7th March, 2026
The letter arrived that morning, with far less fanfare than really ought to be appropriate for such a drastic shock. It arrived with the rest of the mail, stuck between the daily adverts and a spring style catalogue that neither of them remembered subscribing to. The envelope itself was rather unassuming, aside from the return address.
“D.C.? What does Washington want from us?” Katrina mused aloud, deftly sliding a penknife through the flap as she sat at the dining room table with a glass of orange juice. Samantha glanced back at her briefly from her position at the kitchen stove, keeping a watchful eye on the French toast sizzling in the pan in front of her.
“Beats me,” she replied, not putting much thought into it. A few moments passed in silence as Katrina skimmed over the letter, eyes darting quickly across the page. She frowned, returning to the top and reading more carefully.
“Uh, Sam?” she finally spoke.
“Yeah?”
“You should read this.”
“One sec,” Samantha stalled, flipping two pieces of French toast onto a plate.
“No, really. You have to read this.”
Samantha picked up the plate and made her way over to the table, a curious frown creasing her forehead. The two women wordlessly traded the contents of their hands, Samantha taking the letter while Katrina accepted the plate. Samantha scanned the letter much like Katrina had the first time.
“Wait.”
“Yeah.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah,” Katrina reiterated.
Samantha read the letter again, stopping at each sentence that jumped out at her as she noted their increasing absurdity.
“Three months?”
“Uh huh.”
“‘Foreign Allies’?”
Katrina sipped her orange juice, waiting for the explosion.
“What the fuck does that even mean? Like, revoking citizenship?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“They can’t do that.”
“I know.”
“That’s-that has to be illegal.”
“It is. We were born in the United States; our citizenship is protected by the 14th Amendment.”
“So how are they doing this?”
“Well, it usually takes more than three months for a policy to reach the Supreme Court, let alone be heard and decided, so I’m guessing the deadline is meant to circumvent whatever the ultimate decision may be.”
“We’re not going,” Samantha decided. Katrina smiled.
“No, we’re not. I may only be a family lawyer, but I have read the Constitution, unlike some people in our government. I know our rights. They can’t make us go anywhere.”
Samantha sat down in the chair across from her, letting the letter fall to the table between them. They both stared at it in silence for a few minutes. Samantha drew a breath.
“But suppose they do find it constitutional,” she started.
“It’s highly unlikely.”
“But is there an argument there?”
“I mean, I guess the 14th Amendment specifically addresses the states, not the federal government. So if you were to read it very literally, it says the states can’t deny our rights to citizenship, but it doesn’t say the federal government can’t. But there are enough reasonable people on the Supreme Court that I don’t think that’ll be an issue. Besides, there are plenty of other things wrong with this situation apart from that.”
“Do you think it’ll blow over?”
“I doubt it. It’s...unprecedented, to say the least. It says they declared a National Emergency, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That complicates things. There are a lot of things the government can do in a National Emergency that they can’t do normally. But even that shouldn’t allow them to overrule the Constitution without passing an amendment.”
“What are they even planning to do? Wage war on Europe?”
“That would be dumb, but I wouldn’t put it past them at this point.”
“Huh. Maybe losing citizenship wouldn’t be so bad.”
Katrina snorted. “And once all the sane people decide that, we can kiss American democracy goodbye.”
“Haven’t we already?”
“We’ll see.”
They lapsed into silence again, then Samantha suddenly remembered the pan still on the stove. She got up and prepared two more slices of French toast for herself. As she waited for them to cook, she had a thought.
"Hold on, is this about those wizarding politics Mariah mentioned?"
Katrina was silent for a second as she thought about it. "You know, I think you're right. That was the source of our tensions with Europe in the first place, wasn't it? The Statute of Secrecy or whatever?"
"Yeah. So if America's trying to keep magic stuff a secret, wouldn't we do more harm inside the country than out?"
"Good point. I'll write back and let them know," Katrina joked, folding up the letter and returning it to its envelope.
"In the meantime, maybe we should find out how to subscribe to a wizard newspaper. Stay in the loop."
Katrina hummed her agreement. "I'll get in touch with Klaus too and see if he has any other information."
"What should we tell Mariah?"
"Tell her not to worry. We just got here; we're not going anywhere anytime soon. She should focus on her studies now, and we'll see where things are in three months."
"If this is about the Statute of Secrecy, this is probably the best place for her anyway."
Katrina smiled. "After all we went through to get where we are, I'll be damned if my kid can't live out and proud of who she is."
"It really is the same old story, isn't it?" Samantha sighed, scraping her own breakfast onto another plate and returning to the table to join her wife.
"Well, if we've learned anything from the past, it's that America's on the losing side of history here."
"You'd think they'd have figured that out by now."
"You would think."
Katrina set the envelope aside. She'd do more research later to build a solid argument defending their decision, but for now, she wanted to enjoy her breakfast, confident in the knowledge that, whatever happened next, they could deal with it together. Their family was pretty good at that.
by 
