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I’m trying to use each picture as a part of one story, rather than each one standing alone. Not sure if that makes sense or if it will even work, but that’s what I’m trying to do so… hope it works.

Mirana sat in the small breakfast nook of her mother’s kitchen, ignoring the smell of simmering stew in the crockpot and old coffee in the percolator, staring at the nicks in the ancient formica table trying to pretend her world hadn’t just been destroyed – deliberately picked apart by her mother’s meandering, self-serving tale of unrequited love and abandonment, all in an attempt to explain why Mirana had a sister that up until today had been a secret, a person Mirana had had no idea existed. Not just any sister, either – a witch. From another planet! If not for the fact that the entire world now knew we are not alone in the Universe, she’d be calling a doctor to have her mother evaluated, rather than sitting here alone in her mother’s kitchen trying to accept what she’d been told. How could her mother have done this, she wondered. Why had she done this?

It didn’t really take much thought to understand why her mother hadn’t raised the girl – many young women decided adoption was a better alternative than struggling to raise a child alone without sufficient resources. Mirana had gone to school with a girl who had made the same choice when she found herself pregnant before finishing high school. She didn’t blame the girl for making that choice and if she were being honest with herself, she didn’t necessarily blame her mother for making the same choice. But Mirana did blame her mother for keeping the secret. For leaving her in the dark. For making her have to face this situation without any preparation or advance knowledge.

Mirana knew it wasn’t really fair to blame her mother for that. It was her mother’s life after all – and everyone is entitled to their secrets. She wasn’t about to admit that though – at least not to her mother – not now. She was still angry and somewhat shocked and wasn’t in the mood to let her mother off of any hooks just yet. A sister! Never mind that – an ALIEN sister!! How had that happened? Mirana wasn’t sure she believed her mother’s tale of a summer night spent with a fascinating man she didn’t know and never saw again. It seemed a bit too convenient for everyone involved. But whether it was one night or a thousand – there was a child. A sister! Mirana was still trying to come to grips with the fact that her mother had never, in any way, spoken of the baby she conceived, birthed and then abandoned. Would I be able to do that, she wondered? Could I just move on, never saying a word to anyone? Although to be fair, she had no way of knowing if her mother never spoke about it – she only knew her mother had never spoken about it to her and she had no intention of being fair. At least not yet. A sister!

Mirana’s eyes strayed to the picture her mother had set before her during their “conversation” and quickly looked away again. She didn’t want to look at it. Didn’t want to acknowledge it. Didn’t want to think about what it might mean. She kept hearing the words “we are related” and it terrified her, confused her. It didn’t make sense. Oh, the story made sense. Woman meets man, things happen, nine months later a child appears and the man has disappeared. Common enough story, she thought. No big surprise there. No, the surprise was two-fold. The man had not been of this world, he’d been from another planet. That was news. That was something worth talking about even if her mother had never mentioned the child. Why had she never… well, Mirana thought, probably not too hard to understand. If someone had told her they’d had an affair with an alien she was pretty sure she wouldn’t have believed a word they said after that, so maybe it wasn’t so hard to understand why she’d never heard that story. But now that everyone knew about life on other planets, shouldn’t her mother have brought it up? Shouldn’t she have said something? Anything? Mirana didn’t know and sighed as she argued with herself about it. She wasn’t going to be able to come to a consensus with herself anytime soon and figured it was a waste of time trying while she was still so upset. Her eyes strayed to the picture again and quickly moved away. She didn’t want to think about that.

Her mother said the picture had been given to her by the alien mystery lover who disappeared after their one night together. Why had he given it to her? What did it mean? It wasn’t a picture of himself which would be understandable enough – a momento would have made sense, Mirana thought. But this wasn’t a momento. It was a picture of a ruined cathedral set on an empty expanse of land covered with heather in bloom, some gravestones, a dead tree and mountains in the background. While all of the elements in the picture were easily identifiable, Mirana thought there was something slightly not right about the picture as a whole. Something about the purple heather, maybe? Maybe it was the angle of the light behind the cathedral, throwing shadows that seemed slightly off to her. Perhaps it was the oddity of seeing cathedral ruins, but no sign of any other building or evidence of other life. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it seemed… wrong. Her mother had told her this was all she had from the mystery man. Sperm donor? Mirana shook her head to clear it. She didn’t know how to refer to this man. Was he a man at all? Maybe he was an alien in a human meat-suit like in all the movies. Ewww. That was a disgusting thought.

Mirana didn’t know what to think of her mother’s story, other than the fact that it just didn’t add up. Why did she have this picture when she had nothing else? What did it represent? How did she get it, because Mirana really didn’t believe the man/alien in human meat-suit had simply dropped it, as her mother claimed. There were two reasons she didn’t believe her mother had told her the whole truth – or perhaps any truth at all. The first reason was because this “sister” had said they were related and as proof offered the reason that Mirana had heard her thoughts without there being any words. How could that happen? The “witch” part of this so-called sister came from the man – not her mother – so how could Mirana have any ability that could even be likened to a “witchy” power? No matter how many times her mother insisted she had never seen the man again, her story didn’t explain why Mirana would have any kind of ESP-type ability, especially considering she’d never been aware of any ability before. No, that part didn’t make sense, she thought. No sense at all. Her eyes strayed to the picture again. Beyond that part of the story, what really scared her, made her wonder about everything she’d ever taken for granted as true, was that she’d seen this cathedral before. She’d seen the heather, the gravestones, the dead tree, all of it. She’d been dreaming about this building since she’d been a little girl. What she wanted to know now, more than anything, was why.

I didn’t hear her approach. I didn’t hear her light the candle, though she must have done as just moments ago, the cave was pitch black. How had she approached so soundlessly? How had she created light without even a murmur ? This witch frightened me. The little bit I knew of spells and witchcraft came from the same source as everyone else’s bit of knowledge – and that was the FMD or the Federal Magic Department, created three months ago when magic burst upon our reality as more than make-believe and boasts of women who, while not actually mental patients, certainly should have been considered for evaluation, according to most of us. The little bit the FMD had told us was that magic was real; magic was inherited and operated through a strict set of rules; and most importantly, according to those rules, spells must be spoken in order to work. Clearly, this witch had never shared her method of magic with the FMD. Or, as had been the case with many other bits of information the government had given us since the Event, it wasn’t true. I wondered if governmental agents were just as clueless as I or anyone else was about magic. Wouldn’t surprise me – give a politician an audience and they’ll say whatever they think you wanted most to hear. And most of us definitely wanted magic to be something we could measure and understand even if we couldn’t wield it. What we really wanted most to hear was that life would return to normal but even the most pandering politicians weren’t saying that.

“I knew you would return; I told you so when last we met,” the witch said. Yes, she had told me that. I wasn’t happy about it then and I certainly wasn’t happy about it now. But needs must and all that, so here I stood, shivering either due to the dampness and cold, or due to fear. It was the damp and cold. Definitely. Yes, that was it.

“So you knew – goody for you. Will you tell me what’s going on or are we going to play let’s scare the human some more?” Did I think being aggressive was a good idea? Not really, but her poise and calm assurance that she held the upper hand was annoying and I tend toward aggression when annoyed.

“It wasn’t my intent to scare you,” she replied, with that annoying small smile getting a bit bigger.

“Right. Because appearing out of thin air and producing light without making a sound certainly shouldn’t scare anyone. How silly of me,” I said, throwing out an arm for emphasis. Sarcasm was also a knee-jerk reaction to fear, at least for me.

“Ah, yes. Your FMD. The FMD knows what we want them to know or what they believe they’ve figured out. Our magic is new to this world – it would be foolish to assume the FMD or any other group would know all there is to know about it.”

“Clearly. Wait… this world?” My head started spinning and I didn’t want to contemplate the possible explanations behind that cryptic remark but knew with certainty that she was going to disturb me even further with revelations, though I couldn’t understand why. Why me? Of all the humans in all the different places on this planet, why tell me? Of what possible use could I be to them? It made no sense.

“Yes, Mirana. This world. There are many populated worlds. We exist on all of them.” Could her smile have become a smirk? Yes, I think it definitely could, and did. So. Many worlds – well, we had assumed that, hadn’t we? The question was, how to move between them. The next question was, were we sure we wanted to? But a bigger question had just blossomed.

“You know my name.” Not a question – clearly a statement. “How?” That was the question most begging an answer at the moment.

“I know much about you. I know your parents’ names, and their parents and so on. I know where you’ve lived and worked, who you’ve loved. I know -“

“Hold on just a minute,” I said, the volume of my voicing rising along with my fear. “How do you know these things? Why do you know them? What do you want from me?”

The witch looked at me with something akin to pity in her eyes and her voice got softer as though knowing she was about to deliver a blow and wanted to soften it even though she knew she couldn’t. “Because your family is my family as well. We are related.”

Shock coursed through me – how could we be related? I came from a very small family circle, no siblings and only one aunt who had several cats but no children. We couldn’t possibly be related. Besides, I was pretty sure I’d been born on this planet. “You’ve made some kind of mistake there-“I stopped and looked at her inquiringly.

“You may call me Sonia. That is not actually my name but is shorter and easier for you to pronounce.”

“OK Sonia – you’ve made a mistake. We’re not related. I have no siblings, my parents have no siblings except for one and she has no children. There’s no way we’re related.” The woman was clearly insane. She came from a different planet – apparently – did she really think she could sell me on this? But more importantly, why would she want to?

“There’s no mistake, Mirana. Ask yourself why you came here when we last saw each other. You said you heard a voice calling your name. It’s true someone was calling your name – it was me. But I was not calling your name with words – I did not speak. You heard words that were not spoken. We are related.”

This was getting creepier by the minute. “Anyone can think they hear someone calling their name. That doesn’t mean anything. It certainly doesn’t mean we’re related.” I was beginning to feel less fear and more anger and I had had enough. “If this is a joke, I’m not laughing,” I said, hoping she would finally acknowledge it as all for a laugh and admit that one of my feather-brained friends had put her up to it.

“This is not a joke, Mirana. I understand this is difficult for you. I also understand you don’t want it to be true – but it is. Your mother gave up a child before you were born. Ask her. Once you have asked, come back. We have much to discuss.” And with that, the light went out and she was gone. It was always possible she just blew out the candle and moved – it was pitch black except for the bit of light coming from the cave opening and I couldn’t see a thing. But I didn’t hear her blow out the candle and I didn’t hear her move, either. I took a step toward where she had stood and cast my arms out in front of me, searching for her, but there was nothing. I thought I could hear her voice, but it wasn’t emanating from inside the cave, it was in my head. I reached in my pocket and took out the small flashlight, switching it on as fast as I could. There was no one there. Walking toward the cave entrance, I reached into the other pocket and pulled out my cell phone and dialed.

“Mom? Mom, please tell me I do not have a sister that you put up for adoption.”

My mom let out a deep sigh. “I knew this day would come – I didn’t know how, but I knew it would. Where are you?”

“I’m in a cave having just spoken to a witch who claims to not only be my sister but to come from another planet and I’m wondering just what the hell is going on!” I answered.

“Come home, sweetheart – we need to talk.”

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

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