by Martha Carr
A round of, “Bye, Chuck,” rose from the picnic table. Nickie turned to watch him walk through the crowded tables and back into the Mean Eyed Cat toward the front door, on his way to his car parked on the street.
“You sure got lucky with that Peabrain, Nickie.”
She turned to look at her dad. “I know I did. Maybe don’t call him that, though.”
“Why not? It’s a term of endearment.”
Wrinkling her nose, Nickie shrugged and squinted at him. “Yeah, but it just sounds weird when we’re talking about Chuck. I mean, he still doesn’t know.”
“Well, that’s his own path to follow,” Nancy said. “It doesn’t matter what he is, sweetheart, or whether or not he’s woken up. He loves you.”
Nickie glanced at her sisters and sighed. “Yeah. He’s pretty awesome.”
Nancy licked her lips. “I will say, though, now that he’s gone, this might be the perfect time for the five of us to have that conversation your dad mentioned earlier.”
“The surprise?” Emily perked up.
“See?” Greg turned toward his ex-wife in mock surprise. “I didn’t say it this time.”
Their mom closed her eyes, unable to laugh it off. “But it gives the impression we’re talking about a present or a fun vacation or something.”
“Well, the rings are gifts, aren’t they?”
“Greg, please. It’s much more than that.”
“I know. But the legacy isn’t a doomsday prophecy—”
“Whoa, whoa. Slow down.” Nickie scooted away from her mom on the picnic bench so she had enough space to study both of them at the same time. “What legacy?”
“That’s what we want to talk to you about.” Nancy eyed each of her girls in turn and nodded.
“You mean like our legacy?” Emily asked.
“Family legacy.” Greg reached across the table and patted his ex-wife’s forearm. Their mom just pursed her lips at him and raised an eyebrow. “Been passed down through the Hadstrom family for generations. And now that all of you have come of age, which in this instance means you’re no longer in school, it’s time for your mom and I to pass that legacy on down the line.”
Nickie glanced at her sisters. Emily stared back at her with wide, eager eyes over a huge grin.
Laura squinted, took a sip of water, then looked at their parents. “What kind of rings?”
5
“Do you wanna take this one?” Nancy nodded across the table at Greg.
“I don’t have to. You’re part of this too, you know.”
“By default. It’s your bloodline. I just married into it.”
Greg chuckled. “And then you got right back out again.”
She ignored him and leaned over the table to grin at the girls. “Not before we raised three incredible witches.”
“I’d really like to skip over this part.” Emily waved her hand as if clearing away an awful smell. “Can we get to the whole family legacy thing?”
“Yep. I’m on it.” Their dad scooted forward on the bench and laid both forearms on the picnic table. “This is what you girls were born into. Are you ready?”
“Dad…”
“Please just start talking, already.”
“Yes. I am so ready.”
“Okay. Let’s start at the beginning. When this planetary ship took off from our ancestors’ homeworld—”
“You mean Arenya V?” Emily asked.
“That one, yes. I can’t tell you why the other races who left Arenya V decided to venture out into the cosmos, but the witches who stepped aboard came on as refugees.”
“You mean they were fleeing.” Laura bit down on her water straw.
“Exactly. Fleeing from another race that, as I understand it, spent a lot of time and effort persecuting witches and trying to wipe us out. This ship we call Earth was a sanctuary, so to speak. The Engineers took in the surviving witches with open arms when they recognized the danger. Our ancestors were among those who made it onboard. It took a while for anyone to realize a Gorafrex had slipped onto the ship. I mean, really, Earth’s a big place to hide. But a few more witches turned up dead, and by the time the Engineers found the Gorafrex, I believe the ship had already gone quite off course.”
“We know that story, Dad,” Nickie reminded him with a nod.
“Right. I wasn’t sure how much you remembered—”
“What, from every bedtime story ‘til I started middle school?” Emily laughed. “It’s kinda hard to forget.”
Nancy glanced sideways at her ex-husband and smirked. “Keep going.”
“Okay, ladies. There’s a certain art to storytelling—”
“One might even call it a performing art.” Emily snickered.
“Wow, I really left an impression on you, huh?” Laura nudged her youngest sister with her elbow.
“Can I continue?” The girls nodded at their dad, resorting to the silent promise of their childhoods by miming zipping up their lips at the same time. “Thank you. Now, the Gorafrex couldn’t be killed. Only… contained. Imprisoned. Our ancestors on this ship were the ruling family at the time.”
“Dad, are you saying we’re royalty?”
“Emily, stop interrupting,” Laura chided.
Greg gave a noncommittal hum. “Think of it as more of a democratic society of witches. A cycle of different families ruling at different times. It just so happened to be ours, way back when. Those Hadstroms from long ago had a little help from the Engineers in creating a prison, if you will, for the stowaway Gorafrex. Our family has always had special gifts, right? Every witch family specializes in their own. The Hadstrom gift is, and has always been, in making the natural, the everyday, the mundane into something extraordinary.
“Take Nickie and me, for example. Our gifted magic lies in music, right?” He nodded at Nickie and winked. “We make people feel with our music more than they’re used to feeling with anything else. And it’s through music that our magic’s the strongest.”
Emily laughed. “You can compliment your other daughters any day now.”
“Yes, Emily,” Nancy said. “The Hadstrom gift applies to you and Laura too. You channel the strength of your magic through food, don’t you? Your emotions. Your desires. Your passion. All of that ripples out into the world every time you create another culinary masterpiece.”
“I don’t know if I’d take it that far yet.”
“Well, that’s what it is, sweetheart. And Laura…well, Laura can spot a magical artifact from a mile away.”
“How is that turning the mundane into the extraordinary?” Laura stirred her straw around in what was left of her ice water.
Nickie laughed. “Remember that wand you found in the creek?”
“Oh, yeah.” Emily bumped her shoulder against her older sisters’. “We all literally thought it was just a stick. Until you started casting spells with some long-dead wizard’s wand.”
Laura smirked. “Still took me two weeks to figure out how to access it. That thing was stuck at the bottom of the creek for…what did you guys say?”
“At least five hundred years, I think…” Greg looked across the table at Nancy, and they shared a nod. “Something like that.”
“The point is that you knew what that wand could do.” Nancy pointed at her oldest daughter. “Your dad and I had a few laughs over a soggy twig with a crack down the middle. But a ten-year-old who could find and use another witch’s wand, before she’d even been taught how to make her own, is not something every mother gets to see.”
“Yeah, okay.” Laura rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.
“I’ve been wildly derailed again, here, ladies.”
“Sorry, Dad.”
“Do go on.” Emily twirled her hand.
Greg cleared his throat. “Anyway, with this gift, our Hadstrom ancestors worked to shape that prison for the Gorafrex, using the gifts of our bloodline. And then, with that gift, they captured the one Gorafrex on Earth and trapped it inside that prison. It’s still
there to this day. And it’s also the Hadstroms’ duty to protect the prison. To be sure the Gorafrex never escapes. That’s why our family’s been right here in Austin since the beginning. We can’t ever leave, because every generation has a job to do.”
“The prison’s in Austin?” Nickie asked, while Laura slurped down the last of her water through the straw.
Their mom nodded. “Yep. Right in the Greenbelt, actually.”
Laura choked and coughed until her face turned red. Both her sisters peered at her.
“You okay?” Emily reached out to pat her sister’s back.
“Yeah.” Laura coughed and shook her head. “Yeah, sorry. I just thought Dad said there’s a witch-killing creature in the Greenbelt.”
“Kiddo, I did say that.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“Oh, come on. You used to love it.”
“I know, Dad. And I’m not a kid anymore.”
“But you’ll always be my—”
“Greg.” Their mom raised an eyebrow and spread her hands. “Boundaries.”
“Boundaries? It’s a nickname…” He looked to his other daughters for backup, but Nickie and Emily both shrugged.
“It was a very polite request,” Nickie said.
Emily nodded. “You should probably just take one for the team.”
“Wow. My own children…”
“Dad, are you gonna keep telling the story?”
He blinked. “It’s all true.”
“We know.” Nickie gave him her most reassuring smile. “Which is why we want you to get to the end of it.”
“You said something about rings.” Laura pushed her empty cup away from her and folded her hands on the table, her lips pressed together as she swallowed.
“I did say that, didn’t I?” Greg glanced at Nancy. “You brought them, didn’t you?”
“Of course I brought them.” Their mom reached into her purse and pulled out a long black jewelry box. “I don’t know why you had everyone send them to me—”
“Hey, we don’t have to be married anymore for me to know that you are still the most organized person I’ve ever met. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with something like this. And without you…” He wiggled his head and shrugged. “Well, the girls wouldn’t be here without you, would they?”
“Ew. Dad…” Emily shook her head.
Nickie folded her arms. “Yeah, it was weird growing up. It’s even weirder now.”
Laura, meanwhile, stared at the long black box in their mom’s hand, even when Nancy handed it over to their dad and shot him the ‘watch it, mister’ look.
“I wouldn’t be your dad if I didn’t keep things weird, would I?” Greg took the box and nodded at Nancy. “Thank you. Okay. This, my daughters, is the best part.”
6
There were three rings in the black box—black, copper, and silver. They were thick bands and a better fit for a man’s finger. “These,” Greg said, spinning the box around the table so all three of his daughters could see, “are our family’s rings. They were forged with the same magic that created the Gorafrex prison in the Greenbelt. At the same time, I believe. As the story goes, because really, I never met these guys”—he chuckled—“the Hadstrom brothers who made these and began our family’s legacy channeled the strength of their magic into the rings, so they could be passed down generations of Hadstrom witches until…well, I’m guessing forever, unless this rogue ship ever makes it out of orbit. Who knows?”
Emily tapped her finger on the table and squinted at their dad. “So… have those rings just been hanging out in that box, waiting for us?”
“Definitely not. I called Uncle Mark and Aunt Julie a few weeks ago and told them your mom and I decided to do this after your graduation.”
“Wait.” Nickie half-smiled. “Mark and Julie are part of this?”
“Well, yeah. They’re my siblings, aren’t they? Part of the Hadstrom line.” Greg shrugged. “I guess, technically, your Aunt Julie’s an Everett now. Doesn’t make much of a difference, though. And since I’m the oldest and I have kids, the three of you are up next. So, they gave their rings to your mom and said good riddance to the whole thing.”
“Greg. You’re making it sound like an awful burden.”
He chuckled again. “Because I’m joking, Nance.”
“That black one’s yours, isn’t it?” Nickie nodded at the thick black band in the box, which Greg no longer wore on the ring finger of his right hand.
“Not anymore.” Their dad pulled out the ring and handed it over to his middle daughter. “Now it’s yours.”
She laughed when she slipped it onto her right ring finger and the ring wobbled around it like a tiny hula hoop. “Okay. Guess I’m gonna have to make this a thumb ring.”
“There you go.” Greg grinned.
“That’s what Julie did with hers, wasn’t it?” Nancy shared a glance with her ex-husband, and, while she didn’t exactly share his toothy grin, her proud smile was unmistakable.
“Yep. She did.”
Laura leaned toward their dad sitting next to her and peered into the black box. “Nickie getting your ring makes sense, but Mark’s a doctor, and Julie’s a librarian. I’m not really seeing where the obvious choice is for my ring. Or Emily’s.” Emily stuck her elbow on the table and propped her chin in her hand, waiting for the scene to unfold.
“Well, which one feels right to you?” Nancy asked.
“Neither.”
“Okay. Gimme the box.” Emily reached across her sister to snatch up the open jewelry box in front of their dad. She plucked both rings from the padding, took one in each hand, and made a big show of sticking both fists behind her back. Looking up at the strung outdoor lights above them on the Mean Eyed Cat’s back patio, she swapped the rings around and little, then stuck out both fists and nodded at Laura. “Now which one feels right?”
Laura sighed and tilted her head. “Come on, Em. We need to take this seriously.”
“I am taking it seriously. You’re just overthinking, as usual. I’m giving you the chance to turn that whirring brain of yours off a second so you stop thinking and feel it.”
“I don’t feel anything.”
Greg started laughing, and Nancy shushed him.
Nickie nodded at her older sister. “You’ll know, Laura. Just trust it.”
Laura sighed, rolled her eyes, then closed them. Her hand hovered over one of Emily’s fists, then the other.. She opened her eyes. “Can we just take these home? I’ve been working on this unveiling spell for artifacts—”
Emily burst into giggles. “We can take the rings home when we all have them on. Pick. One.”
“I can’t pick one.” Laura’s glared at her younger sister.
“Laura. Come on. You don’t need your wand for every last bit of magic.”
After a few more seconds of indecision, Laura closed her eyes and tried opening herself to just feel it. Emily glanced across the table at Nickie and winked. Then she closed her eyes too with a deep breath and focused on the energy of whichever ring just so happened to be in each of her fists. “Okay, fine. This one.” Laura tapped her sister’s fist, and Emily opened her hand to reveal the silver ring.
“Excellent choice. Very good vintage. Circa…when was it?” Emily glanced at their dad.
“Something-something B.C.”
“Aged to perfection over millennia.” She winked at Laura before her sister took the silver ring and stuck it on her thumb with a frown.
“Uncle Mark wore the silver one,” Greg told her.
“And that means this one is mine.” Emily revealed the copper-colored ring in her other hand. “This isn’t just straight copper, is it?”
“Sure is. Pure copper. Pure silver. Pure obsidian.” Greg nodded at Nickie and her ring that used to be his. “No, none of those things are particularly durable. But their original hardening charms have strengthened over time.” He let out a quick laugh of surprise. “Aged to perfection isn’t that far off the
mark, Em.”
“Huh.” She turned the copper ring over in her hands and, just to be sure, rapped it a few times against the picnic table.
“Emily,” Laura whispered in horror.
Nickie giggled. “What are you doing?”
“I’m testing the merchandise. And the word of the man who sold it to me.”
“Dad’s not selling these to us.” Laura shook her head and blinked.
“Not for money, no.” Greg shrugged. “The price is your willingness to accept this legacy and continue protecting witches around the world from the Gorafrex in that prison.”
Laura glanced at him and frowned. “Has it ever…gotten out before?”
“Not that I know of. Honestly, I haven’t seen any activity there. If your grandpa ever saw something, he never told us. The thing might still be sleeping, for all I know. It’s our job to be prepared.”
“You’ve seen it? The prison?”
“From a distance.” Greg smirked. “The wards make it pretty hard to get close. But I know where it is.”
Laura swallowed. “Right.”
“We should go down to the Greenbelt soon so I can show you girls where it is and how to interact with it. If the time ever comes you need to. Hopefully, it won’t. How about tomorrow?”
“I’m in the kitchen all day tomorrow,” Emily said. “Sorry.”
“Monday night after I’m off work?”
“Uh, no go.” Nickie shrugged. “I’m playing at Tina’s laundromat.”
Laura frowned at her. “Isn’t a laundromat a little…”
“What?”
“Nothing. I just mean…hasn’t your career grown out of laundromats just a little?”
Nickie laughed. “It totally has. But Tina’s a friend, and I like being able to help her out on the off-chance anyone wants to see a show at her place. I’ve always got an opening there.”
“I don’t think anyone’s ever turned you down for a gig.” Emily spun her copper ring between her fingers.
“Please.” Nickie shrugged. “I get turned down plenty. I promise.”
“Right. Yeah, only by idiots.”
