The Nature of Witches

by Rachel Griffin

  I reach out my hand, run my fingers across his jaw. He looks stunned. His eyes get teary.

  Then he places his hand over mine.

  I can’t hold my arm up anymore.

  “I wish I hated you,” I say.

  Then I’m gone again.

  ***

  I’m admitted to the hospital with a temperature of 111 degrees. Nurses and doctors swarm around me and get me in an ice bath less than ten minutes after Sang carries me in. I convulse in the tub.

  Once my temperature lowers, they put me in a bed with cooling blankets and hook me up to an IV. The doctor taking care of me, Dr. Singh, looks at me in wonder and tells me I’m “miraculously stable.” She stays past her shift to monitor me.

  A nurse takes my blood pressure and pulse, then asks me if I’m up to seeing a visitor.

  I nod, and few moments later, Sang walks into the room.

  He doesn’t hesitate. He rushes to the bed and puts his hand on my arm. His eyes are bloodshot, and his skin is splotchy. He brushes the hair out of my face, looks me up and down as if to reassure himself that I’m real.

  “The family—” I start, but Sang cuts me off.

  “They’re okay. Mr. Burrows picked them up this morning.”

  “He came back?”

  Sang takes a breath. “He was staying at a motel not far from the logging property. The test was much more controlled than he let you believe—he only started to panic when he showed up this morning and you were gone. He thought you’d never get through the sunbar.”

  Anger rises inside me, and a machine to my left beeps as my heart rate increases. Mr. Burrows let me believe Angela and her children would die. That I was their only hope.

  I shake my head. I’m angry, but I’m also embarrassed. I fell for it.

  Sang looks so upset. “Mr. Burrows called me this morning when he realized you were gone. It took hours to find you—you went the wrong way on the main road,” he says. “You were delirious from the heat.”

  “Angela is okay? Her kids?”

  “Yes,” Sang says, and my whole body calms with that single word. “They’ll be fine, entirely thanks to your hailstones. There were so many. How did you do it?”

  “I imagined myself in the river,” I say quietly.

  The gold in Sang’s eyes blurs.

  But then I remember him talking with Mr. Burrows, and I’m angry again.

  I pull my arm out of his reach and sit up straight.

  “How could you not warn me?”

  Sang doesn’t respond right away. He looks confused. When he finally speaks, his voice is strained. “Warn you? I didn’t even know it was happening.”

  “He said you knew I was with him.”

  “I did, but that’s all I knew. If I had known what he was planning, I never would have let it happen.” His hands are balled into fists on my bed, so tight they’re shaking.

  I don’t want to believe him. I remember the way he stood on the field with Mr. Burrows and laughed with him, and I’m ready to yell that I never want to see him again.

  “But I saw you with him and Ms. Suntile right before he told me we’d be doing the test.”

  “If you can only trust me if I never speak with Mr. Burrows, we may as well give up now.”

  “It isn’t just that. He’s your mentor, Sang. You respect him.”

  “I need to talk with him when we get back. See where his head was at.” Again, I almost yell at him, demand that he leave. But then he hangs his head and says, “I might have to reevaluate some things.” And the pain in his voice is so apparent that it takes all the fight out of me.

  He respects Mr. Burrows the way I respected Mr. Hart. Seeing the person you’ve looked up to morph into someone so different would be devastating.

  I’m quiet for a long time. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew about the test.”

  Sang looks directly at me. “I’m sorry for whatever I did to make you think I would be okay with something like that.”

  I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything at all.

  Dr. Singh comes in to check on me once more before leaving for the night. She listens to my heart and checks my IV, then pulls up a chair.

  “Are you family?” she asks Sang.

  He shakes his head. “Should I leave?”

  Dr. Singh looks at me. “He can stay,” I say.

  “We’re going to do some blood work in the morning, once you’ve had more fluids and remain stable through the night. At a temperature of one hundred and seven degrees, multiple organ failure can occur. At one hundred and ten, brain damage and death. Your temperature was one degree higher than that when you showed up, and quite frankly, I didn’t think you’d make it.”

  I take in a sharp breath.

  “We won’t have the full picture until we run your labs in the morning, but your vitals are good, and you’re not showing any signs of distress. You’re extremely lucky, Clara, even for a witch. Try to get some sleep tonight, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Dr. Singh walks out of the room, and I hear her tell my nurse to page her if anything changes overnight.

  I turn to look at Sang, but his eyes are on the chair Dr. Singh was in just moments ago.

  “I’m tired,” I say.

  Sang stands. “I’ll go.”

  But the thought of being alone terrifies me, as if I could end up back in that field at any moment, completely exposed and so weak I can hardly stand. I reach out and touch my fingers to his. I fight the urge to pull him into me, to fold into him. To press my head to his chest and let the beating of his heart lull me to sleep.

  “Maybe don’t?”

  Sang looks down at his hand, then back at me. Something like relief flares in his eyes. He nods, leaves the room, and comes back a few minutes later with a pillow and blanket.

  He doesn’t say anything. He simply turns out the light, walks to the couch, and lies down.

  I can’t see him, but his presence is enough. If I weren’t so tired, if I weren’t so angry, it might worry me that him being here matters to me. That it matters more than it should.

  The machines in my room beep in time with my heart, and for some reason I can’t explain, it comforts me.

  “Thank you for coming for me,” I say into the darkness.

  A pause. Then, “Always.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “There is nothing more powerful than being understood.”

  —A Season for Everything

  All of my blood work comes back normal, and I’m sent home the next day. Dr. Singh says mine is one of the most surprising cases she has seen in all her years of medicine, witch or shader.

  The car ride back to Eastern is long. Sang asks repeatedly if I’m comfortable, fidgeting with the temperature control and telling me multiple times how to adjust my seat. But other than being weak and tired, I’m fine.

  Both of our hands sit open on the center console, just inches apart. The space feels alive, as if there’s an electrical current running between us. I’ve never been more aware of my hand in my life.

  I finally move it to my lap and look out the window.

  “Do you know what the most frustrating thing about this is?” I ask after a particularly long stretch of silence.

  “What?”

  “Mr. Burrows said the reason he was leaving me on the mountain was because I didn’t respect my magic and that I’d learn to if I was forced to rely on it. And he was right. My magic is what kept Angela and her kids alive, maybe even me. The reason I didn’t go into organ failure is because it never stopped pulsing through me. It cooled me down. It couldn’t do a damn thing to stop the heat wave, but it’s the only thing that kept me alive.”

  “He didn’t have to leave you on a mountain to teach you that.” Sang’s voice isn’t aggressive or angry. It’s sad.

/>   I don’t say anything, because I’m not sure he’s right. I’ve hated my magic for so long, it’s hard to imagine that I could have learned to respect it without something drastic like what Mr. Burrows did. But then I think back to my training sessions with Sang, and I’m not actually sure I hated it anymore. I didn’t love it—I still don’t—but I was learning to appreciate it. Maybe I was learning to respect it too.

  “Maybe not,” I finally say. “But I think I was starting to learn it from you.”

  Sang doesn’t respond, but the smallest hint of a smile forms on his lips.

  It’s lunchtime when we pull into the Eastern parking lot, but everyone is inside. No one wants to be out in this heat, not even the summers.

  I step out of Sang’s truck and groan. Today is supposed to be the last day of the heat wave, and then we can get back to winter. But this has been another reminder that things are shifting, that we don’t have as much control as we used to. That we need help if we’re going to undo all the damage that’s been done. The witches in charge of this area must be exhausted from trying to deal with the heat.

  I think back to Mr. Donovan’s class, to what he told us about witches dying from depletion, and I finally understand it.

  Winter magic is useless in a heat wave, and the summers are too weak for their magic to be effective right now. But they try to help anyway, because this world is everything to them.

  And they die because of it.

  Ms. Suntile rushes out to meet us. Her forehead is creased with worry, and her lips are pulled into a frown. “Thank the Sun you’re here,” she says. “How are you?”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “Mr. Park said the doctor released you with instructions to rest, but otherwise you’re fine?” Her eyes move from me to Sang.

  “Fine? I was left in the middle of nowhere by a teacher during the worst heat wave in history. I’m not fine.”

  Ms. Suntile winces. “Of course not. I’m sorry. I just meant that I’m glad you’ll make a full recovery.”

  I’m already sweating from the temperature outside. “I’m going to my cabin to rest.”

  “Good, that’s good.” Ms. Suntile walks beside me. “Mr. Burrows would like to see you when you’re feeling up to it.” Her tone is uncertain.

  I stop walking. “He’s here?”

  “Yes, and I can imagine you’re displeased with him. Those circumstances were too perilous for a test, and we are working out the appropriate—”

  “Where is he?” I cut her off.

  Ms. Suntile checks her watch. “I believe he’s in the dining hall eating lunch.”

  I change direction, no longer interested in getting to my cabin. Ms. Suntile and Sang follow me, struggling to keep up.

  “You should rest before speaking with him,” Ms. Suntile says, but I keep moving.

  Sang keeps pace with me, and we burst through the dining hall doors at the same time. The hall is packed and noisy, and it takes several seconds before I spot Mr. Burrows in the far corner.

  My entire body responds, shaking with rage. My heart slams against my ribs. The noise of the dining hall fades until all I can hear is the rush of blood surging through my arteries.

  I storm across the room. Mr. Burrows stands when he sees me, and before he can say anything, before I even have time to think, I punch him in the face so hard I feel his nose crack under my knuckles.

  He staggers back and hits the wall behind him. He covers his face with his hands, but there’s so much blood rushing from his nose that it runs through his fingers and dribbles to the floor.

  My hand throbs, and I want to cry out, but I bite my tongue and force the pain aside. It was worth it.

  The dining hall gets very quiet. Everyone is staring.

  “Ms. Densmore, in all my years—”

  I whip around to Ms. Suntile. “I don’t know who helped him or who signed off on what he did, but I will never be put in a situation like that again. I will sit in my cabin all day every day until you expel me before I do another test like that.” I try to keep my voice steady, but it rises and rises, piercing the air. I sound hysterical.

  But I get my point across. Ms. Suntile clenches her jaw and nods once.

  “And yet, somewhere in the back of your mind, you wonder if this exercise wasn’t exactly what you needed. No other winter could have produced that kind of hail in these weather conditions. You were extraordinary out there.” Mr. Burrows says it through bloody fingers, but his tone is confident.

  I look at him. “Who helped you with the sunbar? I know you couldn’t have done that on your own.”

  “I told the witches controlling the area that a sunbar of that magnitude would help mitigate some of the effects of the heat wave, which isn’t entirely untrue. The sunbar did end up absorbing enough sunlight to lower the temperature by a few degrees.” Mr. Burrows still manages to sound condescending, even with his face bloody.

  “You let me believe that family would die,” I say.

  “And look how well you did because of it. You were in total control out there.”

  Ms. Suntile hands him a towel, and he holds it up to his face.

  “You should get that checked out,” I say.

  I turn and walk out of the dining hall. The weight of hundreds of eyes follows me.

  I rush to my cabin, and as soon as I’m inside, I hold my crushed hand to my chest. All the adrenaline drains out of my system. I scream.

  Tears burn my eyes and rush down my cheeks. I grip my aching hand. A large bruise spreads across my knuckles and turns my skin the color of twilight.

  I kick off my shoes and crawl into bed with Alice’s memoir. Even though she loved her magic in a way I’m not sure I ever will, her words have become a comfort for me, a security blanket. They’re the first thing I reach for.

  I throw the covers off. The cabin is so hot, heat clinging to the stale air as if the Sun herself resides here. It intensifies the musty smell.

  Nox runs in through the cat door and launches himself onto the bed.

  “It’s so good to see you,” I say, pulling him close to my chest. He wriggles away and walks on top of my side, purring.

  There’s a knock at the door. I don’t say anything, but Sang steps inside anyway. He’s carrying a bag of ice and some crushed lavender. I give him a grateful look and set the book aside.

  He pulls over a chair, and I place my hand down in front of him without saying anything.

  “Clara,” he starts, and I think he’s about to reprimand me for punching his mentor. But he doesn’t. “That was amazing. I wish you could have seen what happened after you left. There was just this bewildered silence, then Mr. Burrows walked out and the whole room erupted into conversation.”

  “I admit it would have been better to do that in private.”

  “Maybe,” Sang says, wrapping the ice in a towel. “But it was pretty spectacular as it was.”

  We’re both quiet for a minute.

  “That test—it was too big a risk,” Sang says. “He couldn’t have known for sure that the shaders would survive.”

  “You didn’t think I’d save them?” I ask, my tone playful, trying to lighten the mood.

  “I don’t gamble with people’s lives,” he says. “But if I did, I’d put my money on you.” He looks up at me. “Every. Single. Time.”

  Sang is gently holding the bag of ice against my hand, but I swear I can feel his fingers as if the bag doesn’t exist.

  His words are so genuine I have to look away.

  I remind myself that I just went through something traumatic. The way my insides tighten when he looks at me like this, the way I want him near—it isn’t real.

  It can’t be real.

  It’s a product of going through an awful experience and having him here at the end of it.

  I clear my throat. “F
or a minute there, I thought you were going to hit him,” I say, another attempt to make the space between us lighter.

  He smiles this time. “Nah, I saw the look in your eyes and knew you had it.”

  We both look down at my bruised hand. And at the exact same moment, we burst out laughing.

  “The horror on Ms. Suntile’s face…” Sang starts, but he can’t get the rest of the sentence out.

  “I’m such a mess,” I say, still laughing.

  I punched a teacher in the face. In front of the entire school.

  “A mess is something that needs to be cleaned up. You’re not a mess.” He looks at me then, and his face turns oddly serious. He is no longer laughing. “You’re a force to be reckoned with.”

  Sang gently places the lavender on my skin. It reminds me of the day we met, when he helped me after the tornado.

  Before he was assigned to train me.

  Before trusting him wasn’t so complicated.

  I used to think Sang’s openness was a way to manipulate me, to wield power over me the way Eastern and Ms. Suntile and Mr. Burrows do.

  Maybe I was wrong.

  Maybe what Sang wants isn’t power.

  Maybe it’s to help me regain all the power I’ve ever given away.

  “I am?” My voice is quiet.

  “You are the most magnificently disruptive thing that’s ever entered my life.”

  I stare at him, stunned by his words. I swallow hard. “What happened to that bit about the sleeping orange and only opening up if someone tries to see you? You’re an open book with me.” I say it lightly, like a joke, trying to clear the air of what he just said.

  But it doesn’t help. His words slide into my core and drop anchor, securing themselves to me forever.

  I’m not a mess. I’m a force. A magnificently disruptive force.

  “I feel seen by you.” He says it simply, as if it’s obvious and not an incredible admission.

  But the thing that terrifies me, that makes me want to run from this room, isn’t that Sang feels seen by me.