Page 5 of The Little Shop of Curiosities Cursed Object 1, The Music Box

I’ve struggled with nightmares since I was a child. They’ve always been the same. Dreams where I’m someone else, locked up in a terrible place, always cold and hungry and in pain. But I can never quite recall the details. The dreams have always been so vivid when I’m caught up in the grip of them, but they fade quickly after, leaving me with only faint memories and a vague sense of unease. For the past few months, however, the aftermath has steadily been getting worse. I’ve woken up with phantom pains, more exhausted than when I went to bed.

I know I should tell my dads, but…

I shake my head at the thought. I don’t want to burden them. They love me, they always have, but I’m equally sure that I really wasn’t what they had in mind when they adopted a kid. Sometimes I wonder if having me put them off adopting any more.

I’m a lot, I know I am. After all, I’ve never been normal.

Shaking off the morose thoughts, I push the tangled covers away from me and swing my legs over the side of the bed. As I sit and stare into the darkness of the room, my alarm goes off, making me jolt. Slapping the button to silence it, I suck in another shaky breath as I feel an insidious coil of anxiety try to claw its way up from the pit of my stomach.

It’s early and still dark outside, so I reach over and switch on the bedside lamp, flooding my room with a soft light.

Today is the day everything will change.

I don’t know yet if it’s a good or a bad thing, but I know it has to happen. I’m a grown man, and I can’t keep living in my parents’ house because I’m too afraid to face the world and find my place in it.

My gaze sweeps slowly across the neatly ordered space, my childhood room. It’s huge. After all, we live in a massive farmhouse in rural Devon, and it’s only ever been the three of us rattling around. Us and the dogs, of course.

The room itself hasn’t really changed all that much. Long gone is the Thomas the Tank Engine wallpaper and bedding, which admittedly, I may have been slightly obsessed with as a child, but everything else remains more or less the same, despite the renovations Dad and Pop indulged in over the years.

I have a double bed now instead of a single, and it’s covered in deep blue bedding the colour of the midnight sky and scattered with subtle stars and moons. The walls are painted a silver grey that has a faint shimmer to it. Between the large, heavy wardrobe and chest of drawers is my desk, the same one I used for my homework when Dad so patiently homeschooled me.

Now it’s piled high with documents, files, copies of birth and death certificates, and old newspaper clippings. Why? Curiosity, I suppose. About my mother. My dads have always been honest with me. I knew she lived in London and was very young when she had me. My dad had been on shift that night in the hospital and had been the one who delivered me rather than one of the midwives. He and Pop ended up adopting me, and shortly after, Pop was offered a pub, aptly named The Water Witch, so we moved to Devon, with Dad taking a position as a local GP.

For the first few years, we lived in the apartment above the pub. Then it became clear that I had certain abilities that made being around too many people almost intolerable to me.

I’m an empath. A true empath. I don’t read people’s microexpressions or sympathise deeply with them. I feel everything. The wind, the earth beneath my feet, the rotation of the planet, and most overwhelming of all…feelings.

Every random person that crosses my path broadcasts every single emotion they experience—loudly and often aggressively, even if they don’t realise they’re doing it.

It’s like being hit in the face by a brick. It’s excruciating and exhausting. As a small child in constant proximity to people coming into the pub to celebrate or wallow in their misery over a pint, there were days my head felt like it was going to explode.

I’m lucky my dads figured it out quickly and moved us to this farmhouse, which is surrounded by acres of land they lease out to the farm next door for crops. Living here has been so peaceful for me.

I did try regular school. Once I reached the age of eleven, with the help of both of my dads, I’d managed to gain enough control of my empathic abilities to function around people. Pop decided I needed to be around kids my own age. To make friends. To be a normal, even though I was far from it.

I managed a couple of years, but making friends was hard for me, and as soon as we all started hitting puberty, I couldn’t deal with the onslaught of teenage emotions. That hadn’t been the only reason though.

When I started going through puberty myself, I started manifesting…other abilities.

As if being tuned into the emotional frequency of every passing stranger wasn’t bad enough, now I had a whole load of new problems to deal with. I began to exhibit magical abilities my dads had never even heard of, let alone witnessed before. And my dads are no strangers to magic. Dad is a second-generation witch, and Pop is seventh generation. But me, I’m something completely other.

They consulted covens, elders, solitary witches, and yet no one had ever heard of anyone who could manifest the kind of power I can with nothing more than a thought.

I chose to follow the path of the witch, to follow in my dads’ footsteps. I love the craft, the traditions and ceremonies, but it’s never been necessary for me. Most witches I know and have met through the years need the craft—they borrow the power they wield, and even then, there’s a certain level they can’t surpass, as if the stipulation of borrowing magic is that parental controls are set on it. But for me, it’s always there, bubbling under my skin.

Restless.

Limitless.

I suppose that was the point at which I began to become curious about my biological parents. Did the abilities I have come from them?

I have no idea who my biological father is. There’s no name on my birth certificate, and Dad said my mother never mentioned him. She’d given birth in the hospital alone, in the dead of night, and was gone by morning. Once I started looking into her family, I became fascinated, convinced the magic that runs through my veins comes from them.

My second alarm goes off, and I hit the button again to shut it off, then scrub my hands over my face. My bladder is now protesting vehemently, and I know I can’t sit here much longer. I look up as my bedroom door is nudged open and a cute, furry little face appears.

Seeing that I’m obviously awake, she shoves the door open further and scampers into my room, tail wagging and bum wiggling close to the floor as she dances in excitement.

“Morning, Demeter.” I stroke her gently. “Where’s Circe?”