Holidays are brilliant.

Honestly, I can’t understand anyone who doesn’t like being on holiday. Like my mum for example, as all she ever seemed to do was work all the time. But she had decided that the UK in January was far too cold for her this year and whisked both myself and my Aunt away, for a week long holiday in the sun in Marrakech. Going on holiday was wholly unlike her, but booking it on a whim and taking me and my Aunt and paying for the whole thing; was absolutely not like her at all. In fact she insisted. I wasn’t complaining though. Whilst I enjoyed spending time at home over the holidays and spending time with the rest of my family, the vampires and our Coven; it was nice to literally get away from everything and warm my bones under the lovely Moroccan sun. In a private villa no less, with its own pool and everything. It was absolute bliss.

That seemed like a very distant memory now. The new year happened which we spent at Arne’s, then mum whisked us away for our holiday immediately after; then it was the end of April already. No word of a lie; Easter (or Ostara for us witches,) Pancake Day, that one month where we had a bunch of Bank holidays and teacher training days at school and were barely at school had all passed in the blink of an eye. Thinking about it, I didn’t actually have long left at school. By September, I would be in my last year. One year of sixth form left and then I was free from Secondary School. Of course I could go on to Uni if I wanted to after that but that was my problem. I didn’t know what I ultimately wanted to do. Bummer.

Serious thinking aside, I had just about a week before I was off on holiday again. I say holiday, it’s not like I was going anywhere exotic or anything; but my Aunt had promised she would take me to Manchester at some point. So we settled on going for the early May bank holiday weekend. Auntie M had even recently bought a new apartment somewhere in Manchester and she was having some decorating work done to it which was to be finished this week, along with her new furniture being moved in. Auntie M was quite the property mogul.

She told me that this was where most of her income actually came from, property investment and sales and rentals; mainly non-permanent short term rentals and holiday lets. She already had a property in Manchester which I had been to once years ago, she had her mad little house near us here which she did actually live in some of the time but let it out when she wasn’t around. Turns out she had a lot more places I didn’t know about; a town house in Whitby, a flat in Edinburgh and a cottage in Cornwall. And they were all bought, paid for and making my Aunt a more than decent income. Either way, Auntie M told me that we would be staying at her new apartment before she started renting it out.

I was pretty excited about it actually, returning to where my family came from for a visit. Well, they were from a small town outside of Manchester but there was more going on there. The first industrialised city in the world, the home of the Suffragette Movement. The obvious music capital of the UK and the birthplace of the best drink ever, Vimto. My Aunt always told me that you could tell “there was Northerner in me” due to my love of Vimto. Auntie M even joked that the stuff was running through her own veins. When we did eventually get to Manchester, Auntie M said that we would have a chippy tea that night and get fish, chips, gravy, curry sauce and a few cans of fizzy Vimto. I would be made up for the entire trip with that alone, as it was very rare I actually had fish and chips in the south of England where I was. My Aunt hated the chippies down here, as you could never get “owt moist” to dip your chips in unless you made it yourself.

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All I had to do was make it through this week; my mind numbingly boring classes at school, my after school Judo class which had me moderately interested, my after dinner walks and movie nights with Katie and Victoria; who thankfully after discovering I was a witch, haven’t had me doing tricks like some performing monkey. I have refilled several cups of tea for them though and magicked some biscuits in to existence, but that was mainly because we couldn’t be arsed going and getting any.

I had learned after the debacle at the end of last year, to appreciate the time I had to chill out and do whatever I wanted. My craft studying schedule wasn’t as packed or as strenuous as before, mainly because I was starting to get the hang of thing and get good. Auntie M told me to slow down a bit though as I had a habit of overdoing it, but she was one to talk. She was the Queen of overdoing everything. Thankfully, my mum had accepted that this is what I was doing with my life now and had finally admitted to herself, that she did sort of miss using her magic; even for simple basic stuff. So she started using her magic a little more than usual. Well what was usual for her. You could tell though as she had actually started to loose a little weight and was eating better too.

I couldn’t really be mad at my mum any more. She really was trying with me and she was beginning to contact me more. Plus she was spending time with me, my Aunt and my cousins Molly and Macy even more too. But I especially couldn’t be mad at her for finally managing to get me booked in for driving lessons. My name had been on a waiting list for a local, highly rated instructor and a space had finally come available. Mum had made sure that I would get all the lessons I would need and if I passed all the tests before the end of the year; she would get me my own car. My Aunt sweetened the deal by saying she would pay for the tax and insurance for the first year for me too, just so I could enjoy my first year of driving with only having to keep it fuelled and road worthy. And I started my lessons the week after I would get back from Manchester. I had a lot to look forward really, thinking about it.

At least it was based in some kind of normalcy. Well, what I would consider normal now. The only thing that wasn’t normal was the fact I hadn’t seen Duncan in what seemed like forever, even though it had only been about a month. He had gone on sabbatical back to Scotland, to travel round the country on his own for a bit and visit his actual “vampire family.” His vampiric siblings who had been turned by the same vampire who had sired him. Apparently, Duncan’s sire was quite the bastard as he turned loads of vampires through the ages and just left them on their own. This was apparently a little too common among their kind and was usually frowned upon by the overall community. A sireless baby vampire was a dangerous thing and those like Arne who took them in were sort of regarded as saviours and heroes.

But I had learned that the reason why vampires go on these sabbaticals, is due to the old legend that vampires have to sleep in the dirt of their homeland in a coffin or something. This was a partially true. While vampires didn’t need to avoid sunlight completely and sleep during the day at all; they did for some reason have to travel back to their home country once every decade or so, whenever they felt their strength wane and sleep in the dirt outside somewhere for a few nights. This somehow helped them regain their strength and topped them up for a while. So, most vampires made a bit of a holiday out of this necessity. I was missing Duncan. Vampires didn’t really contact anyone on these sabbaticals as it was deemed a private, almost spiritual sort of practice; but I did get the occasional text and photo off him. I just had to wait till he got back. And knowing my luck, it’d probably be when I was away.