Wild is the Witch Page 2

  “Not even a thank-you,” I say, turning around and grabbing my things, grateful he can’t see the way my skin burns with frustration. I don’t want him to know that he gets to me, that his words actually mean something.

  Mom comes out of the back room and turns off the lights, holding the insulated mug she uses every morning for coffee. She slips into her jacket and untucks her straight blond hair, a stark difference from the brown, curly mess I got from my dad.

  I used to love it, but now I’d trade it in for my mom’s if I could.

  Mom locks up the office, and we walk outside, the cloud cover from earlier getting darker as the day recedes.

  “Pike left me to clean the sloth enclosure, so I need to do that before we head home,” I say, failing to keep the annoyance from my tone.

  “That sounds like him,” she says with a casual laugh. “I’ll get the walk-throughs done while you’re cleaning.” She starts off toward the aviary and looks over her shoulder. “Meet you back here in twenty minutes,” she calls.

  We walk in opposite directions, and I take a deep breath, letting the cool coastal air calm me. The sloth habitat comes into view with a bright-yellow sticky note attached to the door, standing out against the dusk. I recognize Pike’s handwriting and squint to read the words: Thanks slow much!

  I roll my eyes and pull the note off the door, crinkling it in my hand and tossing it into the trash. I get started cleaning, doing my best not to disturb the sloths, most of whom are sleeping. All of the money we get from the tour groups goes directly toward caring for our animals, and while the wolves are the biggest draw of the tours, the sloths never disappoint.

  Once their habitat is clean, I check the temperature before slipping back outside. Mom is already waiting for me, and she wraps her arm around my shoulder.

  “How are you?” she asks, leaning her head against mine, and I know she’s asking about Amy.

  “I’m glad she’s going home,” I say. “She deserves to.”

  “She does,” Mom says, giving me a tight squeeze before pulling away.

  What happened that night was so much worse for Amy. All she wanted was to share the magic she adored with the person she loved, and instead she watched him die. But there was so much collateral damage, so much pain, and I’m still working my way through the wreckage.

  I want Amy to go home. I want her to find happiness and love and a way to move forward. I want to reach out and ask how she is, but we haven’t spoken since her trial, and I don’t know how to start up again. At first, she didn’t want to speak to anyone, and I was okay with it because I didn’t know what to say. I was so mad at her, and so devastated for her. It was complicated, and it still is.

  Eventually, weeks passed, then months, then years. And after all this time, I still don’t know what to say.

  “Maybe it can help give you some closure.” Mom drops her work gloves onto the office railing and looks at me.

  “Maybe,” I say, even though I don’t know how a person gets closure from something like that. If closure is even something I want. The pain of it keeps me sharp, a constant reminder that some things are best left hidden.

  I don’t say anything more, and Mom doesn’t push it. She knows there was a fundamental shift inside me after my trial, that I began to close off the parts of myself I’d previously held open to the world. I think it makes her sad sometimes, the way I built so many walls around myself for protection from something she can’t see. The way time and distance didn’t bring as much peace as she thought they would.

  “You take him way too seriously, you know,” Mom says after several minutes, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Who?”

  She raises her eyebrows and tilts her head expectantly.

  “Oh, Pike. Honestly, Mom, I’m a little surprised you don’t.”

  “He’s hardly the first person to make a joke about witches.”

  “I don’t think he was joking. But even if he was, he works with us. And after everything I’ve already put us through—”

  Mom cuts me off. “How many times do I have to tell you that what happened that night wasn’t your fault?” I’m about to argue, but Mom continues. “Besides, look around you,” she says, motioning to the acres of land surrounding us. To the animals we’re lucky enough to take in. “Tell me that having to move isn’t one of the best things that ever happened to us.”

  I suppose she’s right. Mom and I fell for the Pacific Northwest the moment we arrived, and being forced from our old home in the plains of Nebraska led us here, to a place neither of us could ever imagine leaving. Mom was able to start her own nonprofit, and now we operate one of the most diverse animal sanctuaries on the West Coast.

  Sometimes it feels like a dream.

  We love it here, but we don’t talk about how the Pacific Northwest can’t fully fill the hole my dad created when the fallout from that night on the lake required us to move and he refused. How his desire to stay outweighed his desire for us.

  How who we are became too much for him.

  And yet, I believe my mom when she says she’s happier now. I can see it in the way she moves, with a lightness she didn’t have before.

  “Maybe it is,” I say, and she leans into me. She takes a breath as if she wants to say something more, but no words follow.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Pike’s a good kid, and he’s the best intern we’ve had.”

  “He’s also infuriating.”

  She frowns at my words, and I stop and look at her. “Just say what you want to say, Mom.”

  “Our life here is pretty great,” she starts, her voice hesitant. “Don’t create a problem where there isn’t one.”

  I sigh. I know she’s right. Our life here is great, but that’s why I cling to it so tightly, why I want to protect it with everything I have. Maybe Pike really is just making stupid jokes that mean nothing, but I’m unwilling to let my guard down enough to find out.

  “It really is great,” I say, softening my tone.

  “It is.” She squeezes my hand and pushes through the gate that leads toward the house, but I pause.

  “I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes,” I say.

  “Give Winter a scratch for me.”

  I smile at her words, at the way she knows my routine so well. It’s almost dark now, and I take my time walking to the woods where the wolves roam. Pacific tree frogs croak in the distance, and a crescent moon illuminates the clouds, casting the forest in a soft glow. I let myself in through the metal gate, then whistle for Winter. She comes running, the way she does every night.

  I sit on the cold ground and stroke her silver fur, resting my head against hers. She leans into me, and I think that maybe Mom is right, that maybe the universe meant for us to be here all along.

  There is magic in my blood, but this place has its own kind of magic. I feel it every time the evergreens sway in the wind and whenever the treetops are swallowed by fog. I can feel it in the salty air and the fern-covered ground.

  This is my home, and I know it as sure as I know how Winter is feeling just by looking at her.

  This is where I’m meant to be.

  I sit with Winter for several minutes before giving her one final pet good night. I stand and let myself out through the gate, beginning the walk home, but a chill rushes down my spine and I stop.

  Slowly, I turn. I have to squint to see him, his shape nothing more than a shadow in the dusty twilight, but sitting in an old spruce tree is the northern spotted owl.

  Silent, still, and watching.

  Always watching.

  Two

  Most people think magic is created, that it goes from nonexistent to existent in the span of a moment.

  That isn’t true.

  Magic is always present, always close. It exists along with all the atoms and particles of the un
iverse, and when enough of it is brought together, it produces a reaction most would call extraordinary. But the reaction itself isn’t the magic; it’s the existence of it in the first place that is.

  Witches are able to recognize the energy around us and reorder it in ways to produce certain outcomes. It’s a sixth sense that most people don’t have. We can harness all the chaotic particles and bring them together into something brilliant.

  And because magic is born of the universe, of the same stars that created everything on Earth, it can be used in three ways: on plants, on animals, and on humans. For every witch, one of the three forms comes most easily to them. Mom and I are both Lunars—our magic is strongest on animals.

  It’s that sixth sense, that innate connection to the world around us, that gives us our power. It’s why I’m able to soothe animals and feel their needs, why I know their history just by touching them.

  It’s also why I have to work so hard to hide who I am, because being a witch isn’t just casting an occasional spell. It’s seeing the world differently than the way others see it. It’s living in the same space but experiencing it in a totally singular way.

  It isn’t that witches have to hide. We don’t. Once it became common knowledge that it’s impossible for magic to be used on a person without their knowing about it, witches have been welcomed into society. And magic is highly regulated, especially for Stellars, whose power gravitates toward people.

  The combination of those two things led to less fear and more trust, to witches being open about their magic and respected in their fields. It’s been that way for generations now, and magic has become wholly intertwined with society, from Stellars who specialize in pain management to Solars who work with farmers around the globe.

  But I’ve seen firsthand what a fragile acceptance it is, and I don’t trust it. After the trial, I wasn’t Iris anymore. I was a witch, and when the word was sprayed in black paint across the home my father had worked so hard to build, he no longer felt up to the task of raising a girl with magic in her blood.

  And I had it easy compared to Amy. The way she was treated made me certain that what is best for me is to hide the magic I love.

  So I do.

  Mom and I are lucky, though. Our home borders the wildlife refuge, and since so much of the work we do is with animals, we’re able to use our magic regularly. It’s a quiet, invisible kind of magic that will never get us shunned. It will never require us to start over, to move to a different town where whispers and sidelong glances and spray-painted words don’t follow us.

  Foggy Mountain Wildlife Refuge gave me my life back, just as we try to do for the animals that come here, and I’m thankful every single day that this is where we ended up.

  I check my watch. I only have fifteen minutes before I need to be at work, but fifteen minutes is enough. The news of Amy’s release has me feeling exposed and vulnerable, and the memories I’ve tried so hard to forget are all I see when I close my eyes. I still haven’t forgiven her for begging me to go to the lake house with her, for not telling me what she and Alex had planned. I thought we trusted each other with everything, but it turns out I was wrong.

  Give it to the earth.

  That’s what my grandmother used to say, when my feelings felt bigger than the whole world, when I was sure I’d collapse from the weight of them all. She taught me to cast spells I would never use, as if I was writing a letter I would never send. I’ve been doing it since I was young, and at times, it’s the only thing that calms me, that anchors me to this place.

  I gather dried herbs from the cottage behind our house—mugwort, lavender, and lemon balm—and put them in a small pile on the ground. They’re surrounded by a circle of stones and rest on top of ashes from all the other spells I’ve written but never used, all that’s left of my worries and frustrations and fears.

  I sit down on the dirt, facing the circle, and begin. I’m not a Stellar, but I know how to write a spell that would sear into Amy’s mind and expose all the messy feelings I have about that night. I know how to rearrange the magic around me to let Amy understand I want the best for her, even though I don’t know how to show it. Even though I’m still upset.

  So that’s what I do. All at once, the particles of magic in the area make themselves known, and I pull them closer. They hover in the space between me and the stone circle, and I silently speak the words, magic morphing in front of me as I do.

  A sharp, metallic scent tinges the air, too faint for anyone but a witch to sense. But it’s there, the undeniable scent of magic, the spell I’ve crafted for Amy overcoming my senses.

  In one quick motion, I release it to the herbs, binding them together as one. The spell clings to them, a living thing I could send to Amy if I wanted. But magic is regulated, and casting a spell to make myself feel better isn’t an acceptable use.

  This is just for me, a spell that won’t do anything other than be absorbed into the earth. A letter left unsent. But the ritual of it is enough, and my shoulders relax as I go through the motions my grandmother taught me.

  I take the remaining magic and send it directly over the herbs, the particles heating up as they collide into each other. I send them around and around until so much heat is produced that a small spark jumps to the ground and the herbs go up in flames, taking the spell with them.

  Smoke rises into the cool morning air, the remnants of magic caught on the wind and burned into ash. It, and all my feelings surrounding Amy, belongs to the earth now, and even though my spell will never reach her, I feel better.

  I stand and wipe the dirt from my jeans, then walk to the office. The wind is strong this morning, and the tops of the trees sway back and forth against the overcast sky. My hair blows out behind me, and the cool air feels good against my warm skin. The calm of this place moves through me, and by the time I reach the office, some of the knots that had formed in my stomach have loosened.

  Pike is already there when I walk inside, hanging his coat in the back room. I run my fingers over the engraved logo in the wooden desk, the way I do every morning. I trace the wolf howling at the full moon and the outline of mountains behind it, the letters that spell out the dream that Mom turned into reality.

  “Feel better?” Mom asks, raising an eyebrow at me.

  She never took to my grandmother’s ritual the way I did, and she doesn’t approve of me writing spells that aren’t technically legal, even though they’re never put to use. She believes all magic should have a purpose, that crafting spells that aren’t used for anything is wasteful.

  I’ve tried to explain the way it calms me, the way it helps me work through my feelings and release the things I can’t change, but she doesn’t get it. Still, she’s never told me not to do it—even though she doesn’t understand, she knows it matters to me.

  “I do,” I say, kissing her on the cheek. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

  Mom looks at the clock. “Three minutes is hardly late. Pike doesn’t apologize until he’s at least ten minutes late,” she says, loud enough for him to hear.

  “Hey, that’s unfair,” Pike says, walking out from the back room. “That’s only happened a few times, when I’ve been enthralled by my coursework. Some would say you’re lucky to have such a studious intern.”

  “A studious intern who stops for coffee regardless of how late he’s running,” I say, and Mom laughs, shaking her head. Her cell rings, and she steps into the back to answer it.

  “Wow, way to throw me under the bus,” Pike says. “You’re not still worked up over the sloths, are you?”

  “You mean am I still worked up over you purposefully leaving your chores for me because you decided your time is more valuable than mine?” I ask, moving behind the desk and pulling a jar of vitamin D drops from the drawer. “No, I’d forgotten all about it.”

  I make sure Mom isn’t looking, then I take off the lid to her mug and put a drop in
her coffee. Her doctor told her to start taking it, but she never remembers, so I remember for her. I don’t think she’d care if she knew I put vitamin D in her coffee, but she already thinks I worry about her too much, so I try to be subtle.

  “Well, it sounds kind of rude when you put it like that,” Pike says.

  “It was rude.” I push the lid back on Mom’s mug and put the vitamin D away just as she walks out, interrupting Pike’s reply.

  “That was Dan. Animal rescue is going to be here in a few minutes with a wolf they found on the ridge. It’s pretty bad, from what it sounds like, and I’ll need your help bringing it in. Pike, can you handle the ten o’clock tour?”

  “Sure thing,” he says. He gets the office ready for the first group, and Mom takes a quick sip of coffee before grabbing her coat. I follow her out of the office without giving Pike another glance.

  “How bad is it?” I ask. It’s a cold spring day, the kind that feels as if it’s still touching winter, and I wrap my arms around my chest. Mom and I are both wearing Foggy Mountain baseball caps, and our boots trudge through the mud as we make our way through the trees.

  “I don’t have many details,” she says.

  The treetops sway in the breeze, and several pine cones drop to the ground when a larger gust blows through the branches. Raindrops from the night before glisten on the ferns and moss, and amber sap clings to the bark of the nearby pines. I hear tires over gravel in the distance, and Dan’s truck comes into view just as we leave the cover of the trees.

  “Hi, Isobel,” Dan calls from the driver’s side. He turns off the engine and steps out, pulling on his jacket as he does. “Iris,” he says, nodding.

  “Hi, Dan,” I say, walking to the bed of the truck.

  “What have you got for us?” Mom asks.

  “Male. Four or five years old. Struck by a vehicle in eastern Washington.”