and now she just watched with empty eyes as the funeral ceremony went on.

Her mother had wanted to be cremated, and cremated she was. Rowan clutched the urn tighter as she sat down in the car. Her dad pulled out of the cemetery parking lot and started to drive them towards the restaurant for the luncheon.

She'd have to change schools, Rowan realized. Now that she had magic, she'd have to transfer to a magic school so she could learn to control her powers properly. She wasn't particularly looking forward to that, but at least the schools hadn't started yet after summer, so it was convenient timing. That is, if there ever was a convenient time for your mom dying. She had transferred schools once in the middle of a semester, and that had not been fun. Transferring to another school wasn't particularly fun in general though, and she wished more than anything that she wouldn't have to do it. Rather, she wished that that stupid driver had used his goddamn blinker and watched where he was driving. That way she'd still have her mom and not have to deal with sudden magic.

At least most people knew beforehand they were probably going to inherit magic. No such luck in Rowan's life, of course.

Well, if there was a silver lining in all of this, at least she lived in a big enough city that there was a school that taught courses on magic. Many smaller towns didn't, and the people in those places had to move to a completely new place on top of losing a family member. For most people it wasn't their moms though, but rather a grandparent or great grandparent, so Rowan got a misery point for that.

Magic was stupid, she thought. People who were the youngest in a magical family line were always so excited about the prospect of inheriting magic—which always moved down the line the person's decent as far as it could—that she sometimes wondered if they forgot that someone legitimately had to die for them to get that power? It was a bit gruesome, wasn't it? Sometimes that someone might even be your own child, if they had no children of their own and died after inheriting your parents. Like, "sorry your only child is dead, but here, have this neat skill to move thing with your mind as consolation!" As if that would be of any help.

Rowan sniffled. She held the urn closer.

Stupid magic.

"We're here," she heard her dad say, bringing her back to the present. They exited the car and walked into the restaurant. She stood to the side, still clutching the urn while he talked with the staff for a bit, and then they moved into the dining hall. She placed the urn down on a table at the back, next to a picture of her mom. She traced a finger along the glass. She turned away, before she had time to tear up again.

People came in an out, to pay their respects and their condolences, to eat and reminisce. Rowan's friends were there by her side, but they didn't say much. She didn't mind, the silence was plenty.

At some point during the afternoon a woman walked in. She was middle aged and well dressed. She looked somewhat familiar, but Rowan didn't recognize her, so she figured it was one of her dad's relatives or really old friends or something. The woman went to the back where the urn and the picture were and stood there for a long while. Rowan watched her, for lack of anything else to do. Her posture was tight, shoulders rigid and drawn back. Finally she turned away from the table and started to walk away. Rowan thought that she was about to leave altogether, but then she looked up and they locked eyes for a moment.

The woman paused.

She altered her course and approached Rowan and her dad. As she got closer he noticed her as well, but to Rowan's surprise it wasn't exactly recognition that was in his eyes.

"My condolences," the woman said when she got to them.

"Thank you," he said. There was a moment of silence. They both looked down. Rowan looked at the woman. She seemed uncomfortable. "So," her dad said then, "how did you know Felicia?"

"I beg your pardon?" the woman said. She seemed genuinely confused. He gestured vaguely at the back table. Her eyes darted to the picture and then back to his face. "You don't know who I am?"

"Um," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. He glanced down at Rowan, and the woman followed his line of sight. "I'm sorry, but, uh... no."

The woman looked between Rowan and her dad and tried to get something out of her mouth. It was opening and closing like a fish trying to breathe air.

"I can't believe..." she finally said. "She never even mentioned...?" She put her hand to her mouth and looked down for a while. Then she set her jaw, a look of determination passing over her features and she looked back up again.

"I'm Letitia, Felicia's twin sister."
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Hi I'm back.
Hi back, I'm Dad (that's ur topic, it's "dad")

Inheritance, Part 1 - First bit of magic

We're back with another story!
This one we'll be writing on the odd days of August, 16 parts in total.
I guess there isn't much more to say than that.
So here goes.
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Rowan felt a bit peculiar.

She and her friends were sitting in a coffee shop, enjoying the last of their summer vacation, when suddenly an odd sensation ran through her. She paused. She stared in to her chocolate for a while, trying to figure out if there could be something weird in it.

"Rowan," her attention was snapped back into the present by Aksa's voice.

"Yeah?"

"You completely phased out there," her friend said.

"Uh, I'm feeling a little weird," Rowan admitted, "I think I'm going to go get myself a glass of water."

She looked around the table at the others, their faces showing half curiosity and half worry. She waved a hand to show them she was okay as she stood up and headed to the counter. She got her glass of water, sipped it and returned to the table.

"What kind of weird?" Aksa asked as she sat down.

"I don't know. Just weird," she said was sitting down and putting the glass on the table.

And then it happened. She accidentally kicked a chair leg hard as she was sitting down and knocked her glass of water over. Or rather, would have knocked it over, if her new magic powers hadn't stopped it. The glass stopped mid-fall, tilting just little enough that only a few drops of water were spilled. Everyone just stared at it for a few seconds. Rowan blinked. Then she felt herself do... something. She didn't know exactly what it was. It was like flexing a muscle to move a part of herself she never even knew she had. The glass pulled itself back into a steady stand in the table.

Everyone turned their stares from the glass to Rowan. All Rowan could do was keep staring at the glass. This lasted for maybe fifteen seconds before Rowan's brain started working again and she did the thing every sensible person does when confronted by something this unexpected and weird happening: she called her mom.

Her mom did not pick up. She called her dad.

"Rowan? You want a ride already?" her dad's voice answered.

"Please tell me you have some old great-aunt or something who has magic and no children," Rowan said, ignoring his question.

"Uh, no, not that I know of."

"Well I just stopped a glass from spilling water all over a table and then lifted it back up without ever touching it or moving."

There was a silence. She could almost hear him coming up with some explanation that wasn't someone in the family dying and passing on their magic to her.

"There could be someone on your mom's side who has magic. I wouldn't know, she doesn't really talk about them that much," he finally said.

"I tried calling mom first, she's not picking up," she told him.

"Okay. She's probably driving. She should be home any minute. You know what, I'll come pick you up now, if that's okay. So we can all talk about it together and figure out who you got the magic from. Or if it's something else," he added, not sounding at all like he thought it could be something else.

"Okay. I'll wait at the coffee shop parking lot." Rowan hung up the phone. "I'm sorry guys, I really need to go."

"Yeah, of course," Siina said and the others nodded.

"Just let us know what you find out," Aksa said. They knew just as well as Rowan she wasn't in a position to inherit any magic from anyone—it was the kind of thing one knew about their friends—but apparently had anyway.

Rowan nodded as she picked up her bag and headed out the door. Her dad showed up a short while later, and then they were on their way home. When they got home, her mom wasn't there.

"She should be home by now," her dad told her. He tried to call her mom to ask how long she'd be. She didn't pick up.

They spent half an hour wondering where she was and who it was Rowan had inherited the magic from, but neither had leads. Eventually his phone rang.

"It's your mom," he told her. "Hi, honey, just tried to call you and ask when you'll be home, there's something we need to... Oh. Hello." His face became tight "Yes. Yes. She had a...?" He breathed in, deep. "When was this? Okay. Yes. I understand. Goodbye," he hung up the phone and turned to Rowan, tears in his eyes. "It seems you inherited your powers from your mother."

All Rowan could do was stare.
_______________________________________________________

A topic for the day after tomorrow? Lies.

~matu