At the spell’s completion, a violent wind blew every which way, pushing many of us against the walls. Alex gleefully walked into the center of the forming whirlwind as I flew around with the other wizards, slamming into props and chairs. I could hear his laughter growing louder and louder until the sound bounced off of every wall and surface in the room.
Fedora, Ray, and Jen looked on in desperation; Megan collapsed into a weeping heap. I pulled my thoughts from her. If I let her crying get to me I’d never get the life that I so desperately needed full of love and acceptance.
I turned to Alex, blinking tears from my eyes. My thin eyebrows curled downward. “Okay, you got what you wanted, Alex. Give me what I came here for.”
Alex smirked wickedly. “You didn’t actually think I’d give you your parents, did you? I can, but why should I?”
I tried to answer but the sounds caught in my throat and refused to come out in words.
“Oh, Sydney,” he mockingly told me, “you’re far too trusting.”
“No,” I shook my head fiercely. “I helped you. You promised!” I wasn’t in the habit of having promises made to me kept, but I’d been stupid enough to believe I could win this one. I jumped at him and knocked his brown wand, which resembled a tree branch, from his hand. He struggled to reach mine, but I yanked my arm away just in time. He kicked me to the floor with a wicked chuckle. He summoned the wand back to his palm like a Jedi summons his lightsaber. With a twitch of his wrist I was thrown into the forcefield with the others.
He laughed at me, turned on his heel and marched away, followed by the rest of the young wizards stupid enough to enter into his service.
I positioned myself into a cross-legged position. Suddenly, the unexpected happened. I let my hatred melt away and so I could actually think about what had happened. “What have I done?” I asked as the realization hit me. I’d endangered everyone because of my own selfishness.
“You betrayed me and my sisters and brother, helped Alex cast a spell to start his reign of the world, and trapped us in this magic bubble doomed to die,” came ditsy Fedora’s answer.
I dropped my head into my work-roughened hands, knowing she was right. I’d been blinded by my hate. I hopped back to my feet. “We’re getting out of here!” I declared to my family with renewed resolve.
“How?” Ray challenged. “We can’t use magic in here, you know.” His smug grin made me sick. He’d rather us die than have me be right for once. What a jerk.
I turned away from him and paced, with my hands delicately clasped behind my back. The chain on my jeans swayed as I walked.
Megan stood up. “Why would we be in such a hurry that we’d leave unprepared?” she screamed Ray. “You’re supposed to be the smart one! You should’ve--”
“I am the smart one!” He barked with fire in his eyes. “I am the only one of the five of us who shows any real intelligence.”
“Oh, really? No, you’re not! If you were, you would’ve taken your smart phone like I told you.”
“It was dead!”
“Whatever! It had a low battery. And actually, that’s not the same as dead! You have to be so fanatical about stupid things!”
“You know, you didn’t take yours either!”
She rolled her ocean blue eyes. “We were in a hurry!” she shouted, stressing each and every word. “You had yours right there! And Jenni couldn’t have taken hers! Why? Oh, yeah, because you convinced Mom that she’s too young!” she sarcastically shot at him.
“Don’t try to pin this on me! Jenni—“
“Guys!” I barked. “Could we maybe try being productive?” I stood with my legs apart, toes pointing outward. My hands were still clasped behind my back, but I stood upright and strong like a soldier. The red and hot pink in my asymmetrical, choppy hair and the torn red shirt I wore must have added to my look, making me play the part of revolting rebel even better. I would have let out an exasperated sigh, but I couldn’t give Ray that satisfaction.
Arrogant Ray clenched his teeth, hating to take orders from me. Megan only nodded in agreement, making her hair bounce up and down.

My eyelids lowered as I tried again to think, sliding into a pretzel position on the floor. Thump! Thump! Squeak! Squeak! I opened one eye. This was ridiculous. I turned to see Fedora standing alone on the far side of the forcefield, trying to scratch the invisible walls with her cell phone antenna.
“Fedora!” I squealed in delight. I ran to her, closely followed by Jen and Megan.
She shook her head in confusion. “Bt dubs,” she announced as she noticed us watching. “Magic bubbles can’t be broken with cell phones. I’ve tried.”\
Jen hugged Fedora tightly! “That’s it! You saved us!”
Megan rolled her eyes and grabbed her sister’s purple phone. The purpose in her face suddenly fell. “We have no one left to call. We’re all here. Trapped.”
“You can’t call your parents?” I asked.
“What would be the point?” Jen asked hopelessly, dropping back to the floor. “Dad lost his powers when he married a human. He wouldn’t be able to help us anyway.”
We all let our eyes fall in defeat. Well, except for proud Ray, who stood behind our group just watching us with a small inkling of satisfaction.
Two wires in my head connected, the spark becoming the light of an improved idea. I looked back to my siblings. “Okay, this will be going out on a limb, I mean, it’s really, really unlikely, but not completely unheard of. Sometimes when a mortal is carrying an unborn wizard she temporarily gets our powers.” I just got a blank look from them. “Guys, your mom is expecting!” I cried in excitement.
Three faces lit up with surprise and joy. The fourth was just as blank as ever. “Expecting what?” Fedora asked shaking the honey blonde curls that covered her empty head.
“A baby!” Jen answered in merry shock.
“Oh!” Fedora nodded blankly. “Expecting a baby to do what?” she asked as Megan speed dialed their mom.
“Mom’s pregnant?” Ray asked suspiciously. “And how would you know that?”
I didn’t want to satisfy him by giving him an answer, but on the other hand, it may have been more satisfying to give him one. “You’re parents told me.” It wasn’t a lie. They had told me, but only because I’d put the clues together on my own and they didn’t want to keep the truth from me. They were going to announce it to the entire family; they just hadn’t yet.
There was a smug grin on my face when I turned my attention back to Fedora’s phone.
“Hello?”
“Maria, we’re in the school auditorium. We need your help!”
“What are you doing there today?” she asked in shock.
“Who is that?” I heard her husband ask warily.
“It’s Sydney. She said she’s at the school.”
“Sydney?” he asked, his voice laced with distrust. “The kids told me she’d turned evil. She joined the Rebellion to work for Alex.”
“Alex?” she gasped, her voice betraying the horror she felt at the mere mention of the name. “No, you must be mistaken. Our Sydney?”
“Whatever she wants, it’s obviously a trap,” he told her firmly.
“Dad, it’s not a trap!” Megan told him on the verge of tears. “I’m here too.”
“This is worse than I thought,” he told his wife. “She’s turned on us too. I always knew she couldn’t stand up with us forever. She’s always been--”
I was angry and insulted by their reaction. I didn’t have time for this nonsense. “It’s not a trick! We really need your help!! We’re trapped here! Please,” I paused and looked at Megan, “Please, Mom.”
There was an extended silence before the call was ended. Fedora took the phone back and slipped it into her Coach purse.
“What was that?” Ray demanded crossly with his arms folded in front of his gray tee shirt.
“It was the only card we had left,” I tried to explain it away. “It’s instant favor when the adopted “bad” child says ‘Mom’ or ‘Dad’. But we didn’t have a choice, Ray. We need her here. You included! Unless you feel like dying right now.”
“You’re playing my mother now?” he asked indignantly. “I should’ve known this wouldn’t be beneath you.”
“Beneath me? Beneath me?! Maybe I forgot to congratulate you on your earlier performance,” I huffed, “You know, the one where I actually thought for one stupid lapse of judgment that you cared about me? Who’s really stooping lower, Ray? The girl trying to save her family or the jerk who played me first?”
“Are you actually trying to compare me to you? I’m nothing like you! At least I have a sense of morals!”
“Morals?!”
“It’s what tells you right from wrong. But, I’m sure, based on both your behavior and your background, the concept is unfamiliar to you.”
My blood boiled when he brought up my past. It wasn’t one I was proud of; it was one I was trying to forget. “Maybe what you think is right isn’t. Have you ever even considered the possibility of your being wrong?”
“Of course! I’m not the one who tries to control everything like I know everything!”
I fought tears, reacting with hormonal anger instead. “Don’t turn this around on me! What did I ever try to control that I messed up?”
“Your life,” he struck back.
Before I could insult him back, the double doors swung open and Maria ran in.
“We’re trapped,” Jen told her.
“Okay, how do I get you out?” she panted, unconsciously laying a hand across her midsection.
Megan saw the automatic action and smiled warmly at her mother.
Ray looked at me victoriously. “She can’t. You need a wand to take a forcefield down. So even if she could wield one, she’d have to find one first.”
I glared up at him and shook my head in disbelief. The glare broke into a Cheshire grin. “Then I guess it’s too bad that we’re all smart enough to not lose out wands, right, Ray?” I asked mockingly. “Oh, but,” I pretended to look around in confusion, “where is yours?”
The five of us instinctively scanned the floor outside of the forcefield. “There it is!” Fedora shouted as she pointed to the far corner of the room. She leapt and clapped her hands, giggling gleefully.
Maria scooped it up and followed Ray’s confident instructions to take the forcefield down. As much as I hated that he knew a spell I didn’t, I was relieved to see the electromagnetic field dissolved into red dust.
I rushed to Maria and gave her the first real hug I’d given in a long time. As I squeezed her, warm tears fell from my face. “Thank you.” I ran the back of my hand quickly across my face with a sniff, embarrassed to be crying in public.
She was torn from me as her three youngest kids rushed out to see her, grabbing and hugging and talking and laughing with relief.

“Good act.” Ray and his father arrogantly walked up to me. Ray had his arms folded across his broad chest.
“Not everything about me is fake, Ray,” I answered with more emotion than I’d intended.
“You can’t fool us the way you do my mom, by playing on our emotions. We know better than to trust you.”
“Ray, you don’t know who I am. Please stop pretending that you do. It would take a lot more than one of your all-knowing glances to really get to know me.”
The two of them rejoined the rest of their family as they left, letting me stand in the room alone.
I waited for their voices to fade down the hall before I let myself hit the floor, dropping like a marionette whose strings had just been cut away. Tears gushed from my eyes uncontrollably and my body spasmed with each sobbing breath I drew in.
I’d tried so hard to keep love out of my life. It only lets you down in the end, I remembered my uncle saying as he drove me to his house and my new home. He must’ve thought I was too young to understand, but I wasn’t. I knew all too well how love could be one of the hardest things to give away.
I’d repeated those words mentally on infinite occasions. They became my motto, my driving force, my everything. The night my uncle died, I’d sat alone in my room crying on the floor like I was doing now. “Love will let you down,” I’d whispered to myself over and over as I sobbed hysterically. I’d inwardly vowed that night, as I wept into my pillow, that I’d never let love destroy my life again.
But here I was with the Johnsons. Even the most hostile of them I couldn’t bring myself to hate. I figured out why I dislike Ray so much, and it was because he was the older brother I’d never had, a constant reminder of the one who robbed my parents’ love from me even though he wasn’t around. Maybe it hasn’t been him, I thought. What if I’ve been the aggressor, taking out on him the anger I’ve always had for Warren?
I’d actually been vying for Ray’s approval, I realized with a start. From the day I’d met him, I’d been trying to get praise and friendship from him. The fact that they were harder to earn than I’d hoped made me so mad.
Love made you vulnerable, and I couldn’t afford any weaknesses. But my confident, tough façade was only a mask. Who did I think I was kidding? I was weak: weak enough to lose my parents; weak enough to make the same mistake by opening my heart to the Johnsons.
“Love,” I snickered to myself as I stood from the glossy floor, “can only lead to heartbreak.”





I sniffed as I woke up in my own tears on the auditorium floor. Megan was standing over me. “Hey,” she said softly, stroking one arm timidly.
I sprung to my feet. “What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t come home, Syd. We looked for you everywhere. I finally decide to come back here.”
“Don’t—“ I started, but it was too late.
“We love you, Sydney. I know Ray’s tough on you, but—“
“I don’t need love,” I snapped, making her take a step back.
“Just come home, please.” I looked at her and realized that under her gray sweat jacket were her blue check pajama pants.
I shook my head. “No, Megan. You go home. I don’t have a home. A home is a place where you’re loved and accepted. I had that once and it was ripped away from me.” I laughed, not caring this time that angry tears were running down my face. “But what could I expect, right? It was too good to be true. I thought it was my happy ending like in those stories I used to hear. But you know what? I was wrong. There are no happy endings. It’s an awful truth, right?”
“No,” she answered passionately. Her ponytail slipped as she shook her head. “It’s just an unhappy lie. Happiness is always right in front of you. You just need to know where to look.”
I shook my own head. “No. I have looked. And there isn’t any fairy tale ending in my life.”
“When you’re with the people who love you—“
I cut her off with another nasty laugh. “I told you, I don’t need anyone’s love.”
She backed away, looking me up and down as though she’d mistaken me for someone else. When her assessment was done, she shook her head in confusion.
“Love is just a weakness,” I told her through my teeth, barely registering the shock on her face. “I don’t need anyone else and I don’t want anyone else.” Then in a whisper to myself, “I’m strong enough to make it on my own. I won’t be let down again.”
She slowly nodded before walking from the room. Once she made it to the hallway I could hear her soft cry. I felt one of my own tears hit my hand and automatically sniffed. I shot behind the stage and used the cast exit, unwilling to meet with my sister again before I made it away from this building.

I spotted Jen’s vivid red hair and sunny yellow dress too late to run. She’d seen me first. She waved as she and Fedora ran to me. What do these people want? I wondered, putting down the box of crackers I’d wanted to buy and waiting impatiently for them to make it down the aisle.
“Where have you been?” Fedora burst out.
“What’s it matter?” I asked irritably.
“Well you just left us,” her sister answered sharply. She shoved their grocery basket into Fedora’s arms. Inside of it I could see fruits, vegetables, a bag of shrimp, and a few boxes of Poptarts, which I knew Megan practically lived off of. I ignored my own hunger and realized that Jen was still talking. “You never came home. We’ve been looking for you for two days! Where were you all this time?”
“Roamin’ the streets,” I told her in a sarcastic tone even though it was the truth.
She looked exasperated. “You have to come home,” she angrily informed me.
“Look, I don’t have to do anything. I already told your sister. That house is not my home. I haven’t had a home since I was eleven. You and Megan and Fedora and even Ray belong there.” I shook my head for emphasis. “I don’t. Just because some piece of paper says that your parents are supposed to be my guardians for the next two years, I don’t want their help. I’m perfectly fine the way I am.”
“Please come back,” Fedora begged. “We miss you. We love you.”
“Would you stop with this love stuff?” I barked too loudly. “I don’t want anybody’s love.”
Both girls’ eyes opened wider. A few other shoppers glanced our way or hurried out of the aisle.
I took all of the anger I had against myself for breaking my secret vow and threw it in the faces of the people who’d caused me to break it. “You can go home to your brother and tell him that Sydney is a bum now, roaming the streets and living on what she has. Won’t that make him so happy, to hear how much more awful my life is? Half his job in making me miserable is already taken care of.” I turned and stormed from the store without my food. My stomach could growl at me all it wanted, I was done with this stupid love talk.

I sat at the curb across the street from the Johnson house looking up at the full moon. I wanted them back, but I didn’t want to admit it. Weakness, I told myself. I should be totally self sufficient by this point. I was practically an adult and all I could think of was the family life I wanted so badly.
There was still a missing place in my heart that should’ve been filled with love from my real family, but they’d all died. Now the Johnsons were my family, and I couldn’t let them in, I told myself even though I knew it was too late for that.
“Sydney?” the front door opened and Maria came out in a bathrobe. I started to stand. “No, no, stay there. Sweetie, what’s wrong?”
I looked at her in bewilderment. What was wrong? Like she didn’t know. “Your family thinks I’m evil,” I mumbled as way of response.
“No we don’t,” she answered with just a hint of reproach. “Honey, everyone makes bad decisions sometimes. Like my decision to let Vinny keep that stray dog in the house. After that, every injured animal, every homeless animal, and every orphaned animal was taken into my home and cared for as though I ran a zoo.”
I couldn’t help but laugh despite myself. It was true. Between the six of them, their house had been filled up with five cats, five dogs, a few birds, and even some rodents.
She continued. “But sometimes good can come from our mistakes. Like how all of his animal adoptions developed into his desire to help an orphaned girl who turned out to be a beautiful young woman.” I brushed away a tear in the dark and she sat by my side and wrapped an arm around me. “You may have done something wrong by helping Alex, but in the end you realized it and helped to save your brother and sisters. If you hadn’t been there, or if you hadn’t told them about me, how would they have survived?”
“They wouldn’t have been in danger if they weren’t trying to stop me,” I gloomily reminded her. I pulled a clear wand from my pocket and turned it over in my hands. Guilt for what happened filled my heart, making it so heavy that I could have drowned if I’d had water to jump into.
“And that isn’t your fault. It isn’t anyone’s fault. They came for you because they care for you and you helped them because you care for them.”
She was really saying everything that I was fighting so hard to keep myself from admitting, but it was somehow less offensive without the word “love”.
She managed to get me into the house, whether by her motivating speech or by the promise of warm food and a soft bed I’m not completely sure.



Living in the Johnson house again was a little strange for the next couple of months. Maria and the girls were as kind as they ever were to me, maybe even nicer. But Vinny made me feel very unwelcome. It was impossible to share the room with him without being chased out by hateful glares or painful remarks. And Ray ignored me as he had before I moved in with them for the first time.
Ray and Vinny worked a lot, which made it a little easier on me. But it was still hard to live in the house knowing that I wasn’t wanted. When Ray came home on most days, he was accompanied by his girlfriend and coworker Mindy Baker. I don’t know what he told her about me, but something about the way she looked at me or suddenly stopped talking when I walked into a room made me suspicious.
My relief came on Saturdays, when Jen and Fedora usually had plans and the rest of the family was working. I’d make my way into the home library with a can of root beer and find a good book to curl up with.
It was just like the library sessions Megan and I used to have at school, only with more solitude.
On this particular Saturday, I decided to work on a piece of my own. I sat in a big easy chair with my little red notebook and a black pen.
I jumped up as the library door suddenly swung open, knocking a sloppy stack of books to the floor.
“Sorry,” Ray apologized instinctively, “Didn’t know you were here.”
“I thought you were at work,” I mumbled.
“No, today’s my day off,” he answered absent-mindedly.
I let myself settle back into the chair, hoping he would just leave. The library was usually my quiet place of solitude on Saturdays. Why would he just barge in here and ruin that?
He nodded silently to himself and took about seven minutes just to pick something he wanted to read. I watched him impatiently as he scanned his fingers over the books’ spines, took one off the shelve, leafed through it, put it back, and kept browsing until he’d finally made his decision.
When he looked satisfied with his choice, I looked back down at my own book. My words scrawled haltingly across the top of the page as I waited for him to leave. The fingers of one of my hands twitched against my pant leg, wanting him to just get lost and leave me alone.
He closed the door and let out a short breath as he seated himself on the chair opposite mine and fished a coke from the mini fridge. I gritted my teeth and pretended to concentrate, but the soothing silence had been transformed by his presence into an uncomfortable one. I glanced over the top of my page to see Ray sitting there, his head bobbing as he read The Scarlet Pimpernel. I shifted my legs to the other side of my body and rearranged my notebook, leaning it on my knees instead of the arm of the chair.
Something about this situation was unsettling. It was beyond awkward. It was so far beyond awkward that I hardly thought it was bearable.
“How’s that book?” I asked, my undertone probably conveying the message.
“Oh, good.” He didn’t even look at me.
I clenched my jaw. His concentration couldn’t be that strong. If I broke it maybe he’d go read in his obsessively clean room. “Yeah, what’s it about?” I asked as though I hadn’t read the book a hundred times myself.
“The French Revolution.”
I twitched in the deafening silence. If it weren’t for the soft noise he was making in humming and ahaing every few minutes, I would have assumed that by some scientific anomaly I’d actually lost my hearing.
I threw my book on the table between us with enough force that it slid to the floor. “Forget it! You win, okay? You win. You’ve officially chased me out of my one remaining comfort zone!” I stomped for the door.
“Sydney, wait.”
“What?” I demanded. What more damage could he possibly do?
“Look, about the—everything. I know I’ve given you a hard time,” he ignored my disgusted snort, “Okay, I’m sorry. I was wrong about you. There’s a lot more good than I thought.”
I have no idea what happened, but I broke down, falling back into my chair in hysterical sobs. “You have no idea how wrong you are.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” he started with sadness in his eyes.
“No,” I sniffed in an attempt to partially control my emotions, “I mean about me being good. I’m so much worse than you thought.”
“No you’re not,” he tried again. “I’ve been really tough on you, but that was only because—I was being judgmental.”
“Well I can’t disagree with that,” I half-joked.
“But now I see that you’re not who I thought you were.” I shook my head again, but he didn’t let that stop him. “Syd, you really are a good person. And I was wrong to ever tell you otherwise.”
“You don’t realize how much I want that to be true. I really do. But I’m not like you Ray. In fact, I’m jealous,” I admitted aloud for the first time. “You’re smart and talented and genuinely nice to people, but I can’t do that. Being nice is harder for me than you know.”
He closed his book in his lap. “Why? What’s so hard?”
“Ray, look around you! You’re family loves you. Your friends love you! It’s never been hard for you. I unfortunately grew up in a world where letting yourself love meant essentially opening yourself up for attack: letting your guard down. I couldn’t have that weakness. I had to be indestructible in my living conditions. Only the strong can make it out alive. Only people like me can survive.” His intent listening encouraged me to continue. “The only way to banish love from your heart is through anger and hatred. So that’s what I did. I clung to them until I felt like my life depended on them. There’s some sense of power in building walls. You know, like a fake safety, a feeling that no one will ever hurt you again because you won’t let them. But it’s addictive.”
We sat in silence as he sinking into his chair, apparently thinking about what I’d said to him. This was the first time I’d opened up like this since Megan. Neither of the siblings knew my full story, but they were slowly gaining my trust, and I knew that one day I’d likely fill them in on the details.
The room was completely still for one tiny moment that stretched out forever until I finally spoke up again. “Letting go of love was so hard, but it’s not nearly as hard as breaking walls down.”
He unexpectedly grabbed my rough hand. I was surprised by how smooth his seemed to be. “Sydney, you don’t need those walls anymore. There’s no one here who wants to hurt you. I promise. We just want—I just want to help you. You can always come to me. If there’s something that you need to discuss, or if you want advice, or need help with something, I’ll be here, okay?”
A small smile grew on my face. “Yeah. Okay.”
“The Alex thing was just a mistake. It’s completely behind us,” he assured as he stood, dropping the book carelessly onto the floor.
“Oh, no.” I suddenly breathed.
“What?” he turned back to me. As my facial expression registered, he furrowed his brow. “What’s wrong?”
“We have to stop Alex,” I swiftly headed to the door, my dark hair swishing in the burst of wind caused by my speed. I paused, my right hand resting on the knob. I looked over my shoulder with a smirk, marveling inwardly at my own breakthrough. “Did you hear that?” I asked with victory in my voice. “I said ‘we’.”