She ran home so quickly she had trouble coming to a stop. Her shaking hands struggled with the latch on the front gate long enough that she finally decided to vault over it. She moved awkwardly, ungracefully. Too much momentum barreled her forward into the door. She didn’t have time to consider her actions, didn’t think what was next; she just fell into the front room of the cottage, her father’s name on her lips.
“Papa.” Wren’s voice fell flat. The door to her father’s room was ajar, sunlight spilling into the usually darkened space. There was no sound, not the shifting of sheets nor any murmurs of pain.
Only silence.
“Papa.” Wren spoke more forcefully this time, one hand on the door to his room, the other pulling on the end of her braid so hard it made her head ache. She needed to check on him, and yet she couldn’t bear to.
There was a metallic tang on her tongue. A low, rumbling moan came from the back room. A draft blew through the room, despite the fact that the front door was closed and the windows were sealed. Wren swallowed the lump in her throat. She had to know.
She pushed her way into the room. Her whole body relaxed at the sight of her father sitting up in bed. He was smiling.
“Well, hello.” Her father’s voice was steady and strong.
Wren couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him looking so well. Her knees, which had gone weak from her rush of panic, gave out with relief. She sank onto the edge of the bed, careful to avoid his feet.
“What’s wrong?” Her father examined her face sympathetically.
“I thought…” Wren struggled to catch her breath.
The coppery taste still sat on her tongue, but seeing her father so alert and alive made it difficult for her to take the flavor of the magic seriously. It was only because she had watched the scene in the marketplace that she had panicked so. She suddenly felt ridiculous.
“You worry too much.” Her father gave Wren a pointed look. She didn’t have the energy to protest. He was right. Worrying had taken the place of any hobbies, of any hopes or dreams for the future. “In fact, I’m beginning to think my lungs could use some fresh air. What say we take a walk?”
Wren’s smile wavered. The outside world had turned so volatile and vicious, her father would hardly recognize it. “I’m not so sure about that.” She motioned for her father to lean forward, plumping the pillows that had gone flat beneath his back.
“Stop that,” her father laughed, waving away her effort. “Really, Eve, I’m fine.”
Wren froze. “What?”
“You fuss too much, Evie. I’m all right.”
Nothing about her father calling Wren by her mother’s name was all right. Wren turned to face him. “Papa.”
But the word held no weight. His face twisted in confusion. His glassy eyes looked past Wren. Looked right through her.
“No,” she said. Her father flinched at her harsh tone, but for once Wren didn’t care. She could only see what was to come next: He would lose his resilient spirit and forget his family completely. All those years of nursing him back to health would have been for nothing.
“Let me find you something to eat.” Wren’s voice shook, but she did her best to keep a smile on her face as she guided her father back onto the pillows and inched slowly out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her. She had no intention of cooking; she merely needed a rational reason to flee her father’s hollow gaze.
Wren paced the floor of the main room, tugging at her braid. The dark magic now hung so low in the sky that she could see it out of every window. It draped itself across the cottage like a cloak. She murmured nonsense words under her breath as she drew all the shutters. She sank into a chair, rested her elbows on the table, and held her head in her hands.
She had tried so hard. Had been so careful. She had burned sage to purify their small space. She had put elderberries in his tea and broth. She had covered her mouth each time she left the cottage, and upon her return she had scrubbed her hands until they were raw and red. Yet her father had been struck anyway. It felt personal, as though Wren herself had done something to cause it. As though she hadn’t protected her father the way she should have.
But Wren had done everything for him, given up everything for him. Her entire life had been one endless sacrifice—ignoring hunger’s rumble as she offered up her portion of broth to her father, peddling eggs when she should have been attending school with the village children, staying far from the Witchlands so that her father would never know what she truly was.
Or perhaps it was her fault, but not for the reasons she thought. Perhaps her constant wanting, the ache in her chest every time she turned away from magic, the awe she felt having stood before Tamsin the witch—perhaps those things were the reason he had fallen ill.
Maybe Wren had compromised her father not with her actions but with her thoughts.
And he was compromised, her existence already scrubbed from his memory. If her father did not remember his daughter, all of Wren’s sacrifices had been for naught. Her life would leave absolutely no mark on the world. She could have passed through the Witchwood and entered the Witchlands. She could have studied under the Coven, learned how to harness all the magic swirling within her. She could have been different. She could have been more.
If her father succumbed to the plague, Wren would have nothing a thousand times over.
Her sacrifice needed to matter. Her decision to put her father first needed to matter.
Wren laid her hands flat on the bare table, stared at her long, crooked fingers, her dirty nails, her bloody cuticles. Wren had the hands of a worker. The hands of someone who didn’t give up.
So she wouldn’t.
* * *
The sky had turned a glowing green. The air held a hint of bile. Wren held a sleeve to her nose, but the scent seeped through her skin, settling in the back of her mouth atop the already bitter taste of desperation. She hurried down the path toward Wells, darting past the same dangers she had encountered only hours before. Her body moved quickly, but her heart was heavy, her anxiety weighing her down.
She shoved her hand in her pocket, touching the silver for reassurance. It was the last of Tamsin’s coins. Perhaps it was silly to spend the coin from a witch on a remedy sold by a tinker, but it was the only option she could see through the fog of panic that had settled atop her brain.
The town square was even more deserted than before. The baker and her wife had packed up. The butcher, too, had closed his stall. Only the tinker and a woman offering wilting bouquets of herbs remained.
“Is this enough?” Wren stood before the wizened man, the silver coin clutched in her shaking fingers.
“What’s that, now?” The tinker did not look up from where he was fussing with his display of tiny glass vials. The bright purple liquid inside sloshed merrily.
“I have silver,” Wren said sharply. “Will that be enough?”
The tinker finally looked up. “That’ll do, lass. Although your manners could use a touch of work.” The old man cracked a smile missing several teeth.
Wren pursed her lips, trying to tamp down a sigh. She forced a smile. Far be it from her to test the limits of a tinker.
“That’s better,” he said, offering his palm for her coin.
Wren tried not to cringe as she handed it over. She knew she was being reckless, spending impulsively, but her father was afflicted. She didn’t have time to waste worrying. Wren always worried. Wren always wasted.
This time, she would do.
But the moment the coin hit the tinker’s skin, his face darkened. “Ah, lass. Someone’s been fooled.”
Wren glanced warily around the deserted square. “What do you mean?”
The tinker wrinkled his nose. “This is a witch’s coin.”
“A what?”
The tinker smiled sadly at her. “A fake. I once traded a witch my right big toe for the ability to spot a counterfeit coin. Comes in handy in my line of business, let me tell you. Anyway, if I
had to guess, I’d say this one was once a button. Either way…” He shrugged apologetically and handed it back to Wren.
“This coin isn’t real?”
The tinker let out a tiny sigh of exasperation. “That’s what I told you. Any chance you’ve got another?”
But Wren hardly heard him, so loud was the fury running through her blood. Not only had Tamsin made her look a fool, but she had given Wren many coins—coins Wren had spent on goods and wares, which made Wren a thief too.
Such carelessness, such cruelty, when ordinary folk were already suffering, was unfathomable. The witch needed to answer for her actions. At the very least, Tamsin needed to supply Wren with enough true coins to repay her debt and secure a vial of the tinker’s potion for her father. If he had fallen ill because of Wren’s dark thoughts, it was up to her to cure him too.
And so Wren bid the tinker a grim farewell and prepared herself to extort a witch.
FIVE TAMSIN
The shrieking was louder than usual.
Tamsin reached for a pillow to muffle the sharp caws of the black-winged birds that had perched on her ruined fence. The birds were especially restless in the early afternoon, when Tamsin had taken to napping. But instead of closing around fabric, her fingers caught on something unfamiliar that fell to pieces against her palm.
Tamsin cracked an eyelid.
There were flowers everywhere. Long-stemmed, white-petaled things that covered every inch of her patchwork quilt, draping across her body from her neck to her toes. Tamsin scrambled from the bed, knocking the contents of her bedside table to the floor. A black leather-bound book landed at her feet. Its inexplicable appearance was even more ominous than the flowers’.
The diary’s first entry had unsettled her. Tamsin had never known her sister to be jealous. Marlena was not a skilled witch, but she hadn’t needed magic. She’d been the type of strong-willed, confident person everyone adored, the kind of girl everyone wanted as their best friend. She had been elusive, secretive, and special.
She had also wanted nothing to do with Tamsin. As soon as they’d moved into the academy dormitories, Tamsin had found herself in constant competition for her sister’s attention, and, worse than that, on the losing side of it.
Tamsin had always been applauded for her power, given special attention from the High Councillor, admiration from her teachers. But at the academy she’d found that getting attention was not the same thing as being liked.
She’d been so jealous of the easy way Marlena made friends. The way people cared for her despite her lack of talent. Tamsin had never imagined that Marlena might be jealous of her.
It didn’t make any sense. It couldn’t possibly be the truth. And so Tamsin had buried the book beneath the dirt of her ruined garden, promising herself that she would not let the diary’s words pollute her memory.
Clearly, it had other plans.
Tamsin pointedly ignored the small leather book as she used an arm to sweep the flowers off the blanket. They tumbled to the floor, white petals floating down like snow—or ash. Both were likely these days, despite the fact that it was the middle of summer.
Everything in the entire world was wrong.
Tamsin surveyed the chaos of her tiny cottage, arms crossed tightly against her chest. She just needed to breathe, that was all. She closed her eyes and inhaled sharply.
When she opened them, the diary was sitting on her bed.
“This isn’t funny.” Tamsin’s voice cracked from disuse. But no one replied. Instead a gust of wind blew through the room, ruffling the pages of the journal. Tamsin glanced around warily. The window was closed.
Fear gripped her, like a hand wrapped around her throat. This wasn’t her imagination. She wasn’t being paranoid. Something was happening, something beyond her reach. Tamsin was very much used to being in control. She was not enjoying the alternative.
Running a hand through her hair, Tamsin sank tentatively onto the edge of the bed. Every single part of her was shaking, although from the cold or from fear, Tamsin couldn’t tell. Dark magic was ravaging the world, and her dead sister’s diary was taunting her. It was punishment she was due, but the timing made no sense. She’d had the diary for years. Five silent, solitary years. Why now?
“What do you want, Marlena?” Tamsin whispered softly, running a finger idly across a stray petal on her quilt. She tried to turn the diary’s page using only the nail of her pinky finger, but the paper didn’t budge. She tried harder, to no avail. Tamsin even tried to shut the book, but the cover was like steel. There was only one entry the diary wanted her to read. So Tamsin did.
I woke up in the infirmary. Again. Honestly, I might as well just move in here. Who needs a dormitory when you can have scratchy, starched sheets and the dulcet tones of Healer Elthe’s voice instructing me to wake up?
I was out for nearly twelve hours this time. It’s taking me longer to recover. I used to just lose consciousness for a few minutes, which was annoying but manageable. But now I’m starting to lose hours. Pieces of my days disappear. I’m missing out on my own life. At this rate, I’ll spend more of my existence sleeping than living.
I hate that I can’t depend on my body. That my mind needs to take breaks. I have no control. I’m at the mercy of myself. And I’m so envious of those people who can just do whatever they want to do. Go wherever they want to go. Be whatever they want to be without considering the consequences.
People like Tamsin.
She came to visit, of course, loaded down with a giant bouquet of lilies. They don’t even bloom this time of year, but I can appreciate the effort, even though their petals are the same color as the sparse, sanitized interior of the infirmary. We had a nice enough conversation, but then, as she was leaving, she pulled my blanket up to my chin and stroked my cheek like I was a baby bird who had fallen from the nest. Sometimes I wonder if she loves this, all the fussing over me, the mothering (because we all know our mother doesn’t have time for such things), the helping. She’s always trying to help.
But I just can’t seem to let her. And I know sometimes I can be cruel, but I couldn’t help feeling resentful that here I was, sprawled out in the bed the infirmary should probably just name after me, and she didn’t even appear to have so much as a hangnail after performing the exact same spell. So much for “magic has consequences.” Tamsin has no idea how I feel, and worse yet, she never will.
Tamsin tried to turn the page, but the diary wouldn’t budge. It was just like Marlena to pique her interest and then deny her further information. She threw the book back onto the bed. She hadn’t meant for her actions to come off as patronizing. She’d truly wanted to help.
There had always been an imbalance between them. No matter how hard Marlena worked, magic only ever seemed to hurt her, to turn itself against her. Magic left Marlena dizzy and numb. It sometimes took her days to return to her usual self.
Tamsin, on the other hand, hardly needed to blink, and magic poured through her, always at her beck and call. The lesson that had landed Marlena in the infirmary that time had garnered Tamsin nothing more than a faint pressure in her ear, which had popped the moment she yawned. She emerged from spells unscathed while her sister slipped slowly into sleep.
But her magic did have consequences. Tamsin now suffered them every single day of her bleak, bitter existence. And she suffered those consequences because of her sister. Because of the spell Tamsin had used to save her.
It hadn’t mattered, in the end.
She’d still laid flowers on her sister’s grave.
Tamsin glanced at the petal she continued to clutch, at the stems strewn across the floor. They were lilies, Marlena’s favorite flower. The ones Tamsin always brought to her bedside. The ones she had left on the packed earth during her final good-bye. Was someone threatening her? Were these flowers the same ones that would lie on her grave too?
She was having trouble breathing. She gasped great hiccupping gulps of air, choking and spluttering as the room pitched an
d darkened around her. Before, she had been unnerved. But now she was really and truly afraid.
She needed to calm down, but as she dug her nails into the flesh of her palm, she knew she couldn’t do it alone. She reached within for a thread to grip and coaxed the love out from its hiding place. Instantly she was flooded with a steadying warmth. She took three giant, calming breaths. The room stopped spinning. Her vision stopped receding.
Then she was flooded again with the icy grip of fear.
Desperate, Tamsin tried to pull more love but found there was nothing left inside her to hold. The last of the young mother’s love was gone, and she had absolutely no idea if or when she would ever replenish her stash. After she had explained to several teary-eyed parents that she could not reverse the effects of dark magic, the people of Ladaugh had given her a wide berth. At market they made their opinions about Tamsin inarguably clear: She was a stain on the world, entirely at fault.
Those were the same words whispered by her fellow witches just before the Coven had voted to banish her from Within.
A banging started up on her front door, so hard it threatened to rattle the door off its hinges. Outside, the birds squawked and screeched. The doorknob jiggled. Tamsin’s blood ran cold. She tried to imagine what kind of person could possibly be on the other side. She glanced at the flowers on the floor. At the book on her bed.
She wasn’t ready to face her past.
There was one second of blissful silence. Even the birds outside stopped their squawking. Then the person started shouting. The strong, high voice didn’t sound especially threatening, but Tamsin wasn’t taking any chances. She made her way toward the door, pausing at the table to pick up a knife still slick from buttering a slice of bread. Tamsin held it carefully in front of her as she slid aside the bolt and swung the door open.
The girl stopped shouting. For it was a village girl, her long hair pulled back in a messy braid, her trousers full of deftly repaired holes, her boots all but falling off her feet. Her forehead was pinched in frustration, her mouth still puckered, ready to shout again. Her wide gray eyes caught on Tamsin’s knife.
Sweet & Bitter Magic Page 5
