Slightly alarmed, I looked to my side to see who it was. Only to let out a sigh of relief upon seeing it was Lydia standing there with some shopping bags in her hands “Oh hi Lydia. What are you doing out here?”

Her eyes kept going between me and Naomi, wondering who she was. Though she didn’t mention her, only held up her bags “Shopping! I’m in the process of doing a whole wardrobe change so I’ve been coming down here a lot!”

I took a step closer to her and said “That sounds fun. I would love to do that as well but I just don’t have the money at the moment.” having completely ignored Naomi, who was awkwardly smiling at us while I continued the conversation “So how are things going at home? Where you able to figure everything out?”

She gave me a half-smile and looked away for a moment “Yeah, me and my partner figured everything out. We’re still not perfect, but we’re on the way to it."

“That’s a relief to hear.” I said while talking as if Naomi didn’t even exist. And I’m not sure I would have even remembered her standing next to me if it weren’t for Lydia bringing it up first “So uh would you like to introduce me to your friend here?”

My head snaps over to Naomi where she lifts her shoulders and giggles. There were so little people I was friendly with that the thought of introducing her to someone never came across my mind. Who would I have even introduced her as? It wasn’t like I could say who she really was. But with her being from out of town, people would naturally be curious about my relationship to her.

So I panicked and told her “This is Naomi. She’s my uh… cousin from out of town! She comes from my moms side of the family and we didn’t get to see each other too often growing up since her family lives a lot further away and I wasn’t ever able to make the journey there! That’s why she decided to surprise me by coming up this weekend for a visit and I was just showing her around town!”

Everyone’s mouths opened slightly while they all stared at me. I was trying to catch my breath and hadn’t realized how obvious of a lie that was. Yet for some reason, Lydia didn’t call me out on it “Uh huh. Well, it’s nice to meet you Naomi. My name is Lydia.” she reaches her hand out to shake Naomi’s.

Though she wasn’t expecting Naomi to take her hand and shake it as enthusiastically as she did. The only thing that surprised her more was when Naomi opened her mouth “It’s nice to meet you too Lydia! Evelyn didn’t tell that she had any friends so this is very exciting! What kind of magic do you have? Do you have a familiar?”

With the way Naomi looked, Lydia had assumed she would have a cool quietness to her. So she was thrown off a bit but hadn’t let it affect her response “Uh I’m a Water witch and yes I do have a familiar. An otter. But she didn’t want to go shopping with me so she’s lounging on the beach somewhere. What about you? What’s your magic and familiar?”

Naomi was about to say something, but I cut her off “She has Blood magic! That’s why we’re at the butcher right now! We wanted to get some blood for her!”

Again I felt everyone’s eyes on me as I had now began to sweat. Lying like this was completely new to me and I had no idea what I was saying. All I was doing was making Lydia suspicious of Naomi when she wouldn’t have if I had just let Naomi speak for herself.

Lydia even began to pry a bit more “Interesting… and you Naomi? Where is your familiar at?”

This time Naomi held out her hand to me to stop me from answering in order to answer for herself “I also excused him to play while we were shopping. He’s a bat, so he likes to spread his wings every so often.”

Lydia’s head slightly tilted up and her eyes narrowed. Though Lydia was a lot more willing to believe Naomi than me, she was still suspicious of everything we were saying “Hm I see. Maybe one day we could introduce each other to our familiars…” she then gives me a wink “Well then, I still have plenty of shopping to do, so I’ll let you two get back to it. See you in class tomorrow Evelyn and Dog. It was really nice meeting you Naomi.”

After all that happened that weekend my mind hadn’t even had time to wrap around going to school. It felt so insignificant during that time that I had to fumble my way through another response “Oh uh yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow!” then Naomi upstaged me by being much more composed “That would be lovely! I love meeting familiars!”

Lydia chuckles, then takes her leave. And I thought the embarrassing moment was over for me. But unfortunately Naomi wasn’t done with me. She leaned down until her head was to my eye level, put her hands on her hips, then stared at me until I acknowledged her.

I couldn’t look her in the face “I know that was terrible, but it’s not like she knows anything. Lets just be thankful she didn’t ask more questions.”

She only replied “Mhmm” in response while keeping her body position the same. And I knew she was going to continue doing it until I looked at her. 

I tried to stay strong with the hopes she would get bored, but Hama was getting impatient and barked at me. He cared more about me doing Blood magic than he did for Naomi’s teasing of me.

So I gave in and finally turned my head towards her “Okay fine. I probably did more damage than if I wouldn’t have said anything. But I’m a terrible liar! Lets just go buy the blood now and forget all about this!”

Naomi giggled then pet my head “Ah it’s okay. I had fun watching you! But I agree. Hama has been yelling at me to push you into the shop. But I’ll follow your lead!”

It was a weird feeling. Naomi had become much more touchy with me after I woke up. It had been a while since anyone had been this playful with me. Since before my summoning ceremony when I still had friends. Though I couldn’t say that I didn’t like it. If anything it made me really excited whenever she touched me.

But I didn’t have time to explore those feelings when Hama was in my arms and constantly trying to get me to go into the shop. So I finally listened to him and entered.

Walking into the butcher I was finally brought back to the moment and my nerves returned. Buying blood as a Fire witch made me feel very uneasy. I kept thinking I would be questioned as to why I was buying the blood and would end up revealing everything. And even though it was a ridiculous thought, I was so anxious that I actually believed it was going to happened.

I approached the counter and rang the bell.

There was a quick moment of no response that had me considering ringing the bell once more. Then a voice called out from the back “I’ll be right there!”

Out came a tall, heavyset bald man that always seemed to be in a bad mood. He looked to me with tired eyes and asked in a grumbled voice “What can I do for ya?”

Even though he was the person I would always speak to whenever I bought meat, I was completely frozen. All that anxiety finally boiled over and I was now silently standing in front of him while everyone stared at me, waiting for me to say something. Hama tried barking to get my brain moving again, but it didn’t work.

Which made Naomi have to take the reins “We were hoping to purchase a pint of blood.” she asked him in a sweet voice. It should have allowed me to relax, but it didn’t. Instead I was preparing for him to interrogate us about what we want with blood.

So I wasn’t prepared when he said “Okay. I’ll grab it for you.” through a yawn, then turned and walked back into the fridge.

I let out all of the tension and stood there in shock. To my side I could hear Naomi holding in a laugh. I turned to her “It’s really not that funny.” which she responded “I’m sorry but you looked so cute just now! I can’t help myself!”

Though I was pouting, I knew that she had every right to laugh at me. Non Blood witches would come in and buy blood from the butchers all the time. Even my dad would go to the butchers shop to buy blood for my mom when she was alive. My anxiety was so bad that it made me worry about doing something that was quite normal.

We didn’t say anything for the rest of the short wait. The butcher soon walked back out of the fridge with a pint of blood in his hands. Hama began to squirm in my arms as the butcher placed the blood on the counter in front of us “Here you go. That will be $4.” he told me through another yawn.

Now that we were almost done with the transaction, I was completely relaxed. Everything was so normal as I was reaching into my bag for some money. Until the butcher had to ruin it all by asking me “Hey, aren’t you the sister of that witch that just summoned a familiar at 12?”

Both Naomi and Hama were able to feel my mood shift “Uh yeah… Lily is my sister.”

“Ah I thought I recognized you. You’re the one that can’t do magic.” he chuckled to himself “Such a shame. I’m not sure where I would be if it weren’t for my daughter casting her illusion spells. I’m sure your parents must be happy to finally have a real witch in the family now.”

I could feel my blood boiling. But I didn’t say anything to him in return. All I did was stand there in silence until the transaction was completed. After which I turned around and stormed out of the butchers shop.