The next day I found myself droning through classes with ease. The hallways were buzzing with conversation, and I didn't have to take a single test. I floated from Homeroom, Physics, English, Lunch, Government, and finally Art.

I have always loved that last class where I got to take a breath from the endless stream of learning that was supposed to be absorbed completely, day by day. In Art class you didn't really have to learn so much as practice, and as an added bonus I got to share this class with my two closest friends, Lolani and Kyna.

Lolani was the energetic blonde heartthrob that wasn't shallow despite her other "popular" friends, and Kyna was a drama queen with an afro that was loud and beautiful, and she never seemed to care what anyone thought about her.

Together the three of us just clicked In all the right ways. We had been friends since freshman year and were side by side in everything that we did. They were the only people in this town who knew I was Wiccan, and they truly seemed to find it cool and "punk" as they liked to call it, although I wasn't the typical punk or goth stereotype most people see witches as.

My favorite color was purple, I wore distressed jeans almost every day, and my nails were mostly always painted. They loved asking me for love spells and spells to cheat out of the mile run during gym class, even though they knew I would never give them any kind of spells like that (As if there even was a spell to get out of gym, I wish!), but mostly they just enjoyed hearing about my life, just as I liked to hear about theirs.

Boys were a main point of conversation lately. Kyna had just started dating one of our other friends, Finn, and they seemed to be getting pretty serious lately. What started out as a "friend zoned" type friendship quickly blossomed once we keyed Kyna in on the possibility that he was totally in love with her. She was too blinded by her own shy attraction to even notice that he liked her just as much.

Lolina had just ended her three month long relationship with a stoner kid named Joey, whom Kyna and I both warned only wanted one thing. She fell hard and was crushed when he had broken up with her via text three weeks ago. She had finally gotten over him and now joked about what a bad lay he was, even though I knew she really had cared for him at the time. Both girls had already lost their virginity, unlike me.

I was the girl who boys flirted with endlessly, but soon got tired of chasing and being turned down. Although I was disappointed that no one really wanted to work hard enough to earn my attention, I was also relieved. All of the guys at my school were either too much of a sleaze or were just not compatible with me on a personal level. I knew that I would find someone soon, but I was starting to get impatient. I was eighteen already, and if I had a hormone level meter, mine would be filled. I badly wanted to experience sex, but wasn't in such a hurry that I was just going to give it away.

"So, me and Finn are gonna go to the river tomorrow. Are y'all down to come with?" Kyna asked, as we got out our paintings and began making small strokes with our brushes.

We both just stared at her.

" C'mon guys, it's not a date or anything. He's bringing Jace! I need girl reinforcements!"

Lolina did a little shimmy in her chair and winked.

"Oohh, Jace from the soccer team? He does look kinda yummy." She sat in thought for a moment. "Okay, count me in. But don't act like its some kind of double date yet or anything. I want to get to know him first. What about you Brenna, are you gonna come?"

They both turned to me.

"Oh, I don't know. I kinda need to get some work done around my house. But if you guys are free Sunday maybe I could come over. We could do some kinda spa day. I need my hair deep conditioned, it's getting too frizzy, and I don't even wanna mention how chipped my nails are. That way I can catch up on the juice from your "double date"." I said, making quotations with my hands.

Lolina smacked my arm.

"Not a double date!" She laughed.

We got back to our paintings. Our current project was to try to recreate Van Gogh's Starry Night. My brush twirled in hues of blue and whites, and I soon got lost in my work. The girls both droned on about the bathing suits they would be wearing this weekend and how they were doing their hair, and I chimed in when needed, but I still wanted to finish my masterpiece.

Painting for me felt almost as good as magick. They were quite the same in a way. With each stroke of my brush I was creating something unique, something only I could imagine and manifest.

I held up my canvas to show the girls.

"Not so bad for an amateur huh?"

...

Later that day I plopped on my bed and opened up my father's book. I read over the spell once more, wrote the herbs I needed down on my hand with pen, and tiptoed down the stairs and out the door. As I walked across the back yard I began to feel my chest tighten up with each step I took. The reality of what I was going to do tomorrow night finally started to sink in.

Was this really my father? What was he trying to get me to summon? I had researched the words at school while in the library, and not much came up other than that it was Norse language. Maybe he was trying to get me to summon him, maybe he wanted to tell me what happened himself. But if that was the case, why hadn't he just wrote it in the book?

I calmed my thoughts as I reached the greenhouse. It was in the very darkest corner of the yard, but was completely made of glass, which gave it an enchanting feel as the moonlight glinted off the roof.

My brother always kept it unlocked, so I slowly opened the door and looked back at the house. My mother and brother were watching House Hunters when I went out and they didn't seem to notice me going out the back door.

It was pretty common for me to need an herb here and there for special teas and minor cleansing baths, but I still couldn't shake the chilling feeling creeping up my back and neck. The summoning ritual I was planning to do was unlike anything I had ever done before, and my mother would have a fit if she knew I was planning on doing something I wasn't completely confident with, especially something as dangerous as a summoning ritual.

With a last glance at the house I opened the door and stepped inside. I was greeted with the delightful smell of fresh rosemary and sage, and so many other herbs I couldn't quite place them all by smell. The greenhouse held an energy that was out of this world, and I could almost feel the soft plants breathing as a wind escaped through the door. I felt completely at peace, no matter what worries I carried.

I remember when I was a child and my mother and father built this greenhouse themselves, while I played with the clovers blooming all over the grass and my brother pretending to help. After it was built my brother instantly fell in love, my father began teaching him how to compost, how to create the purest soil, and then plant the greenest of herbs. My brother has had a green thumb ever since.

In the back of the room were shelves lined from the top of the room to the bottom filled with jars of already harvested herbs. I looked at my hand and began grabbing a generous pinch of each herb and shoving them into a satchel I had brought in my pocket. I had to reach on my tip toes to get the jar of cedar, but I finally dragged it down and added the last pinch into the small bag. Sighing in relief, I put the jar back on the shelf and walked back out of the greenhouse, closing the door with one glance at the growing plants. They really were beautiful.

As I walked back in the house, my mother was in the kitchen washing the dishes. She glanced up as closed the back door.

"Out for a late night walk?" She asked with one raised brow.

I smiled sheepishly. "Yes, I was just moon gazing. Tomorrow should be special, it'll be a full moon."

"Ah, yes. I'm baking moon cookies for tomorrow, and we will be charging our Selenite wands. Such energy, that moon!"

She smiled back at me and patted my back. I started to walk away, but before I entered through the foyer I looked back at my mother. She was so beautiful even with her worn apron on and dish water splashed up her arms.

"Hey Mom, do you ever miss Dad?"

She looked at me with a shocked expression, but I could see the creases of guilt lining her face as well. She stepped away from the sink and wiped her arms on her apron.

"Sweetheart, I miss your father every minute of every day. I wish I could have just five more minutes with him. I always miss your father." She placed her hands on both sides of my face so I could only look into her eyes. In return, I was gazing back at my own eyes through hers.

"Your father would have never wanted us to suffer from his absence. He would want you and your brother to flourish and move past the tragedy of his death. He loved you more than anything in the world."

I knew this already, but it was nice to hear a reminder from somewhere else other than in my own thoughts. I smiled at her.

"I know Mom, thank you so much. I love you." I reached to give her a hug. I was just an inch shorter than her, but her hug engulfed me and wrapped me in the comfort I had been longing for. "I just miss him sometimes. But I know who I am and who I want to be. I'm gonna make Daddy proud." I stepped back and plopped a kiss on my mother's cheek. Then turned and headed back to my room.

Everything was lined up. All that was left was for me to meditate and mentally prepare for tomorrow nights secret ritual. It would work, it had to work, and my father could finally find peace. I would find a way to reveal his murderer, even if I had to make an anonymous police call. I wouldn't let him down. I would really be able to make my father proud.

As I lay in bed that night I thought about my father. When I was about seven he had called to me from his study. I ran down the steps and through the house, and plopped down in my father's lap as he sat in his armchair.

"Hello, my darling Brenna. Have you remembered the story I told you about the Goddess and the Horned God?" I remember being so warm in his arms, and smiling up at him with a nod of agreement.

"Did you want to hear another story of the Horned God?"

"Yes, Daddy!"

"The Horned God was one with the Goddess, although they were separated in body. They understood each other completely and they did everything in harmony. But, while the Goddess was completely of light, The Horned One had a dual nature. He was light, but he carried the darkness for the Goddess so she didn't have the burden. He was part of the beast in his physical form, so the Goddess sent him into the great woods so she could nurture the children of the world without any darkness to taint them. The Horned God was not upset about this, because they were still one in mind, and he knew the reasoning of the Goddess.

Then the children of the world began to venture into the woods and they witnessed The Horned God, and although they all escaped him in physical form, they had contracted just a bit of his darkness. They began to manipulate the Dark. The Goddess feared that all her children of the world would be lost if they kept venturing into the woods, so she got her bow and went into the great woods herself. She had a mission."

"Did the Goddess hurt The Horned God?" I had asked.

"No my dear. Her arrows were full of banishment, not death. She went into the woods to banish The Horned God back to the Summerlands so that she could take away his darkness, but as she banished him she felt a deep wound in her heart.

As you remember, The Horned God was apart of the Goddess, so without him on this plane of Earth she was in deep despair. She longed to be whole again and to be with her soulmate. She shot an arrow into her own heart, and left all of her teachings and magick to the children of the earth. She left them her book of shadows, written in the stars. And she was finally whole again, just as we all are when the time for our souls to be banished of this world comes."

As a small girl this bedtime story was magickal, and even now as I replay it to myself, it still carried the same amount of magick it did to me that same night. I could almost picture my father in his armchair in the study. And I could almost his arms around me, the same way they were that night all those many years ago, as I drifted off to sleep.