Among Others

body, with an almost erotic tingling. I dropped the box and clapped my hands to my ear lobes.
    “All teenage girls have it done now,” one of them said.
    “It’s the fashion,” another added.
    “Don’t be so silly, it doesn’t hurt,” the third said.
    “You haven’t had it done,” I said, and it was true, they haven’t, none of them, because of course they know what I know, and they haven’t had it done because they do magic. They are witches, they must be, and they’ve been very clever up to now and I have been very stupid, because I hadn’t guessed at all. I should have been suspicious because there are three of them, and I should have been suspicious because they wouldn’t let me cook, and most of all at the way they all live here and do nothing and control Daniel. I totally missed it because they’re bland and English and smile, the whole thing just went right past me because I thought they really were obsessed with Scott winning the cup.
    They must have been horrified when Daniel brought me home. They sent me to Arlinghurst to get me away from magic, as well as away from them. It didn’t work as well as they thought. They must have known when I did the magic about the karass, though they probably wouldn’t have known what it was, only that I was reaching out. Now they wanted to control me entirely, which is what the earrings would have done.
    “It wasn’t the fashion then,” one of them said.
    “But all the girls have it done now…”
    “You’ll look lovely in our mother’s pearls. It’s our way of welcoming you to the family.”
    I looked desperately at Daniel, who was looking puzzled. I saw that he was my only hope. There are three of them and they’re grown up, and presumably have no scruples about magic, any more than she does. Whatever it is they’d done to the earrings, they’d done it knowingly. The magic in them is directed at me personally, I could tell that now from holding the open box. They controlled Daniel in some ways, but they didn’t want him to know about it, so this was all going over his head. “Don’t let them make me have my ears pierced!” I appealed to him. I knew I was sounding hysterical, but I really was frantic.
    “I don’t see that Morwenna needs to have it done if she doesn’t want to,” he said. “She can wait a while and have it done in a year or two.”
    “We made an appointment.”
    “And she won’t be able to wear Mother’s earrings.”
    “And we wanted to welcome her to the family.”
    They sounded so bloody reasonable and adult and sane, and I knew I sounded unreasonable and childish and crazy. “Please,” I said. I still had my hands at the sides of my head. “Not my ears.”
    “She’s terrified,” Daniel said. “The earrings can wait. She doesn’t need them yet.”
    “You’re just encouraging her to be silly.”
    “They’d look so lovely, especially now her hair has grown a little.”
    “It only hurts for a second.”
    Daniel looked puzzled. He’s a weak man and he’s not used to standing up to his sisters. He never has done it. They took over his life when he was younger, and they’ve probably been manipulating him with magic all this time. I think though, that they’ve kept it quiet and not done it directly. I don’t know why. Maybe because of the puppet thing. Maybe they want him to love them. Not many people love witches. Look at my mother. Nobody loves her. They have each other, but would that be enough? I was sobbing and I kept looking at him pleadingly, because he is the one thing standing between me and them.
    “There’s no urgency, surely,” he said.
    “I won’t, I won’t,” I said. I snatched up my books and ran upstairs.
    “Typical teenage tantrum about nothing,” one of them said.
    “You have to be firm with her, Daniel.”
    “She’s too used to getting her own way.”
    The door doesn’t lock, but I have put a chair in front of it so nobody can come in. They came up and asked me to come down for Christmas dinner, but I didn’t go. It’ll be overcooked and dry anyway. I don’t know what to do. Should I run away again? It worked last time, or it almost did. I don’t know what they want. They seem sane enough, but so can she if you don’t know her. They want to control me. They want to stop me doing magic. It’s not that I want to do magic—in fact I swore I wouldn’t. I swore I wouldn’t except to prevent harm. I want to be able to prevent harm. This is harm. This is mutilation.