The Sea Witch's Alpha Wolf

Quiet Days and Wild Nights

Echo

Another week passes in quiet enjoyment as the girls and I begin to prepare for the start of school. I take them school shopping and get them all new school supplies which is a nightmare since each girl wants everything to match and be a certain color. Somehow we make it through the trip with only two tantrums and one crying fit and yet this doesn’t give me any encouragement to take them clothing shopping for fall clothes next week. Perhaps I can convince some of the others to come shopping with us and make it a big group outing.

Jack sits down at the kitchen nook with me as I sit trying to sew up the rip in Jessie’s dress. She ripped it while playing outside yesterday and was begging me to fix it so here I sit trying not to stab myself with the needle and get blood on the pretty pink dress. “So are you leaving again tonight?” Jack’s question seems nonchalant but makes me stiffen none the less. Mike promised not to tell Jack as long as I was safe but from little questions and hints Jack drops I think he knows.

“Yeah I’ll leave at midnight and be back by midnight tomorrow night,” I keep my eyes fixed on the dress as I sew. “I think we should all go back to school shopping next week. Make it a household shopping spree so that everyone can be together. What do you think?”

Jack laughs, “Why is it you come up with the best ways to make us come together as a family? Honestly Echo you were born to be a leader or a mother! I envy the man that gets to spend the rest of his life with you.”

I laugh lightly in return but it feels forced. If only Jack knew what the men in my world were treated like. Witches rule with a matriarchy and men are seen as useless since their powers are never as strong as a woman’s. Sea witches have the strongest divide in the power of males and females. A male may have simple control over the sea but the women are all powerful with the ability to join with the sea. Any man I would marry or love would be seen as having power only because I do. People would respect him but I would always be the one in control. No equality. That’s why my father left my mother. He couldn’t stand how useless he was seen as. Grand-mere didn’t care about him all she cared about was marrying him to a powerful witch and she did. He married my mother and they had seven children before he left her. My bastard of a father left my mother and broke her heart. I don’t envy the poor man who has to marry me because in a witch coven women rule and men are nothing.

“So how about we go shopping Wednesday or Thursday?” Jack breaks my train of though and makes me jump so I stab the needle into my thumb.

Wincing I look down at the blood on my finger, “Aw man look what you did?” I send him an accusatory glare while getting up to grab a tissue to wipe off the blood. “I really hate sewing.”

“Then why are you doing it?” Jack pouts with fake sympathy for my plight.

Sighing I come and sit back down trying to find a way to answer without giving away my intense feelings. “My mom wasn’t the most domestic person and when my siblings or I came to her with something simple like a ripped hem or a stain in a shirt she would just tell us to buy a new one. Sure Mom was loving but she wasn’t always great at showing it through the little things.” What I don’t say is that my mom was the perfect mother until my father left. That bastard broke her heart and caused her mind to break as well. I was the only one who was there to mother and care for my siblings. Everyone wants to be cared for and loved. If that means stabbing myself a million times with a needle while fixing a dress then so be it.

“Your mom was?” Jack asks his tone sounding painfully stiff. I never have asked why Jack and his siblings never mention their parents and from his tone it sounds like the subject is more painful than he’d like to talk about.

I put my sewing down and meet his eyes, “My mom isn’t in her right mind anymore. She’s still alive but sometimes I wonder how much of her is still alive. Yes her body but her mind, her soul?” My eyes fill with tears. “She was such a good mother when I was younger but… things changed and her mind broke leaving behind the shell of the woman she once was.”