Free Returned by Keeley Smith Page A

old.”
                  She nearly fell off the chair. My God! She wasn’t sure what she’d been waiting for. But she was seventeen, she'd recently had a birthday. She looked seventeen. She sucked in a breath, she looked seventeen. That was the problem, wasn’t it?
    “Your mother never did tell me who your father was,” Tabitha said, continuing even though Cora was falling to bits over the whole age issue. “The law, our own Wiccan law states that a witch can be with a commoner but she can never tell him what she is. The same goes for you. If you meet and fall in love with a commoner, you cannot let him know who you truly are. Take my advice, relationships always work better with another witch.”
    “I don't think I have the time for a boyfriend right now.” She was trying to sound sarcastic but it just came out as one big sigh.
    “Good,” Tabitha smiled taking her comment literally.
    Her mother would have detected the sarcasm.
    Tabitha's smile soon faded as she continued her tale. “Your mother, my best friend was murdered in 1612, you were seventeen years old. A powerful witch goes through a change. This change is more commonly triggered by an emotional or physical experience. Once a witch goes through the change they will never age in appearance, their age will not change. I once knew a witch who was nearly four thousand years old, we consider that to be a good age. Death will also come from the same things that can kill humans, guns, knives and such things. Disease, cancer or infections do us no harm. The less powerful become old and die,” she smiled before saying, “that is how they become the three decrepit witches outside my shop. It was believed many years ago that this was how the Devil rid the world of the weak. He only wanted the strong representing him here on earth. Of course, it isn’t true. You remain seventeen years old because the death of your mother was the turning point for you.”
    “So, you’re saying I will look seventeen all my life?”
    “Yes.”
    No!
    That wasn’t right. She refused to be forever seventeen. “But I just had a birthday. I'm seventeen and next year I will be eighteen. I will be eighteen.” If she willed it, it would come true, she was sure.
    “You are seventeen but every time we go through the process of taking those memories we make you believe you are nearly sixteen. I’m afraid you will never be eighteen.”
    She sank deeper into the chair. This was depressing. She couldn’t believe that th is had been going on since 1612.   Her life was one big lie. Being seventeen meant that she would always be asked for ID. What did you live for if you didn't die? What made you strive to do things in life, to conquer a 'what to do before you die list?’
    She looked at Tabitha, her coal black hair pulled to one side, her eyes focused on her.
    “Wait, how long have you been running the shop?”
    “A number of years,” Tabitha said, skilfully evading the intended meaning behind the question.
    Cora wasn’t going to let her off the hook just yet. “But won't people start asking questions? You look the same, Tabitha, years later you will still look the same, people may just notice this.”
    “Well, I have weaved a complicated spell on the residents in this village. No one questions it. They don't notice how I look.”
    “Isn't there a law against that?” she asked.
    “I imagine there is but I have a life here, one that I'm unwilling to give up.”
    Well, who was she to argue? She didn't want to move now either.
    “Does the spell apply to me?” she asked feeling uncertain. She didn’t want to believe for the first time in a year she could call somewhere home.
    “If you would like it to?”
    She felt the relief. It helped that Tabitha would extend the spell, would allow her to make a home here. “I need more time to figure this whole thing out.”
    “I understand this must be hard for you, Cora, and we have discussed a lot tonight. I will suspend your