Wild is the Witch (57)

I have to stay with the owl, keep him alive as long as possible in order to give Pike the best shot at getting far away from here. But I don’t know how to convince him to leave. I don’t know how to make it make sense without telling him who I am. And I can’t do that. I can’t.

“Okay, it’s been reported,” Pike says as he comes around a corner. “Firefighters will be out here as soon as they can.” His eyes go to my pant leg, soaked through with blood, and he frowns. “That doesn’t look good.”

“Pike,” I say, ignoring his words, “I need you to listen to me.”

“What’s wrong?” he asks, coming closer, searching my eyes.

“You have to leave. Right now.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I just need you to trust me,” I say as panic seeps into my voice, making it louder and faster. “It’s not safe for you to be here. Please go.”

“You’re starting to scare me. What’s going on? Did you find the owl?”

I point to the ground behind me where MacGuffin is cradled in a white towel, watching us both as if our conversation matters in some way. As if he cares.

Pike drops to his knees beside the owl and looks at the injury on his side. “Oh, buddy, I’m so sorry,” he says, but we don’t have time for this.

“Pike, please. I need you to go, right now. Run down the trail and get in your car, then drive back to the refuge and stay with my mom; she can explain everything.” Mom doesn’t know about the curse, but Pike has to be with another witch in case the curse finds him, in case he can’t get far enough away. Mom will know if that happens, and if it does, she can help him. She’ll know what to do.

Pike stands up and looks at me, but I can’t read his expression. I can’t focus. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”

“Stop being so stubborn, and just listen! I will tell you everything one day, I promise I will, but for now I need to see you running down that trail and not looking back.” I’m pretty sure I’m crying at this point, but it’s hard to tell between the raindrops that fall from the branches above us and the sweat that’s covering my face. My voice is shrill and unsteady, and I can only imagine what Pike must think.

But I can’t care about that.

“Who’s the stubborn one? You don’t tell me shit and expect me to just follow your orders with no explanation. You aren’t making any sense.”

“We don’t have time for this. I don’t care if you think I’m stubborn or unfair or not making sense. All I care about is that you get off this mountain.”

“Sorry, Iris, not good enough.”

Pike drops to the ground and crosses his legs, resting his forearms on his knees as if he’s about to chat with the owl. His eyes scan the length of MacGuffin, up and down and back again. Then he slowly turns to me. “He’s not wearing a tag,” he says.

“What?”

“A tag. We’ve been tracking him in the app, but he isn’t wearing a tag.” He says the words slowly as if he’s trying to solve the puzzle as he speaks. It doesn’t make sense. None of this does.

“Maybe it fell off,” I say, exasperated, angry that he’s not listening.

“They don’t just fall off.”

“The tag doesn’t matter,” I say, pacing around, frustrated and mad and scared. “You need to leave. You can’t possibly begin to understand the magnitude of the mistake you’re making.”

The words hurt to say because I don’t think Pike being turned to a witch is a bad thing. Not really. The risks are too high—the chance of him burning up and the council punishing me and the curse being amplified. The fact that Pike would be turned into the thing he hates. That’s all bad, and I’d undo it if I could. But the magic part? It’s brilliant, and I would never begrudge anyone their own sense.

But I can’t just give him magic, even if he wanted it the way Alex did. It doesn’t work that way; the risk is too great. It always has been, and I should have recognized that before crafting the curse in the first place.

“Then explain it to me,” Pike says, his tone sharp.

I ignore him and keep walking, trying desperately to figure out what to say, what to do to get him to leave. And that’s when it hits me, all at once, barreling down on me like an avalanche. My heart aches with understanding and my insides feel as if they are hollowed out. Nausea coats my stomach, and I wonder if I can even get the words out, wonder if my body will let me say what I need to say.

Once I speak the words, I can never take them back. He will have all of me, see all of me, know all of me. And I’ll have no other option but to stand here and wait to find out if he’ll accept me.

That’s my only choice.

I slowly sink to the ground in front of Pike, with MacGuffin next to me. I take Pike’s face in both my hands, leaning into him and pressing my lips against his. I kiss him gently, the salt from my tears coating his mouth. He’s hesitant at first, but he kisses me back, going from slow to urgent in the span of a breath. He opens his mouth, deep and desperate, and maybe he knows that this is the last time we’ll ever kiss, the last time we’ll ever breathe each other in and run our fingers through the other’s hair.