Book of Shifters

Five Months ago

Jada Wilson

As Jada exited the taxi, the harshness of the morning winter breeze blew straight onto her soft skin, immediately causing goosebumps.

She snuggly pulled her jacket, looking around at the ground she once played on countless times as a child while the driver helped remove her bag from the trunk.

The grounds were pretty much the same, well-kept. The swing looked like it was still rotting, and the Manor stood tall and proud. The same as it was when Jada visited two thanksgivings ago.

Jada watched the taxi disappear around the bend of the Manor's long pathway making its way to the exit.

Turning to stare up curiously at the massive door at the Manor's entrance, Jada picked up her bag, slung it over her shoulders, and made her way inside after gaining entry.

"Mama, where are you?" Jada shouts excitedly from the foyer, resting her bag on the floor.

She had a few things to discuss with her mother and wanted to get down to business immediately, but that did not mean she did not relish the time spent with her mom and was not happy to be there.

She may even stay for a day or two.

Jada had thought she was bewitched or something to that extent. She had done a few spells that she knew would break any spell that might have been placed on her at a time when she was vulnerable.

The Wilson's bloodline was a powerful witch bloodline, and she knew if she missed something, her mother would certainly pick it up. In this line of business, she could not risk it. She had to be sure, which is why she had made the trip back home.

Jada was worried about her sudden interest in protecting Aubrianne. She wanted to know why she had felt the overpowering need to push her way into Aubrianne's life, to begin with.

When Jada entered the grocery, her witchy senses were off the charts that day. But she did not get bad vibes, kind of senses.

The vibes were pure, if anything, too pure.

It was a sudden urge and need to protect the cashier in the grocery store, which was odd, Jada. Never before had Jada experienced such an intense feeling of looking out for someone. She had made it her business to introduce herself that same day and kept visiting after that.

Soon a friendship blossomed between them.

So firstly, she needed to discuss this with her mother and what it could possibly mean.

"Mom?" Jada called after not hearing her. She was now approaching the kitchen area, walking along the wide corridor where paintings of their ancestors lined the wall.

The home where she grew up was massive, and her family was considered wealthy.

One would not suspect this, given Jada's line of work. However, that was her insatiable hunger to be desired by all men. She fed off of their desires for her. It was one of her many witchy things.

"In here, darling!" Jada heard her mom's muffled voice like it was coming from the pantry inside the kitchen and made her way there.

"Mom," Jada breathed at the sight of her mother. She missed her dearly. Martha was packing away goods she had bought from the supermarket she had just returned from.

"Oh sweetheart, you're here," Martha exclaims, stopping midway from packing a cereal box away, not believing her eyes. "Tell me I am not imaging this?"

"No, Mom, you are not. I am here." Jada reassured her as she took in her mother's appearance. Will this woman ever age? She mused. Her mom looks the same as she did when Jada was an infant. Witch glamour works wonders, Jada thought.

Her mother was the same elegant, radiant, blonde-haired beauty who held her head high in society and never took cr@p from anyone. Martha was a fierce mother hen to her kids ever since their father, her husband, had died protecting them in an attack over ten years ago.

Most witches' homes were destroyed that night, and families were torn apart. Despite the witch community's tremendous losses that day, Martha steeled herself and pulled it together for her family and the rest of her people.

She was now the head witch of their community and acted as the Mayor of their small town in Wickersville.

Martha lived for this, to take care of people. Jada always admired her mother's passion for helping others during rough times.

With a huge grin, Martha put the cereal box on the counter and opened her arms wide for Jada to walk right into it. They engulfed each other in a warm embrace for a good five minutes before she gently pushed Jada out of the hug to get a better look at her daughter, whom she had not seen in more than two years.

Only for Jada to now notice the change in the kitchen. Her mom had redone the kitchen. It looked even more extensive; even the island she sat by was more prominent, and the stools were fancier.

Jada looked at her mother's smiling face while she inspected Jada and said, "Wow, Mom, you redid the kitchen!"

"Yes, I did, you like? I wanted a cleaner and fresher look," Martha said, a matter of factly. When Jada laughs at her mom's choice of words, "OK, Mom, cleaner and fresher, I get it."

Still observing her daughter closely, Martha says, overwhelmed to have her daughter home, "Sweetie, what's wrong?" Out of all her kids, Jada was the only one who did not live at home with them.

Jada had two siblings, a brother, Jadon Wilson, nineteen, who had recently started college, and a sister, Janiah Wilson, fifteen, who was still in high school.

They all had their mother's blonde hair and their father's blue eyes.

"Want anything to drink?" Martha asked as she busied herself with glasses and got the fresh lemonade drink in the freezer perfectly chilled. As she patiently waits for Jada to confide in her.

"Yeah, I'll have some of your famous lemonade, ma," Jada answers, then sighs and hops up on a stool. She wonders how to bring up this topic.

After going back and forth for a minute, she heard her mother say, "Ok, out with it."

Jada jumps out of her thoughts to see her mom handing her the glass of lemonade as she eyes her knowingly. Martha was no fool. She knew something was up with Jada.

She knew there was a reason that Jada had unexpectedly made the trip down here.

Jada sighed again as her mother made herself comfortable on a stool readying herself to hear Jada out. "Ok… where do I start?"

"Start from the beginning, as I always advised you when you were younger." Yes, when little Jada got into trouble of any kind, it was always a task about how to tell her mother, and her mother would always say.

Well, dear, why don't you start from the beginning? Tell me everything.

And so Jada did fill her mother in on everything.

Fifteen minutes later, with two empty glasses of lemonade, Jada had offloaded on her mother.

And now Martha rattled out question after question about Aubrianne's wellbeing, and then she asked if Aubrianne had found her father or was she even looking?

This was all after Jada had mentioned Aubrianne's mother's name, Athalia.

That was all that it took for realization to take over her mother's features, then relief, and then settled on sadness.

Goddess, she did not even know the child's father, and she was Athalia's close friend. Martha had explained to

Jada at that moment that she was Athalia's close friend and Athalia had come to her when Aubrianne was just two months old.

At two months, she showed signs of great uncontrolled powers that started with little things like constantly levitating her toys and having them spin. One day, the things she began levitating were just too much.

To Athalia's horror, she had entered Aubrianne's room and saw her crib, changing station, and cupboard of clothing levitating off the ground.

Athalia was mortified that one-day Aubriane would lose control, and one of those heavy items would come crashing down.

More horrifyingly was that the information about Aubrianne's untamed power would attract the worst kinds of power-hungry and power-seeking scums.

Her best plan at the time was to bind Aubrianne's magical nature. "In which you help with, I assume?" Jada asked, entirely in tune with her mother.

"Yes, I assisted her with the binding, but Jada, honey, I believe because we bind her magical nature is the reason why you didn't immediately feel that strong kinship of another witch."

"However, it was still potent enough to affect you in another way, if I am not mistaken. As you said, you felt a need to protect her, and it was both you and your wolf friend, the bouncer?" Jada nodded.

"Now, there is something written specifically about this in the Book of Shifters. Let me grab my book."

Martha said and then hopped off the stool, making her way to their library, Jada trailing behind her.

World's Worst Friend