I took another long draw of my mother’s famous coffee, tasting the spices and herbs under the bittersweet brew. It lapped against my tongue, evoking memories long past. I heaved a sigh, already feeling the heavy pressure I always felt around my family. They wanted…things. They wanted my smiles and hugs and affection, things I couldn’t give without feeling like I was about to be crushed.

The discomfort of my mother’s love and my sisters’ concern was a small price to pay for what I needed from them. How I would get it, I still didn’t know. But without Benedictus, a magic sword that had been in the family longer than the house on Knott Street, I would never be able to get my job back.

Being an Executioner was all I knew. It was more than a job for me; it was an identity. Without it, I had no idea who I was. With a magical talent like mine, I had to find some way to make my way in the world. Being a killing machine doesn’t exactly land you a job in corporate America, nor was it common witch fare like herbalism or crafting. It isn’t the kind of thing you can talk about at polite dinner parties among humans.

I’d lived in the shadows most of my life. As a teenager, I’d tried to run from my abilities, wanting to be like the rest of the girls in the coven and my family. I didn’t read cards, I didn’t knit bones or blankets. I was a killer. I didn’t accept that fact until it was too late.

The stairs above my head creaked as someone walked down to the main entrance hall at the front of the house. I craned my neck to see who it was. Having Iona come fix my leg was bad enough. God, I hope it isn’t Margery.

I let out a sigh of relief when I saw my younger sister Twyla’s bleach-blonde head. Unlike the rest of us who were varying shades of dark blonde and red, Twyla had bone-white hair like no one else in the family. Her bright blue eyes were lined with dark eye makeup and she wore a long lacy black dress, looking a bit like the bride of Frankenstein or Morticia Addams.

“Olivia?” she said in her slow, soft voice. She blinked and seemed to float down the hall to where I sat at the kitchen table. I was in her arms before I knew it. The smell of wild roses and baby powder lifted off her black dress. “I dreamed of you. You made the choice.”

Twyla’s soft voice and cryptic words sent a chill down my spine. Her psychic abilities always had that effect on me. No less creepy than her other ability. She let me loose from her delicate hands that were tipped in immaculately manicured black fingernails. That’s when I saw the tiny preschool-aged child hiding behind her skirt.

She was as blond as Twyla and had blue eyes as big as a Kewpie doll’s. I stared down at her in amazement. The child seemed to glow with ephemeral light. A witch warrior like me is able to sense the magic in a being in order to better know how to kill it. It is one of my few magic skills besides fighting. Now that the Council kicked me out of the Executioners, all I had left were my native abilities.  

“This is Lenore,” Twyla said, patting the child’s head. “My daughter.”

“I didn’t know you had a child,” I said, bending down to look the little girl in the face. She hid further behind her mother’s black, lacy skirts.

“You don’t know about any of your sisters’ children,” Mother said. Burn. That wasn’t exactly true. Iona had kids before I’d left.  

“Don’t mind her,” Twyla said. “She’s shy of strangers. Come here my darling, let’s get you some breakfast.” Twyla picked up her daughter and brought her into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of applesauce.

“What did you do to your hair?” Mother said, looking at me sideways. “Doesn’t she look strange with her hair all black like that?”

“She looks fine,” Twyla said, putting Lenore into a child seat close to mine. She placed a bowl of applesauce on the table and looked at me. “I like it.” Twyla smiled and winked.

“I don’t like it at all. Your natural color is much better.”

“Mother…” It was too late. Nelly Fanning snapped her fingers and my hair practically jumped off my head. As the magic swirled around me, my dyed black locks spun into gold. Golden blonde that is. The strands settled down around my shoulders, making me look like a washed-up swimsuit model in a leather cat suit.

“Oh my God, Mother. I’ve been home for twenty minutes and you’re already messing with my hair?” I snapped. It was a small thing, but that’s how it always started. I stood from the table and a stabbing pain shot through my leg wound.

Cringing and gasping, I sat back down. I hadn’t been this injured in a long time and it stung, especially while sitting in my mother’s overcrowded house.

“What’s going on in here?” I heard as the front door click closed. Shoes slapped down the polished wood floor in the hallway and Iona emerged into the kitchen holding a bag of herbs and potions. Her copper red hair was cut in a sweeping pixie cut that framed her soft features and her mossgreen eyes grew wide when she saw me.