Dear Child,

I'm terrified. My fingers tremble as they fly across my worn laptop's keyboard. Your father knew about you before I did. The memory of him freezing mid-step in our RV's doorway and sniffing the air is burned in my mind. His yellow eyes widened before a smile exploded across his chiseled face. Without taking off his muddy construction boots, he leaped across the hardwood and wrapped me in a hug. His beard tickled as he kissed his way up my neck to my lips.

While the affection was welcome, the suddenness of it made me squirm.

"You're pregnant!" Gael exclaimed with the excitement of a puppy. "I smell it!"

My cheeks burned. "What?"

"I'm going to be a father!"

"You damn dog," I muttered as the weight of his words turned my veins to ice. I stared at the wall while clinging to your father for hours.

At nineteen, I don't know if I'm ready to be your mother. I've only finished one term of culinary school. Waitressing occasional evenings is the only job I have. And I don't have experience taking care of babies. What should I do when you cry? Are we doomed to repeat the toxic relationship I have with my mom? But the thought of you dying before I can give birth makes my heartache. Somehow, you're worth the exhaustion, swollen limbs, and all the nauseous morning. I don't know you, yet I already love you. I find myself rubbing my belly throughout the day and meditating on who - and what - you're going to be.

Your daddy loves you too. The past four full moons, he's dragged home prey for us. The first time, I screamed at the bloody raccoon dangling in your father's jaw. But he looked so proud, the moonlight making his wolf's silver and brown fur shimmer as he wagged his tail, and so I cooked it. While the meat was reminiscent of chicken, I still needed globs of ketchup to choke it down. Yet that raccoon was nothing compared to the grizzly the werewolf pack helped Gael drag in last month's full moon. I needed a monstrous freezer after butchering it.

But, Baby, I'm not writing this just to rave about how amazing your dad is. I could, but I won't. I want you to know my story. I'm sorting my emotions and leaving you something of myself should I die giving birth to you. With our lineage, I won't deliver in the safety of a hospital.

Baby, you have magic in your family and magic in your blood. My mother - your grandmother - didn't tell my twin sister or me about this magic until it had already torn us apart. I don't want you to suffer that pain.

The first glimpse I had of our family's magic was in the second grade. My twin sister, Sedna, and I were coloring at a large round table with our classmates. The fluorescent lighting made the yellow walls decorated in candy-colored posters seem brighter, and the scratching of pencils and crayons filled the room. I finished coloring a frog green when I heard wheezing, like air through a straw.

The noise was Sedna's breathing. She grabbed at her chest and convulsed. Her silver eyes were saucers as they darted around the room.

Chairs screeched as the kids closest to her jumped to get away like she was contagious. Then the room seemed to pause as everyone gawked.

My heart drummed as my stomach tried to jump out of my mouth. I didn't know how to help. My body refused to move. I was useless.

The rest of that day is a blur. I know someone called 911 because men reminiscent of giants crowded around my sister then took her away on a stretcher. I tried to chase after her, but my teacher grabbed my hand and knelt next to me.

"Moray," my teacher said as I cried and struggled to pull away. "You need to stay here, sweetheart." Her voice was low and calm. She was the authority, and I had to obey.

I curled up on the floor and sobbed. I was a child terrified that I had lost my sister.

My face burned. Snot bubbled in my nose and flowed down the back of my throat. My teacher tried to console me, but I hugged my knees and screamed when she asked me to move. Eventually, the principal led me to her office to wait for my mom. Someone set up a TV and ran Sesame Street, but I couldn't focus on it.

The bell chimed to announce the end of another school day. From the office, I watched all the other children leave. Their voices echoed through the halls before being replaced with silence. It felt wrong: like the school was being haunted by loneliness. I hugged myself. Little did I know that this was far from the last time that I'd be stuck waiting for Mom long after the school bell. Eventually, I'd start walking, then biking home.

The secretaries were packing up when my neighbor, Ronda, ran into the office. She was an older woman with a prune face and a tight bun of white hair pinning the tops of her ears to her head. She talked with the office ladies before taking my hand.

"Where's Sedna?" I asked as she led me from the air-conditioned school into the oven of the desert's heat.

"Your sister is at the hospital with your mom. I'm staying with you until they come home," she explained.

"Is my sister okay?"

Ronda paused. "She has Asthma."

I didn't know asthma's meaning back then, but it was the wrong diagnosis. The doctors couldn't have imagined the truth.