Page 73 of Magic in the Woods
Annabel’s eyes glared at her sister. “I stopped drinking it the moment Dafni left for the Academy.”
Matilda’s lips curled up, her teeth on display.
“I wanted to be ready, should she need me.”
Matilda tucked her teeth away, her lips curling into a sinister smile. She turned toward Emily, her head peeking out from behind Annabel. “Did your mother ever tell you who your daddy is? The dog he was?”
Annabel looked at me with wide unblinking eyes before looking back at her sister. “Matilda—stop.” She backed away, pulling Emily along with her.
“It’s only a matter of time before you’ll start sprouting fur. I wonder what color your hide will be?” Matilda twirled her hand around at the wrist, her fingers pointing out. The witches in the path of her fingers ducked down, gasping. “I guess it doesn’t matter what color, does it? You’ll be a dirty dog either way.”
“It’s ready!” I called out. This wasn’t about Annabel or Emily. This was about me and my mother. Ending this once and for all.
Everyone turned to look at me, Matilda eyeing my cauldron. “If you made it, it’ll never work. It’ll be just as weak as you are.”
I looked up from the potion, my eyes meetinghers.Her eyes never left me, her words making me feel like that little girl stuck on the roof, her criticisms taunting me.
However, this time, it was different. This time, I wasn’t a little girl, stuck on the roof of my grandmother’s cottage, afraid of my mother. She wasn’t really my mother. She’d never acted motherly to me, helped me grow, nurtured me. I was nothing but an investment to her. One she’d always expected to cash in, to get her return on.
The funny thing was that returns were fickle.The investment someone made twenty years ago could be the right one, or it could be the very, very wrong one. My grandmother had told meNever count your chickens before they hatch, and Matilda had counted me before I’d hatched.
I hadn’t really hatched until I’d left the cottage and was exposed to the world. Matilda had expected me to be obedient, serve her commands, be that naive witch I once was. I wasn’t that witch anymore.
She’d taught me right from wrong years ago, really for my entire life. I knew from a young age she was completely wrong—the way she’d raised me, the way she’d treated my grandmother, the only woman who’d been kind to me when I was young.
Now I was here, in her world, overpowering her, and she didn’t know what to do. Her eyes bounced from me to the surrounding witches. She was gauging their reactions, trying to mold her own to how they were feeling. She was a manipulator. I’d known it since I was young, but I couldn’t put a word to it until now. Matilda tried to control everyone’s feelings around her—including mine. It’d worked, her instilling fear when I’d been around her, the way she’d controlled my grandmother.
I looked down, breaking eye contact. My potion was ready. The green color was vibrant, and it smelled burnt. I spooned a bit of the liquid into my spoon, raising it to my lips. It was risky, but it was the only way I’d know it was correct.
“Dafni!” Luke’s voice raised from the crowd, catching me off guard as he plowed through Robinson, running toward the work bench. The spoon dropped from my lips, hovering at my chin before he grabbed ahold of it, pulling it from my hand. “Let me try it first.”
“Don’t, Luke!” Annabel’s voice rang out from across the cavern.
“Luke,” I said, trying to pry the spoon from his fingers, “I don’t know if I made it right. Don’t?—”
His hands ripped away from mine, taking the spoon and tipping the liquid to his lips. I watched the green liquid flow from the spoon into his mouth. I cringed as his throat bobbed, the liquid flowing down. The air stood still around me as I waited. I didn’t breathe. My mind went blank, waiting. What if I’d made it wrong? Had I added too much of something? Too little? My lungs rebelled against the lack of air, and I exhaled, quickly inhaling, trying to rid my vision of the black stars that dotted it.
Was I hallucinating? Luke, or what I’d thought was Luke, grew in front of me, his figure morphing into something that wasn’thuman.His ears moved from the sides of his head to the top. His skin sprouted tan fur; his hands turned into paws with long nails. No, it couldn’t be.The howl that met my ears all but confirmed it—as if his tan, furry body and snout hadn’t.
Matilda shrieked, backing away toward the work bench and throwing gusts of air at the wolf Luke had become. It did nothing but ruffle his fur as he stalked toward her. She tried to pull from the earth around us. I looked above at the dirt ceiling, watching it tremble as Luke pawed toward her, bits of earth raining down on the witches.
“No! No!” Matilda was loud as she shrieked, backing up before the stage hit her upper back. “I should’ve never let you stay here, Annabel! You and your freakish offspring!”
“Stay away from my children!” Annabel said, dragging Emily along with her, toward Luke, unafraid.
The wolf form of Luke growled at my mother, his hackles raised.
“It’ll only take a point of my fingers to ruin your son…and his sister.” Matilda stood there drawing her arm up in front of her.
I looked back at Emily, her face in terror as tan fur sprouted from her arms and her ears pushed up toward the top of her head.
“One less Lycan to worry about.”
There wasn’t any more time. I couldn’t second-guess myself. I needed to test the potion I’d made. I grabbed an extra spoon that lay between the two cauldrons on the work bench and quickly stirred my brew. It’d helped Luke transform into a wolf—the rage had turned him into his true form. The potion wasn’t bad; it was potent.
I pulled the spoon from the bottom of the cauldron where the potion was the most potent. I put it to my lips, the liquid falling into my mouth and down my throat. I gagged at the taste—it wasawful.I waited a moment, letting the spoon fall on top of the work bench. I almost immediately felt the rage…the fire magic boiled up in my chest, the feeling burning down my shoulder and into my arm.
Matilda walked closer to me. The evil in her eyes becoming more and more clear as she approached. “It doesn’t seem to be working, daughter. You’re not as powerful as you think you are.” Her boots clicked together as she planted them into the dirt.
