The Nature of Witches

by Rachel Griffin

  I might stay for the eclipse.

  I might try to stop you.

  “I don’t know. But if you can’t get out in time and Mr. Hart is right, you’ll remain an Ever whose magic is no longer a danger to the people you love.”

  “It feels like a huge risk to take when I can’t even make my love last longer than a season,” I finally say. Love is for the summer—that’s how it has always been. And even though I started falling for Sang in the spring, it was summer that pushed me over the edge. Pushed me into love.

  As soon as I say it, I know that’s what’s holding me back.

  I love Sang now, but I have no reason to believe that love will survive the autumnal equinox.

  Sang is different—the spring showed me that. But I’ve never been able to make a relationship last beyond summer, and if the ring of fire taught me anything, it’s that hoping is a hollow sentiment.

  “First of all, there are as many kinds of love as there are stars in the sky. You only think you can’t love someone romantically for longer than a season. Fine—that still leaves you with all the other kinds of love.” Paige grabs a bottle of water from the dresser and takes a long drink. “Second, that’s completely absurd.”

  “How is that absurd?” I broke up with Paige before the equinox, but I still felt it—something changed. I didn’t long for her in the same way anymore.

  “I’ve been watching you with Sang since autumn. It’s now summer.”

  “And?”

  “And you’ve been in love with him since at least winter. Probably longer.”

  There’s no way I’ve loved Sang since winter. Before him, romance outside of summer wasn’t something I was capable of—romance in winter would be downright absurd. And while the spring was special, it was summer that intensified my feelings, drenching them in love.

  Wasn’t it?

  “You’re only saying that because we started dating in spring, which, granted, is new for me—”

  “I’m saying it because when you started training with Sang, you stopped hating yourself. He was able to make you see yourself through his eyes and actually like what you saw.” Paige pauses and looks at me dead-on. “Listen, do you believe Mr. Hart’s theory?”

  I look down. “I want to,” I say. “I care about whether all those people die. I care that our atmosphere is devolving into chaos and our witches are dying from depletion. I care about Mr. Hart’s belief in me. Maybe I should fight for all those things.” I say the words slowly, not quite believing I’m saying them at all.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Paige says, but when I look at her, I know she’s considering my words. She pauses, and for several seconds we stand in silence, watching each other.

  “If you’re going to go, you have to go now,” she finally says.

  “I’ll try to get out in time.”

  My hands shake as I pull some cash from my duffel, my heart pounding against my ribs. The dream elixir peeks out from inside my sweatshirt, and I carefully pick it up.

  If there were ever a time to make a wish, this is it.

  I take off the top, and the earthy, floral scent rises up to greet me. I breathe in deep, let it calm my racing heart and shaking hands and restless mind. I close my eyes and apply it to both sides of my neck, both wrists.

  “Please let this work,” I say over and over.

  “You about done with your perfume?” Paige asks, making sure I know how ridiculous she thinks I’m being.

  “It’s a dream elixir.” I put the top back on and carefully place it in my bag.

  “Whatever,” she says, handing me my phone. A timer is set for one hour. “By the time this goes off, you have to be hauling ass out of there if you want to make it out before totality. I’ll wait to tell Ms. Suntile where you are so she won’t have enough time to go after you.”

  “Okay,” I say, sliding my phone in my pocket.

  I walk to the door, pausing when my hand touches the cool metal handle. “I’m really doing this,” I say, shaking my head.

  “You’re really doing this,” Paige says behind me.

  I turn to look at her. “I’m sorry I didn’t fight for you,” I say. “I should have.”

  Paige swallows but keeps her eyes on mine. “Go.”

  I open the door, rush down the emergency staircase, and run out the back of the hotel.

  I hop in a taxi and look out the rear window.

  No one follows me.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “This is your life, and you have to choose how you want to live it.”

  —A Season for Everything

  I’ve never seen so much rain fall from the sky. I’m completely drenched, my clothes heavy and clinging to my skin. My hair is down, soaking wet, and I curse the hair tie I left sitting on the bathroom counter in the hotel. I’m about a quarter mile up the river from the Eclipse the Heat festival, and I can barely hear the music over the pouring rain. The stage is covered, but I can’t believe bands are still playing.

  There is so much rain I can barely see a few feet in front of me, let alone all the way to the festival. The river rushes past me, rising with each passing minute. I don’t have much time.

  I squint into the sky as water pours down my face. The cumulonimbus cloud is so dark, so ominous, that I can’t see the sun. The partial eclipse is well under way, and I feel bad for all the people who came out for the festival and aren’t able to see it.

  But that’s the least of their worries.

  Lightning brightens the sky, and thunder claps soon after. I expect to hear screams from the festival, but instead, people cheer. They think it’s a wild summer storm, an amazing story they’ll be able to tell for years to come. They don’t know the danger they’re in.

  I have to get to work.

  I close my eyes, and magic surges inside me, big and eager in a way only summer magic can be. It jumps to greet me, aching to be released into the world, to touch the storm, to calm the river. It rolls around inside me until I have no choice but to set it free.

  It rushes toward the clouds, diving in at once. If I can reduce the strength of the updrafts until they stop, the storm will dissipate. Magic wraps around the updraft and pushes down down down, but the force of it is unlike anything I’ve encountered before.

  It doesn’t respond to my magic, doesn’t even falter.

  The updraft keeps going, and my magic is helpless, rising with it.

  I take a deep breath and try to calm my racing heart, still my shaking hands. I have not come here for nothing. I can do this.

  I inhale, a long, deep breath that makes my chest and belly rise. When I exhale, a huge swell of summer magic jumps into the storm, an intense, bold rush that holds nothing back. No other season can absorb as much magic from the sun as summers, but even the colossal strength of the season isn’t enough to dampen the updrafts in this storm.

  My arms shake, and I’m gritting my teeth, already so exhausted. But the cloudburst keeps going as if I’m not even here, as if I haven’t risked everything to stop it. Rain continues to fall, and the river continues to rise, and time continues to run out.

  I pull out my phone and check the timer. Eleven minutes. I’m supposed to leave in eleven minutes, and I haven’t even slowed the rain. I’ve done nothing.

  Maybe I should leave now. Go back the way I came, get out of the path of totality, and know that I tried. At least I tried.

  But something keeps me planted here, tells me to keep working.

  So I do.

  I take another deep breath and begin again. Summer magic is already at the surface, impatiently waiting, ready to be thrown back into action. But when I release it, it doesn’t drive toward the updraft the way I expect. It doesn’t fight against the rising air.

  Instead, it darts across the river and feels…cold. Like ice.

  I turn toward
the river and narrow my eyes, try to see past the rain. I feel for my magic again, and it is undeniably tangled with winter.

  The path of totality cuts across the river diagonally—the bank directly across from me is out of the path, completely safe for witches. I can’t see past the rain, but I know they’re on the other side. And while they’re too far away to control the storm, they aren’t too far away for me. I can reach them.

  My magic can reach them.

  I’m overwhelmed with understanding and laugh into the rain. I don’t know if it’s Paige or someone else, but there is a witch across from me on the other side of the river, offering their magic.

  Summer magic delights in other people, and it rushes across the river as if it’s greeting an old friend. It wraps itself up in winter, and I pull it back, toss it to the storm.

  The updraft falters. Not a lot, but it falters. It knows I’m here.

  I pull more magic and keep working on the updraft, pushing down as hard as I can. A sudden blast of cold shoots through me, and the thread of winter gets stronger and stronger and stronger.

  I have no idea why it’s getting this strong, but I send more magic across the river and pull.

  And as I do, I’m greeted with the transitional magic of autumn.

  Then the aggressive magic of winter.

  The patient magic of spring.

  And the intense magic of summer.

  I can’t see a damn thing, but I can feel it, all four seasons rising up around me as if I’m the sun.

  I don’t understand what’s happening, but I know in the deepest parts of myself that this is right. Something inside me is shifting into place, coming together instead of pushing apart, and my entire body responds as if this is the moment it’s waited for my entire life.

  It’s so loud, the rain and the river and the music and the people, and it frays my attention, making it hard to focus. Hard to think.

  I’m pelted with rain, and a sudden rush of cold over my feet makes me look down. The flood is starting.

  No. I can stop this. We can stop this.

  I don’t need to think. I just need to act.

  I raise my hands into the air, and all four seasons rise with me. I throw my magic into the storm, and all four seasons follow, tumbling into the cloudburst and taking hold. Winter magic dries out the air, lessening the humidity. Summer focuses on the updraft, pushing down as hard as it can. Spring lines the bank of the river, forcing the water to hold. And autumn cools the air so it can’t rise.

  My whole body shakes with power, with exhaustion, with the knowledge that something bigger than I could ever have imagined is taking place right here before me.

  Screams start in the distance as the rising river fights against the magic holding it in. With everything I have left, I throw magic into the clouds. Not just summer, but all of it.

  The cloud fights against me, thrashing from side to side. It’s strong, but it isn’t stronger than we are.

  The merciless rain finally slows to a sprinkle, then to nothing at all.

  The river runs over, but the strong current, the incredible mass of it, stays within its bed.

  The screaming stops. People will be wet, but they won’t be swept away. They won’t drown.

  The cumulonimbus cloud dissipates from bottom to top, revealing a perfectly clear sky and the partial eclipse. I stare at it in wonder, the new moon posing in front of the sun, blocking almost the entire star. I marvel at how little sun is needed to light the Earth. The sky is a bright, vibrant blue, as if it’s oblivious to the show taking place on its stage.

  There’s a break in the music, and I think I hear cheering from the other side of the river.

  I turn toward the sound, and there on the other side is…everyone. Clapping and cheering and hugging. A huge group of witches that must be the entire Eastern upper class. And in the very front, I see Sang, Paige, Ms. Suntile, and Mr. Burrows.

  I want to run to them, dive into the raging river and fight my way to the other side.

  They came for me. All of them.

  My phone starts vibrating in my pocket, and I pull it out to see the timer Paige set for me going off.

  It’s time to run.

  I know I should run.

  But I stay where I am.

  Ms. Suntile is waving her arms wildly, pointing up the river, north. I follow her finger but don’t see anything.

  Mr. Burrows is holding on to Sang, who’s struggling to get away, pushing and throwing his elbows. Paige rushes to him, but I can’t tell what she’s saying.

  I’m confused and tired. So tired from dissipating the storm.

  Ms. Suntile turns toward the group, then back to me.

  In one coordinated effort, a single word made up of dozens of voices reaches me across the water: “Run!”

  You won’t even fight for the things you care about.

  I could run. I could get out in time.

  But as Paige’s words knock around in my mind, I know with absolute certainty that this is my fight.

  I trust in Mr. Hart, I trust in my magic, and I trust in myself.

  I’m staying. I’m staying because I deserve to love without fear, and if this is my chance to reset my magic, to help it find the balance it’s always needed, I have to take it.

  I put my phone in my pocket and slowly tilt my head back.

  The moon’s full shadow sweeps across the Earth’s surface, barreling toward me at more than one thousand miles per hour.

  I look up as the moon takes its place in front of the sun, blocking it from the Earth.

  And blocking it from me.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “You have to believe you’re worthy of the life you want. If you don’t believe that, who else will?”

  —A Season for Everything

  The air turns cold, freezing. Goose bumps form all over my body. Bright-white light encircles the moon, the sun’s corona streaming out into space and into a sea of total darkness.

  My connection to the sun is lost for one second, two, three, four.

  I gasp.

  It’s more excruciating than I could have imagined, as if all the blood in my arteries and veins and capillaries has turned to ice, as if the shards will poke through the thin walls at any moment. Magic drains from me in a sudden cascade, leaving my body with the force of a thousand landslides.

  Everything hurts, aches, throbs.

  Sharp pain invades my body, as if the darkness is a knife, slicing me open until there’s nothing left.

  I can’t hear the festival. Everything is quiet, deferring to the show taking place above us.

  The birds are silent. There are no squirrels running through the grass, no bees humming, no rabbits eating. A dusty-rose horizon encircles the inky-black sky.

  The world around me falls asleep, and my heart falls right along with it.

  Everything that holds me together is being shredded, muscle by muscle, bone by bone, and I cry out beside this rushing river to a sun that can longer see me.

  And suddenly, I realize this was inevitable; I was always going to end up here. If I had never discovered my true magic, I would have stood in the path of totality to get stripped, the same path I’m standing in now to stop the cloudburst. The same path Mr. Hart thought would reset my magic, would correct whatever it is that drives it toward the people I love.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe all my magic has ever wanted was to touch them, to feel that love and revel in it, if only for a moment.

  Every road led here, to the eclipse I’ve been awaiting for so long. Every single one.

  I’m not afraid. It was my choice to come here, to plant my feet on the ground and refuse to run. To love without fear. To put my faith in those who put their faith in me and believe I can survive this.

  And I do. I believe I can survive this.

/>   I think of my parents and Nikki and the future I want for myself, and I know that right here, under the shadow of the moon, is where I’m meant to be. Alice never spoke of a magic like what I experienced today, never found a way to protect the people she cared about. So I’m standing here for her. For my parents and Nikki. For Mr. Hart. For myself.

  I risked everything to come here, and standing in the dark, shivering and cold and soaking wet, I understand that my choice is what makes me powerful. It is my choice to be here, risks and all. No one else’s. I trust that the Sun will take care of me.

  My head aches from its absence, like a million hailstones have been dropped on me at once. I want to collapse, to bury my head in my hands and wait for the eclipse to pass, but something in the back of my mind pulls at me, begs me to consider it.

  Encompassed in silence and drowning in darkness, I think of the magic that surfaced this year and changed my whole world, a magic I could only discover because of trust and respect and love. I think of what happened just moments ago, how I felt all four seasons at once, and while I don’t understand it, I know it only happened because of the power that comes from being together.

  I’m so cold. My teeth chatter, and I shiver.

  My legs can’t hold me up any longer, and I collapse on the ground. All of my organs have turned to ice, a cold so deep and fierce I can’t remember the feeling of sunlight, can’t remember what it’s like to be anything but freezing.

  Mr. Hart once told me that love carries risk for all of us, and I want to take that risk. I want to take that risk so badly I feel as though I could reach out and touch it.

  Crumpled beneath the crown of the brightest star, my star, I realize I’m not okay with any of this. The sun is as much a part of me as my heart, and you can’t survive without your heart.

  For so long, that’s all I have wanted—to be rid of the sun and rid of magic and rid of fear. But now I accept it all, want it all, choose it all.

  My breaths are ragged and shallow, as if the ice is slowly freezing my lungs, as if I’ll never breathe again.