The Witch's Apprentice

1
I keep having the same dream. Night after night I fall asleep knowing that I ll wake up sweating, with my heart racing and my hands curled into fists. Even after I m wide awake, I hear a man whispering in my ear: I ve been waiting for you, my son.
Nobody calls me son ­not anymore. Sometimes I wake up so upset that I can t tell what s sweat and what s tears. I wash my face in the bathroom and then try to fall back to sleep. Sometimes I can. Sometimes I can t.
I haven t told Mama. She s got enough to worry about, and talking about my father just makes her sad. Plus, she s a really sound sleeper, and I m too old to be waking my mom up just because I had a bad dream. It s not really a nightmare, but I told Ma because I don t keep secrets from her. She s a good listener, and, well, she s a witch! So there s always a chance she ll be able to share her special knowledge with me.
Ma isn t my mother or my grandmother, like I once thought. We re not related at all, but right now Mama and I are living with Ma while our own apartment is being renovated. Now that school s out for the summer, I spend a lot more time with Ma. She has a thick Book of Dreams in her library, but Ma won t let me read it yet. Instead, she made me describe the dream over and over. Then she told me to write down all the details I could remember as soon as I woke up each night.
I don t see how that will help, but since I m Ma s apprentice, I do as I m told. Some nights the dream does change. Last week I felt the man s hand on my shoulder as he spoke ­like he was standing behind me. But last night the hand was in front of me, reaching out from a fun house mirror that turned the man s body into a rubbery smear. I couldn t see his face, and I hate to admit it, but I don t remember what my dad s hands looked like. I remember how safe and strong I felt whenever he wrapped his fingers around mine, but that s it.
I m busy writing all this in my Apprentice Journal when Ma knocks on the door with her

Zetta Elliott was born in Canada and moved to the United States in 1994. She is the author of over twenty-five books for young readers, including Dragons in a Bag and the award-winning picture books Bird and Melena's Jubilee. She is also a contributor to the anthology We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices. Elliott is an advocate for greater diversity and equity in publishing. A longtime resident of Brooklyn, she currently lives in Chicago.