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Dark Magic: Alternate

"I'm old!" Cassandra wailed as she looked into the full-length mirror that stood at the top of the staircase of her grandmother's house. The glass of the mirror was old and spotted, but the reflection still shone true. And Cassandra MacFarlane was far from old, no matter how she thought she looked.

"No you aren't, Mom," a voice called from the kitchen. "Now come eat breakfast so we can go to school."

Cassandra smoothed her skirt and descended the stairs without saying a word. It was almost summer and the last thing she wanted to do was go sit around the stuffy old school office and fill out paperwork the principal was too busy to deal with. When she'd been in high school, all she ever saw secretaries do was answer the phone and make photocopies.

Now she had to know fourteen computer programs and fill out dozens of pages of paperwork in addition to answering phone, making photocopies, and handing out bandages since the school couldn't afford a nurse. She kept a fishbowl of condoms on her desk which many students were thankful for and many parents were infuriated at.

The first thing greeting Cassandra when she walked into the kitchen was her grandmother, Sarah Thomison, holding out a cup of tea.

"You still have plenty of time to settle down and get married, Cassie."

"It's not that," Cassandra replied as she took the tea in one hand and walked over to sit beside her son at the time-worn kitchen table. "It's just that summer always makes me think..."

Ethan MacFarlane looked over at his mother. He hated seeing her this way, but he knew well enough that there was nothing he could do about it. It happened every year when the weather turned warm. Something had happened in her past, when she was seventeen and the weather had turned warm for the year.

"You're still dreaming of home, are you?" Sarah asked, turning the stove off and bringing her own cup of tea to the table.

"If you'd ever been there, you'd understand," Cassandra replied.

"I'll get there someday, daughter," Sarah said sharply. She'd always called Cassandra her daughter and not her grand-daughter, even before Cassandra's real mother removed them both from her life.

Though Ethan had always loved the fairy tales his mother and grandmother, as he thought of Sarah, told about a mystical land; they seemed silly to him now. Still, he couldn't entirely discount the stories since both Cassandra and Sarah swore to him that his father was still in that land, far far away. And since he'd never met another person who looked like he did, with blue-black hair and violet eyes, he found himself starting to believe the stories.

These days he wore contacts to tint his eyes brown. It was just easier for him at school if he blended in better. And, at seventeen, that's all he really wanted.

The only catch in his social life involved his mother and the fact that many of his classmates found her to be attractive. Sure, she was barely touching her mid-thirties, but she was his mother. It was just wrong to think of anyone being attracted to her.

Besides, she, along with Sarah, was a bit of an outcast from the town. Not just because she'd shown up for her last year of high school already several months pregnant, but also because she looked like so much like Sarah's grandmother. And everyone in town knew who Sarah's grandmother had been - a witch.

While no one could ever account for any harm done by the so-called witch, the family was still held at a distance. Except for Ethan, who was assumed to be perfectly normal, besides his eyes. He never showed any of the odd premonitions that the women of the family did nor any of the slightly unnatural talents.

Of course, these days the only unnatural talent Cassandra showed was the amazing ability to find something to run off and copy every time a student came into her office, just so they had a minute to grab condoms without embarrassment.