Chapter 1 1- Every Rule Has Exceptions. You Are Not One Of Them.

LOTTIE

Sometimes I think I might hate my mother. It’s a quiet kind of hatred. The sort that doesn’t shout or slam doors, it just sits there, heavy and familiar, like a bruise you’ve learned not to press. She is everything I have spent my life trying not to become. Wild. Impulsive. Restless in a way that looks almost glamorous from a distance, until you’re the one left cleaning up the mess. She moves through life as if it owes her something, like consequences are suggestions rather than rules. 

She had me when she was barely sixteen. For a few fragile years, we lived with my father in a small house that always smelled faintly of engine grease and burnt toast. I don’t remember them ever being happy, but I remember the night we left. The shouting. The slammed door. The way my mother’s hand clamped around mine like I was luggage she refused to abandon. She cheated on him. That much I know. The rest doesn’t matter. We left, and she never looked back.

Even though we share the same short stature, the same grey eyes, the same white-blonde hair that sometimes sits in tidy ringlets but mostly looks like chaos that refuses to behave in humidity, I tell myself I am nothing like her. I finish what I start. I keep my promises. I don’t disappear when things get hard. I work hard for everything I have. I’ve been at the library part-time for three years now. It’s the longest I’ve ever stayed anywhere that wasn’t this house. I’m twenty-three, and I’ve been working since I was fourteen, retail jobs mostly. Stocking shelves. Folding clothes. Smiling at customers who didn’t see me. I needed the money if I wanted food in the fridge. My mother was never reliable about things like that. She would often ‘forget’ to come home at night. Sometimes for one night. Sometimes for three. She never explained where she went. I never asked. I learned early that survival was quieter than confrontation.

I still live at home, though I swore I’d be gone by twenty. I had a plan. I had savings. I had a tiny apartment bookmarked online that smelled like possibility and independence. And then my mother got pregnant again. I couldn’t leave a baby alone with her. Not really alone, she would have been physically present most of the time… Probably. But that baby would have been alone in all the ways that matter. Zander might be my half-brother, but he is the brightest, sweetest thing in my world. He’s almost three now. He has a laugh that sounds like he’s surprised by his own joy. He deserves stability. He deserves someone who shows up. So I stayed.

Tia, my supervisor at the library, is better to me than she has any obligation to be. She lets me bring Zander to work on the days I run the desk. I set him up with picture books and crayons in the back office, and he toddles out occasionally to ‘help’ stamp returns. The regulars think he’s charming. Which is good, because my mother hasn’t come home in over a week. That’s unusual, even for her. She normally swings by every day or two, showers, changes clothes, rummages through the fridge, and leaves again before sunrise. Three days ago, she sent me a text. 

Don’t expect me home anytime soon.

No explanation. No apology. I’m angry. Of course I am. But life is also… Simpler when she isn’t here. Quieter. I don’t have to brace myself for slammed doors or strange men lingering too long in the kitchen. I don’t have to wonder if the electricity bill has been paid. The house belongs to my grandmother. She doesn’t charge my mother proper rent. I offered to pay, I could pick up another job, find something in the evenings, but Gran told me she’d rather I focus on Zander. 

“He needs you more than I need money.” She said. Maybe when he’s old enough for school, I’ll work more hours. Maybe I’ll pay her back properly one day. Assuming I can manage that alongside school fees, groceries, and everything else that always costs more than you expect. Gran would help more if she could. I know she would. But her shop barely covers her own expenses. 

She runs a small supply store on the far side of town, the kind you don’t notice unless you’re looking for it. Jars of dried herbs in the windows. Bundles of sage tied with twine. Protection charms tucked discreetly beside the register. It caters mostly to the local witches. Gran is a powerful witch herself. You can feel it in the air around her, like static before a storm. My mother, on the other hand, never showed the slightest hint of talent. No sparks. No whispers. Nothing that couldn’t be explained away. Which probably means I didn’t inherit it either. Not that it matters. Magic doesn’t pay bills. And someone has to.

I’m yanked from my thoughts by the sound of Zander shrieking. Not crying. SHRIEKING. It slices through the house, high and jagged, like something feral. My stomach drops before I even move. I push up from the couch with a sigh that feels older than twenty-three.

“Zander?” I call, already knowing he won’t answer. Usually, he’s so good for me. Too good, sometimes. Quiet. Observant. Gentle in a way most toddlers aren’t. I’ve practically raised him, after all. I know his moods. I know the warning signs before a tantrum. I know how to distract him with a story, a snack, or a ridiculous dance that makes him laugh. But the last few days… The last few days have been different.

He’s been screaming at nothing. Refusing to eat food he normally loves. Throwing toys. Knocking things off shelves. Yesterday, he snapped three crayons in half and stared at the pieces like he didn’t understand what he’d done. I find him sitting in the middle of our shared bedroom. Pages are fluttering around him like fallen birds. My heart lurches. He has one of my books in his tiny fists, one of my favourites, and he’s tearing pages out with determined little jerks of his arms. Not curious. Not accidental. Deliberate.

“Zander!” I groan as I rush forward and yank the book away. The spine bends in my grip. Pages hang loose, jagged and ruined. How dare he!? The thought flashes hot and immediate before guilt crashes in after it. He’s three. He doesn’t understand. But this, this was MINE! One of the few things in this house that belongs to me alone.

I can’t usually afford to buy myself much. Clothes are second-hand. Shoes are worn until they’re more glue than sole. But books… Books are different. They’re my escape. My safety net. I buy the ones the library has deemed too old or too worn to keep lending. I get them cheap. Sometimes Tia slips a couple into my bag with a wink and pretends she forgot to scan them out properly. I press the damaged book against my chest for a second before putting it high on the shelf where Zander can’t reach.

When I turn back, he’s still screaming. He kicks his heels against the floor, fists balled, face red and furious. But his eyes, his eyes aren’t focused on me. They’re fixed on something over my shoulder. Cold creeps up my spine.

“There’s nothing there,” I whisper, though I don’t know if I’m talking to him or to myself.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I say under my breath. The admission feels like betrayal. He’s always been such a well-behaved child. People comment on it constantly. You’re so lucky. He’s such an angel. You make it look easy. It isn’t easy. It’s exhausting. And right now, I am so far out of my depth I can’t see the surface. My vision blurs with frustrated tears just as my phone starts ringing in the kitchen, where I left it on the bench. The sound is abrupt. Jarring. I hesitate only a second before rushing to answer it.

“Hello?” I say softly.

“Lottie, are you alright?” My grandmother's familiar voice asks. My breath stutters. I don’t know how she does it, but my grandmother always knows when I’m upset. She insists it’s bloodline magic, that we’re connected in ways that don’t rely on phones or distance. That emotions ripple through certain families like dropped stones in water. I’ve never fully understood it. But she always calls at exactly the right moment, and at the sound of her voice, steady, warm, certain, the tears finally spill over. Behind me, Zander is still shrieking.

“Grandma, I don’t know if I can do this.” I gasp. The words tumble out in broken pieces. “I’m not cut out to raise a child. I don’t think Mum is coming home. I don’t know how to be his mother, and the last few days he’s been… He’s been a complete menace. He just destroyed one of my books, and I don’t know what I’m doing.” I’m half-sobbing now, gulping air between words. There’s a pause on the other end of the line. Then she sighs, not annoyed, not surprised. Just resigned.

“I’m surprised your mother stayed as long as she did.” She says gently. “Now, Charlotte.” She starts. I wince at my full name. “I want you to stop. Right now. Take three deep breaths. Slow ones. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Centre yourself.” She instructs. 

“I don’t have time to-” I object. 

“Charlotte.” She cuts me off. Her tone shifts. Not sharp. But firm in a way that settles something in my chest. I close my eyes. Inhale. The house smells like dust and torn paper and something faintly metallic I can’t quite place. Exhale. Zander’s screaming seems to echo oddly, as though the sound is bouncing off walls that aren’t there. Inhale again. My heartbeat begins to slow. By the third breath, something inside me steadies. Not fixed. Not solved. But steadier. It helps more than I expected.

“Good girl. Now, before anything else, I am going to remind you that you have been taking care of that child for almost three years. He adores you, and no one will ever care for him the way you do. Now tell me about these issues you’re having. When did they start?” She asks. Her voice is steady and warm, not patronising, not dismissive, just certain. The kind of certainty I don’t ever seem to have for myself. I press the phone harder against my ear as Zander’s screaming continues in the background, sharp and relentless. My chest still feels tight from crying, but her words slow something inside me. Almost three years. When she says it like that, it sounds like an accomplishment instead of an accident.

“The day after Mum said she wasn’t coming back,” I reply, my voice still shaky from tears. “So two days ago.” Saying it aloud makes it feel heavier somehow. Realer. Final. “Maybe he misses her. Or maybe he can sense my frustration at her abandoning us.” I add, glancing toward the bedroom where Zander is still shrieking, the sound cracking at the edges. “He’s usually so calm. It’s like he’s suddenly a completely different child.” The words hang in the air between us. I don’t mean them literally. I just mean that I don’t recognise this version of him, the screaming, destructive, furious little boy tearing at pages and kicking at walls. It feels like I’ve woken up in someone else’s life.

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. Not static. Not a distraction. Just silence, thoughtful, measured silence.

“Maybe he is.” She responds.