Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 115432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
“Uncle, coffee is not water! Please stop drinking so much at night—or at all.”
“We all have our vices and this mine.” He grinned and nodded for me to sit in front of his desk.
“I feel like I’m at the principal’s office whenever you do this,” I said as I relaxed back into the seat.
“I wouldn’t have to call you in here if you talked to me, Druella,” he stated, setting his mug down before sitting down and folding his arms on the table. He spent so much of his time working on the coven or with the elders that people often forgot what his day job was—a therapist. While it might seem great to have a trained professional to talk to on hand, it actually made it harder to talk to him growing up. But he often did this, tried to take off the uncle and coven leader hats and get me to talk to him like I was a client of his.
“What has been on your mind?” he pressed.
“You mean other than the fact that you proclaimed I was a goddess in front of half the coven?” I snapped, crossing my arms over my body. “It is not as if I don’t have enough on me, Uncle. It is not as if everyone wasn’t already wondering about my magic. I don’t fit in with the humans. I don’t fit in with the Wiccans.”
“Being powerful does not mean you do not fit in—”
“That’s exactly what it means, and you know it,” I replied.
“So, have you been suppressing your magic in order to fit in more?” he questioned.
I frowned. “No, I have not. Do you think I am? And that’s why I can’t summon whatever weapon you want me to summon? Is it a book, by the way?”
He leaned back curiously. “Why do you think it is a book?”
Dang it. Sorry, Magdalena.
“Why did you tell them the stupid prophecy?”
“Why do you think it is stupid?”
Ugh. “Uncle, are we just going to ask each other questions all night?”
“Are we?”
He smiled knowingly while my shoulders fell. I couldn’t beat him at this, and he wouldn’t let me off until he was a least somewhat satisfied.
“It is stupid to me because the daughter of Circe prophecy has been around since, I don’t know—forever. Even you told me about it when I was like five or six.”
“And you thought it was amazing and couldn’t wait for her to come.”
“Yes, her to come. Why do I have to be her, though?”
He shrugged. “Why do you believe this choice is up to you or me? All I did was tell the coven what Allen’s last vision was. Would you have preferred I lied?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed. “Wholeheartedly. Because that would have been kinder than giving them false hope.”
“Why do you believe it is false?”
“Because I am not a goddess!”
“How do you know?”
I wanted to punch the air a thousand times and scream. “Because I am not! I think I would have noticed that by now!”
“Dru, for the wisdom of the Druids, and Ella, meaning goddess. Druella, the name your mother gave to you with her dying breath. The last name Allen Allsbrook wrote before his death. You see nothing in this?”
“I see the beginning of a fairy tale. Sprinkle in a handsome prince and a wicked witch, and I will gladly hand over my money to read it. However, that is not my life. Do you know how many Druellas there are in the world? Probably not a lot, but I’m sure it’s not just me. See how name-dropping in prophecies could be a little flawed?”
“Allen did not just write Druella. He wrote your last name as well.”
“Because I am the only Druella he knew, Uncle. Just because we practice magic and believe in magic doesn’t mean every last thing is magical. I do not want to be the hope of the coven or all Wiccan. I want…” My voice trailed off as I thought of what I did want.
“You want what?” he asked.
But it was never one thing. It was so many things.
“To be free…to simply be.”
“And that is exactly the desire of the Wiccan. To be,” he replied, and this was why it was hard talking to him.
Because no matter what I said, he always saw the coven, the Wiccan as a whole above all else. My individual wants were smothered under the weight of Wiccans everywhere. Part of me wished I could be more like him, always focused on the big picture, always wanting to give hope and press on to fight another day. But my heart, for some reason, didn’t burn like his or the other elders. They didn’t understand why and neither did I. Shouldn’t that be proof enough I was not an avenging magical goddess.
“I’m going to go rest,” I said, rising from the chair. “Tomorrow night, I’ll start the circle on a hunt for those vampires. We will set up more traps and charms around the neighborhood as well.”