Wild is the Witch (67)

“Iris, stop,” Pike says, his voice close to me now.

My eyes snap open, and he’s just inches from my face. He must have dragged himself over while I was working on the curse, and I look at him with huge, sorry eyes, wanting so badly to make this right and having no idea how.

He gently takes my hand and pulls up my sleeve, revealing burns all along my skin. I stare at the red welts that have formed up and down my arm, inhaling sharply. I won’t be able to do this for much longer without risk of ending up like Alex. No one is meant to have infinite access to things, not magic or land or sea, and that includes witches.

I have to think.

A whistling sound comes from the owl, a high-pitched wheeze that sits on top of every breath.

“I’m trying,” I whisper, looking into his big, dark eyes. “I just need a little more time. Please.”

I sit back and rock on my heels, hanging my head and closing my eyes. The curse won’t bind to the pine because it doesn’t have a heartbeat, and it won’t bind to me because…

I sink farther into the ground and cover my head. My heart feels as if it falls completely out of my body and lodges into the earth.

It won’t bind to me because I’m a witch. And it can’t turn someone into a witch who already is one.

I grab Pike’s pack and start rifling through it, looking for anything that can help me catch another animal.

“It won’t bind to me because I’m a witch,” I say, throwing Pike’s things all over the ground. “I need to find another animal, a healthy one I can bind the curse to.”

“It’s awfully quiet,” Pike says, looking around. “It’s just us out here.”

I look at the trees and the golden light slipping through their branches, touching the earth. There is so much life here, the forest is humming with it, but I don’t have what I need to track an animal and capture it. Pike is right: we’re on our own.

And even if I could find another animal to take the curse, the owl won’t make it long enough for me to try.

“Where’s the sat phone?” I ask, scrambling toward Pike’s pack, digging through his things. I pull it out and jump up, holding the phone to the sky, begging it to turn on and find a signal.

“It’s broken,” he says.

“Maybe not. Maybe it’s just cracked. Plenty of phones still work with a crack.” I hold it high above my head, staring at the screen, desperate for it turn on. I need to call Cassandra, find out where she is, get her help. I’m completely out of options, and I need her.

I need her.

But the phone stays dark.

“It won’t work,” Pike says, watching me.

I look down at him, tossing the phone aside and rushing to where he’s sitting. “You have to get out of here,” I say, kneeling beside him, trying to pull him up. He probably can’t outrun a curse; it’s probably impossible. But it’s all I have left. “I’ll keep the owl alive as long as I can, and you need to get to your car and drive. Drive as fast as you can, straight to the refuge where Mom can help in case the curse still reaches you. Just keep going, and—”

“You know I can’t,” he says, his voice quiet.

“I’ll give you more magic, make the pain go away. You can do this, just don’t think about it and go,” I say, pulling up his pant leg.

Pike puts his hand over mine and stops me. “Iris,” he says, looking at me with gentleness for the first time in hours. “You know I won’t make it in time. MacGuffin won’t live that long.”

I choke on another sob when Pike says the owl’s name, this wild animal that stole my curse and my heart. I want to hate him and stop myself from caring, but the truth is that I’m devastated. I want him to live.

“I’m so sorry,” I say to Pike and the owl and everyone about to be affected by this curse. I think about my mom and hope she’s with Sarah, hope they’re laughing and smiling and happy, no idea that things are about to change forever. No idea that what we went through is nothing compared to what is to come.

I will lose my magic and be subject to the council as well as the courts. People will most likely die, and magic will be used by those who can’t yet control it. There will be chaos and devastation, all because I wrote a curse for a boy who said he didn’t like witches. What an unimaginable tragedy.

“I’m going to turn into a witch, regardless of what happens,” Pike says, interrupting my thoughts. It doesn’t sound like a question.

Still, I nod.

“I’m so sorry,” I say again because I don’t know what else to say.

“If this is it, if there’s nothing else you can do, bind the curse to me.”

I look up at him. “What?”

“Bind the curse to me,” he says again, this time stronger, making up his mind. “That way, no one else will be put at risk. Just me.”

We look at each other in the peaceful afternoon light, and I realize he’s right. I’ve been so desperate to save Pike that I haven’t been willing to confront the obvious solution. I can’t save him, but I can stop the curse from being unleashed on everyone else. It won’t make it better for Pike, it won’t save me from my actions or give me another chance with this boy, but it’s the right thing to do.

It’s the only thing to do.