The witch community gathered, and we had a cookout despite it being Christmas Eve. Everyone welcomed me, and I met Sagely’s two remaining husbands, who I couldn’t quite think of as my fathers yet. She assured me I was welcome any time, and I told her I planned to go home for Christmas and break the news to my own parents after we had our last “normal” Christmas. Not that anything was normal for me anymore.
After locking eyes with Amaryllis a dozen times, and her dropping her eyes each time, I made my way over. “I guess we should meet,” I said.
“Yeah, definitely,” she said, her eyes shifting nervously as she took in my companions. She wiped her palms on her jeans. She wore her muted, reddish-brown hair pulled back in a low ponytail. A pair of glasses perched on her nose, behind which Josie’s eyes stared back at me. It was the oddest, most surreal feeling I’d had yet, like I was looking in some kind of distorted, funhouse mirror and told this person was me, even though I knew she wasn’t.
“So, I guess I’m you, and you’re me,” I said, forcing a laugh.
“Yeah,” she said again. “Weird, huh?”
“Are you going to go by Timberlyn?” I asked.
“Oh—no,” she said, laughing nervously. “I don’t guess so. I feel more like an Amaryllis.”
“Cool,” I said. “I’m not changing mine back, either.”
She bobbed her head in a nod and pushed up her glasses. “Do you have magic?”
“Apparently,” I admitted. “I’m sorry. Did it suck growing up here?”
“Yeah, kinda,” she admitted. “What about at your house?”
I shrugged. “I never really fit with them or… anywhere. I always felt misplaced.”
“Really?” she asked, her eyes widening and a smile forming on her lips. “Me, too! Like, I’m basically a total nerd, and my parents don’t care, but my sisters… God. You’d think I personally offended them every time I said I wanted to read instead of go exploring in the woods.”
“Oh,” I said, laughing. “I’m a nerd, too. Although… Exploring in the woods sounds kinda fun.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’d rather read about someone else exploring.”
I started to agree, but things were different now that I had friends, now that I had options besides sitting around in my room alone. I’d always love reading, but now I had my own adventures, too. “Depends on the day for me,” I said at last.
“So, what are they like?” she asked, her eyes alive with excitement. “My birth family?”
“Well,” I said slowly. “How much time do you have?”
We ended up chatting for hours, filling in each other on the details of our families, their quirks and weirdness, their annoying habits, and the great and wonderful things that made them who they were—our families. We both agreed we wanted to get to know our birth parents, but we weren’t ready to give up the families that raised us. I was glad Amaryllis seemed really cool and nice after she got past her nervousness. I thought she’d fit in great with my family, and probably even Josie. My parents would be super excited to meet a daughter who felt comfortable without a single stitch of black in her outfit.
Though the witches invited us to stay, I wanted to get home in time to hang up my stocking with Josie. I was way too old for the tradition, but I was feeling especially nostalgic after talking about my family with Amaryllis for so long. I’d never been away from my family on Christmas, and seeing my birth family just made me miss the family I’d always known even more. I knew I’d be back to see the wolves on occasion and the witches frequently. I hoped to get to know that family as well as I knew my own in time. But the family that raised me was still my family and always would be.
We headed out in the evening, planning to shift into wolves and stay at my house for the next few days. Astrid skipped ahead, waving before turning into a falcon and swooping off overhead. When we reached the top of the mountain that ran east to west, forming a ridge between the First and Second Valleys, I felt a knot of dread forming in my stomach. The Wolf brothers stopped in the clearing where the lighthouse stood sentinel over the valleys. We’d meant to go west from there toward the little town where my parents lived, but something stopped me. Something was wrong.
“Did you feel that?” Donovan asked, slinging off his bag.
Alarick grabbed the front of his shirt, ripping it off in one swift motion as he began to shift, his eyes already flashing with his wolf. I could feel it, too. The others were stripping their clothes, but I stood frozen, not sure what to do. Not sure if I was a better fighter as a vampire or a wolf.
“Shift,” Alarick barked at me, dropping to his knees, fur already rippling across his powerful body.
I slung my pack off, trying to count the number of cold, dead spots I could feel in the woods in front of us. There had to be a hundred or more.
“Fuck,” I muttered, glancing around, searching for
