Page 35 of Magic in the Woods
My eyes blinked, trying to rid themselves of the dust that blew up into them from my exhaling so near to the dusty floor.I picked up the paper, seeing I had two more letters left to rub.Only a little bit more.
I collected these unreadable words and carried the papers they were rubbed onto in my pocket while searching for the next word. They seemed to be written in some sort of foreign language. Over the years, I’d learned to make sure I always had extra pieces of paper and black chalk in my pocket for rare occasions like this.
I’d found three words throughout my life here at the Academy. The first one at age ten, then at sixteen, and now at twenty. I never knew when I would find one—often going years between sightings. But when I found one of these foreign words, it was like discovering buried treasure.
I stood, stretching my back so my muscles didn’t seize up from the way I had to bend over to reach the brick. This word was a lucky find. If I hadn’t been in the closet looking for cleaning rags—I wasn’t going to let one of the Coven’s nosy witches come in and clean my room—I would’ve never stumbled across it.
Bending back over the electrical box, I moved the wires out of my way before trying to replace the paper, lining up the letters I’d already rubbed onto it so I could continue. As I maneuvered my body, my foot accidentally kicked the flashlight to the left. The light flashed against the metal electrical box that half my body was squeezed behind.
My eyes blinked again. This time because of what I saw in the reflection of the metal.
Dark rings under my eyes. Veins that looked like black ink that dripped from those rings down my cheeks. No amount ofscrubbing, of scouring, could rid my skin of the horror that grew bigger and darker each year I lived here.
I wasn’t attractive, but neither were the other witches. Everyone who’d spent time here at the Coven and the Academy were affected—the men with dark rings below their eyes. The female witches’ skin produced sores and warts, and their noses grew bulbs at their tips. I’d watched year after year of human-born witches entering the Academy with unblemished skin and small button noses, only for them to become infected…inflicted with whatever was causing the horror on our faces. Even Robinson, who’d previously spent little time underground, grew darker around the eyes the longer he stayed here, and with Matilda absent, he’d been around a lot more.
There was something wrong, something diseased causing this deformation. Maybe it was the sunshine or the fresh air that kept their skin clear. It wouldn’t surprise me. Down here was just as ugly and drab as our faces.
I had to get out.
I liked to tease myself, or maybe I liked to torture myself, making up stories that maybe…just maybe these words that I couldn’t read meantsomething. That maybe they were clues or the answer to a riddle that’d point me toward the way out.
I couldn’t stay here much longer.
I’d been here for twenty years—raised at the Academy since I’d been a baby. Because I’d been born male, the Coven hadn’t trusted my witch parents to raise me. My parents had handed me over right after I’d been born. As far as I’d been told, they hadn’t questioned it, hadn’t fought to keep me. It was what Coven tradition demanded—that I was to be raised by the witches here, at the Academy, where there were enough eyes to watch me, to make sure I grew correctly and developed my fire magic.
My fire magic had come early, at thirteen. I’d been young, andthere’d been the occasional “accident.” Like when I’d lit Matilda’s closet on fire, watching all her black clothes go up in smoke. Or when I’d chased my instructors down the hall shooting flaming fireballs after I’d been disciplined for missing a lesson. Now I had my fire magic under control and could summon it almost instantly to the tip of my fingers. I mostly kept my magic under wraps so as to not draw the attention of the witches here at the Academy.
Other than the year I got my fire magic, every year had been monotonously the same. I watched the freshening each year—the new witches coming into the Academy. I skipped most of my lessons, attending only the ones I wanted to from the hallway. I searched for the mystery clues etched into the bricks around the Academy.
But this year wasn’t going to be the same—and would be anything but monotonous. This year, everything would change. This year I’d be forced to choose a partner. Someone I’d be encouraged—pressured—to create powerful witches with. Male witches were rare, and the Coven couldn’t miss the opportunity to create purebred witches to increase their population. It was much easier than scouting and bringing in human-born witches, as they liked to do each freshening.
After all these years, I was running out of time.
The freshening had happened early this year, and new clear-faced witches had already been introduced into the Academy. So far, I’d stayed away from them. There was always animosity between the new human-born witches and the seasoned witches—created from the jealousy of seeing the human-born witches with fresh, sun-kissed faces. The seasoned witches wanted to see the light extinguished from the newcomers’ eyes so they’d be just as miserable and pale as everyone else here.
Also different this year, after the fresheningwould come the evaluations. A tradition for every male witch who came of age. The female witches in the three elements—earth, air, and water—would each compete, each element offering their most powerful witch for my choosing.
Three.
That was the number of witches I had to choose from to be my partner. They’d be touted as the three most powerful witches in the Academy. Each of them equally qualified to be my partner.
Only the best for the male witches.
It made me queasy, that I had everyone vying for my attention. My whole life, the community, almost entirely female, had ostracized me for being male. From when I’d been school-aged and taunted for being a boy in a sea full of girls to when I’d been a teenager and ridiculed for being shorter than my female counterparts because I hadn’t hit my growth spurt until sixteen. The attention wasn’t something I’d enjoyed, and I’d tried to keep to myself all those years. None of the witches had paid me any mind, besides the occasional teasing, until the last few years…when talk of me coming of age and the evaluations had started.
Now I just tried to keep myself hidden. Out of the way. For the time being, no one made me do anything, and I had access to whatever I wanted down here—one of the few perks of being a male in the Academy. Which was why I was here in the closet when everyone else was preparing for evaluations.
With a final swipe of the chalk, I finished rubbing the last of the letters onto the paper:P-E-R-D-E-R-E. Another word I didn’t know.
Sighing, I tried to get out from where I’d contorted myself along the electrical box.
Click.
I froze, my muscles straining to keep my body still. Therewas a flash of light from the outside before the door slammed closed. Rapid breathing filled the space. I wasn’t alone.
“Hello?” I called out, pulling myself into a standing position as quick as I could. My toe hit the flashlight on the floor, sending it rolling beneath what looked to be a part of the furnace. The flashlight flickered before turning off completely.
“Who’s in here?” The voice was feminine. I could hear her breathing heavily, like she’d been running. “This isn’t my dorm room…”
