The Nature of Witches

by Rachel Griffin

  Being here with Sang, I fully understand it.

  “Maybe it can,” I say.

  Sang looks at me then, a small smile pulling at his lips. My heart beats faster, and my body is restless, standing in this small space with him. I look away.

  Loose papers sit on the edges of tables and on the floor, under pots and stained with dirt. I pick one up and study it. It’s beautiful, a hand-painted illustration of wild larkspur. The species name is written in cursive, and different parts of the flower get their own close-up illustrations. Glass jars of brushes and watercolor paints are jammed in between plants and flowers around the room, and a large case of colored pencils sits underneath a table.

  “Did you do all these?” I ask, holding up the picture.

  Sang nods. “I’ve been really into botanical illustration since I was a kid. It relaxes me,” he says.

  So that’s why his hand is always stained different colors. I smile to myself.

  The pictures are all so intricate and detailed, beautiful but scientifically accurate. “These are amazing. You could publish your own textbook.”

  “Maybe one day,” he says. “I mainly just do it because I love it.”

  “You’re really talented.”

  Sang looks away, but I notice the blush settling in his cheeks.

  “So, what kind of research are you doing in here?”

  Sang leads me to a table in the far corner. Rows of sunflowers are lined up under UV lights. Dozens of dead plants are in a bin beside them.

  “I’m working on a better way of getting rid of harmful plants and weeds. Witches are so tied to nature that it physically hurts us to rip plants out of the earth, and even though we’re used to it, that kind of stress takes its toll. It’s the same for the plants; they’re still alive when they’re torn from the ground, and it’s incredibly jarring for them. Spraying them with chemicals isn’t any better. This is basically a more compassionate alternative to weeding.”

  “If the Sun played favorites, I’m pretty sure you’d win,” I say.

  “Says the Ever.”

  “What have you come up with?” I ask, looking at the flowers.

  “It’s basically reverse photosynthesis. If you extract the sunlight from a plant before it’s converted to energy, you halt the plant’s growth. The plant will die, but peacefully; it’s the equivalent of a human not getting enough oxygen and simply falling asleep.”

  “How do you harvest the light from the plant?”

  “That’s the tricky part. You have to ignore all the other sunlight in the area and isolate only what’s in the leaves. Once you’ve found it, you can slowly extract it. But the force of extraction must be exact in order for it to work, and the smallest variation can cause the light to flood back into the plant. I’m still working on it.”

  “Incredible,” I say, studying the sunflowers.

  “One day, I’d like to get my research published by the Solar Magic Association so other witches can adopt the practice. This would give them a way to remove plants without the pain and stress that goes along with it. I’m also seeing a lot of indicators that the soil becomes healthier with this kind of weeding. When a plant dies in this way, all of its nutrients are absorbed by the earth, creating a richer growing environment; it becomes its own kind of fertilizer. It’s still early, but I’m excited by the possibilities.” He turns away from the table and looks at me. “You’re the only person I’ve told about it.”

  Now I understand why he brought me here. He wants to protect his reverse photosynthesis project the way I want to protect my ability to summon magic that’s outside my season.

  “Thank you for showing me. I’m blown away, truly.”

  “Thanks. It’s a labor of love,” he says with a smile.

  This room is so small, and Sang is so close. It would be easy to let the back of my hand brush his, to let myself lean into him. I am pulled toward him like a magnet, and it takes so much effort not to let go and snap into him.

  “Do you know what the most common use for these houses was?” His eyes find mine, and I can’t look away.

  I shake my head. I try to remember what I learned in class, but I’m too distracted.

  “People would come here to fall in love,” he says.

  His eyes are searching mine, sending pulses of heat through every square inch of my body. I clear my throat and look down.

  “I made something for you.” Sang walks to a table in the corner of the room. He picks up a small vial of liquid and brings it back to me.

  “Is this some kind of potion to make me fall in love with you?” The words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them.

  A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “Why?” he asks. “Would it work?”

  He’s trying to keep his smile small, but his dimples give him away.

  “My resolve is rather strong.”

  “Is that so?” he asks, stepping so close I can feel his breath on my skin.

  I want to remove the space between us, closer and closer until we snap together.

  Then I think about Paige and striking her with lightning. Paige and the way she looked when I ended things, betrayed and angry and broken.

  I can’t do this.

  I break eye contact and step back. “Are you going to tell me what’s in the vial or not?” I ask.

  “It’s a dream elixir,” he says. “We don’t use them much anymore, but the earliest witches believed there was an elixir for everything. Talent, courage, strength. Different plants create different elixirs; they’re meant to be worn like perfume.”

  Sang holds the vial between us, the amber liquid glinting in the light. “You don’t need a talent elixir,” he says. “You’re already talented.”

  I will myself to look anywhere other than his face, but it doesn’t work.

  “You don’t need a courage elixir,” he murmurs. “You’re already brave.”

  He hands me the vial, placing it softly in my palm. I shiver when his fingers brush mine.

  “You don’t need a strength elixir. You’re already strong.”

  “Then what’s it for?” I ask, forcing my voice to stay steady.

  “There’s an old belief that if you take a small sample of every plant in an immersion house and speak your wildest dreams out loud as you apply it, it will make them come true.”

  I look around the room, at the hundreds of plants surrounding us.

  “There’s a sample from every plant in this elixir?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been working on it for a while.” His voice is quiet, shy. His confidence from earlier is gone, and his cheeks betray him with a dark shade of red.

  I roll the vial around in my hand. It is the best gift I’ve ever been given.

  “I don’t know what to say. I love it. Thank you.”

  “I can’t imagine what this year has been like for you. The rest of us get to try and fail on our own, but you’re expected to do everything in front of others. And who knows how things will change once the school learns about your new power.”

  I swallow hard.

  Sang leans against a table but never takes his eyes off mine. “I guess I just wanted you to know you’re not alone. I wanted to put myself out there the way you’re forced to do on a daily basis.”

  I don’t say anything. It hurts to swallow, and my throat aches with all the words I’m holding in. I’m overwhelmed, afraid I might cry if I speak.

  Sang seems to take my silence as displeasure, because he quickly adds, “I know it’s nowhere near the same thing. I just thought—”

  “Thank you,” I say, cutting him off.

  Slowly, I walk over to Sang and wrap my arms around his neck.

  “Thank you,” I say again, my voice nothing but a whisper. My breath hits his neck, and goose bumps rise on his skin.

  Sang wraps his arms ar
ound my waist and pulls me closer, so close our bodies are perfectly aligned, touching at every point. He smells like black tea and honey, and I rest my head on his shoulder and close my eyes.

  “I like you, Clara Densmore.” His tone is defeated, as if he has done something wrong, as if he’s scared I’ll be disappointed in him. “I like you so much.”

  Tears sting my eyes. I force them back and fight against the words rising in my throat. We hug each other for a long time, his admission hanging in the air like the fog at dawn.

  And in this moment, I’m too tired to fight. I’m too tired to swim against the current.

  I lean back and look into his perfect eyes. The air between us is charged, and before I can talk myself out of it, before I can marvel at a desire I’ve only ever felt in summer, I let myself be swept away.

  I kiss him.

  At first he’s stunned, still. Then his arms tighten around me, and we’re fall-fall-falling over the edge of the waterfall, his hands in my hair and his lips against mine.

  He kisses me as if it might never happen again, slow and deep and deliberate. There’s a gentleness to the way he opens his mouth and twists his tongue with mine, the way he traces his fingertips down the sides of my face and onto my neck as if he’s memorizing me. He touches me the way he does his flowers, with confidence and awe and adoration. It showers me in warmth, and I push into him, trying to get closer still.

  We stumble back into the table behind him, pots shaking from the movement, but our lips never part. I’m breathless with a desire I didn’t know I had. Kissing him feels like hunger and standing in the rain and falling from the peak of a roller coaster all at once. I’m desperate for him and push further into him, never close enough. A pot falls from the table and shatters on the floor, but we do not pause.

  If I were capable of melting, I think I’d melt right here on the floor of this immersion house, because there’s not a single worry propping me up.

  The worries will come later. I know they will.

  But right now, with Sang’s mouth on mine and his arms wrapped tightly around me, I revel in the fall.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “I love the way rain is accepted in all its forms. Sometimes it pours. Sometimes it sprinkles. And sometimes it hangs back and watches the world before it falls.”

  —A Season for Everything

  I couldn’t sleep last night, kept awake by the ghost of Sang’s lips on mine, by the way his hand felt pressed against my lower back. By the worries that got louder and louder as the seconds ticked by. I’m so angry at myself for letting this happen, and yet I can’t bring myself to wish it hadn’t.

  Sang is at risk. He was before we kissed, and he is now. The only difference is that I can’t deny it anymore.

  There’s this tiny hope in the back of my mind that maybe I’m in control now. We’ve been training together for so long. My magic knows him. If it were going to seek him out, it would have done so already. We pummeled each other in the snow, for Sun’s sake. If it were going to hurt him, that would have been the perfect chance.

  But it didn’t hurt him.

  Instead, it showed us a new kind of magic.

  And maybe that’s what Sang is: a new kind of magic.

  I feed Nox and rush to meet Sang outside the administration building. He’s already waiting for me, and I can’t help the way my eyes drift to his lips, the way the back of my hand brushes against his. I look away to stop myself from closing the space between us.

  Spring has brightened everything, as if the trees and flowers and grass were covered in plastic that’s been ripped away. It’s all still here, even after frost clung to it and the earth froze and harsh winds cut through brittle branches. Everything survived and is waking up again, being coaxed from sleep by gentle rain and warmer earth.

  “Ready?” Sang asks.

  I nod, and we walk into the administration building together.

  “Go on in,” Ms. Beverly says.

  Sang and I sit down across from Ms. Suntile and Mr. Burrows, and it feels good to have him on my side of the desk instead of theirs.

  Sang starts, telling them about his reverse photosynthesis project and the progress he’s making. He tells them how he’s successfully been able to pull the exact amount of sunlight from plants to let them die peaceful deaths. He explains how this method of weeding eliminates the pain it causes witches, how it’s easier on the witch, the plant, and the earth. His voice gets faster as he talks, his excitement and love for what he does filling the room with a lightness that is undeniably spring.

  Ms. Suntile leans back in her chair, listening, and I’m surprised when she smiles, a real smile that touches her eyes and shows her teeth. I’ve never seen her smile like that the entire time I’ve known her, and I almost laugh; I’m not the only one Sang has had an effect on.

  “I would very much like to see your research, Mr. Park. It sounds remarkable.”

  “I look forward to showing it to you.” There’s relief in his voice, and he relaxes beside me.

  “It sounds like you’ve been able to pick up right where we left off at Western,” Mr. Burrows says.

  No thanks to you, I want to say, but I keep my mouth shut.

  Sang nods. “I’m glad I’ve been able to find the time for it.”

  Sang did this for me. He told them about his research before he wanted to so I wouldn’t be the only one who was vulnerable today. So I wouldn’t be alone. It makes me want to wrap him in my arms right here, right this second, in front of Ms. Suntile and Mr. Burrows.

  But there’s something else, too, a hot, prickly sensation that runs up my spine. My stomach feels as if it drops ten feet. I’m jealous. Jealous that I will no longer be the only person who’s seen Sang’s immersion house and his project. Jealous that my eyes won’t be the only ones on his botanical illustrations. Jealous that the secret we shared is no longer secret.

  And now I have to let them in on the other secret, the other unseen rope tying me to Sang. I’m afraid telling them will erase our moments, erase the things that make us us.

  “Now, was there something else?” Ms. Suntile asks, her voice returning to its usual sternness.

  Sang looks at me expectantly. I twist my hands in my lap, and my heart hammers inside my chest. “Yes. But it’s something I need to show you.”

  “What is it?” Impatience edges her voice, but I want to do this my way. Keep at least a semblance of control.

  “It’s something that’s worth leaving your office for.”

  Ms. Suntile exhales, not bothering to hide her irritation. “Well, then, let’s go see it.”

  She stands, and the four of us walk out of the administration building and toward the farm at the edge of campus. The air is cool, and the sky is clear, a perfect shade of blue convincing the plants to come back to life.

  Mr. Burrows talks with Sang about his project as we walk, his voice enthusiastic and supportive, asking questions and presenting hypotheticals. It’s a glimpse of what they must have been like at Western, and it makes me angry that Sang’s experience here has been so different from what he was promised.

  And yet I’m so thankful for it—thankful it’s him waiting for me on the control field every time I train, thankful he’s the one by my side as I fail and succeed and everything in between.

  Thankful for him.

  The farm is quiet when we get there, acres of land patiently waiting for autumn’s harvest. If Ms. Suntile is surprised that we’re here instead of at the control field, she doesn’t show it.

  “All right, Ms. Densmore, the floor is yours.”

  Mr. Burrows stands beside her, and they wait with expectant expressions on their faces. I look at Sang, and he gives me an encouraging nod. But I feel frozen in place, everything stuck except the racing of my heart.

  I can never go back from this. As soon as they see what I can do
and realize what it means, everything will change.

  And the thing I’ve spent my life avoiding will become my life.

  I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I made my decision long ago, when Mr. Hart died and Mr. Burrows put me through that test. When Paige called me a waste and Sang told me I was made for this.

  When I started to believe him.

  “Ms. Suntile, would you please get ready to use your magic? Don’t actually do anything, just call it to the surface.” I don’t open my eyes; I don’t want to see the look on her face or the way Mr. Burrows watches me with doubt.

  Ms. Suntile doesn’t say anything, but I feel the slow, somewhat sad flow of autumn and know she is doing as I asked. But when I try to reach for it, I can’t.

  I can feel it, but I can’t get to it.

  I try again and again, but nothing happens.

  I open my eyes and see Ms. Suntile looking at me with a cross between pity and annoyance. I will never get a smile from her.

  “Well?”

  That’s when I understand. I can’t grab her magic, tie our seasons together, because I don’t trust her.

  “I need a second,” I say. I take Sang by the arm and pull him aside, ignoring Mr. Burrows as he leans into Ms. Suntile and whispers something.

  “I can feel her magic, but I can’t create the tie I need because I don’t trust her.”

  I expect Sang to list off the reasons why I should trust her or explain the ways this power is good for all of us, but he doesn’t say anything like that. After thinking it over, he says, “Is there an autumn you do trust?”

  “I trusted Mr. Hart.”

  “Try focusing on him. The same magic that is in Ms. Suntile was in him too, so pretend you’re working with him.”

  Ms. Suntile checks her watch. “I don’t have all day, Ms. Densmore. I do have a school to run.”

  I walk back over to her. “I’m ready now. Please call up your magic,” I say.

  I close my eyes and start again. I picture Mr. Hart and his patient demeanor, the way he never lost his temper or demanded more than I could give. The way he always met me where I was and never lost faith in me. The way he thought my changing with the seasons made me powerful instead of weak, extraordinary instead of volatile.