Wild is the Witch (58)

I pull away and force the tears from my eyes. The wind picks up, blowing my curls across my face. I reach out and tuck them behind my ear, then look at Pike.

“Fine,” I say. “You win.”

His expression is confused and intense, and he watches me with a pain in his eyes, as if he knows I’m about to break not only his heart, but all of him.

Then I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and reach for the magic Pike hates.





Twenty-Two


Magic rushes to me in an instant, flying through the forest and assembling all around me. My skin gets hot as I gather enough to answer Pike’s questions, enough for him to never doubt exactly what I am. Enough to shatter whatever bond we forged beneath the cover of the trees.

Pike’s vision will fade, and the images of this forest, these ferns and the owl and me will all give way to a total darkness, with little pinpricks of light the only disruption in the infinite black. Starlight, in the middle of the day, with his eyes open.

Magic. Undeniable, unquestionable, indisputable magic.

I’m not gentle with it. I send it toward him in a surge, wrapping around his heart and mind as if I’m trying to track him, just as I did with the bird. Just as Cassandra did with me. I feel his heart rate increase and his stomach contract, a physical reaction to the knowledge of who I am. I have a sudden urge to pull it back, try to explain it away somehow, but I don’t. I open my eyes and watch as the magic rushes through him, as it turns his world dark.

His eyes widen, and he blinks several times. He shakes his head back and forth and blinks some more, as if that will get rid of the starlight, get rid of the magic. He rubs his eyes and puts his face in his palms, and it breaks my heart, watching him fight against what he knows is happening. Watching him fight against me. My eyes sting and my throat aches, and I know the way he looks right now will haunt me for the rest of my life.

“Stop!” he yells.

I halt my magic, and Pike’s vision returns, his eyes focusing on me. He scrambles back, pulling himself through the dirt, then pushes himself up off the ground. I stand, too, but he takes a step away from me, and I stop moving.

“What was that?” he asks, his voice low and strained, tight enough to break in half.

I want to speak, but the words are stuck in my throat. I can’t make them come out.

“Answer me!” he shouts.

I flinch at his words, my heart racing and my palms sweating. Everything narrows around us until all I can hear is the blood rushing through me, all I can see are Pike’s hazel eyes.

“You already know what it was,” I say, my voice trembling with the exposure of it. The vulnerability.

“No, no, I don’t,” Pike says, shaking his head some more, shoving his hands through his hair. “Because if it is what I think, then it’s—it’s—”

“Magic,” I say, finishing the sentence for him. I’m so mad at him for making me do this, so hopeful that it might turn out okay. So foolish for wanting it to.

I watch him and brace myself as the walls I’ve worked so hard to build collapse all around me. Then I take a deep breath and speak.

“I’m a witch.” The words echo in the trees, loud and harsh, and I bring my hand to my chest, shocked that I’ve said them. Shocked that I spoke the words I vowed to never speak again.

Something shifts inside me, as if my secret was the scaffolding holding me together and without it I might crumble.

For a moment, we stare at each other, breathing hard and waiting for the other to say something. Do something. React in some way.

But he’s still here, standing in front of me. Maybe it will be okay.

Then Pike takes several steps back as if the words have finally reached his brain and he understands what I just confessed. He holds his arm out to me, telling me not to move, not to take a single step toward him.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say gently, realizing he might actually be scared.

“How nice of you.”

A gust of wind blows through the woods, and I wrap my arms around my chest. I turn in the direction of the burning tree, the smoke dying down now. I haven’t heard a single person on this mountain, though, and it must have finally burned through itself, nothing left to give to the fire. It makes me indescribably sad.

I turn back to Pike, ready to talk, to answer whatever questions he has or accusations he wants to throw my way. I open my mouth, but he holds up his hand, shaking his head, and I stop, the words dying in my throat.

He takes several steps away from me, turns around, and runs.

Tears flow freely down my face as I watch him recede into the distance, getting farther away from me and farther away from the owl. That’s what I’ve been trying to get him to do, run, get as far away from here as possible, and I’m relieved that he’s leaving. I am. But it also hurts, a physical pain that throbs in my chest.

Pike is running away from me, an image that I’m sure will live with me the rest of my life, right along with Amy losing her sense and Alex on the lake, with my dad choosing to stay when Mom and I left. All these things telling me that my magic should have always been kept a secret, something I delighted in on my own.

And now the secret’s out.

I walk back to the owl and sink to the ground. MacGuffin looks at me, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think his eyes were filled with compassion. Maybe they are. Animals understand a lot about humans, a lot more than we give them credit for. Sometimes I wonder if they understand more about us than we do about them.