Diary of Willow Anne Harris

10/17/99

Yup, dear diary, you read that right, it’s official, mom finally married her boyfriend and I’m Willow ‘Harris’ now. After all that stuff about not getting personally involved with the ‘clients,’ she goes and marries one of her patients. Typical, one set of rules for her, another set for everyone else in the world… Still, Jack is pretty nice, although he’s really quiet. His wife, the first one, leaving him really broke him up, and then they nearly took his son away because he was drunk all the time, so he’s got a lot of stuff he’d rather forget and get past, I guess. And then there’s Xander, my new ‘brother.’ I’ve seen him at school, and we’ve spent some time together since our parents are always together, but now he’s living in my house and I can’t get away from him. We barely talk at school, it’s all forced and awkward, he’s got his friends, Jesse and whomever, and I’ve got Amy and, well, Amy mostly, although Jon and Mike and Marci are also kinda, sorta friends. At least we’ve got weird taste in TV in common, so we can sit quietly and watch just about anything, and try to ignore the weirdness that is our parents kissing and him living in my house.

Heavy sigh. I have to remind myself, it could be worse. Mom could have decided to move us to their house. Or he could be skeevy or something. Still, he drinks out of the milk carton. Pig.

11/05/99

Mom is off at some conference, she’s been gone for a few days, and Jack always gets really, really quiet when she’s gone, like she’s all that holds him up sometimes. I see him just staring off into nowhere. He sometimes has the TV on, but he doesn’t really watch it. Xander usually sits with him for a while when he gets like that, but it doesn’t help much. I heard him yelling at Xander tonight, and I poked my head downstairs to see him red-faced and looking like he was ready to throw a punch, his fists all clenched. Xander just flinched back and his dad sort of deflated and turned and ran out the front door. I think he was crying. Xander looked really weird, sort of pissed and sad at the same time, and walked out after him, and I tiptoed downstairs to see them sitting on the steps. Xander was hugging his dad, and they were both crying.

That’s when I realized that I was falling in love with my brother. I’m so doomed…

12/02/99

We started a Wicca group! Amy’s really into that stuff, and it’s really cool. Jon and Mike and even Xander putter around with it too, which has to make it the most non-traditional Wicca group ever, with more boys than girls, but hey, that’s what Wicca is all about is the non-traditional! Celebrate the breaking of traditions! Dance under the moon! Just not naked, ‘cause that would be a little more ‘non-traditional’ than I’m ready to go in front of the boys.

01/23/00

Mr Rayne, the creepy librarian, is seriously cool. He always seemed to be hitting on the students, and his jokes were WAY macabre. But it turns out he knows all about magic and stuff, and he’s been showing Amy some spells that are really real, not just self-actualization focusing confidence-booster stuff! If my mom finds this, I’m gonna be in therapy for life. Amy always said magic was real, and that her mom was a witch, but really, the first time I saw Mr Rayne make a pencil spin around in the air, I nearly peed my pants. Oh yeah, so did Xander. Turns out he was only in the group to stare at Amy and never gave a single thought to magic. Big jerk. He was hoping we were going to dance around naked…

04/02/00

Wow. It has been a busy couple of months. So Sunnydale is on something called a Hellmouth, a magical door to some other dimension. Mr Rayne explained that this is why magic works so well here, and why it is so much more dangerous when it gets out of control. Tons of stuff has been happening all around town, and thanks to Mr Rayne, we’ve been able to stop some of it. There are monsters, and we get to help people! Mr Rayne says it’s why we have magic, to protect mankind from the demon races, and the bad sorcerers who work with them (like he used to be, we found out!). It’s the coolest thing ever! Me and Amy and Xander seem to all be pretty good at throwing the magic around, but Mr Rayne is always holding us back, telling us that the magic here is dangerous and dark, and it wants to be used to hurt people. So he only shows us magics to defend ourselves, not to do monkey paw stuff like wishing people back to life or winning lotteries or making people fall in love with us. We can all float pencils and light candles and whatnot. I’m really good at that, none of them can keep up with me, and I made a bookcase levitate once, but it gave me a nosebleed afterwards and everybody made an awful fuss. Amy seems to be good at the transformation stuff, and is always turning this into that. She taught me how to glamer away a zit, which is probably not the sort of magic that Mr Rayne had in mind… Her transmutations never last, but it is cool when you need something in a hurry. She hasn’t been able to completely change a person yet, just hair color and stuff, but when she tries, it makes them sort of shudder and their flesh crawls. It hurts a lot, too, Xander said, but I think he was being a big sissy. Speaking of Xander, who I am so over, he’s really good at making stuff. He’s been carving wood into totems and baking faences and his latest project is a big secret, but he’s in his room right now with a bolt-cutter turning metal springs into boxes full of metal rings. Amy says his hands are always all cramped up from it. I guess that is a good way to get a couple hundred rings, but I don’t think anyone could wear that many, unless one of Amy’s spells goes really, really wrong and he ends up with a hundred fingers.

Oh yeah, they’re dating. Big whoop. Like I care.

Mr Rayne likes Xander best, he’s always taking him aside and showing him stuff about making amulets and potions and stuff, since it’s what he’s best at, too. I never thought I’d find someone else being the teacher’s pet so damned annoying…

Anyway, Jon and Michael (he gets really cranky if you call him ‘Mike’ these days) are still part of our gang, and a new girl Tara who’s proctoring at the college. I’m already taking a class at the college, ‘cause I’ve already finished most of my high school requirements early. We’ve faced demons and vampires and this really cute werewolf, and even stopped some people from opening up the Hellmouth, thanks to Mr Rayne. Vampires are pretty easy to scare off, since they burn so easy. Even Jon can make somebody’s shirt catch on fire, and he’s kinda not the best at that.

Speaking of which, I think Jon is crushing on me. And I think ‘Michael’ is crushing on him. I thought the demons were weird around here…