“Sarah?” An older woman’s voice, rounded and dramatic, followed the sounds of footsteps crashing down the basement stairs. “Sarah, dear, where are you?”
Jon and Sarah shared a groan as the sound woke them up from their sleep in the McMillan’s basement home theater. Then the woman reached the bottom of the stairs and turned a corner.
“Oh, there you are, Sarah.” She looked like she was dressed for a Stevie Nicks concert, like she was trying less to be a woman and more to be some ethereal thing. She wore a gauzy dress, wafting scarves, bold necklaces and earrings, and far too much eye makeup. “I see you have awakened.”
Sarah ran a weary hand through her slightly tangled hair. “I have not awakened, Grandma, you have woken me up.”
For a moment it appeared as though the old woman had slightly more eye makeup, and then the makeup receded back down to merely gaudy. “I didn’t say you woke up. I said you have awakened.” This time, she put an extra emphasis into this last word.
“Grandma, it’s too early for this,” Sarah yawned.
“This is your grandmother?” Jon asked.
“And who is this young boy?” Sarah’s grandmother interrupted before Jon could get an answer.
“This is Jon,” Sarah gestured to the him. “He’s a friend from school.”
The old woman’s face took on an amused quality. “Oh, I see. He’s a friend from school who you just happened to sleep with last night, is he?”
Sarah screwed up her eyes. “Don’t say it like that, Grandma. We didn’t have sex or anything. We were just watching TV and we fell asleep here.”
The woman’s face darkened slightly. “Oh, no, that’s even worse. Sex, you see, is just sex. It’s meaningless, a function of the body.” She squinted her eyes and took a step towards the sofa where Jon and Sarah still sat. “But you’re right, you didn’t do that. You just slept alongside one another.” She paused, her eyes pinning the pair down. “Like soulmates.”
“Sarah isn’t my soulmate!” Jon blurted out.
The woman barely registered Jon’s outburst as her eyes carefully scanned themselves over his face. Then Sarah’s face. And finally back to Jon. “Oh, yes you are,” she said with both certainty and concern. “You are definitely soulmates. This won’t do. This won’t do at all.”
With a flourish of scarves, the woman turned back towards the stairs and began ascending. “Darrin!” she cried. “Darrin, get down here, something disastrous has happened!”
“Who’s Darrin?” Jon asked, as the two teenagers removed themselves from their blanket-and-pillow fortification and slipped off the sofa to follow the old woman upstairs.
“Oh.” Sarah almost dismissed the question. “My father goes by his middle name. Everyone knows him as Richard, but his legal first name is Darrin, and my grandma likes to tease him about it.”
“So she’s your mom’s mom, then?” Jon asked as they reached the foot of the stairs. Sarah nodded. Jon sighed. “In-laws.”
The basement stairs opened up into a large sitting room, naturally lit by the bright Sunday morning light filtering in through two massive glass skylights in the ceiling. Richard McMillan entered from the other side just at same the moment that Jon and Sarah reached the top of the stairs, wearing a pajama set that matched what Jon was wearing, but in a deep red with a black trim.
“There you are, Darrin,” Sarah’s grandmother began approaching him even before he had a chance to speak. “How could you permit your daughter to fall in love with a mortal boy?”
Richard huffed as he continued to close the gap between himself and his mother-in-law. “Didn’t you permit your daughter to fall in love with a mortal boy?”
“Under significant protest, and after a great gnashing of teeth, yes.” the woman didn’t forfeit even an ounce of her poise. “But this is different. When Susan married you, it locked away her magic, but it could still be passed on to future generations,” the woman made a sweeping motion towards Sarah as she said this. “But Sarah is only a half-blooded witch. If she were to marry this boy,” the hand swept over to Jon, “it would seal off the bloodline entirely. It’s much more pressing.”
Richard looked over at Jon, seeming to only just now realize he was there. “Oh, hello. Are you the young man who’s got some of my experimental medical technology wrapped around his chest?”
Jon nodded, then looked down at the ground. “Jon Gibson, sir.”
“You have impeccable taste in sleepwear, I must say,” Richard continued, indicating his own matching pajama set with some light amusement in his voice. “Where did you get those?”
“I took them from your closet, Daddy,” Sarah answered. “He’s just borrowing them.”
“Borrowing your clothes,” Sarah’s grandmother’s voice was tinged with indictment. “Don’t you see? He’s practically family already. This is dire, Darrin. Very dire, indeed.”
“Um, grandma?” Jon spoke up hesitantly.
“You,” she turned on him with accusation, “may call me Madame Endora.”
“Madame Endora,” Jon re-started. “You just said Sarah is a witch, but I don’t think she is. I’ve been around her for most of the last few days, and I haven’t seen her use any magic.”
“Oh, you haven’t, have you?” she rounded on the boy. “Well, what sort of kiss on the cheek, do you suppose, has the capacity to turn a horrible beast into an absolute perfect gentleman?”
“You know about that?”
“I’m a witch, darling. I have my ways.” Endora sighed. “But I won’t be one any more after you marry my granddaughter.”
“Who says I’m going to marry your granddaughter?”
“I just told you, I’m a witch.” The energy fell from her face, and for the first time that morning Endora actually looked like a grandmother, old and tired. “You’re soulmates. Nothing I can do to stop it. My granddaughter will marry a mortal boy, and then her magic, and my magic, and her mother’s magic will all be locked away forever, and none of your progeny will ever be capable of magic, either.”
“Well, I may not be magic,” Jon intoned. “But I’m not exactly not-magic, either.”
This got Endora’s attention. “What do you mean, boy?”
“My grandfather. He died recently, and he left me a wishing stone. I’ve only used it a few times, but that’s magic, isn’t it?”
The wheels spun behind Endora’s eyes. “Your grandfather was Malachi Gibson?”
“You knew him?”
“I knew of him. We never met, but we traveled in similar circles. Knew one another by reputation.” The woman stood straighter, began looking at Jon more sharply. “Malachi Gibson’s grandson. Alright, then. I suppose you’ll do.”
“Madame Endora?” Jon wasn’t entirely sure what decision had just been made about him.
“Please,” a smile crept onto Endora’s lips. “Call me Grandma.”
