Two weeks ago, I started my own Book of Shadows.
Since I'd found out about the Graces, I'd been reading up on witchcraft. According to my research, a Book of Shadows was a diary that witches kept all their spells and knowledge and observations in, building it up into a kind of working manual. I carefully wrote down ideas from books by authors with names like Elisia Storm, books I bought with money saved up from an old weekend job I'd had doing the dishes in a dime-a-dozen burger restaurant. I'd never owned books like these before. The only kind of magic I'd ever read about was the "hurling fire bolts" kind in fantasy books. The only kind of friends I'd ever had would have thought there was something wrong with me if I'd talked about witchcraft with them. I didn't even know there were people who had conversations about it as if it might actually exist.
I was usually cautious with money, but I wanted those books so desperately. I needed them. I knew they weren't going to solve all my problems at once—I mean, if it were as easy as reading about it, everyone would be doing it—but maybe they could help. The rest would be up to me. That was where the Graces came in.
I didn't want my mother to know about the books, but it didn't matter in the end because she found them anyway. I knew she had—I'd put a circle of salt as protection around the box I kept them in under my bed. Last week, when I got home from school, a section of the circle was broken and scuffed, and they were stacked in a different order to how I'd left them.
My parents had always acted overly twitchy toward anything remotely abnormal, so it was ironic that they had birthed a kid who craved the strange like other people craved drugs. The moment I saw that my mother had been in my box, my stomach churned and turned over, and I waited for her to come storming up to me, demanding to know just what the hell I thought I was doing, just where had I got the money from, just how did I think being like this was going to sort out my life?
She had to know why I had those books.
She had to know that it was to try and bring Dad back.
To try and fix things.
But she hadn't said a word.
"I'm the best mother anyone could ask for," she liked to announce decisively nowadays. "I let you do whatever you want. I let you be independent. Anyone else would love to have me as their mom."
She was right. And she was wrong. If I were on fire, would she douse me with water or push past me and go down to the pub instead, leaving me to burn to the ground? Sometimes you need boundaries. Boundaries tell you that you're loved.
