Queen Marie's Shop of Witchcraft and Wonder was a strange place. It was the kind of place found in the back streets and narrow alleys of big cities, where people only ever wandered in by accident. The kind of place where someone would glance at the miscellaneous wares and wonder how the shop stayed in business. Who would ever buy enchanted crystals, mythical jewelry, little corked bottles full of liquids that promised remedies to impossible ailments?
Well, no one much, Hazel knew. At least not these days. After all, anything with even a hint of the mystical or magical was branded as taboo for its potential association with the gods. So even though her mother had only ever sold fake, cheesy items, people tended to avoid it, just to be safe.
Hazel let herself into the shop's front entrance, a small door squished to the side of a building whose bottom floor was occupied by a hair salon. The door led up a narrow staircase to what was in truth a modest but respectable apartment, but, since the front room had been transformed into the shop, had become a rather tight living space.
The bell on the shop door chimed as Hazel walked in, and she was immediately surrounded. It was a small space, made to feel smaller by the cramped shelves and narrow aisles. Her footsteps were muffled on the thick red carpet. The lights were dimmed, as they always were, half of the exposed bulbs flickering. It wasn't for lack of upkeep; her mother seemed to think they set some sort of mood, made the occasional lost tourist and curious local more likely to buy something for the sheer novelty.
Hazel's mother was seated behind the counter, as she usually was, half-hidden by the stuffed cases of jewelry and the cash register nestled between them. As Hazel entered, her mother stood, turning a sharp glare in her direction.
"Where have you been?" she demanded. "You should have finished school hours ago."
Hazel had finished school hours ago; it was nearly seven o'clock. But she had lingered before coming home. First in her school's library, slogging her way through homework. Then in the park near her street, where she'd sat with her notebook, sketching the children running around the playground, until the sun had gone down and her subjects had gone home, and finally Hazel had accepted that she should as well.
"I was busy," Hazel mumbled to her mother, dropping her backpack on the ground near the checkout counter.
Her mother gave a little harumph and gestured to the room at large. "Well, it's late enough. Help me close up."
Hazel set about the regular motions in tandem with her mother: pulling money from the register, locking up the display cases, straightening out the merchandise for the following morning. She was halfway through re-organizing a display of crystal rings when the bell over the door jingled again.
Hazel turned to see two men walk through it. One was taller, one shorter, but they both looked similar enough with their dark hair, pale skin, stern faces. And they were both wearing the uniform of a Hunter.
"Marie Levesque?" the taller one asked.
Her mother had looked up from counting the day's cash. "That's me."
"Then that must be Hazel." He gestured toward where Hazel was kneeling on the ground, sparing her a sideways glance. Hazel swallowed but didn't respond.
Her mother cleared her throat. "Did you need something?"
"Yes." The Hunter turned back around. "We have a few questions about your daughter. Do you have a place we can talk?"
Hazel's mother pursed her lips. Clearly she didn't want to – it was obvious enough to her, and the Hunters could probably tell, too. Still, she nodded in assent. They stepped further into the room, and Hazel retreated behind the desk, joining her mother. The Hunters approached the other side.
"Well?" Hazel's mother asked. "What do you want to know?"
The quiet Hunter pulled out a slim file he was holding at his side and laid it out on the table. The other opened it and began rifling through the papers.
"Who's her father?" he asked.
Hazel's mother hesitated before responding. "Her…father?"
"Yes. There are no records of who her father is. No name on her birth certificate. I'm asking you, who is he?"
Her mother's face twisted in annoyance; whether at the Hunter, her father, or both, Hazel wasn't sure. "I wish I knew. If you figure it out, be sure to let me know."
"So Hazel has never known her father."
"No," her mother insisted. The Hunter raised an eyebrow at the tone, but only looked back down at his papers.
"I see she doesn't do too well in school either," he continued. "Her grades are low, especially in English." He lowered the paper and addressed Hazel directly for the first time. "Do you suffer from dyslexia?"
Hazel's breath caught. She had never been diagnosed, but she'd heard of dyslexia, how it made it difficult to read because words seemed to spin and move and float around. Just like they did for her. She cut her gaze over to her mother, whose lips were tightly pursed in displeasure. "I don't know," Hazel said, fully aware of how lame the words sounded.
The Hunter smiled and raised his stack of papers again. For a moment, Hazel thought he might ask her to read something, some kind of test, but he only tapped them lightly on the table, straightening the pile, and handed them back to his partner, who tucked them back in the folder.
"Do you know why I'm asking you all this?" he said. Hazel had a growing suspicion, but her mother had remained silent, so Hazel followed her lead.
The Hunter didn't seem to mind. "These are markers of demigods," he explained with apparent relish. "A missing parent. Of course, you never would have known your father if he were a god. And we've found that nearly all demigods have been diagnosed with, or show signs of, dyslexia and ADHD. We don't know why, but in this case, correlation is enough."
"And this." He swept his arm toward the front of the apartment, apparently indicating the shop at large. "You, Ms. Levesque, traffic in magic. You know things others don't, about this secret and dangerous world."
"It's all fake," Hazel's mother spoke up, her voice quavering slightly as if she was on the verge of either screaming or bursting into tears. "Just souvenirs for tourists. I've run this shop since before…before I knew about the gods."
"Maybe," the Hunter said, tapping his fingers gently on the glass display case. "Maybe you are innocent. Maybe the girl is human. For her sake, I hope so. But we'll be watching you both."
The two filed out of the shop, the little bell jingling one last time. Hazel's mother watched them go, and Hazel could see her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
"Mom," Hazel breathed, but her mother held up a finger to her lips, and she waited in stillness until the footsteps faded out down the stairs.
When the room was once again silent, Hazel's mother turned away from her and pushed aside the beaded curtain that separated the shop from the rest of the apartment, blustering down the hall. Hazel followed quickly after her down the hallway and into the cramped kitchen.
"Mom, wait, please –" Hazel pleaded.
Her mother spun around mid-sentence, and Hazel was surprised at the look of distress on her face. "You've brought me nothing but trouble," she said, her tone scolding. "You and your father…"
"My father," Hazel echoed. "Is he really…?"
"A god?" she hissed, lowering her voice as if the Hunters might still be listening in. "Of course he is!"
Hazel was taken aback. She hadn't expected her mother to admit it. She wasn't surprised, really. After all, she'd suspected it already. Now she just felt resignation. Dread.
Her mother collapsed back into the chair, dropping her face into her hands. "Your father," she began again, "ruined my life. And now there's you."
"What about me?" Hazel felt faint, the dread solidifying into something much more real and immediate. She didn't want to know the answer. Didn't want to hear what she knew her mother was thinking.
"You need to leave," she said blandly, and Hazel's heart dropped. "You're putting us both in danger by staying. Leave this house, leave this city, and never come back."
Hazel watched numbly as her mother stood, like the matter had been resolved, and retreated out of the kitchen, toward her bedroom. Tears prickled at her eyes, and she bit her lip to keep them from falling. "But Mom –"
"I don't want you here, Hazel. I don't know how much clearer I can make it." She didn't turn around, her face still hidden, but her shoulders were shaking. "If you don't leave, I'll call the Hunters, and they can drag you away themselves."
With that, she slammed her bedroom door, the frame rattling just a moment, before the room was plunged into silence.
Hazel stared, paralyzed, at the closed door. She wanted to yell, to scream, to hit something, but she couldn't make herself move. She knew her mother didn't always appreciate her presence – she was an unwanted burden to her. But she'd just told Hazel she wanted her to leave forever. She hated Hazel for something that was beyond her control, something she barely knew anything about.
But Hazel knew she could stand there and wait for her mother to come out as long as she wanted. Eventually, she would get her way. Sooner or later, someone would come and take Hazel away.
Hazel was inside an unfamiliar room. It was dim, fluorescent lights so harsh they were almost blue. She couldn't tell how large the space was; all around her were giant somethings covered in tarps, each larger than her.
There were footsteps, several sets, from somewhere, echoing around the space, and a group rounded a corner and came into sight. It looked like a group of doctors, or scientists, all dressed in white lab coats.
Among them was one stand-out – a young girl, not much older than twelve. She was non-descript looking, with dark hair and dark eyes, plain clothes that wouldn't have stood out on the street. But the others seemed to be deferring to her.
"As you can see," one of the group narrated, "it's still a work in progress." He was the one closest to the girl and seemed to be addressing her. "But we're very hopeful."
"Show me." The girl's voice was curious and inquisitive, and she looked up at the man. He and the others seemed to take it as a command, though, and a pair of them immediately shuffled over to the nearest tarp, pulling it away to reveal what was beneath.
It was impossible for Hazel to tell what she was supposed to be looking at. The machine had a plastic base, and sitting on top of it, a large glass box, big enough to sit in. Inside it was filled with some kind of gas, almost white-ish, slowly swirling around.
The girl stepped forward toward the device, and the slight glow illuminated the planes of her face. She put a hand up to the glass box, and near where she touched, the gas seemed to react to her presence, moving faster, thickening.
As the girl examined the machine, the rest of the group watched her. The man from before stepped forward, looking cautious. "Well?" he asked the girl. "Can you help us?"
Hazel's eyes flew open. She thrashed out in surprise, but her arms caught on something and pulled her sideways, and she felt herself crashing into something hard.
Hazel groaned, the strange dream lingering in her head, not slipping out of reach like they usually did, but still sharp, as vivid as a memory. She shut her eyes, shaking off the sleep and trying to remember exactly where she was.
She'd fallen off the bench where she'd been sleeping, a thin blanket still wrapped around her, her side aching from hitting the ground. Her backpack, full of the only things she'd taken from her house, was still looped around her shoulder.
Hazel sat up, stretching her arms against the stiffness from the uncomfortable makeshift bed. It was still dark out. Hazel wasn't sure how long she'd been asleep, whether it was still night or approaching morning.
She was outside a bus station, the only one in town she knew well enough to find. She had come after the fight with her mother, but couldn't bring herself to go inside.
Hazel hadn't fully committed to running away. Every family had fights. Even Hazel and her mother had argued in the past, over school, over work, over Hazel's social life. Normal things.
And Hazel knew how those fights were supposed to go. They wouldn't speak for a while, maybe a day or two at most. Exchange only cool words until one of them caved and apologized or, more likely, the tension died down enough for them to pretend it had never happened.
But this was different, even Hazel could tell. Something real, deep, and she didn't want to believe that her mother had meant the words she'd said, but somewhere deep down she was starting to.
Hazel had never run away from home before, but she had thought about it. She was sure everyone had at some point. When she tried to plan what she would do, she never got far. Leave home and then…what? She had no idea. No other family she could go to. No life outside of New Orleans. And yet…no choice.
Hazel pushed herself off the ground, pulling out the cash she'd stolen from the shop register. It was plenty for a ticket to anywhere – she could figure out the rest later. She pushed open the bus station door and stepped inside.
