Chapter One

"Motus." The words were said with a clear picture in mind: The pillow lifting from the edge of the bed and rising to a gentle hover.

My breath hitched and my heart began beating faster as though I was taking part in a fervent run before the pillow shot up with more force than had put behind it and jerking to a stop; a breath that had been unknowingly held was let out.

At least I'm a witch…No, the sound just didn't register correctly. I searched my mind. Rifling through the few memories I still had of my past life: some witches had called themselves warlocks. It wasn't a term that was a norm but within the confines of this universe it wouldn't get any raised eyebrows.

Raised eyebrows were something I was trying very hard to avoid. Questions could be asked and with magic, no one would expect that I had been reincarnated and was the rightful owner of a body of a Bennett witch. Micah, they called me, a name that was easy to accept because of how hard it was to remember who I had been. The feeling was the strangest. I couldn't remember anything of life and yet the fifth season of a show that had been named Vampire Diaries was groggily clear in my mind.

I knew of the doppelgangers, the Originals and other things which, for a few more years, wouldn't come to be. They could also not ever come to be because of the damned thing called the Butterfly Effect; I was the external factor that could throw a wrench in the works of continuity, everything I did would have a consequence that I couldn't predict. A scary prospect when I began thinking about the dangers that existed, the crazy and vengeful Originals, the witches of the French Quarter—a place I would not touch with a kilometre long pole—and, most scary of all, Silas and Qetsiyah.

A shake of the head cleared my mind of the thoughts. All those were concerns of the future, in the mean time I would prepare for their eventuality; I could remember Bonnie dying, spending months on the Other Side watching her friends in dull agony. We had spent five years together, she as my sister and I as her brother, but the impressions were strong. I could admit without hesitation that I loved her.

Which meant I would have to get strong with the two spells I could remember

My focus returned to the spell I had running: A connection existed between me and the pillow, a thin line that meant my spell was still running. The feeling was strange and the power I held over the pillow was hypnotic; with the connection still spread-out between it and me an instinctive part of myself knew it would bend to my will. As a test I told the pillow to move further up into the air and it followed the direction without resistance, down and it did, to the left, to the right—

At the furthest edge of my mind I could hear a scream. Bonnie, my mind provided. Next there were a series of questions I couldn't answer as my head pounded, hit by the force of a disembodied hammer. There were worried voices all around me, more questions before I let myself succumb to the darkness and away from the pain.

When I next woke, it was to the sound of an incessant beeping and the strong stench of disinfectant. Hospital, that much was easy enough to tell, but why was I here in the first place. I opened my eyes, briefly looked side-to-side only to come to an empty room.

Magical exhaustion? It couldn't be. The spell had been minor, a pillow raised. Why would that lead me to magical exhaustion? I was seven, that was relatively weak in terms of power but did it really mean that one spell could send me to the hospital?

The thought was terrifying. Truly so. It brought about a new sense of danger to learning magic and it explained why Grams had waited until Bonnie was a teenager before teaching her about our line. A groan I hadn't meant came out. The prospect that had been exciting about the entire ordeal of being reincarnated was that I could do magic; maybe it was some left over longing from my past life to be special, but magic opened up a whole new domain.

My mind was abuzz over all the ways I could exploit my powers, ways to make money and cheats to make myself powerful enough to take on an Original without flinching. Of course this wasn't about to come true because of my stupid young body.

"Finally," the voice startled me, embarrassing because I might have shrieked in surprise. I heard a chortle and my head whipped to the side.

"Grams." My voice was filled with equal parts excitement and trepidation. The woman was her usual self, straight-backed and looking at me with a look that scared me; her eyes had the general feel that they knew the secrets to the world, that she knew the parts of me I was hiding and found it amusing that I hadn't outright told her already. "What are you doing here?"

Stupid question, but my mind was a plaything of the body; chemicals in my body making be a lot more flustered than I mentally felt. I took a large gulp of air and tried to take control; think everything through before I let one word pass through my lips.

"My grandson in hospital," she said. "Did you think I wouldn't come here running?"

I shrugged. Grams, though I found her quite likeable, was scary. She knew witch things I couldn't hope to know; she knew about the spirits on the Other Side and the power they held. If she found out about me, that I had the vague sense of having a life before this, she would think I was some spirit that had possessed her grandchild. She wouldn't think me Micah anymore.

I couldn't have that.

"Dad told you I was here?" Grams and Dad didn't get along. There had always been a tension between them but it had gone up to another level when mom had left. At the back of my mind I knew why she had left, something to do with Mikael, but there was still that longing within me for a mother.

Knowledge of the future sucked in that respect, especially when it was combine with a body that was just getting into the stride of its own workings.

"Bonnie," Grams said, not in answer so much as in thought. "She was in quite the state when you wouldn't wake. Your father, the sensible man he is, got you here quickly. They found nothing wrong with you, however, but with all the blood they found seeping through your nose, it was clear that something was wrong. Your father called me."

"Why would he do that?" I asked, but the sinking feeling in my stomach worried me. "You're not a doctor."

"I think you know," said Grams and the sinking feeling settled. She knew…No, I'm jumping to conclusions, I thought, quickly cutting off the panic that started my small heart. Whatever she knows isn't what I'm most hiding. It could be something else. Like the small fact that I was practising magic, on my own, without any instruction whatsoever.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about, Grams," even to my own ears my voice wavered, growing a much higher pitch. Damned body.

She snorted. "Work on your lies, boy," she said, sounding amused. Good sign at least. She wasn't going to perform some spell on me because of some mistakes. The smile from still took me off guard though. "You know about magic don't you?" she asked. "About our line?"

Tell or don't tell. To lie would show that I didn't trust her; which I did, but I also trusted her to overreact. Tell the truth, I thought, that you're a wit—warlock, doesn't mean you did something wrong. I could say I heard the spell from my mother, she wouldn't rebuke the comment after all.

"Yes."

Grams smiled further before she frowned. "It's nothing to be embarrassed about. Be proud of your ancestry. It is a gifted granted to you by Nature." She took a breath. "But you should have come to me first before you started experimenting. Magic, especially for one so young, is a dangerous thing."

I frowned. "I can't practise can I?" and I couldn't hide my dejection.

"You will," she told me, her hand engulfing mine. "But right now, you're too young." I sniffled and the lines between my body and my mind became blurred. I felt myself slipping and becoming locked away. "Your father's worried," I heard Grams saying at the edges of consciousness. "Magic isn't something he's ever liked, but for you to be practising so early after your mother disappearing. Unfortunately he's seen fit to hold me to a promise. I can't teach you until you're at least sixteen; which means what you've learnt so far needs to be locked away. Where you can't reach until it's the right time."

There was a clang of metal and bars appeared in all directions. I felt myself bound, chains holding me into position. Movement began restricted as I tried to fight, worked my hardest to unravel the chains. Nothing came of it as the magic holding me in place fought harder to keep me. Sometime through it all a screen appeared in front of me, a window to the outside. I watched for moments with a sense of detachment as my mind tried to fill in the blanks, as it worked itself to form a facsimile of myself and had it playing the part of me.

A feeling of betrayal overwhelmed me as I took it all in; that my grandmother had cursed me, sealed off my knowledge of magic at my father's request, a conspiracy that made no sense. The image would move, changing as the days passed and I watched my life from afar. Grams couldn't have known this would happen, couldn't have known that I had known of magic since the second I was born—quite literally, an experience I'm happy I forgot—and therefore how far this spell would lock away my mind.

But the betrayal was something of an ache I couldn't get over. Two days passed in my prison before Bonnie noticed the changes. She questioned them, questioned me with a focused look I wasn't used to seeing on her face, and the facsimile could only answer that he didn't know what she was talking about. Just enough of me that those who didn't know me well wouldn't know the difference.

I got back to fighting. Trying to pull myself from the chains but they wouldn't budge; a year spent between watching and thinking and fighting before the inevitable feeling on hopelessness overtook me. This was my prison. It had been right for me to fear Grams because she was what I was not. She was powerful. A witch who lived longer than me and in that time accumulated knowledge I couldn't even comprehend at this point.

It was my plan to learn though, a part of me whined. I would learn and I would be the most powerful warlock to exist, maybe get myself on par with the greats like Silas and Qetsiyah. But now that dream would have to wait until I reached sixteen. The only answer was to wait it out. I didn't know the counter-spell much less have the power to invoke it without me being knocked out at best or dying at worst.

I waited and watched my life from afar.

My hands jerked and the car swerve to the right. Memory upon memory fighting for a place as two distinct personalities fought. Two minds that were so separated by time that they couldn't co-exist. One was younger, having lived a good life in its nine years of true consciousness, the other much stronger having fallen through a plethora of depressive states as it had to watch an imposter spent time with it family.

I fought with vigour, taking the facsimile in every respect. I changed it without mercy, turning the memories it thought were its own into mine. Mere moments passed and I had the upper hand; I had the life I had been supposed to live and it was left with nothing. Another moment and it disappeared into the recesses of my mind, locked in a prison that would ensure its death.

Eyes that hadn't seen the world in nine years blinked and I relished the heavy beating of my hurt, the hand clutching my arm for dear life and the terrified expression on my older sister's face—six minutes I will never live down, damned laziness. I let out a relieved laugh that soon turned to tears; the near accident meant nothing when compared to the fact that I was free.

"Hey," Bonnie said, her voice flickering in fear. "What was that?"

I didn't answer. Couldn't answer because my laugh had turned crazed and maniacal. It encompassed all the relief a person could feel, far more than anyone should have in one bout in all honesty but it was the hardest thing to care. My hands moved of their own volition, unclipping the seatbelt before I jumped, arms engulfing Bonnie in a crushing hug.

The next few hours were blur. There were words spoken, one-sided from Bonnie's part, and I might have cried at some point during it all, when I came too I was in hospital being looked over with Bonnie's hand held like a lifeline. Dad was with her too, but there was resentment there, I couldn't look at him the same way I had a long time ago. My mind kept repeating one thing, he was one of the reason for my hell.

"—ny pain?" the doctor was asking. I knew her name but with the memories still finding their places I couldn't decipher it.

I shook my head. "I'm fine," I said my eyes not leaving Bonnie. It was one thing to watch her grow up, but it was another to see it up close.

The doctor sighed. "Well, as far as I can tell there's nothing wrong," she said. "But we'll be running tests nonetheless."

"Thank you," Dad said taking to his feet and shooting a worried look my way. This is your fault, I thought, but there wasn't much heat. I had missed in him even as I had come to loathe him; feelings that didn't make any sense, but really, what sense was there in being human?

"Could you give us a moment?"

The doctor nodded and left, a clipboard in hand. Dad let out a long sigh. He ran a hand over his head and took a seat.

"It's happened hasn't it?" he muttered, more to himself than Bonnie or me. She didn't know yet, the memories told…no, she knew there was something odd about her, the unexplained feelings she often felt and sometimes the vague visions the she and the facsimile had pushed aside. "The memories have returned," Dad clarified, turning to look at me with sad eyes.

I gave a nod, my hand closing tighter around Bonnies. I vaguely noticed it was larger, its complexion a slight darker. Dad let out another sigh.

"Memories?" Bonnie asked. "What's Dad talking about?"

I looked at Dad for permission, but then I remembered the feelings of subservience that had come with youth were almost gone. "I figured out something I wasn't supposed to when we were five. I tried something that was over my head and to protect me, Grams took my memories away," it was hard achieving the emotionless quality to my voice, but my body and mind were beginning to come in synch. There were still impulse, for the life of me I couldn't turn away the thoughts of making out, but it was easier to think when I was no longer a child.

"Took your memories?" Bonnie asked. "How?"

"With magic," I said. Dad cringed at the words, looking as though he was in physical pain. Bonnie snorted, a look of disbelief on her. She let out a chuckle as she turned from me to Dad before returning back to me.

The maniacal bout of laughter seemed to be a family trait because she let one loose. "You're serious," she said after a moment. "Magic isn't real," after another moment. "It isn't," she said when there was silence, vehemently shaking her head. "Magic," she said with a disbelieving chuckle. "So that makes us what, witches?" She was met by silence. "Oh god I'm a witch."

It was strange but I couldn't relate, being twins didn't make us the same person, this was true, but there should have been some similarities. Where she sounded disgusted the realisation, that I had powers had thrilled me. I could enforce my will upon the world and I somewhat knew the cheat sheets, there was nothing greater. But to Bonnie, those thoughts meant nothing. She was scared by the power granted to her by Nature, by a lineage many would be proud of.

What did you expect though, a part of me intoned; you're fundamentally different by the mere fact that before this, before your imprisonment, you had another life, a mundane life. Relating to her would be very hard, especially taking into account the mental age difference.

I pushed the thought aside. My sister needed me. "Hey," the soft quality that my voice took was unfeigned. Bonnie looked into my eyes. "We're witches," I said. "We're going to go through all this together."

My words brought her a measure of comfort but she was still worried.

"We're witches," she said. "What does that mean?"

Both of us looked at Dad at for different reason; Bonnie was confused and vulnerable at this moment, looking for a form of authority and I was looking at the man who had stopped by early progress. The memories were foggy, but the general feeling stayed true; Dad was afraid of magic. If there was anyone who would stop us from training in our witchy ways it would be him. Well he would try to at least. An opportunity like this wasn't something I was about to pass on, this feeling only further exacerbated by the feeling of betrayal.

"Your grandmother," said Dad and again he was cringing almost in physical pain.