South-West London, United Kingdom
Ever since Cordelia Goode's public announcement, life had been good for Lucy Merry. She no longer had to hide her cryokinesis from her family for fear of them throwing her out, or even - she had tried to banish the thought from her mind - kill her for their own safety. Her mother had cried with happiness, her father had assured her that they would love her no matter what when she'd revealed her powers to them. Her little sister had screamed and jumped up and down with excitement before asking "like Elsa? Like Elsa from Frozen?"
Now she had to come out to the world.
She wrung her hands as she waited backstage. An assembly was being held at the all girls sixth form college/secondary school where she was in Year 12, and all twelve hundred girls in both the school and the college were gathered in the assembly hall. The headmistress was on the stage, giving a vague introduction (Lucy didn't want any students running in terror before she'd even had a chance to explain what she was.)
She had gone to Mrs Parkman a few days ago and told her about her powers. The headmistress had agreed that it was a good idea to hold an assembly so the whole school could be educated about witches and their abilities. She would leave most of the assembly to Lucy, as she was the best person to tell them about herself.
"Please welcome Lucy Merry to tell you more about the subject," Mrs Parkman made her exit. Lucy walked onto the stage to a round of applause, bewhildered by the vast number of faces in front of her. Every teacher in the school was also there, standing against the walls and watching the students. She took a deep breath as the applause died down, never having been good at public speaking. Better not fuck this up, Lucy, she thought. Two thousand eyes stared at her, unaware of the bombshell she was about to drop. She caught the eyes of her friends seated at the back of the hall. They already knew she was a witch, and their reassuring looks calmed her nerves a little. She cleared her throat. Here goes...
"Put your hand up if you've seen the announcement Cordelia Goode made on the news a few weeks ago. About witches." Every hand in the hall went up. "Well, um, I think that it's important that everyone knows a little about witches and their powers," Lucy walked slowly back and forth, trying to contain her agitation. "Witchcraft is hereditary. It's passed down through the female line in a family. If you were a witch, you would most definitely have a great-grandmother, grandmother, maybe even a mother who shares your gifts. The point here is that a witch is born a witch. She does not choose to be a witch. You don't become a witch by practicing spells or owning cats or selling your soul to the devil or anything like that. You either are a witch, or you aren't, and you have no control over that." Lucy paused, waiting for a reaction. Most of the girls looked interested, some a little confused. It's now or never.
"Now you might be wondering why I am the one to tell you all this. Well, when I was twelve years old, in Year 7 at this school in fact, I discovered that I have the power to manipulate and create ice wherever there is moisture. It's called Cryokinesis and it means that I..." she took in the expressions of amazement, horror, fear and confusion from the crowd as they predicted what she was about to say "...am a witch."
Hundreds of faces stared at her stunned silence.
She picked up a glass of water that was left on the stand and poured its contents onto the stage. She tensed her right hand, freezing the puddle of water and levitating it for everyone to see. With a clench of her fist, the ice shattered into small crystals, which she proceeded to make spin in a tornado shape, before letting them fall down and scatter across the hall.
A painfully long second passed before the reality of what had just happened hit the girls.
Some gasped, some screamed, and a few got up out of their seats and fled from the hall. In the chaos that ensued, Lucy felt like Carrie White out of the Stephen King novel, standing on a stage in front of hundreds of people, terrorising them with her demonic power. I guess Carrie was a witch, too, she thought, and wondered whether the horror author had had a female relative with magic in her blood to inspire his fearsome character.
A girl seated near the front, who looked about thirteen years old, sprang to her feet. "She's a monster! A filthy, evil sinner!"
"Hey, no, that's not it!" Lucy pleaded. "I was born this wa-"
The girl held up her hand. "The sorceress will enchant you with her evil tongue. As our God said himself! Exodus 22:18: 'You shall not permit a sorceress to live.'"
Lucy glared at the girl, "that is not true, you Bible-bashing arsehole! What are you gonna do? Stone me to death? Shut your mouth!" By now, a teacher was trying to gently escort the girl from the hall. She wasn't having any of it.
"Our only hope is to rise and burn her together!" she was now being led more forcefully, and continued to struggle as she was lifted up and carried out. "She will destroy you all! God won't forget that you let her live!"
You little bitch.
Mrs Parkman rushed to the stage, taking the microphone from Lucy before she could retaliate. "You can go now," she whispered to her. "I'm so sorry about Sebastiane, she's very strongly religious." The headmistress began to attempt to reassure the unsettled crowd, who were murmuring loudly about the drama they'd just witnessed.
Lucy stormed backstage, fists clenched. How badly she had wanted to freeze that girl's head just to shut her up. She had to keep her temper if she wanted to stay out of court. Laws had yet to be made about the use of witchcraft, but Lucy suspected that killing a girl by freezing her blood would not bode well for her future.
She hoped with all her heart that no-one else shared the little girl's views on people like her, but she knew, deep down inside, that some would.
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A week passed, and it was the last day before Lucy would fly to New Orleans to attend Miss Robichaux's Academy, at which Cordelia Goode herself was the headmistress. The plan was that she would live at the academy for a few years, until she learned enough about her powers and how to use them. She could already use her Cryokinesis very accurately, having had the power for five years now, but she figured it couldn't hurt to learn more.
Today was her "coming out" party, as she had named it, and everyone she knew would be there. Her newly public power had boosted her popularity, and now everyone wanted to be friends with "the witch". Most of them were idiots in her opinion, but Lucy couldn't help feeling giddy from all the sudden attention. She had never been a particularly social person, preferring to keep to the small circle of people she actually liked.
She sat on her bed in her underwear with a towel wrapped around her freshly washed hair. Her friends would arrive soon, and they would get ready for the party together. She pulled the towel from her hair and grabbed the long sleeved v-neck, pullover and jeggings she had worn the previous day, lazily pulling them on without bothering to stand up. With a contented sigh, she fell back on her pillows, desperate to savour the last alone time she would have in...probably days.
Giggling to herself, she froze the tiny droplets of moisture in the air above her. The tiny, almost invisible crystals rained down on her, studding her hair and clothes like delicate gemstones. She flicked her wrist and the crystals went flying out of the slightly open window.
The doorbell rang. That will be Callisope, ten minutes early as usual. Lucy's oddly named friend was renowned for her punctuality. "I'll get it!" she shouted, scrambling down the ladder from her attic bedroom.
"Hey, Piper!" Callisope greeted her. The nickname came from the love of vegan food Lucy shared with the main character on Orange is the New Black.
"Sup' Red?" she replied, using her friend's respective TV nickname.
They'd just got up to Lucy's bedroom when the doorbell rang again.
"Hi, Irene," Lucy greeted. The girl barged in, slamming the door behind her.
"I argued with my mum on the way here. I don't know what she would have done to me if she caught me! I had to run all the way from the car!" Irene panted, leaning against the door.
Lucy laughed. "I think you're safe now!" Irene's mother was known for her bad temper and tendency to lose it with her daughter. Irene, on the other hand, was a sweet and patient girl who bonded with Lucy over their mutual dark humour and love of Divergent and The Maze Runner.
The bizarre and hilarious Éliane arrived exactly on time, immediately bursting into tears over the episode of Game of Thrones she had just watched. "I know, I know. I've got to warn you though, there's much worse to come," Lucy consoled her friend, having finished the series and read all of the books it was based on.
Livia, the glamorous budding starlet, arrived twenty minutes late, as was her habit. With her was a large bag, bursting with every type of make-up Lucy had ever seen or heard of.
"Wow, Livi, is this everything you've bought in Superdrug in the last ten years?" Lucy asked, grinning.
Livia laughed, "probably more like thirteen years, to be honest. Half of it is so old it's unusable, but clearing it out would take days, so everything stays where it is."
Lucy raised her eyebrows and smiled. "Come on, Barbie, let's get ready."
Callisope sat on a stool, Livia rubbing foundation into Callisope's dark skin and Lucy deftly working her hair into two braids, which she began to pin on top of her head.
"You're looking very Lolita, Calli," Lucy smiled, admiring her work.
Livia threw down the pallet of foundation. "Ugh, it's too light! It doesn't match your skin."
Callisope laughed, "yeah, they only make foundation for white girls. Talk about Indian problems!"
"I do have a darker one," Livia said, producing a pot of warm brown-coloured make-up, "but it's really thick. It might not spread..."
"Give it here," Lucy insisted. She tensed her hands, and tiny snowflakes dropped into the pot, immediately melting and giving the foundation a thinner consistency.
"Thanks, Lucy!" Livia clapped and cheered. "Your powers really do come in handy!"
"Talking of your powers," Callisope started, "did you tell Saylah? You know, before the assembly?"
Saylah was Lucy's on-and-off girlfriend. She was the boyish, rocker type, with short, messy hair and a rebellious attitude. Lucy had been instantly attracted to her when she was fifteen and they were in the same music class, but failed to recognise her darker side. For months, they were inseparable, often getting into trouble at school for their public displays of affection (some staff at the school disliked the idea of younger students being exposed to such "filth" as two girls being "intimate").
Lucy frowned, "no, she didn't know. She'd probably think it was sexy though." She stared into space, displeased at being reminded of the girl she was trying to break away from.
"I'm going to get dressed," Lucy announced, snapping out of her trance.
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A cheer erupted as Lucy walked into the party. She grinned, feeling slightly guilty at the rush she was getting from being revered by the people she so often looked down on. She clapped, causing a small snow flurry around her, and strutted over to where her friends were gathered.
She wore an asymmetrical tank top which bared one shoulder and stopped just above her ribs, tiny denim shorts which showed all of her legs and her hipbones and a pair of shiny black lace-up stiletto boots which stopped just below her knees. She didn't normally go for the prostitute look, but this was her party and she was going to fit in. She had crimped her long, brown hair and put in a complex side braid.
Irene danced up to her, already tipsy. "Come get a drink, Lucy!"
"Be careful, Irene, you know you're a lightweight," Lucy teased. Irene always drank too much, and was usually sick. As happy as Lucy was to hold her friend's hair back while she vomited, she wanted Irene to remember her last night in England.
Someone poked her, and she spun around with a start. It was Éliane.
"Don't look now," Éliane whispered, eyeing the other side of the room, where someone Lucy was hoping to avoid now stood.
She took a swig of her drink, and walked over.
"Saylah," she greeted cautiously, leaning against the wall next to the rocker, who wore a tantalisingly short skirt and sexy smudged eyeliner.
"Haven't seen you in a while," the girl replied coolly.
Lucy hesitated, unsure of Saylah's attitude towards her, or how drunk she was right now.
"You're looking so hot right now. Did you do that for me?" Saylah teased, snaking her hand around Lucy's waist.
So that's how she feels, Lucy thought. Very well.
"Yes, I did dress for you," she kissed Saylah hard, savouring the taste of alcohol and cigarettes she wouldn't taste again for a while.
After all, it was her last night here, and she wanted it to be fun.