“I don’t know,” I said at last. “Casting a spell on Harvey, for nothing but my own benefit—it doesn’t seem right.”
“As you wish. You’re such a good girl,” Ambrose said. “Sometimes I wonder how you’re ever going to make a wicked witch.”
“Yeah,” I whispered to the wind, too softly for even Ambrose to hear. “Me too.”
Ambrose stood, dusting dead leaves and traces of glittering snakeskin off his black jeans. “Well. The hour grows late, and I must attend to the late Mrs. Portman, who awaits me in the embalming room.”
Our family runs a funeral home. Even witches need to make a living.
Ambrose stooped and tapped my jaw lightly. When I lifted my chin, he gave me a bright smile. “Cheer up, Sabrina. And let me know if you change your mind about the spell.”
I nodded, and stayed up on the roof with the storm and my thoughts. The word late keeps ringing in my ears. The hour grows late. The late Mrs. Portman. Late might be the most terrifying word I know.
Late summer. Only a few more weeks, and then it will be too late.
My whole life, I’ve known that when I turned sixteen I would go through my dark baptism, write my name in the book, and enter the Academy of Unseen Arts as a full-fledged witch. When I was a kid, I thought that day would never come. I was so impatient to fulfill the destiny my parents always wanted for me, to make my aunts proud, to be a true witch.
My birthday is Halloween, and summer is already coming to an end. I didn’t consider, back then, that embracing my destiny as a witch would mean turning my back on my mortal life. Now it’s all I can think of: losing my friends, losing Harvey, even losing math class at Baxter High. Every day, I feel like the world I know is slipping a little further out of my grip.
Yet I still love magic. I love the feel of power building in my veins and the idea of having more. I love the click when a spell goes perfectly right as much as I hate the thought of disappointing my family.
It’s an impossible choice, and soon I have to make it. I never thought of that when I was a child daydreaming about magic, or when Harvey leaned in and kissed me by my gate.
I guess a part of me still believed that day would never come.
I spent so long thinking the future was forever away. I’m not ready for it to be now.
We are the weird woods; we are the trees who have turned silver beneath a thousand moons; we are the whisper that runs through the dead leaves. We are the trees witches were hanged from. The hanging trees bear witness, and the soil that drank witches’ blood can come alive. There are nights the woods bear witness to love, and nights we bear witness to death.
The girl in green that the young half witch saw was waiting for a boy. He came to her at last, through the storm. Many pairs embrace amid our trees, but they did not. Lovers’ meetings often end in lovers’ quarrels.
“I’m telling you to leave this one-horse town and come with me,” she urged. “I’m going to LA. I’ll be a star.”
The boy smiled a small, rueful smile, his eyes on the ground. “Isn’t that what everybody says when they head for LA? That they’re going to be a star. Just once, I’d like to hear someone say they were going to LA to be a waiter.”
“At least I’ll be something,” she snapped. “What are you going to be, if you stay here? Are you going to be a loser your whole life?”
The boy lifted his eyes and stared at her for a long moment. “Guess I will,” he said at last.
He turned and walked away, hands in his pockets. She called out after him, her voice raised in imperious, furious command. He didn’t answer.
She was too angry to get back in the car. She plunged into the woods and the wind. Her bright green coat billowed behind her as she went; her hood fell from her shining hair, and the wind turned our branches into long fingers that reached to snag her clothes and claws that raked over skin. She strayed from the path and got lost in our woods. It’s so easy to get lost in our woods.
She stumbled into a little clearing, where a bright stream ran.
We could have warned her. But we didn’t.
The stream shone like a silver chain laid down upon the earth. The howling gale did not ruffle the surface of the waters.
The girl advanced, frowning in puzzlement, and then in the silver, mirrorlike waters she saw her own reflection. She did not see the scratches on her face, or her wild hair. In the mirror of the waters, she had the glamour that only a stranger can possess. She saw someone who was all shining surface, someone who could make you believe the beautiful lie of perfection was true. Someone to be seen once and never forgotten.
She forgot the wind, and the woods, and the world. She saw only herself. She heard only the siren song.
This is the glory you have been waiting for. You were born for this. All you must do is reach out and take it. You were always meant to be special, beautiful, unique; only you deserve to be given this gift, only you, only you— When the hands reached for her from the waters, the girl stretched out her own hands eagerly for an embrace.
The river swallowed her, green coat and all, with one gulp. The brief struggle barely disturbed those calm, silver waters. Then the girl was gone.
In the living world, the last words spoken about her were She’s nothing compared to you. It’s not an epitaph anyone would want, but that hardly matters.
Now that lost girl is nothing at all: nothing but an echo of a sigh, dying among summer leaves. Leaving behind an echo is tradition. Our woods are full of echoes.
People spend their whole lives waiting for something to begin, and instead they come to an ending.
Well, you can’t complain about endings. Everybody gets one.
I love going to school. It’s not that I love Baxter High, the redbrick prison where our football team and their cheerleaders, the Baxter High Ravens, maintain the established pecking order (raven pun intended). It’s that I love my friends, and I always have fun with them.
Well, usually.
We have a special table in the cafeteria. The first one of us in the cafeteria always snags it, and people expect to find us there, the inseparable quartet: Susie in her shapeless hoodies, either avoiding the eyes of the football jerks who hassle her or glaring defiance at them. Roz, with her vague stare and strong opinions. And me and Harvey, who always sit beside each other. Normally the four of us chat all the way through lunch.
None of us talk about our families that much. I think Susie’s uncle might have problems. Harvey’s dad is a problem. And Roz’s dad is Reverend Walker. It’s tricky, having a best friend whose dad is a minister when you have two aunts who might drop a casual “Hail Satan” at any moment.
Usually we talk about books and movies, TV shows and art. Harvey has as many opinions about golden age superheroes as I do about classic horror.
Today, Harvey ate nothing and said less.
“What’s with him?” hissed Susie as Harvey carried back his untouched tray. “He doesn’t seem interested in anything. Not even Sabrina!”
I tried to smile, and failed. Roz elbowed Susie viciously in the side.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “We all have off days. I’m sure he’ll be a changed man tomorrow.”
When Harvey came glumly back to the table, I put an arm around his neck and gave his hair a fond tug.