Wild is the Witch (70)

I force myself to breathe and finally get a word out. “Inhaler.”

“Yes, okay,” Pike says, grabbing my pack. He drags himself back over to me and holds the inhaler to my mouth. I reach up with a shaking hand and press down on the top as I take a long, deep breath.

I wait a few seconds, then take one more. “Thank you,” I finally manage to say. Once I feel stable enough, I push myself to a seated position and look at Pike.

“Are you okay?” I ask him, searching his body for signs of burns or trauma, then going over him again once I finish. Other than his broken leg, he’s healthy. He survived.

He’s a mage, but he survived.

“I think so.” He looks down at himself as if to double-check, then exhales, loud and heavy.

“Don’t use magic again,” I say. “I’ve used too much today, and I won’t be able to help you if you get stuck in it again. You can acknowledge it and feel it and marvel at it, but you can’t pull it toward you. Not yet.”

He nods, and his gaze falls to the ground. “Did I hurt you?” he asks, and it makes me want to cry, that he’s worried about me when I don’t deserve his worry.

“I’ll be fine,” I say, even though my skin is on fire. Even though it’s taking all my strength not to dissolve into sobs or pass out. I gather myself enough to speak.

“I don’t really know what to say to you right now. ‘I’m sorry’ will never be enough, but I need you to know that I mean it. I am sorry, more than you’ll ever know. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I have to say it anyway.” I pause and take a shallow breath. “I’ll be here for you through this as much or as little as you want me to be. I promise. And I really do believe that one day, you’ll love magic. You didn’t choose this, and I can’t change that, but I think I can help you learn to love it.” The words shake, and the world fades in and out as shots of pain move over me in waves.

Pike nods, but he doesn’t respond. The muscles in his jaw tense, and his mouth is set in a hard line. He needs time to process it all, and I will give him the time he needs. But he heard the words I said, and that’s what matters.

The owl makes a shuddering noise then, almost a cough, and I force myself to concentrate. Force myself to ignore the pain and be in this moment with him, however he needs. My vision is blurry, and I rub my eyes, begging my body not to shut down. Not yet.

I scoot over to the owl, my whole body trembling with the effort, and his big black eyes meet mine.

“I’m here,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And I mean it. I will stay with him in this magic-drenched forest for as long as I can, until death separates us.





Twenty-Seven


I think I hear a twig snap in the distance, but I can’t be sure. My mind is clouded with pain, making me uncertain of the things I hear and feel and see. Pike has moved closer to the owl, to me, and he seems stable for now.

It’s getting hard for me to move. The pain from my burns is excruciating, my whole body fighting against me as I slide closer to the owl. But I want MacGuffin to feel my presence, to know that he isn’t alone. Even if he could hold on for long enough to get to the refuge, I wouldn’t be able to get him down the mountain.

I’m not sure how I’ll get myself or Pike down, either.

I’m rendered useless, unable to direct my magic. I’ve already expended too much energy, and even if I hadn’t, it hurts too much. I have to heal before I can use it again. Mom knows where we are, though, and Cassandra said she’d be coming to meet us. Help will find us one way or another.

I gently pick up MacGuffin and move him to my lap. He struggles to keep his eyes open, his lids rising halfway, then closing again. I run my fingers through his feathers and pull the towel around him to keep him warm. Pike sits next to me, and we’re quiet as the owl moves his gaze from me to Pike and back again.

As he looks between us, I know with absolute certainty that he did this on purpose, that he flew into the wild with an injured wing so I’d have to come after him. I just wish I knew why.

I stroke one of his feathers, and a sharp vision enters my mind, one of me and Pike on a beach, practicing magic. The way Amy and I used to do as kids. Pike is smiling and pulls me into a kiss, my hair blowing in the wind and a flock of gulls circling above us, and the image is so stark, so vivid, I feel as if I’m watching it play out right in front of me.

I pull my hand away from the owl, and the vision recedes, gone as quickly as it began.

I blink several times, bringing myself back to the present, but my chest aches with the images, with how badly I want them to be real. I don’t believe the owl would have orchestrated this just to bring me and Pike together, but when I think about him leaving the refuge, when I remember the way he flew from our first campsite only once Pike and I started arguing, when I watch him now, so clearly waiting for us, it’s hard for me to come up with a different conclusion.

When my dad could no longer look me in the eye, when he stayed behind in Nebraska and watched me climb into a yellow taxi, I decided I could never trust another person again. It would be me and Mom, and that was it. That was enough. But I spoke the words to Pike that I vowed I’d never say. I told him I’m a witch, let him see the thing I guard closest to my heart, and the world is still spinning. My life didn’t collapse the way I was sure it would.