August 1985
Eni Iro stood in front of a stained mirror, leaning over a cracked pedestal sink with no hot water. She wiped her eyes and grabbed a handful of hair, raised the scissors she took from her father's front counter drawer, and cut the strands until the ends stuck out beneath her ear. She took the hair that hung past her shoulders and cut again. She cut more, trying to match the back to the side as much as she could. She wiped her eyes again to see what she was doing.
Stop crying.
She took the last long pieces between her fingers and cut them off as her father pounded on the bathroom door.
"Get back out here! Not done with you!"
The sink was full of dark pieces of her hair, parts of the girl she wanted to erase. She picked up clumps of hair and stuffed them in the trash bin. She turned on the faucet and watched the rest wash down the drain. She collected a handful of water, poured it over her face, and used more to rinse her eyes. She didn't let go of the scissors.
Her father pulled on the door handle, but it didn't give. She heard him walk away and felt relief, then panicked, realizing she forgot to grab the set of utility keys when she had taken the scissors.
No no no no no no no
Her father came back. He unlocked the bathroom door and pulled it open. Eni stood against the far bathroom wall with pieces of cut hair stuck to her shirt and apron, the scissors raised over her head. Her lip twitched, but she didn't cry.
Her father blocked the doorway. "What have you done?"
"Leave me alone!"
He grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the bathroom. Eni clutched the scissors. Her father dragged her out of the back room and threw her on the floor in front of the last row of shelves.
"What have you done?!"
Eni stood and braced herself against a stack of boxes. No one was in the store and the lights at the front were off. The bakery was supposed to be open for another hour, but her father had locked the door. He didn't want anyone to walk into this. He charged her, grabbed her arms, and pulled them behind her back. Eni winced. Her father tore the scissors out of her hands and slapped her across the face. He shoved her back on the vinyl floor.
My wand . . . where did I leave my wand?
"Where did you get them?"
He meant the magazines she had stolen from the convenience store three blocks away.
"Did someone at your school give them to you? Another yariman? Is all they taught you to like women?"
He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her toward him. He grabbed her arms and held her wrists. He raised the scissors with his free hand. "I think you did not finish."
Eni twisted in his grasp and tried to pull herself free, but he was twice her size. "No! Papa, no!"
"Damare!"
The hair Eni had carefully evened-out fell in front of her face as her father took random pieces between the blades.
No no no no no no no
He removed chunks of her short hair. He cut against her scalp until blood ran across her forehead, then he threw her back on the floor.
"Not enough for you to be a possessed witch, now you are a sexual deviant?! What has happened to you?!"
"I'm not a deviant!"
He grabbed her and pulled her off the floor. He held her against him with the blades of the scissors pressed into her throat and dragged her to the front door. He opened the door and pushed her outside. Eni fell and scraped her hands on the sidewalk. She scrambled away from her father.
"Do not come back," her father said, "you are no longer my child."
"Papa!"
"Damare yariman!"
Eni ran.
At first, she ran from the adrenaline with no destination, beneath street lamps and past store fronts and office buildings. She had to get away from him. She lost track of time. Her lungs burned. What was she doing? Everything she owned was in the apartment above the bakery. She didn't have anything. Blood ran from the lesions her father had left on her scalp and she wiped it away with the back of her bleeding hand. She was glad it was dark. What could she do? She ran almost a mile before she stopped. She stood against a brick wall, panting. People walked by but they didn't pay her any attention.
Chikusho.
She never should have left her wand behind. She should have kept it on her, but Professor Flitwick had told them if they used magic outside of Hogwarts they would be expelled. Of all the things she didn't have a chance to grab, she needed her wand the most. She could have used it. Would they have understood if she did? Would they have let her come back?
She walked now, tired. But her mind cleared. She couldn't stay out all night and she couldn't go back home, not while her father was there. She had seen something in his eyes when he called her possessed, his own churning demons. Would he have killed her? Or just kept hurting her? It didn't matter. She couldn't go back to him. She needed somewhere to go.
She crossed the street to a payphone and pulled change out of her pocket. She had planned on using it to buy a soda pop after the bakery closed. She dropped the coins in the slot and dialed the only number she had memorized.
It rang.
"Hello?"
"Is Maddison there?"
"This is her mother. Who is calling?"
"Eni Iro. I'm a friend from school."
She heard Mrs. Thomas put the phone down and call for her daughter. Eni waited, starting to feel cold with the sweat from her run drying on her body.
"Eni?"
"Maddison," she said, "I need help."
"What happened?"
"My father," Eni said. "I told you he hated my being a witch."
She couldn't tell her the rest, not now, maybe not ever.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm not, no. He threw me out. I know Liverpool isn't close to you but I am in trouble. I've got nowhere to go."
She heard Maddison cover the phone with her hand and talk to someone.
"Eni, I'm telling my mum. We are going to come get you, alright?"
"Maddison all my stuff, my wand-"
"Hello? This is Maddison's mum again. Where are you, dear? We are coming to get you."