Adam and Eve

Eve Thomas was used to being ignored her whole life. 

She comes from a large family: three sisters and two brothers. Unfortunately, she's the middle child. She falls smack-dab in the middle of their birth order, as her parents had a set of twins before she was born. The twins have each other, her two younger siblings are Irish twins, and her eldest sister doesn't care for Eve. 

Which is why she felt so out of place when suddenly, just for a day, all the attention was turned onto her. 

It was a regular Saturday afternoon on August 1st, 1991; nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The Thomas' had just come home from Saturday church as they believed the weekends are not for relaxing or enjoying your free time; it was for devoting your free time to God. 

"One of yous grab the mail!" Mary Thomas, Eve's mother, yelled as her kids piled out of their old, yellow mini-van to run into the house.

"I got it!" Abigail shouted back. She was waiting on a letter from her sixth form, eager to know everything there is about it before she started. She was also quite nosey and wanted to know who was getting mail from where.

Eve walked by Abigail to go into their house, but was interrupted by Abigail shoving a letter into her hands. "It's for you," She mumbled in a rather disappointed tone. 

Weird, Eve thought. She never gets letters from anywhere. None of her school friends bothered to contact her ever before. She thought it could have been from the secondary school she was expected to start in about a month, but she already got all their mail before school ended in June.

She took her shoes off as she entered the house and sat the letter down on the front table for her mum to read. That was one of the rules in their house: always give your mail to either mum or dad before reading it yourself. You wouldn't want your children to read anything sinful, would you? Another rule was no fraternizing with the opposite gender after puberty has occurred unless it is either in the house of God or supervised by an adult. 

Eve walked to her dining room table to wait for her parents to go over the letter with her. She sat at her designated seat in the middle of the seats on the right side of the table.

Her mum walked into the house and noticed the tan letter with a red seal on it. She grabbed the letter and met Eve at the dining room table to go over the letter together.

"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Is this some type of joke the kids are up to these days?" Mary scoffed and ripped open the rest of the letter, having no remorse for the packaging. She read it and her eyes widened in horror, "Joseph! Get in here right now!"

Eve's father rushed into the room as he sensed urgency in Mary's tone and grabbed the letter from her hand. He read it over quickly and his eyes were bulging by the time the letter was read. Mary's eyes shot daggers at her daughter.

"Eve, dear, please leave the room." She said calmly to her daughter.

Eve nodded and left the room, closing the door behind her. But she knew better than to go upstairs and ignore what was happening. She sat against the door and listened in carefully as the adults whispered to each other.

Eve had only heard the words 'witch' come out of her parents mouth once. It was when she was eavesdropping, yet again, at the age of six years old. Her parents were speaking, not very nicely if you asked her, about a relative on her fathers side. She was punished severely after they caught her listening in. She vowed to never eavesdrop again in her life, but here she is.

"What is this? I thought you said the baptism's would stop our children from becoming like your cousin?" Mary whispered angrily to her husband.

"It should have worked. We should send her to the Catholic boarding school in France, the one my cousin was sent to. My aunt said it worked wonders."

"Maybe she needs an exorcism. We can't have a daughter who loves Satan."

Eve was confused. She did not love Satan. She loved Jesus. She had loved Jesus since she was born, before she could even think for herself or make memories. She had never lived a life where Satan was over Jesus in her mind. Were they mistaken? Surely, they couldn't possibly be talking about Eve.

"It's because you named her Eve. Eve ate the forbidden fruit, Eve sinned. This has been her destiny since she was born. Think of Revelation 22:15. She cannot live with us." Eve's father said sternly, with no emotion, as if Eve did not matter to him anymore. 

"You must not think that way, she is still our daughter. Let's ignore it for now, do not tell her anything. It will go away, those sorcerers cannot force her away from us. We will send her to a camp for the rest of the summer holidays. I'll call now." 

Sensing that the conversation was over, Eve ran up the stairs into her shared room with her three sisters. Her parents believed in their kids sharing a room to ensure the closest relationship between them possible. After all, family is important in the eyes of God. 

Eve, Abigail, Delilah, and Esther shared the largest room in the house since there were more girls than boys. Abigail and Delilah had their own beds, while Eve and Esther shared a bunk-bed with Eve having the top bunk. Eve wanted the bottom bunk originally, but Esther was only six when the bunk-beds were introduced and she was scared of falling off the top. So, Eve practiced what she was taught in Sunday school and thought of others before herself.

Gabriel and Abraham shared the second largest room. Gabriel thought he should get his own room since he was fifteen and Abraham was only nine, but their parents called him selfish and said that he needed to share. 

The three sisters were sitting on the floor during a bible study together, as the sisters did after church on Saturday and Sunday. It mostly consisted of Esther getting bored and complaining that she wanted to play outside with her neighbourhood friends. Delilah always responded with the same: "No, we have two hours until you can."

Eve joined the girls sitting in a circle surrounding two bibles and they all turned to look at her in unison. 

Abigail instantly wanted to know what had happened downstairs and why Eve was late to their study. "What were they talking about downstairs? Is it about your letter?" She pestered. 

"I don't know, I didn't listen." Eve replied. Although she shouldn't lie, she felt it was best in this situation as she didn't want Abigail to tell her parents on her.

"Then why were you down there for so long?" Abigail pushed for answers; she needed them.

"Bathroom." Eve didn't like to talk much as she felt people didn't like what she had to say. She was taught from an early age that women and girls should refrain from talking too much.

Abigail ignored Eve's answers and continued on reading her bible as she knew that she wasn't going to get answers out of her sister.

Most of the siblings knew Eve was quiet and didn't like being questioned, so they simply ignored her. It's much more fun to talk to people that actually had something to say, they all agreed with that.

Eve was also a weird kid. She found herself connecting with animals more than other kids did and spent most of her time in the summer laying in the grass and finding bugs to play with. Her parents hated this and thought she needed more faith in her life, but she found it calming.

Suddenly, the girls door opened and their parents walked in with a suitcase. "Eve, pack some clothes. You're going to a camp for the rest of the holidays. You'll be back the day before secondary starts."

The sisters stared at Eve blankly and wondered what she did. No one was ever sent away for the holidays in their family. They always stuck together as a family and they were almost always with each other. 

Eve knew better than to fight or question it, so she got up and opened her clothes drawer and started packing. Lucky for her, she was at the age where no other girl in the family was the same size as her, so she had all her own clothes. 

Eve accepted her fate. 

"We'll see you in a month. And remember, do not talk to adult strangers. Only the camp leaders." Her mom kissed her on both cheeks and waved goodbye, disapearing into the car.

They drove away with no more words. Her dad didn't even say goodbye to her properly, just a wave. He didn't love her anymore, she thought.

Was she being banished from the family? What did she do? She didn't understand anything that was going on. It was too much for her eleven year old brain.

A happy, bright girl with red hair hopped over to where Eve was standing with her suitcase in one hand.

'Hi! You must be Eve. I'm Laura, one of the camp leaders. We're so happy to have you here even if it's late in the season. Follow me, I'll show you to your cabin." Laura said and grabbed Eve's suitcase from her hands.

Eve was lonely and scared. She had never been away from her family.

She started crying in anger, confusion, and betrayal. Every negative emotion that could muster up in her tiny body came to life. She took a look at Laura who was now staring at her, and all of a sudden, the suitcase Laura was holding, flew two feet over and fell to the ground. Laura screamed.

It was some type of magic that Eve had never seen before.