Page 13 of Magic in the Woods
“Would you like more, Dafni?”
I almost said yes, opening my mouth to speak. Instead, a gas bubble I couldn’t stop scaled my throat and exited my open lips. I slapped my hand over my mouth, eyes wide. Emily dropped her spoon into her bowl, the metal clattering against the ceramic, a laugh escaping her. Luke looked down at his stew, a smirk on his face.
“Now, now. There’s nothing embarrassing about a full stomach.” Annabel shushed her children before lifting a spoonful of stew into her mouth. She chewed, eyeing her children before she spoke again. “So, Dafni, Luke tells me you’re a witch.”
I froze. What had he told his mother? That I’d used my wind magic on him? Carried a frozen cat in a pail? But then I remembered she already knew about the cat. It was in her freezer. That hadn’t prevented her from helping me.
My mind raced. Maybe they were just nursing me back to health to use me and my magic. Grandmother had told me stories about those without magic capturing a witch. The story she’d liked to tell me was about a witch the humans trapped and kept in a cage in their kitchen. I looked around—the surroundings looked so much like the story she’d told me. They’d prodded her with hot pokers until she did whatever magic they’d asked of her. The witch outlived her captors, still stuck in the cage as their bodies rotted around her. I’d alwaysasked Grandmother to tell it again, even as my eyes were heavy and sleep took over my body.
Little did I know, the story would become so familiar.
No, those were stories. Nothing about fairy tales were real. Whatwasreal was that I didn’t have anywhere to go. There wasn’t a handsome prince coming to save me—there wasno onecoming to save me. I’d somehow ended up in a silver trailer with this family. Maybe I was lucky. They’d nursed me back to health for a week. They were feeding me and provided me with clean clothes. They’d given me a knife…twice.What would be the point of all that if they were just going to kill me?
“You don’t have to share anything you don’t want to, Dafni.”
My eyes went back to Annabel. She knew who was in the freezer—it was understandable that she had questions and wanted answers.
“I’m a witch,” I whispered.
Annabel took a moment to chew another spoonful of stew, all while staring at me, studying me. She took her time looking at my nose, my eyes, my mouth. I looked down at my empty bowl, not knowing where to look.
“Luke tells me you have two powers,” she said.
Emily choked for a moment, coughing over her stew. Luke stared at me, awaiting my response.
“That’s rare in a witch, you know.”
I was rare? I’d only known two witches my entire life—my grandmother and my mother. Both women had more than one power. Like them, I had multiple: air and water.
“There was only one line known to produce witches with more than one power,” Annabel said. My throat expanded as I gulped down more air. “Matilda’s line.”
I pulled my eyes away from the table and settled them on my hands—they were shaking in my lap.
“You’re Matilda’s daughter, aren’t you?”
No one at the table breathed.
“I’m here to take her place in the Coven,” I said.
Luke choked on his food. “You can’t just show up and take over. There are too many customs…traditions… They’re super stri?—”
“Witches don’t just walk into the Coven,” Annabel cut off Luke. “There’s a process. It’s extremely controlled.”
Luke cleared his throat. “To enter the Coven, you need to graduate from the Academy.”
The Academy?I’d heard that word before…
“What do you know about this…Academy?” I asked, looking at each of their faces for answers.
Both Luke and Emily looked to their mother, their lips closed.
“You already know Luke works there,” she began.
I nodded. That was what he’d told me when he’d found me.
“The Academy isn’t far away…in fact, we’re on their property now, above the soil instead of under it.”
I looked down at my feet, to the linoleum floor of the trailer.I’m already here?I looked up, my mind simmering with even more questions. “So you are part of…it…” I waved my hand in the air trying to find the right word.
