@stefannarvaez
“Jacqueline, enough is enough... You’re a grown woman, and I’m done entertaining this nonsense.”
Hours later, her aunt’s chastising words still washed over Jack like scalding bathwater, oscillating between icy cold anger and boiling hot betrayal. It made her clammy skin itch and shiver against the cold Michigan air as she wandered aimlessly around the town she thought she knew.
“You can recite spells ‘til you’re blue in the face, but your power will never be what it once was.” Aunt Morgan said in a firm, impersonal tone and primly smoothed the shoulders of her cardigan. She wouldn’t meet Jack’s eyes for more than a couple seconds. “You’re not a special exception, and I won’t enable this--this delusion any longer. It’s time to face the facts before you become a danger to yourself, or this community.”
That her aunt thought so little of her grated against Jack’s ego--and, loathe as she was to admit, hurt her feelings. She knew she wasn’t special (or whatever), but she was smart. Jack read enough tomes and tracked down enough eccentric wizards over the years to know that magic always had a loophole or something, you just had to be willing to look for it.
Jack’s feet came to a halt beside a very familiar playground, and that gave her an idea. Pulling out her phone, her cold fingers fumbled with the touch screen until finally pulling up the contact she wanted. She hesitated, just for a second, before hitting the call button. It rang three times before the line picked up.
“Hey, Stef. It’s Jack.” She sniffled against the cold and chuckled. “I’ve, uh, got a helluva MLM pitch for you. Interested?”