Half term.

Those two words were never sweeter, but they were somewhat bittersweet as I had to say goodbye to by best friends for a little bit and say hello again; to my spiritual home, Manchester. My Aunt had come good on her promise of sorting her stupidly expensive apartment out and had changed a few things around, so they were more to her taste. At least we’d be spending our time here in comfort.

As soon as we parked her new-old car and got up to the apartment, Auntie M was gesturing me to give her my purse to which she fished out my provisional driving licence. She rubbed her thumb over it a few times as she glared at it and handed the small green plastic card back to me. She had just put a bit of glamour over it, changing the year of my birth by a year. According to my driving licence, I was in fact eighteen.

‘Trust me, if we’re planning on being here for the next however long I am not leaving you outside any pubs or clubs or on your own.’ Auntie M told me. ‘And you can drink if you like, I know you’re not irresponsible to get absolutely arseholed, that’s my job.’ Auntie M grinned. ‘But for the love of fuck please don’t tell your mum.’

I nodded at her frantically. I’m glad my Aunt trusted me enough to give me back my driving licence with a different year of birth on it, making me old enough to actually pass as an eighteen year old thus being able to drink legally amongst other things. But I also knew I wasn’t that much of a big drinker to begin with, so the chance of me getting “arseholed” wasn’t really an issue.

‘Believe me though it’ll make it much easier if you can just get in pubs and clubs with no hassle. Hunter’s have a tendency to catch our trails when we’re letting our guard down a bit. But unfortunately, they’re also the best places to find clues and pick up leads.’

Now it all made sense.

‘But it wouldn’t hurt to have a drinking buddy now would it?’ Auntie M nudged me. ‘Right I’ll message Penelope and tell her we’re here. Her niece is also learning the ropes too, I think she’s the same age as you. Can’t remember her name though, only met her briefly once.’

At least I wasn’t the only newbie involved in this. I felt a little less nervous now knowing that there would be another girl my age going through this exact thing too. I shrugged off a few of my self doubts and made my way in to what was now my room, dumped my stuff by the door, then went to freshen up a bit. I redid my hair and touched up my make up, threw on a bit more deodorant and a few squirts of some Anna Sui perfume I had in my handbag that was nearly empty. It wasn’t long until my Aunt tapped on the door and poked her head round.

‘Hey are you about ready to go? Penny just messaged me back they’re not far from Deansgate, I suggested we go to Almost Famous for tea how does that sound?’

‘That sounds good, I haven’t been to Almost Famous before.’ I said. It was a really popular burger restaurant chain founded in Manchester and apparently, according to my Aunt their burgers were “absolute filth.” Which was Northern for “really, really good.”

We decided to walk to the Almost Famous restaurant at the Great Northern; another interesting piece of Manchester’s history. It was originally back in the late eighteen hundreds, a storage warehouse for the Great Northern Railway Company. But now it had long been converted in to a leisure and retail complex, with loads of shops and restaurants and entertainment venues. It really was quite cool to think the place used to store various goods that came via rail and the waterways that used to be underneath. I thought it was cool and kinda impressive anyway. But I didn’t have time to stand outside and admire it all for long as my Aunt ushered me in to the restaurant. One of the servers asked if we had a table booked, but Penelope and her niece had beaten us there and had grabbed us a table. She stood from her seat and waved us over with a huge grin on her face.

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Penelope or “Penny” for short was not much bigger in height than my Aunt, but she looked even taller still as she had bushy, quite curly blonde hair that bounced around whenever she moved. She had flushed pale skin and icy blue eyes that twinkled with glee. I could tell she was happy to see my Aunt, not just from the big cheesy grin but from the “Get over here Mori you crazy bitch!” she exclaimed as she threw her arms around my Aunt. She had a voice similar to my Aunts, deep and low and with a similar accent. Kinda funny considering they were both from opposite sides of Manchester, as the Manchester accent itself sound nothing like either of them.

‘Aw it’s great to see you again Penny, it’s been fucking ages.’

‘You too Mori. Oh and this is your niece?’ Penelope looked over to me.

‘Yeah, this is Madelyn. She’s my sister Miriam’s girl.’ Auntie M waved me over and introduced me.

‘Nice to finally meet you Madelyn. Here let me introduce my niece, this is Theresa.’ Penny shuffled aside and let a young girl step up.

She had similar features to her Aunt, but was also a sort of opposite to her; in fact it reminded me of myself and my Auntie M. I had the blonde hair and light blue eyes while my Aunt had the dark hair and weird greeny eyes, but we both shared our family’s facial features of a slightly round face and the worlds thinnest top lips. It was obvious a similar thing was happening with Penelope and Theresa. I then started thinking about how a lot of witches seamed to have really old school names.

Hiya, please just call me Tessa. Nobody calls me Theresa.’ She grinned as she held out her hand. I smiled and gave it a firm shake.

‘Please call me Maddie. Madelyn’s a bit much.’

We both chuckled at each other before we were ushered to sit down. It didn’t take us long to order food and a huge amount of it. The look on the waitresses face when we all rattled off our orders like it was nothing was something. We all had double burgers of some variety, loaded fried and lord knows how many sides each. Auntie M and Penelope were happy as the place did two-for-one cocktails with humorous names, but Tessa and I were quite happy to settle for a few cokes and a diabetes inducing milkshake. I did get to speak to her quite a bit as my Aunt and Penelope were busy chatting like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in ages, which was true; they hadn’t.

‘So how long have you been witching Maddie?’ Tessa asked me just as she was cutting her burger in half to make it more manageable. I was about to do the same, but I took some of the pickles and the slab of tomato off my to decrease the burger in height first.

‘Around six months or so now, not very long. How about you?’

‘Just a few months longer, about eight nearly nine months.’ Tessa then dipped her head down a little bit and spoke barely just over a whisper.

‘Are you still finding it weird? Like, having powers and stuff?’ She asked me.

‘Absolutely.’ I replied. ‘I don’t know about you, but I didn’t know I was from a family of witches to begin with.’

‘Are you serious?’ Tessa said, she sounded genuinely a little bit shocked by it.

‘Yep. My mum didn’t tell me. And she stopped the rest of my family from telling me, not like I really saw them or knew about them anyway.’ I rolled my eyes.

‘But your awakening got you anyway.’ Tessa stated.

‘Yep. I dunno, I figured that my mum was trying to stave it off or something by not having me exposed to it all to begin with.’ I said as I shrugged my shoulders.

‘I was told I was a late bloomer.’ Tessa said with a sly grin on her face.

‘Same.’ I replied, grinning as well. ‘Most of my family were apparently really young when they had their awakenings.’

‘Yeah same with my family too. I mean Auntie Penny was like, seven or something and my other Auntie Kathy had just turned eight. My Mum was about sixteen though.’

‘Well here’s a question for you.’ I said, taking a quick break from eating just to blot my lips with a napkin. ‘What is your most used daily spell?’ I asked Tessa.

‘Oh Christ definitely the brew refill spell.’ She answered instantly.

‘Now way! It’s mine too!” I squeaked.

‘Ooh! And do you reckon that every time you refill, it actually tastes better than the last?’ Tessa asked me back.

‘Oh my God yes! I thought that was all in my head!’

We giggled and laughed and drank and ate a near literal tonne of food, all whilst the serving staff and most of the customers glared at us in a weird sort of fascination. The gaggle of unbeknownst to them; cackling witches.