Page 22 of Magic in the Woods
I shot daggers with my eyes at Luke, and he tilted his head at me in apology.
“You’re an inexperienced witch, Dafni,” Annabel said, standing. “There’s no way around it. You need more training.”
I opened my mouth to argue. I was training outside with clouds and dew—at the stove, making potions with her.
She lowered her eyes as if she read my mind. “Actual training.”
I sighed, leaning back in my seat.
“If you want to be Prime, you need to learn to act like a witch. Down in the Academy, they’re cutthroat and vicious.” Annabel paused, looking at me, her eyes softening. “You are none of those things.”
I looked down at the off-white shirt I was wearing. It was simple—how my grandmother had raised me.
This was all happening quickly…much quicker than I thought it would. I thought I’d have time to prepare myself at least mentally for entering the Academy. I didn’t know how to act like a witch, like my mother had. She’d cared for only herself and her position at the Coven. That wasn’t who I wanted to be. I slumped back in my seat. I didn’t want to turn out like her. Would I have to be like her, act like her, in the Academy? I didn’t know if I could do that.
“You can do it, Dafni.” Annabel returned to the table, her palms resting on the tabletop. I swore she could read my thoughts sometimes. “I’ve been watching you this past year…I’ve seen how much you’ve grown. We didn’t think everything would happen so quickly, so soon, but maybe this is for the best. Sometimes the less time we have to think, the less we can overthink.”
I raised my head to look at her.
“No matter what anyone says, this is your birthright.” Her voice lowered. “Play the part. Play the game. Get what you came for.”
I nodded. I could do this. Prime was mine. It’d always been mine. Yet my grandmother had raised me to be kind, virtuous—everything a witch wasn’t. She’d known that one day, I’d be Prime, yet she’d taught me differently.
So different from my mother, who had been a mean and cruel Prime. But it had cost her. I looked down at my lap. I knew the cost. It was me. She’d forfeited a relationship with her daughter to be the Prime. And where was she now? Trapped in the freezer of an employee of her own Academy.
I wouldn’t follow in her footsteps. I wouldn’t make my mother’s mistakes. I would have to make my own set of footsteps—parallel to hers, but a different trail.
“Okay.” It was the only thing I could say that wouldn’t upset my stomach further.
Emily brought me the thread-worn green plaid dress I’d arrived in. After wearing the clothes the Velkans had provided me withfor the past year, the material felt rough against my skin. The dress fit tighter around my body too—I’d grown stronger living here.
I stood in the kitchen wearing the dress and shoes I’d shown up in almost a year ago. The shoes’ soles were thin, and the material above my toes threadlike. How had I walked for days in these?
Annabel fretted over every aspect of my appearance, wanting me to look the part of a human-born witch taken from her family and thrown into a truck.
“They pick up the girls in fancy black town cars to keep up appearances…to keep the parents believing their daughters are headed to a fancy college prep school.” She smeared a bit of mud on my face, rubbing it into my skin. “Once they’re far enough away, a cargo truck intercepts the town car, and the girls are thrown into the back of the truck after being injected with a tonic to suppress their magic. The ones who’ve already learned some about using their magic fight back for a bit before the injection takes effect.” She nodded down to the mud still on her fingers.
“Why throw them in a truck together? Why suppress their magic?” I asked.
Annabel ran her muddy fingers through my hair until it looked like I’d rolled down a hill. “So they can’t fight. So they feel helpless. The Coven wants complete submission from their witches, and this is the first step in getting it.” She took a step back, placing her hands on my shoulders. “Just pretend you recently left your family. You don’t know where you’re going and you’re completely disoriented.” Annabel waited for my response before she tilted her head to the side. “Oh dear, you probably already know what that feels like.”
She looked at the freezer before looking back at me. I was leaving my mother here, with the Velkans. I trusted them, but itstill made me nervous to leave her. They didn’t have water magic like me—they couldn’t refreeze her with a flick of their fingers like I could. If Mother got a single paw loose from the ice, she could use her magic.
“She’ll stay here, frozen,” Annabel said. “You have my word.”
I tucked my chin down in a nod.
“It’s time to go. They’ll be coming this way in the next thirty minutes,” Luke said, walking into the kitchen. He’d spent all morning creating a diversion, something I hadn’t been privy to.
I almost fell backward as Emily ran into me, squeezing my chest in a tight hug. She’d helped nurse me back to health. She was sweet and innocent. I hoped she stayed that way. I squeezed her back, careful not to get the dirt her mother had smeared on my skin onto her.
“I’ll see you soon,” I lied. It felt like the right thing to say, even though I knew it was probably untrue.
“Go, go.” Annabel shooed Luke and me out of the trailer.
I left just as I had arrived, with nothing.
I turned around to see Annabel standing in the doorway of the trailer, Emily, standing next to her, watching me go.
