Happy Birthday Cookies

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. That’s why Mother had put her there whilst she was bedridden. It had the best views of the land they owned, even a thick forest in the distance, but she hated being in her brother’s room.

Seeing him and their cousins laugh, roll around and throw snowballs at each other, made her feel a certain kind of poisonous envy. She imagined what other kinds of fun they had she couldn't see and felt sick to her stomach.

But it wasn't all bad. Every morning, as soon as her eyelids were open, Mother would bring a glass of milk and a funny cookie, then everything didn't seem so bad.

The cookies made her feel tired like sleepy time tired and they gave her the munchy-munchies, which was good because she'd gotten really thin since she was first diagnosed. They also helped her feel no pain from the other medicine doctors called 'chemo' and Father was convinced it could reduce the alien they'd found inside her. She hadn’t been able to walk for two years.

_

Today was her 8th birthday.

They always made her a bit sad, birthdays. Especially her own. Being the centre of attention and unable to move made her feel trapped inside her own skin. But Mother had brought two cookies instead of one that morning and even if her brother had called her a 'stoner pig' yet again, she felt better already.

The buzz made life more bearable.

Today of all days, she didn’t want to upset Mother. She was a difficult but powerful woman. Keen to make her daughter better, thin like paper thin and mean to those who didn't obey her.

“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles” little Angela had read somewhere. She always thought of that when Mother fancied herself as a bit of a challenge.

Father was a rich kid. Sent to boarding School in America since he was old enough to tie his shoelaces. He thought he’d live and marry there and was even engaged to a beautiful blonde with soft manners. New money is better than no money, he thought when he proposed. But when both his parents died in a car accident and he became the sole heir to their fortune and estate, the only possible option was to move back to the chateau.

It took a wink, two drinks and an unusually short skirt worn by a black-haired Romani waitress in a humble Posada in the south of Spain to forget all about his fiancé. She had no riches to her name and barely spoke English or French but he fell madly in love anyway.

Rumours in the area had it, she bewitched him to get ahead in life.

Not even a year later she was pregnant with Angela's brother, Gabriel. The doctors thought he wouldn't live because he was born prematurely with the umbilical chord around his neck.

Against all prognostic, he did.

Angela's grandmother who came from a long lineage of Andalusian curanderas and brujas spent every night for a month at the hospital, softly chanting and cradling the newborn. When nobody was watching she put one drop of something vermillion on the his lips, and they were able to leave the hospital that same night.

Mother's own great-grandmother, who lived far beyond a 100, had taught her how to cause someone pain without having to be near them. Or how to make someone fall madly in love without a potion. She couldn’t have been older than 10 when she made her classmate’s hair fall off because she kept calling her “a weirdo” and bullying her. The doctor's called it "premature child alopecia". They were wrong.

"How are you feeling, princess?” father asked softly whilst stroking Angela's arm "happy birthday"

“Thank you, papa”

“You know, if I could, I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat”

“I know, papa”

“No, no, I mean because it’s your special day and there are a ton of presents waiting for you to open them”

Angela forced a believable smile.

“Okay, then” he said awkwardly

The day went on as expected as she drifted in and out of sleep. People came to give their blessings and left. They brought presents to the room, and took pictures. Someone forced her brother to hug her in one of them, and it felt artificial and uncomfortable for both. They resented each other deeply. Him 'cos he'd lost the best room in the castle to his stupid stoned sister. She resented him because she felt constantly rejected.

Then, as the sun started to splatter gold and orange all over the sky, her mother ran into the room in a haste and locked the door behind her waking Angela up.

_

“Hoy es el dia,” she said, today is the day.

In a swift movement, she picked her up, one arm underneath her knees, one under her shoulders. Before Angela had time to surprise herself with her mother's strength, she'd snuck her into an old Bentley parked around the back of the castle.

Her heart was beating fast and could feel it through her nightgown. But this was the most action she’d had in two years and thought was part of the birthday surprise. Mother could be over-the-top like that. She didn’t want to spoil whatever was going on so she remained quiet, observing.

The car took them through some windy roads into the thick forest until they got to a derelict barn.

At least a dozen women congregated inside. She didn’t know this yet but could see the vague resemblance between them all because they were all related on the Romani side. Mothers, daughters, grandmothers, cousins, sisters. When mother walked in with her in her arms, they all went quiet and stood in a circle looking at her.

A huge sage branch was burning and filling the room with smoke. Pools of candlelight lit the corners. A cauldron simmered on top of a basic camping stove which looked so out of place it made her grin.

“Quieres andar, hija mía?” one of the elderly women asked.

Angela remained quiet and thought it all seemed a bit Harry Potter meets Sabrina the Witch with a Disney undertone.

“Sí, sí quiere” Mother nodded. Angela perceived the slightest shade of fear mixed with something else she couldn’t quite place in her mother's face.

The same elder woman came over to her and with broken English she explained as best she could,

“The women in this family are magical. We come from nothing and will return to nothing. But we've roles to play and when we go astray, sometimes a curse befalls on one of our own. You understand?”

Angela nodded, even though she had no idea what the woman was talking about. Mother had vanished. Perhaps to get the cake, she thought.

“Your mother knew what she was doing but a price must always be paid. Some pieces in a chessboard are more important than others,..”

Angela understood that. Her father had taught her how to play even before the whole tumor thingy. During the last two years, she'd developed a fearless style that would lead her to win the game often. She knew the wins were real because her father was the most competitive person she knew and wouldn't let her take a faux victory.

“You're a Queen” the woman said “your brother is a knight…his sacrifice is necessary for you to live”

What sacrifice she was talking about, Angela didn’t know. It was all very surreal and confusing and nobody was singing happy birthday. Instead, the weird chanting kept getting louder with no Mother or cake in sight.

“We'll name your future child Gabriel, after your brother, and he will live on through his nephew. But you must accept the terms, accept your role, accept your power, accept who you are now…”

Angela looked at her light blue eyes, almost white, and shuddered. Framed by black makeup on the eyelid and the waterline, they looked like blinding lighthouses. There it was, her future. A comfortable but mediocre life without excitement. She could see everything through the window in her room which used to be her brother’s. A practiced happy face burdened with heavy shame.

Mother burst into the barn dragging Gabriel who looked mildly petrified.

“Ahora” the elderly woman said, it’s time.

A blood moon, red like its name had appeared in the inky sky. Gabriel screamed as the blade pierced his soft white jugular, but it was quick. A sacrifice, the woman had said—an unfair trade.

_

Angela tried to yell to stop them. She tried to move, but knew was futile. Her begging and involuntary laughter drowned by the intense chanting. Mother had the same look she’d seen before, half fear, and now she knew, half shame. They drew enough blood to fill the rest of the cauldron whilst singing the happy birthday song. Someone set the brew on fire and her brother’s corpse created a deep shadow on the ground.

The shadow elongated until it got to Angela, curled in a tiny ball feeling an intense chest pain. She’d never liked her brother. He was mean to her. He teased her. But he was her sibling. Did he really need to….?

“Yes” her mother whispered in her ear, “He needed to”.

Angela stopped crying and looked up at her. The other women were now dressed in robes and one by one vanishing into the night.

“There’s a lot you don’t know yet about our family,” Mother said as she stroked a glistening tear off Angela's cheek. “In time, I'll tell you everything. But not now”

And as if by magic, Angela got up on her two feet and walked out of the barn only to hear her father's voice, her saviour, whispering "how are you feeling, princess?” as she felt a soft stroke on her arm and her heavy eyelids opening up.

"I'm okay, papa"

"Happy birthday" was the last thing she heard before she jumped off the bed and ran downstairs yelling

"Gabriel!"