To Earn My Keep (Jill)

The following fictional events take place in Reality R (Red)

Something had changed between Jill’s dad — Sam — and her step-mom, Naomi. Jill never liked Naomi, but her dad loved her. Her dad loved power and strength. Naomi had really strong magic, and she was brave, and she was creative with magic in a way that made her dad lock the door and keep all of them out. When he did that, Jill had to take care of her little step-brothers Rhyss and Sean. It was her job.

She thought she’d done a good job, but they didn’t want her anymore. She heard it in their voices, in the way her dad looked at her. Today, her grandpa Caen had come over and she’d gotten Rhyss to sneak outside so the door would be cracked and she could listen.

It wasn’t good news.

Jill wasn’t even ten yet and she was getting married to someone for an alliance. They were her age, but what was the point of marriage at her age? Alliance, obviously, but maybe to get rid of her. In some stories, the bride’s family paid a dowry. What if her dad was paid for her? Her magic and her genetics. Naomi would like that too. They both liked money a lot.

Maybe if Jill could make up something that was worth money so she could buy herself, or something that would allow her to stay. She ran back to Sean to make sure he still had his bottle and a rattle. He was happy drooling on everything. Next to him was some paper and crayons. Jill picked them up and started planning.

She had to do something amazing. Naomi had made cats from people that were dying. That was so amazing. Jill’s mom wasn’t amazing. She was sick in her head. She couldn’t think right or remember right and she was angry and sad a lot.

Jill was angry and sad a lot too, but she wasn’t so sick she showed it.

Jill shook off the worry. She pulled her long boring brown hair into a ponytail and got to work on the best spell ever: a spell to save her mom.

She glanced at the door. Her dad and grandpa Caen were still outside. She took a deep breath and tapped the crayon on the paper.

She got a lot of colors out, for different ingredients. In a light gray color she marked the pentagon tips as a guide because those were good in Wicca, and then she went to the center. She needed ingredients for clarity, and some for remembering, some for removing fog in case her brain was full of foggystuff, and some cleaning spells in case it was dusty up there. She also got some warding spell ingredients and some anti-spell-spell ingredients. In the end, she drew them from the center with the goal in mind: Happiness. She used yellow for that one. But, in the very very center, she added some Indigo, so the spell would know that she was talking about the make-believe and mess in her mom’s mind. Too much make-believe. Her mom was not happy, and even if she was going to be broke, Jill wanted her to be happy. She made long petal-like swoops from the center to the tip of the pentagon points and back down, kind of like a flower. She used green for two and blue for three, to represent clarity and calm. EAch petal had yellow in the center, for the happiness part, and then pink around the yellow, for love. A flower wasn’t a spell though. She needed more. She needed gray for the fog, so she made some jagged lines between the petals and then colored grey down toward the center. What else? She tapped another crayon and glanced back at the door. She was running out of time.

But what else?

Family! She had to include family, because her mom didn’t know they were all family. She mostly yelled a lot about them not belonging. She used purple for family and made the tops of hearts above the fog.

The hearts looked like butts.

  Too late to fix it. She added red arcs from the center of the hearts to the tops of the petals for power or strength or whatever. Then she encircled the entire thing in a yellow star-pentagon shape for brightness and happiness.

She stared at it. It was perfect. A map for the floor, a spell, all in one. At the same moment her dad came back inside.

She ran up to him, paper in hand, and handed it to him. “I made this.”

Rhyss walked over toward Sean, happy, so Jill could talk to her dad. Naomi wasn’t even home yet. It was good timing. She pulled her dad to the kitchen and then sat on a stool beside him so she could be at his height. “This is what makes the spell work, she said about the pentagon and the center, and these are the ingredients. I made the key like a map so you know what colors are things.”

“You did good work.” Her dad took the picture and hung it with a pushpin on a corkboard where her mom or Naomi could see it and destroy it.

Jill took some short breaths to hide her frustration, and then churned those into determination. “Can we make it?” she pressed.

Her dad glanced at the picture and shook his head. He was disappointed again.

“How about this weekend?” he suggested. “When I’m not at work, we can go out back and try this?”

Jill lit up. Maybe he wasn’t disappointed.

“Okay! I’m going to make more pictures,” she said. Copies, so that if anyone destroyed one she would have the others. She just knew this was it, the spell that would save her mom. If her mom was better, she would make sure wasn’t married or sold. Jill wasn’t going to let this go.

“What does this spell do?” her dad asked. He sipped ice cold water from the fridge.

“It might make Mom better.” Jill pointed to the dark indigo at the center. “These are supposed to help control her mind, ‘cause she’s too make-believe inside.”

Her dad set his glass down.

“Maybe.” He put his hand on her back. It was the let down touch. “But Jill? It might not, too. Some things can’t be fixed.”

But we could make her happy, if she can’t be fixed.

Jill nodded.

It wasn’t the okay argue hand, it was the this is the law, and the law is sad, hand.

Her mom had never done that with her, especially not before Naomi.

Now, everything was law.

“But it might,” Jill argued anyway.

“We’ll definitely try it.” her dad grabbed his glass and spun out of the kitchen, back toward his office where he would shut her out and she would have to watch Rhyss and Sean until supper.

“And,” her dad said. “If it doesn’t work, we can try something else.”

Jill smiled a little. She ran over and hugged him. Try was good. She would try ten thousand times to fix her mom. “I love you, Dad.”

Her dad kissed her head, but his eyes said Love isn’t enough. Maybe her mom was broken forever. Maybe she was going to get married.

Maybe her magic wasn’t good enough, and she would never be good enough, and it was time for her to go away, to strike an alliance that was worth more than her self.

Jill sighed and went back to drawing spells, but then Sean cried. She inhaled hard and sharp. Back to work.

Don’t cry.