Melina

By the time I was ready to leave, I had seven text messages and four voicemails—all from my sisters. They should have known I’d be looking for any excuse to be late. At baby showers, my meddling aunts went overboard in their efforts to convince every single witch in attendance to find a nice warlock to settle down with. Two of my six sisters already had nice warlocks, which meant my aunts had more time to focus on the rest of us. My single sisters constantly insisted I take my share of nagging from the aunts, which I managed to avoid most of the time. My aunts had only sons who had grown immune to the nagging of their mothers, leaving my aunts free to nag me and my sisters. Lucky us—not!

I was tempted to ignore the call from Ravie, but she was the most tenacious of my sisters, so I knew she’d call me back over and over again until I answered my phone. I was actually surprised she’d waited this long to call me, since she’d been the most insistent I be there on time.

Thankfully, this new baby was a boy because I was convinced my family had some sort of impairment when it came to naming female children. My mom, Viviana, had two sisters, Liliana and Muriana. That’s not too bad, but my mom had seven daughters, and for some unknown reason, she’d felt she needed to follow the family tradition of names ending with the same sound. That was the biggest reason I went by Mel rather than Melina. All my sisters had nicknames. Madelina was Maddie, Ravina was Ravie, Evangalina was Evie, Sabrina was Brea, Filomina was Mimi, and Devina only answers to Amelia, her middle name. It was Amelia’s baby shower I was attending. She already had one child, a sweet little girl by the name of Zoe Marie. If you called her Zoe, she would ignore you. That girl had more attitude in her two-year old body than most adults did, and I adored her.

“I’m on my way,” I answered as soon as the speakerphone in the car picked up the call.

“You promised you’d be on time,” Ravie accused, and I could tell by her panicked tone that things weren’t going well.

“I was planning to be there, but something came up.” My cheeks heated at the memory of what had come up, and I squirmed in my seat, which made my backside sting a little.

Ravie snorted. “Let me guess. There was an emergency with Night High that you had to take care of.”

I said nothing. I hadn’t talked to my family about my current living arrangements, and it was a miracle no one had caught on to what was happening yet. My family tended to meddle in my life more than they should, but they’d all been focused on getting things ready for Amelia’s baby shower, and then Maddie had announced her first pregnancy. Both pregnancies were keeping everyone out of my business for a short time.

“I’m beginning to think the aunts are right about you needing to find a warlock,” Ravie told me. “You need something other than work to keep you busy.”

“You’re just mad because I have an excuse to be late,” I pointed out, wondering how my family would react if they knew the real reason I was late. My aunts would probably be thrilled and insist I head right back to Trevor’s house. Now, I was tempted to tell everyone the real reason I was running late.

“Are you ignoring me?” Ravie asked.

“Pretty much,” I admitted. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“You’d better not try to find an excuse to leave early,” she warned. “I am about to lose my mind.”

“Why don’t you hide for a little while?” I suggested “You’re not the only single witch the aunts have to harass today.”

Ravie snorted. “Did you even bother to listen to your messages?”

“Nope,” I replied, pulling my car into the line for the transport tunnel. “I was a little tied up.”

“Mimi claims her familiar isn’t feeling well, so she’s staying home today. Evie is here, but she had a nice warlock drop her off, and she even made a big production of kissing him goodbye. Naturally, the aunts are thrilled to see Evie practically married. Before you ask, Evie said nothing about marriage, but you know how the aunts are.”

“Since when is Evie dating?” I asked. Evie was very much against settling down with any warlock, for reasons she refused to share with me. Something had happened while she was away at college, and none of us had any clue what it was. Ravie was convinced Evie had met the perfect warlock and had her heart broken. As for me, I was convinced she’d met the perfect guy, and he wasn’t a warlock, so she’d screwed it up by sending him away. Evie could be a real stickler for the rules of society.

“She’s not dating him,” Ravie huffed. “That witch found some guy to play the part to save her ass. I saw him checking Amelia’s husband out before leaving. Evie hired a gay warlock to pretend to be her boyfriend. Why didn’t we think of that?”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” I told her.

“You’re right,” she agreed with a sigh. “If too many of us suddenly showed up with warlocks, the aunts would suspect we were up to something.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I reassured her. “You’ve still got Brea to take some of the attention away from you.”

There was no loyalty among sisters when it came to avoiding matchmaking aunts. Brea was a lesbian, and my family was supportive of her, except that my aunts still didn’t understand why she couldn’t find a nice warlock and have babies with him. They could be somewhat clueless at times.

“Your dad explained artificial insemination to the aunts using a pastry bag and an éclair,” Ravie replied.

I shuddered because hearing that brought back memories of the sex talk with my dad. I still couldn’t eat cream-filled pastries. For whatever reason, my father thought pastries were necessary for any sex talk, not to eat, but to help him demonstrate the mechanics. “So, now they’re okay with Brea and Sonia not finding a nice warlock?” Brea had been with Sonia for the last four years, and my aunts had suggested they find a warlock to share so they could have children. Actually, my aunts had gone way beyond suggesting they share a nice warlock; they’d introduced them to warlocks who were very interested in the idea.

“They’re fine with them not finding a warlock, but I suspect the aunts will be sending them profiles for sperm donors,” she said with a giggle, and I couldn’t help but laugh, too.

“Profiles?” I asked. “I’ll bet the aunts have sperm donors showing up at Brea and Sonia’s house to interview for the job. Listen, Ravie, I’m almost at the front of the transport line, so I’m going to lose signal soon,” I began, wondering why demons could make a tube to transport us from one place to another, up to five hundred miles away, but they couldn’t get cell service in the transport tubes. “Why don’t you ask Brea when she and Sonia are going to get pregnant? Maybe even suggest they both get pregnant so they can have two babies.”

“Oh, Mel,” Ravie squealed. “That is evil. I’m going to do it now, and then I’ll hide in the room the familiars are playing in.”

I laughed and ended the call, wondering if I could make it to the room with the familiars and hide with Ravie.