The Forgotten

Chapter unknown

SEPHI

She was a terrible person, but only at first. 

Maybe she should blame the decaying state of the world. Shit was falling apart. It was the first time the sun had come out in nearly a month and the Legacies couldn’t stop annoying her for a minute to enjoy it. Although, boys born in the cradle of privilege did seem to never know when to leave well enough alone.

Would her mother hear about her little hallway scuffle? Probably. She wouldn’t be happy. Maybe some of her seasonal crops would wilt and she’d blame Sephi for it. 

Honestly, compared to other things she’d done, making a Legacy fall down some stairs was pretty mild. True as that may be, Sephi still picked at her fingernails. Right now she could still feel blood–dark and sticky–filling that space in between nail and finger, just like the first time. When she hadn’t caught herself before slipping.

Sephi had been sitting on the sidewalk, waiting for her mother to pick her up. If there was one thing Siena did well was play the single, hard working mom, right down to her tardiness.

She had been one of the few kids who got picked up in a car. Most of them walked home. Children in Avaria were precious and returned home on their own without a worry in the world through the grid of the city.

But Sephi’s mother did her work far away, near the border. Siena was the only witch who could make things grow from the Earth. She was considered one of the most valued assets of the Avarian government, so she spent her days marching up and down the aisles of her greenhouse or preening amongst high ranking officials and politicians. 

Siena’s magic probably manipulated compounds and minerals in the soil, but Sephi had always thought of her mother as an expert in morphing herself into whatever would get her praise.

Her classmates had run around, saying goodbye for the day before heading home. Sephi sat at the edge of it all. As she had reached for her purple bag a pale stubby leg had kicked it away, sending it into the road. She whirled and glared at the clucking kids. Her anger, the ugliest thing about her, swallowed her whole in a second. 

“Oh, sorry, didn’t see you there!” One of the girls said, and while her tone sounded somewhat genuine her ivory face gleamed with cruelty. There were no adults in sight.

“Don’t apologize, Lara. My mom says witches aren’t even people, their blood is black!” The boy who had kicked her bag whispered conspiratorially to his friends. 

Ungrateful idiots. If they ate at all it was because of her mother. 

She thought about Siena’s stern face, how she loomed in her meetings, quiet and terrible as the most powerful witch in the world. Her hands steadied, but her blood rushed right behind her ears. 

“You should leave me alone,” she growled and stepped into the street to snatch her bag from the concrete.

“Or what? Everybody knows you’re not like your mom, you can’t do anything,” The little boy taunted her. “I mean, at least she’s useful.” 

Every time he moved his hair caught the light making it look like a sheet of copper. Such a pretty color. What a shame.

As she had stepped up onto the sidewalk, one of the girls launched out from the group and pushed her back down into the street. Sephi glared for a second before throwing her bag back on the ground, hard.

She had the girl on the ground in a moment, her caramel hair that was almost the same color as her fist.

“Leave her alone!” 

The boy’s foot came out of nowhere. Again.

His white little sneaker caught her on the side of the mouth.

Her entire body snapped to the side. Sephi crouched on the ground, her hair a curtain blocking out the world. Murmuring voices came and went like waves. She brought her hand to her chin.

The little imbecile had busted her lip.

Blood tickled her chin. 

She raised her face and the children backed up. 

They were afraid of her. 

Finally, she thought, some common sense.

Grabbing her purple bag, fully aware her steel water bottle was inside, she hit the boy in the stomach. The air whooshed out of him and it made her smile.

She grabbed a fistful of that pretty red hair and got close.

“Touch me again and I’ll kill you.”

A substitute teacher had apparently seen everything; too horror struck from a second story window, the poor thing had been unable to move. 

They’d eventually called her mother -– and suggested counseling. 

That night, back home, had been exactly what she expected. Her mother hadn’t chastised her for hitting someone or threatening murder, but for getting her out of work. And her father, he’d gotten home late from work.

She thought he would wake her, rant, try and teach her a lesson. But when he came into the room and she’d been unconvincingly sprawled on top of her sheets, he’d rubbed his face and pulled at his receding hairline. Sephi thought he’d looked like he was about to barf.

She watched him, fragmented through her lashes, dragging along her breathing perfectly. The light from the hallway painted half his body yellow enough for Sephi to see the moment fear transformed into resentment.

His eyes shrunk and darkened, like the world after sunset. The lines around his mouth grew deeper, like his face was a frown away from splitting open.

As a man of science, her father should’ve always been prepared for the consequences of his actions. But he’d never prepared for her.

The wall between their rooms was thin and Sephi had been perfectly able to hear her parents talking, once her father had walked away.

“I don’t like it, Siena,” her father’s voice, stern and low, seemed to vibrate through the air as it reached her ears. 

“I won’t tell her not to defend herself, Eli. The teacher said that boy kicked her.” Sephi could see her mother sitting up against the headboard, glasses low on her nose. 

“You both are under much scrutiny as it is, I will not allow this family’s name to be tarnished because you would rather kick first and think later,” her father chastised. No matter the time of day he always sounded like he had his nose in the air. “An attempt at civility wouldn’t hurt you.”

“The Avarian’s prejudice to witches is not my fault and it isn’t Sephi’s either, Elijah” Siena snapped. If she was using his full name he was in trouble.

Sephi had always loved how her mother had never been afraid to talk back to her father. Plenty of immigrants lived in fear of being cast out of the city. Even the few who had married Legacies.  

Only a handful of people had been exiled during Sephi’s lifetime, all for serious offenses. It had been pretty obvious, though, that when an immigrant, particularly a Ferox, had been on trial the government had done everything they could to find them guilty. 

Siena had always been fierce, if anything a bit bullheaded, and wasn’t one to stand down. And that day she’d also been right. Her father must have known it because he’d stayed silent after that. 

Not even a year later, he died.

The lingering looks and hushed conversations came in, full force, after that. If she’d had any energy in between funeral services Sephi would’ve rubbed it in her mother’s face. 

Because before her father’s death Siena had walked around the city looking like it was always whispering her thanks into her ear.

Now, most Avarians would switch sidewalks when they saw Sephi and her mother coming. Siena’s bubble had burst and it made Sephi warm inside. Her mother had gotten special treatment as a Councilman’s wife. Children at school certainly hadn’t been so accommodating.

Siena wasn’t able to bear it for long.

Not three months after her father’s death she’d moved them to the greenhouse. Siena spent most of her time there anyway and the Government did not protest when she suggested it. Probably thinking the further away the Ferox witches were, the better. 

The Uprising might have been decades ago and the Ferox might have been thoroughly defeated, but the Avarians were still being–careful. They raved to the world about being eager to turn over a new leaf, and then kept immigrants in the same jobs, same schools, same streets. 

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Sephi had heard it enough growing up. But what if it only kept you alive because it liked the sight of you trapped. And you thanked it, because you didn’t know any better. 

Even her mother, who often looked like she was made of steel, had asked for a pardon in order to stay in the city–safe, comfortable.

Maybe the world outside the wall was even worse than Sephi thought. 

At least, somewhere else, a girl grew up knowing exactly who she was without relying on hate to figure it out.