Dear Prudence... Won't you come out and play?

Prudence threw herself onto her bed, in bliss. She was grounded, but it was worth it. She'd gotten home at two in the morning because she'd asked Jude to take her to the park to play on the swings. He'd, of course, obliged. Even in the pouring rain, he gave her a piggy back to the playground from the parking lot and had a contest with her to see who could swing the highest. They went down the slide and wrote their names on the metal of the monkey bars.

It was pretty much the best day of her young, and soon-to end, life.

She had terminal cancer. There was no way it was going away. Cancer of the liver at the stage they'd caught it at was fatal. No ifs, ands, or buts. It was simply a question of how long you got to live before you died. She was 17. There wasn't much hope she'd see her 19th birthday. She felt she should be living every single day to it's absolute fullest. Unfortunately, her mother disagreed. Her mother felt she should be locked in a hospital, receiving the latest treatments that would do nothing so she could pretend something was happening.

But nothing ever did. Nothing ever would.

Elizabeth stared out the window, munching on gummy bears and sneaking peaks at Joshua in the window. Growing bold, she turned around and threw her legs over him. "Hiya." she said, smiling.

He pulled his eyes away from the movie and looked down the coach bus aisle to make sure none of the pestering adults were watching and threw his arms around her and put his head on her chest. "Hey you." she could hear his smile, even though she couldn't see his face. She ran her fingers through his hair and he began to doze.

This is one of those moments, she thought, One of those perfect moments you see in movies. With her long auburn hair framing her face, her bright green eyes looking at his dark brown hair lovingly, and his handsome face's expression being one of perfect peace that she knew well from him, it looked like a movie too.

It felt how movie characters portray too. That feeling of total bliss and happiness and love. That want to be exactly where you are exactly when you are with exactly who you're with.

She just hoped the straight edged chaperons who were convinced that cuddling was against God didn't come back and spoil it.
Cuddling against God?
Mhm. God invented cuddling.

Part One, Chapter One of The Book With No Name

I’d been living in the same small shack, alone, since I was nine. There were four rooms, total: a bedroom, a nursery, a living room/kitchen/dining room thing, and a bathroom. One of the bedrooms was lined with my mother’s books and pictures and journals. She’d kept a journal since she could hold a pen and I’d read them all; I knew my mother better than I knew myself and I’d never met her. She’d died in childbirth with me and my father’s identity was unknown to me, even through my mother’s journals, but I still knew them, the ins and outs of their personalities, details of their steamy love affair, the woes of pregnancy, the wars, growing up, and I knew a lot about her friends, especially her best friend, Liza, Liza was my godmother.

I’d always entertained the idea one of her friends would find me and take me home. I could go to Mariela and Jean-Paul’s loving home, they had twins about my age, we could run around a huge garden and play on the swings… They would tuck me at night, and read me bedtime stories…. Or I could go to Elijah and Mary’s house and be an only child in the Elementalist court, learning how to kick ass and be awesome. Or I could go to Slay’s bachelor pad, he had a different woman every few years, but he’d love me more than any of them, I’d be his baby girl and he’d make sure I had everything I needed and that I knew everything I needed for life and I’d have two brothers that way. I’d always wanted a big brother.

It’s not like I had a family here. The witches pretty much banned me from their society when I was an infant, oh, except Court. Court loved me. They said I was “going places” and had “superior abilities.” Whatever, if they think I’m so special, why do I have to go out and hunt my own food?

Though the Court’s interest means I can stay in my mother’s house legally and without worry. They don’t want me on the street and nobody wants this house. The house of the woman, once so high in rank she was a step below royalty, disgracing her name and child by having an affair with a man outside her race. It was scandalous; she was still gossiped about, 19 years after her death.

The witches were big on race. Thousands and thousands of years ago, there had been a huge divide between the two halves of the Magie culture: witches and wizards. The wizards wanted to enslave the witches, to be the dominant, the witches wanted to be equal, but separate, from the wizards. There was a brief war over the matter (only lasting about 50 years) and both cultures moved to separate areas of the world (the witches in the far south, wizards in the far north) and both have had grievances over “breeding with other races” and “keeping blood lines pure” because of it.

There was a quiet knock on the door. Have I mentioned I never get visitors…ever?

“Hello?” I called out, first in French, the language of the Magie, and when there was no response I called out again in English, the common language.

“Oh, yes, hello. I’m Liza (insert last name here), will you please open the door?” Said a low female voice, she sounded cool, calm, and collected, one of those I-got-it-all-together types. I hesitated, and she said “Please, I’m here to help.” I couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be Liza. There was simply no way.

“Just a minute…” I said, fairly shaken. I closed my eyes and turned on my magic and looked through the door. She looked enough like who my mother described, enough that age could account for the differences.