Kristy Cunning
Prologue
Ten years ago…
JANUARY (VIOLET)
“January! January!” Mom shouts in a way that lets me know she just heard that potion go bad and she’s not far away.
“Coming!” I call back, looking around at the scorch marks on the ground, as some burning embers float back down from the sky.
I quickly grab my arm, and the threads start lacing it back to my elbow. Obviously, I hurry, since I’m trying to get it sewn on before Mom makes it out here.
Damn, that shit hurts.
But…no pain equals no gain.
“What blew up?” she demands.
She runs that two miles from the house very fast when she’s worried.
“Just a little mistake!” I assure her as I glance down and see I’ve sewn my arm on backwards. “No need to worry,” I add, frowning.
Before my arm can start healing backwards, I quickly let the threads drop.
A cracking limb startles me, and I whirl around…as my arm drops to the ground. Mom is releasing a frustrated breath while palming her face when I spot her.
“I’ve already told you I want to start going by Violet. It suits the new me better than January,” I remind her.
“You can’t just change your name because you’re going through a phase. I’m supposed to have to worry about chasing away boys after curfew at this age, January. Not you blowing yourself up in some random spot on our property,” she states very calmly, as her somewhat trembling hand lowers. “My heart is more fragile than you seem to realize.”
I grin at her, gesturing around at all the damage done to the ground. “But I withstood the worst of that. I wasn’t expecting a phantom tail whip to—”
“Get cleaned up and go to the movies, or mall, or something. You haven’t spent two hours doing your teenage things like you promised,” she states as she turns and walks away.
“Do I really have to?” I call back on a groan. “I almost got it this time.”
“You just blew yourself up trying to make shampoo, January. Yes, you really do have to go be a normal teenager for a little while. You’re just a few years older than—”
Her words stop when she chokes up a little. Any time she almost revisits my late brother’s memory, she gets that solemn, regretful look in her eyes.
He died before I was ever born, and apparently something awful happened to him. I’d understand her constant paranoia, and certainly be more sympathetic…if I could die.
“Well, I can’t die. We’re pretty positive of that by now, and I’m getting so much closer to success. It was just the arm,” I tell her one last time, finding her completely unreasonable when it comes to things like this.
“You need to be careful not to lose your head, dear. Quite literally,” she grinds out. “It could end you even if nothing else ever does, or something far worse could be brought about if not. Two. Hours.”
She really is melodramatic. It’s more dangerous to be on the roads with people who drive like maniacs, and show major disrespect and offense to those of us who drive the speed limit and follow the law like responsible human beings.
“It’s terrifying when the horns blow. You know how much I hate surprises.”
“When you’re doing thirty in the fifty, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that someone honks at you!” she snaps, and then says a lot of Spanish words that make no sense to me.
One day, a foreign language will make sense to me, and I’ll know all the shit ways she’s cussing me out. Then I can surprise her by cussing her back.
“The minimum is thirty! It’s still legal! I’d come closer to losing my head in a car crash than I would making shampoo,” I argue.
“Then walk to the bowling alley with the boy across the street who keeps asking you to stop by when he’s working,” she says, jabbing a finger in my face.
“I’m content with making shampoo in the backyard and you’re shoving me at a boy? What mother wants her daughter to throw it at any cute boy who offers free rental shoes as incentive to stop by? Is this because I have no womb? You feel like there doesn’t have to be a high standard for me because you don’t have to worry about what the grandkids will be like?”
I can’t believe her. I never thought she’d stoop this low. She wants me miserable. It’s her goal in life.
She exhales harshly, pinching the bridge of her nose, as she shakes her head…and I think she prays for patience. Mom didn’t used to pray. She seems to be doing more and more of it these days. Especially since around my fourteenth birthday when we learned you don’t need a period or living womb…to have PMS.
“Two. Hours. And then straight to your room to watch TV, or read, or anything that will limit the potential for losing a body part. Do you understand?”
“You don’t want me to have any fun,” I petulantly mutter, as I stalk toward the bowling alley to get my free rental shoes.
“He better give me a free lane too, or you’ll reimburse me,” I call out.
“I’ll give you an extra twenty if you stay out for three hours,” she volleys. “And change clothes! You can’t show up with scorch marks and a terribly sewn-on arm!”