Zenitt nearly fell headfirst into the river.

Breathing with great difficulty, the girl stepped back just as her body was invaded by an unpleasant sensation, as if an infinite number of tiny insects were crawling beneath her skin. As the terrible tingling grew stronger, the girl noticed that her body was starting to change. At last, the feeling faded, and she was able to stand again.

She raised her hands in front of her face and let out a deep sigh of relief when she saw her fingers, perfectly normal and human, free of that white fur that had covered her body seconds earlier. Hesitant, she peeked over the surface of the river again. She was met with her reflection’s brown eyes. Never, in her entire life, had Zenitt been more pleased to see her reflection.

A mighty twang echoed around the park. Zenitt, altered as she was after that inexplicable experience, gave a jump and feared to become an animal again. However, she managed to retain her human appearance. It took her a couple seconds to understand the sound was nothing but the bell of the nearby church, which indicated that it was half past eight. She’d better get a move on and go back home right away. But, first, Zenitt needed to check something out.

She turned on her heels, approaching the fence that delimited the park. She jumped over it in the same way she had done on so many other occasions, but that time, she felt a strange pressure on her heart, as if a powerful fist had clenched around it. She undid the steps that, in her animal body, she’d made just minutes ago. She needed to make sure that what had just happened was not a dream or a hallucination.

The wolf lay dead, four huge holes piercing its neck from. The blood had already stopped oozing. The girl felt that the heat was leaving her limbs to abruptly swamp her heart. She leaned on the nearest tree, her hand on her chest, breathing hard, gasping.

It hadn’t been a dream. She could not find a logical explanation, but somehow, she had become a lion and killed that giant wolf.

With an unpleasant feeling of weightlessness, Zenitt jumped the fence for the umpteenth time, followed the path that crossed the park and walked, leaving the wolf behind. It was time to return home, or her mother was bound to get mad. The house she lived in with her father, mother and aunts was not far from the park; it was at the end of a narrow winding road that flowed away from the city only to come to a sudden end a few meters before entering the other side of the grove.

Having no idea how she’d done it, for her head seemed to remain lost among the trees, next to the dead wolf, Zenitt’s eyes captured the building engulfed by ivy to such an extent that only the open windows along the façade were seen, and just barely. With a sigh, and still feeling strangely lightweight and somewhat dizzy, Zenitt opened the door and crossed the threshold, where she was immediately welcomed by the soft coolness of the gloom that always reigned there.

Opposite her, at the foot of the staircase, the warm dark eyes of a man with a bushy greying beard seemed to smile upon seeing her. The man approached his daughter, kissing her on the forehead. He must have noticed something strange in Zenitt, for he took a step back to better examine her. Frowning, Thorean asked:

“Honey, you’re burning up. Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Zenitt tried to say, but only managed to invoke a weak, drowned whisper that was lost in his throat. She cleared her throat and tried again. Her voice sounded weak and wet. Thorean arched his eyebrows.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t look very good.”

“Actually… well, I think I have to talk to Mum,” Zenitt managed to say, her voice still weak and trembling.

“She’s upstairs with your aunts,” the man said, still not taking his eyes away from his daughter’s pale face.

“Okay. I’ll go talk to them…”

Thorean remained motionless in the hall as his daughter ran, wobbling slightly, up the stairs.

Her mother and two aunts were in the large living room which took up much of the first floor. Her eldest aunt, Marta, was absorbed in one of her endless tarot sessions, under the watchful eye of Olga, her other aunt, and Navsi, her mother.

“The Wheel of Fortune… a turning point…” Martha murmured. “Death… big changes…”

“Hi,” Zenitt said.

“You’re really late,” Navsi replied, her eyes glued to the cards scattered along the table, attentive to Marta’s almost inaudible whispers as she tried to interpret what the cards wanted to communicate to her.

“What’s wrong?” Olga asked when she saw the pale face of the girl.

“Something really weird happened to me in the forest.”

“Really?” Marta asked, looking first at Zenitt, then at the cards, and finally at Navsi.

“Sit down, sweetheart,” Navsi said, pointing to one of the empty chairs, “and tell us what happened.”

Zenitt took a seat, and breathed in. She tried to speak, but couldn’t find the words. She looked at her aunts and mother, who were watching her, expectant. She breathed in again.

“It’s going to sound so weird…”

“We’re used to hearing very weird things,” Olga said, smiling. Navsi nodded and wrapped her daughter’s hand with her warm fingers.

“I was in the forest… walking by myself,” Zenitt began.

“Okay. And what happened?” Navsi asked.

Zenitt closed her eyes, filled her lungs with air and recounted what had happened with the wolf, how she’d become a lion and how she’d killed the animal.

“Do you think I’m going crazy?” Zenitt asked when she’d finished. The three sisters exchanged significant looks.

“You’re not crazy, sweetheart,” Navsi said, her fingers closing tighter around Zenitt’s hand. I think the time has come for you to know something.

Zenitt arched her eyebrows.

“What happened to you,” Olga explained, “is normal. Well, normal within this family.”

“What does that mean?” Zenitt said.

“Honey, one of your powers awoke today,” Navsi said. “You’re a witch, and so am I. And your aunts too.”

“What?”

“Yes. We have magical abilities,” Marta said.

“You can also transform into lions?”

“No, we can’t do that. In fact, your power is far more impressive than ours…” Navsi said.

“Speak for yourself,” Olga intervened. “My powers are not bad at all.”

“Are you being serious right now?” Zenitt said, her dizziness getting worse. “Witches? Really?”

“Yes,” Olga said simply.

“Okay, Aunt Marta likes to read the cards, but…”

Marta chuckled. “The cards are nothing more than a hobby, my dear. You’ll see, let me show you,” she said, standing up. She closed her eyes and, before she got to open them back…

“Ah!” Zenitt gasped, jumping off the chair. “What has just happened? Aunt Marta, she’s… disappeared!”

“I’m behind you,” said a voice behind Zenitt. The girl felt the blood rush to her hands. She flapped them with fury and felt her body change. She sensed herself getting ever smaller as her body rose up in the air. She could see, in the corner of her eye, big white wings fluttering in the air.

With her parrot body, Zenitt perched on top of the closet, breathing with difficulty while, around the table, her mother and aunts clapped with enthusiasm.

“What a wonder! But you’d better fly down here before your body returns to its normal state,” Navsi said. Zenitt looked at her wings and, without a glimpse of understanding, extended them and began to flap. She immediately took flight and, with irregular fluttering, glided down to the chair she had occupied before her appearance changed, stumbling on it as she landed.

Again, she felt the terrible tingling that indicated that her body was returning to normal. She looked at her hands carefully and, after making certain that there was not a single feather covering them, she looked up again.

“This is crazy.”