Page 26 of Magic in the Woods
The door shut, the woman disappearing inside the house.
“This is where we say our goodbyes,” the man said. He opened the door and pushed me in.
Someone must have covered the single window on the inside, because the house was dark. I stumbled through the threshold, off balance from the man’s strong push. A hand on my back adjusted my momentum slightly to the right before it left my back and my feet lost contact with the floor beneath them. I fell, my limbs flailing around me as I reached for anything that would stop me from barreling toward the ground. I found nothing but fast-moving air as my body twisted around.
Thump.My back hit something firm. My lungs contracted, wanting air that my body couldn’t inhale. Flickers of black danced in my vision.
“Move out of the way, or you’ll get crushed.” A hand with long fingernails wrapped around my ankles and dragged me off the mat I’d landed on, pulling me through the dirt on the floor to the side of the room.
Thump.A moan followed.
A face soon appeared alongside my own—another witch, her body dragged over by the same woman with long fingernails. The girl breathed quickly, her eyes darting back and forth. We both laid there for a moment before we heard another thump.
I turned my head in time to watch another body fall from the ceiling. This time, a girl with long brown hair landed on her stomach. She didn’t move until the woman grabbed her wrists and dragged her alongside both girls that’d already taken the fall.
Thump after thump, eight more bodies hit the mat and got dragged into a line along the dirt wall by the woman with long fingernails.
My body recovered enough that air could enter my lungs, and the black spots retreated from my vision. I lifted my head and sat up against the dirt wall, taking in the underground room we were in. It looked like a hole that’d been dug deep into the ground. The floors and walls were all pressed dirt that would crumble away if the woman with the fingernails drug her finger along it. An arched metal door with a complicated looking locking mechanism was the only thing in the room that wasn’t dirt besides the thin mat we’d all landed on.
Our ragged breaths were the only noise that filled the space before the light from the trapdoor above us flickered for a moment before disappearing completely, the door slamming closed, leaving us in darkness. Gasps from the girls and some choked cries replaced our heavy breathing.
A warm, gritty hand found mine, weaving its fingers between my own and giving a slight squeeze. “It’s me, Brooke.”
I squeezed back. She pushed herself into a seated position, leaning back next to me against the crumbling dirt wall behind us.
“Let me see if I can…” Brooke brushed her fingers across my face, faltering around until she found the dirt wall next to my ear, her knuckles brushing against my skin. “I think whatever they gave us is starting to wear off…”
Pieces of dried dirt fell, tumbling down my neck and bouncing off my shoulder onto the ground where I sat. Ipulled myself forward, the hand that held mine squeezing tightly.
“Here,” she whispered, touching our held hands with what felt like…water. She rubbed the liquid over the outside of our hands, cleaning them, ridding them of the grime that scratched against our skin. Although the rest of my body was covered in dirt, that small part of my body felt clean, somewhat normal in a place that was anything but. I squeezed her hand clasped in mine as a thank-you.
I heard a loudclickbefore the dim light of a single bulb mounted on the wall near the metal door illuminated. It wasn’t a lot of light but enough that I could see Brooke’s eyes next to me. They were wide, her hand gripping mine tighter with every breath she took. A breeze blew my dirty hair away from my face. Everyone looked up at the ceiling at the same time. A pair of black heeled boots slowly descended from the ceiling, floating gracefully down to the ground. The woman with the curly gray hair who’d “welcomed” us into the house before pushing us through the trapdoor used air magic to lower herself the distance that we’d all fallen.
I should’ve used my air magic to catch my fall,I thought. No. I was supposed to have one kind of magic—water.Get it right, Dafni.
The girls, except the one who’d fallen last, sat against the wall with their knees drawn up, just as I did. I looked like the other girls in muddy clothes. Their bodies were just as dirty as mine was, leaves and dirt tangled in their hair. Like Annabel had predicted, it looked like some of them had put up a fight getting into the truck.
The woman with the gray curls toed the girl who’d fallen last. She was still lying on her back, her chest rising and falling unevenly. Gray Curls shook her head before looking down the line at us. All the girls kept their chins down, staring at theground in front of their tucked knees. Her eyes met mine, probably because I was the only one looking at her. She narrowed them, studying me before looking away.
“May I be the first to congratulate you.” Gray Curls walked down the line of girls, her heels sending the dust up and around her shoes. “You’re finally here, at the Academy, where you belong.”
Someone sitting along the wall sniffled, their lips holding back a cry.
“The sedatives administered to get you here safely”—I had to fight to keep my eyes from rolling—“should be leaving your systems shortly.”
“This wasn’t what the brochure promised!”
Everyone lifted their heads to find the source of the outburst. Gray Curls’s head snapped around, finding the girl who’d just spoken out of turn. She pivoted, walking two steps back the way she came, towering over the girl.
“You’re lucky to be here. Witches need to be molded, trained.”
The girl flinched as Gray Curls spoke, spit flying from her mouth, landing on the top of the girl’s head.
“Your parents are human. They’ll never understand you…and soon they’ll forget all about you.” She swiveled her head, looking back at the entire room. “Should you try to run…” She looked around, admiring the solid dirt walls and the closed trapdoor at the ceiling. “Should you somehow escape and make your way home, you’ll find your parents will no longer recognize you. They’ve been administered a disremember potion. You no longer have a home, parents, or a family.”
The girl who had spoken out tucked herself into an even tighter ball.
“Now all you have is the Coven.” Gray Curls backed away and continued her march down the line. “You’ll learn fromyour elders while you’re here, and if you’re fortunate enough…talented enough…you could become the chosen.”
