One

CHIARA

“Will you be at home for dinner tonight, Chiara?” Dad asks me over breakfast.

I am scanning the morning paper as I eat my grapefruit and bagel with cream cheese. My father and I make+ it a habit to eat breakfast together as often as possible despite our busy work lives. He owns a law firm and I work as a senior editor in a rather prestigious publishing company. But we try to make our time together generally undisturbed by our professional lives.  

I glance up at him. My father is a very attractive man in his fifties, and he has an innate grace I admire and adore. But I did not get my more prominent physical looks from him but from my mother. I got his chin, though. My mother is a lovely woman, but I love my chin.

I am often told my character and mannerisms are reminiscent of both parents. I would like to think I could be as solid and as strong as my father when I aged because while growing up, I exhibited more of my mother’s wariness, quirkiness, and fierceness.

I shake my head. “I’m afraid not, Dad. I’ve got a business dinner tonight and I’m not sure how late I will be out. I’m going to meet an agent of a reclusive personality Henry has been trying to get an interview with and a possible book deal of the client’s life. For some reason, this agent specifically asked to meet with me. I am curious so I told Henry I’d go.” Henry is my publisher.

“They’re keeping you busy lately,” my father observes as he eats his omelet. He loves his omelets. He will eat it all day if he can get away with it. But now, his brows are knotted in that shape they do when he is thinking about something that disturbs him much. “You know you don’t have to work, Chiara. Your trust fund is there any time you need to use it. You can even create a new company of your own ad can start learning to manage it firsthand, not in theory.”

“But I enjoy what I do now. I like working hard and I’m learning so much. And I like being among people who will not treat me like a boss. I have time.”

“Well, I guess that runs in the genes,” he reluctantly replied.

“I know, right?”

He smiled. Dad is dedicated to running his high-profile law firm—even though he never needs to work another day in his life, too. He is filthy rich. He does both high-profile cases and any other pro bono when a client belongs to the marginalized. He likes working with people, too, in his outreach programs that help orphan kids and the homeless.

He was disappointed when I didn’t study law in college. He has been looking forward to welcoming me into his firm and making me a partner after all. But the legal process and laws bore me to death because the mundane way to solve misdemeanors and crimes is tedious and can be quite a slave to whoever served the seats of power. It does not make any sense to someone like me who can zap left and right obvious criminals before they even managed to get their feet to land inside a courtroom.

Well, I haven’t zapped anyone, much less anything, in my entire life.

But technically, I can do that.

That is my mother in me.

My mother is a Magickal.

My father is a Mundane (non-magickal blood).

I will be considered a Magickal, because anyone with magick in their psych no matter where it comes from is called that.

I prefer living on my father’s side of the world, though, with the Mundanes. The way things are done on the other side intimidates me. My mother has a status that makes her quite notorious and famous over there. No, thank you. I rather like my couch and my books and my quiet off days. Not that I have to fight for this since my mother has not. Her job with the Council makes her very busy. Quite unhealthy to be raising a child.

Oh, I don’t fault her. No. I am as proud of her as I am of my father. She saves lives. I don’t mind not knowing the details, thank-you-very-much. I am fine with both sides of my roots.  

My father accepts my decisions… though most times we argue about them. He more than supports anything I do that he feels is important to me—the rest he argues with me about as he strives hard not to make it seem like he’s not spoiling me. He thinks I didn’t know, but as much as he loves his estranged wife, he is intimidated by her and her world, too. So he argues as if he is convincing himself he is doing good in raising a child that has magickal blood.

Until now, he thinks I can do so much more with my mother.

I argue with him because I want him to know he does way better than good in raising me. I love my father to death. He may not have magick, but in his own way, he is a pillar of the Mundane world. And isn’t that so much more intimidating?

Don’t get me wrong. If you meet my mother, she is quite intimidating as a personality.

But I feel they both are great people, if you know what I mean, in their own way.

And that intimidates me a whole lot, being their child, and just starting to make my own way in this world my ‘big’ parents occupy.

“Have you heard from your mother lately?” Dad asks out of the blue, and he does so in a careful, casual tone.

“Not for a little while,” I answer. “Why do you ask?” I ask bluntly.

“Well, your birthday is coming up soon. I just thought Sable will call you. She usually spends your birthday with you.”

“I haven’t heard from her yet but she will probably call in a day or so. Don’t worry, Dad.”

“I’m not worried,” he said, fighting his self-consciousness while I fight harder to hide my smile. He smiles at me, and I grin so mischievously at him that he blushes.

Yup.

My father is still hopelessly in love with his ex-wife regardless of the divorce.

He’s never paid attention to any other women because, technically, they are still together. But being divorced from his wife does not make him or her liable to questions about why she is always away for days, weeks, or even months.

And I know he misses Mom every single day and I remind him of her every time he looks at me.

I have inherited my mother’s gorgeous red hair and slanted green eyes. My mother’s smile… beautiful and uninhibited, always lights up a room. I am often told I do the same, much to my chagrin, because I truly find my mother amazingly beautiful.

“Your mom ruined me,” Dad has told me before when I was confused about why he hasn’t dated when others would have moved on. This was two years after the divorce and I was fourteen. I think there was a quarrel between them and they weren’t seeing each other again then. “I can’t look at any other woman and not compare them to her. Until she’s not with anyone else, I’ll wait here.”   

How can I fault him? Not only is my mother beautiful, but she also has a personality that makes others love her, too.

Unfortunately, she also is a powerful witch.

And for this reason, the magickal government needs her. The Magickals need her, too. Things are going on that both cannot control.

And they can't be together like normal husbands and wives do because of it.