Chapter 5: Matriarch Magnolia

As she had so many times already, Imogen led the way. We pushed into the office of the Matriarch, Imogen's hand rapping twice on the door as we did.

"Mom?" she called out. "I've brought Ophelia."

"Good, good! Ophelia, such a delight to meet you!"

Matriarch Magnolia looked nothing like her daughter. She was a stout, greying woman with a pair of horn-rimmed glasses suspended on a chain around her neck. Draped around her shoulders was a nice grey cardigan and in one hand she clutched a wizened wooden cane.

She looked like a cartoon caricature of a librarian.

She stood to greet us and came out from behind a heavy wooden desk covered in stacks of orderly papers. The room was lit from the natural daylight coming through several windows and in one of those sunbeams a large lizard basked. A monitor or an iguana, he was easily six feet in length. The Matriarch's Familiar, most likely.

The Matriarch grasped my hand warmly. She had the affect of a grandmother, despite only looking like she was in her late forties.

"I understand you've had quite the adventure getting here," she said. "Let me be one of the first to say: we are glad to have you with us."

Her tone felt slightly off. Like she was irritated by something I didn't understand.

"Thank you." I nodded my head, uncertain of how to act. "Matriarch... do you have a title? I'm sorry I don't know--"

She waved her hand and snorted. "Call me Adriana, dear. Unless we're involved in some sort of formal gathering or ritual. Coffee or tea?"

"Coffee." I wondered what time it was. Had I slept through the night? There was a lot of sunlight here, but that could be magic.

Adriana nodded to her daughter, and Imogen stepped out to grab us our drinks. The Matriarch returned to her desk chair and motioned for me to take a seat across from her.

"So." she said, with more authority in one word than I could fit in a whole sentence. "You must be full of questions."

"A couple, yeah." I glanced around the office. The lizard had opened one eye to regard me with a lazy skepticism.

Adriana steepled her fingers and leaned forward. "Let me walk you through the situation, and you can ask questions as you need to. Sound alright?" I nodded and she continued. "As I'm sure Imogen has told you, magic is real and you are a witch. That doesn't mean you are evil, or that you consort with demons, or that you must wear a pointy hat. What it means, is that you can see magic and--if given ample time and training--you can work magic. Most witches are born into one of the seven families. Occasionally, one comes from the Ungifted world, like yourself."

"Ungifted?" I raised an eyebrow.

"The technical term," Adriana said, with a practiced smile, "for the non-magical world. Now, as someone born outside of the seven families, you will be expected to join one of them if you wish to stay in magical society. Your ability to choose makes you quite the important person. Witches, especially those with new bloodlines, are exceedingly valuable to the families."

A dark thought crossed my mind. "So they can... breed me?" I asked.

"What? No." Adriana wrinkled her nose. "Goodness, no. A witch might live for several hundred years--more in the Baobab family. During that life she is a source of power and wealth for her family. If she chooses to have children, all the better, but no one EXPECTS it of you."

"Sorry, one too many dystopian novels," I smiled sheepishly.

"Yes, you'll want to forget about those." Adriana straightened a couple pages absentmindedly. "Occasionally there are parallels between our reality and the imaginations of the Ungifted, but such are few and far between. You'll make many more mistakes trying to base your knowledge on some novel than you will walking into the practice of magic completely blind."

"Right, sorry." I swallowed nervously. "Imogen mentioned something about that."

"Water under the bridge." Adriana continued, focused and to the point as before. "You have a Familiar and an Implement out there somewhere, the first order of business would be finding them. For the Familiar, there's a ritual we can perform, but you'll need the Implement first. And that, you can only draw from one of the seven trees."

"One for each family?" I guessed.

Adriana nodded. "Correct. Magnolia, Pine, Fir, Elm, Cedar, Baobab, and Maple. Sending you from tree-to-tree will also give you a chance to see what each family is like, and to determine where you fit in best."

"Unless they all are as beautiful as this place, I don't know how hard of a decision it's going to be." I glanced out the window, admiring the soaring branches of the giant Magnolia tree and its many-colored flowers. I also saw Imogen walking back along a raised bridge, carrying a tray of drinks. She smiled at a bird as it flew close by. Yeah, I wanted to live here.

"Well, I can make the decision a bit easier for you," Adriana said, drawing my attention back to the room. "Since you can't choose to stay here, it's really a decision between six different families."

"What?" I couldn't stay here? But... I wanted Imogen. It didn't really make sense, since we'd just met, but the thought of having to live away from her twisted something in my chest.

Adriana didn't pick up on my distress. "It's against the rules," she said. "For a family to find a witch and immediately bring them into the fold. If we allowed such behavior, it might lead to territorial skirmishes and inter-family conflict. Such times of violence are thankfully behind us."

"Right." I felt my heart sink. It didn't feel like a rule I was grateful for.

"But there's another question we must answer first, before we can do anything." Adriana leaned across the desk towards me. I found myself transfixed by her gaze, the same silver eyes as Imogen's. "Do you, Ophelia, want to live in the magical world? Or would you rather stay in the one you came from?"

I blinked. Return to my tiny apartment in the city? Go back to looking for jobs? Live the rest of my life knowing there were amazing magical things to see and that I would never see them?

"Has anyone ever said no?" I asked. "How could they possibly turn this down?"

Adriana shrugged, but I could see her hiding a smile. "It never hurts to ask. Shall we begin?"