Sweet & Bitter Magic

by Adrienne Tooley

  If they tried to kill her upon her return, she wondered if she would mind. Tamsin had a tenuous relationship with life. It still seemed strange that she should live while her sister was dead. It seemed as though the lives of twins should be similar to the balance required of magic and the earth. One was not right without the other. One should not die without the other. That was why she had worked so hard to save Marlena’s life.

  Tamsin stumbled, weighed down by more than just her memories. A pocket of her cloak tore, as though it were stuffed with stones rather than a thin black book. She sighed, the message clear as day. She pulled out the diary, and, sure enough, the pages fell open to a new entry.

  After darting a quick glance ahead at Wren, who was humming softly to herself as she walked with her face raised toward the sky, Tamsin looked down at her sister’s words. The handwriting spilled across the page. The ink bled with tears.

  Tamsin’s heart sank. She should have known this entry was coming. She had been tracking the timeline, the entries the diary chose to show her. Everything led to this one terrible moment when the world began to fall apart.

  She wanted to shut the book, but the cover wouldn’t budge. Instead she stared at Marlena’s words, reminding herself it was all her fault.

  I don’t want to write it down. I can’t write it down. Because if I write it down, that means it’s true, and Amma can’t be dead. See? It looks ridiculous, written down. Girls don’t die Within. Witches don’t die (unless they’re me, but even I didn’t actually die despite the number of times I was told my chances looked grim). I hate myself for making this about me. For trying to be funny the way you can’t when something has ripped your heart out and left you numb. Empty. Cold.

  It’s been raining for thirty-one days, and my best friend is dead. Drowned in her own bed. It’s cruel the way magic works. Amma had sight, so no one thought they had to warn her. Everyone thought she’d be the first one out. But she had a headache that day. She’d come to my room, asked to sleep in my bed, but I’d only just come from the infirmary and didn’t want to lie still in a dark room. And so I sent her away. Away to a room where the water seeped through the windowsill until it filled her lungs.

  She’s dead. And the world is wrong. It has taken on a tilt, just the slightest angle, everything sharp, even with all the water. Everything off.

  Tamsin’s stopped talking. I swear, you’d think it was her best friend who died, the way she carries on, eyes ringed red. She didn’t even like Amma. Always resented her, I think, because Amma “stole” me away. Not that it’s stealing if you go willingly. But Tamsin never understood that, did she? No, it was only ever about what she wanted. Who she thought I was. Who she wanted me to be. It was always about Tamsin. It was never about me.

  She hasn’t even come to see me. Not that I’d let her, mind you—I’d turn everyone away, even the High Councillor, although of course she hasn’t got the time. She’s getting nervous, you can tell. No one knows what’s going on, not even the Coven. Her grip is slipping. And she can’t afford to let go.

  Me, on the other hand, well, I’ve got nothing left to lose.

  “Seriously, what is the matter with you?” Wren’s hands were on her hips, her expression impossible to decipher.

  “Nothing.” Tamsin’s tone was particularly vicious, a grating octave that usually stopped Wren from pressing the way she always pressed. Marlena’s entries were changing; her resentment was now tinged with hatred. Her bitterness was now disgust. Tamsin had always thought she’d done a good job disguising her anxiety over their dark-magic bond. She thought she’d muffled her guilt and grief over Amma’s death. But Marlena had seen right through her.

  And hadn’t said a word.

  “Tamsin.” That was all Wren said, just her name, in a voice so patient it made her want to scream. She was staring at the book still open in Tamsin’s shaking hands.

  Tamsin deserved this uncertainty—the sour taste of fear on her tongue—and Wren deserved the truth. But if Tamsin made it through the Wood, if she was able to set foot Within, she needed someone on her side. Someone who didn’t look at her with trepidation. With fear.

  Wren couldn’t know that Tamsin was a murderer, however inadvertent. She would turn away, would cut and run, and any chance of finding the witch responsible for the dark magic would vanish. Tamsin wasn’t brave enough to step into the Wood on her own. She needed Wren. Which meant she could only offer her a glimpse of her past.

  “The last time a witch used dark magic, a girl in my class died. Two girls, actually.” The hollow rasp of her voice was not an act. She fumbled with the diary, shoving it in a pocket so that it disappeared from view. “Seeing the world like this now, it… it brings it all back. Every awful thing. I want to stop this, but… I’m afraid.”

  She couldn’t believe she’d said it out loud.

  Neither, apparently, could Wren. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She stared at Tamsin with wide eyes, sympathy sticking to every syllable she spoke. The softness of her tone made Tamsin feel guilty. Still, she had to admit it was nice to have someone who didn’t know the truth. A girl who didn’t look at her like she was a monster.

  “It hurts too much,” Tamsin finally admitted, reveling for just a moment in the truth. “The remembering. Being here. I…” She trailed off helplessly, the forest looming ahead, greater and more terrible than her memories. Towering higher than her fear. What if the trees did not offer her entry?

  Oh, but what if they did?

  Tamsin had been born Within, had never moved through the Wood on her way toward the world of magic. She did not know what to expect. Could not gauge what would happen next.

  “We’ll go together.” Wren’s voice was no more than a whisper, her face guarded but hopeful. “Into the Wood.” She offered a hand to Tamsin, who stared at it blankly. “You’re not alone,” Wren tried again. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

  But the words were so foreign as to be nonsense. Tamsin was alone, and she always would be. That was the nature of her curse. The nature of her.

  When she did not reach for Wren’s hand, Wren reached for hers instead, and Tamsin let herself be led toward the tangle of trees.

  “Are you ready?” Wren gave Tamsin a significant look.

  They both knew the answer was no. They both knew the answer didn’t matter in the end.

  Stomach squirming, Tamsin pressed a hand against a knotted trunk. With a creak and a groan, the branches began to recoil, twisting away from her touch like a hand from fire. Instead of finding relief in the fact that the trees were prepared to offer her entry, Tamsin’s entire being was charged with a great, deep fear.

  “I don’t know what we’ll find in there,” she whispered, the truth bitter on her tongue. She had asked Leya what it had been like to walk through the trees. Leya had shuddered, never giving her a complete answer. All she’d ever offered was that it felt like the Wood was asking her two questions: Are you one of us? and Can you survive?

  “That’s okay.” Wren’s eyes were wide, filled with a wonder Tamsin could not fathom. Perhaps it was the source’s certainty of her own power, a concept unimaginable to Tamsin, who could think only of her own failings. But then Wren smiled, and the longing within her was so earnest it made Tamsin want to pinch her. “I’ve been waiting my whole life to find out.”

  “Lucky you,” Tamsin said, her sarcasm erased by the warble of fear in her voice.

  “Lucky us,” Wren said, squeezing Tamsin’s hand.

  The witch took a deep breath, Wren set her shoulders, and together they stepped into the shadow of the Wood.

  TWELVE WREN

  It was dark beneath the canopy of trees, the moon peeking through the thick leaves in slivers just wide enough to give the illusion of light. The silence of the grove had given way to whispers in a language Wren couldn’t understand—unrelenting whispers that grew more urgent with every step she took.

  She was all alone now. Just a girl in a grove—her hand empty, her skin cold with th
e ghost of Tamsin’s grip. The moment she had set foot inside the trees, they had been yanked apart. And though Wren had called for her, there was no sign of the witch’s brown eyes, no cascade of soft, dark hair. There was only Wren.

  Wren and slippery, silky magic.

  She had disturbed something when she stepped into the Wood. It moved around her as though she were a stone casting ripples in a pond. The magic within her was drawn to the magic of this place. The power inside her was begging to belong to the trees.

  She thought she ought to panic. She thought she ought to be afraid. Instead something within her swelled. She was in the Witchwood. It was a moment she had spent her life dreaming of—the sort of dream that existed only in the darkest part of the night. It had never occurred to her that such a dream could come true. Yet here she was, between the trees. Each step forward took her closer to the world Within. To the Witchlands.

  To the place where she belonged.

  For the longer Wren had spent on the road with Tamsin, and the more she learned about the world that she had always denied herself, the more certain she was that she needed to see it. She had to know. No more running. It was time to start embracing her true self.

  And her true self was brought out by Tamsin. There was a tentative kindness forming there. Taking down the men together had been exhilarating, had made Wren feel invincible. It had made her feel like the connection between them wasn’t a coincidence—that they had been meant to find each other.

  And then, before they’d stepped into the Wood, all her hard work had paid off. Tamsin had shared a secret of her own accord. She had finally stopped fighting Wren, stopped hiding, and had offered a momentary view of true vulnerability. They were making progress. Progress toward what, Wren didn’t know. But it felt like something vast and wild and important.

  Almost as important as the way the hair stood up straight on her arms, the way a chill trickled down her spine. The way the sharp, warm spice of the solstice settled on her tongue. Her body was at odds with her mind. The magic draped lazily across her. Yet she could not quite give in. In the back of her mind, her father’s voice lingered.

  Warning her of the way magic crept in to corrupt a soul.

  Wren paused before a ring of trees, their trunks covered in symbols—crude, unintelligible carvings that looked as impossible as the whispers sounded. Between the trunks hung a gossamer layer of magic, thin and delicate as a spider’s web. Wren brushed her fingers against it, testing for a hint of pain or sharp heat. Instead the magic whispered against her hand like a feather across soft skin.

  She moved through as though she were moving through water, the steady trickle of magic washing over her. Past the shimmering waterfall of power, colors became so sharp Wren could taste them. Lush lilac-purple lavenders, blushing powdered-sugar pinks, and creamy sky blues all settled themselves on her tongue.

  The trees around her creaked and moaned, their branches lifting up toward the sky. The wildflowers at her feet opened their mouths to take great, gasping breaths. Wren’s presence had stirred something. Had caused the Witchwood to wake.

  Each time she lifted a foot, tiny toadstools burst up in her track, their reds bright against the damp, mossy brown of the forest floor. She was altering the Witchwood, leaving a mark. It was exactly where she was supposed to be. The forest needed her.

  For the first time, Wren felt powerful.

  And then the whispers changed. Their words became decipherable, the accents familiar. The consonants slapped against the back of teeth. The same way her father rounded his Os. Her heart caught in her throat. The strength she had felt only moments ago dissipated.

  “No!” her father’s voice shouted, and Wren knew exactly whom he was facing. The memory swirled around her, vivid yet unstable.

  She was a child again, barely eight, crouching in the chicken coop, surrounded by the squawking of the hens. Their feathers ruffled as she invaded their space, but she ignored them, pressing her eye against a hole in the warped wooden slats.

  A witch was at the gate, sighing wearily, already tired of the ornery, ordinary man waving his finger in her face. It had startled Wren then how old her father was. She had always known her parents were closer to the ages of the grandparents of her playmates, that losing their first baby was a loss they’d never gotten over. That she had come along so many years later, when they had finally given up all hope. But it was stark to see the shock of his white hair next to the enchanted, glossy mane of the witch.

  “My son was killed during the Year of Darkness,” her father was insisting. “Get away from here before I make you.”

  Even Wren—who had been huddled in the chicken coop for hours at her father’s insistence, her knees red with the imprint of the straw beneath them—knew the threat was empty. Her father was not a cruel man. He was merely afraid. Had been since the moment the farmer came banging on the door to let him know there was a witch in town.

  “They won’t take another child from me.” Her father simmered and stormed, ranted and raved, anger turning his face ruddy and red. His fear was so thick that Wren nearly choked on it. But the pain behind his eyes, his frenzied fervor, was enough to keep her silent despite the way she watched the air crackle and shimmer around the witch. Her little heart ached, so desperate was she to be discovered. But the witch never looked toward the chicken coop. Instead she sighed dispassionately. Then Wren blinked, and the woman was gone.

  As she relived the memory, the Witchwood grew darker, the colors swirling into shadows, the night endless and suffocating. It suddenly took a great amount of effort to force her legs forward. The dizzying roar of the trees echoed in her ears like the furious churning of water through a wheel. Everything was imprecise, like an off-pitch note or a too-bright flame. Wren wanted to crawl out of her own skin. Her heart was hammering. And through it all, a worry wormed its way into her head. Wrong, it seemed to say, but Wren couldn’t tell if it was her surroundings or herself that was wrong.

  The word tolled endlessly, like a bell, the darkness of its tone creeping across her body like the scurrying of beetles that sometimes crawled across the stale crusts of bread in the cupboard. This is wrong. Maybe she shouldn’t have come here. Perhaps she’d make it through the trees and find that the witches didn’t want her at all.

  Would she be punished for having evaded them so long?

  Something’s wrong. Wren clapped her hands over her ears.

  “What’s wrong?” This voice was different from the one in her head. Wren lifted her eyes from where they were fixed upon the grass and gasped as she took in the shining, shimmering outline of the woman before her. It was her mother, familiar in her broad hips and thick arms, her red hair piled atop her head. Her cheeks were plump and had the faintest hint of pink. She looked so alive. Which of course she couldn’t be. Her father had burned the body. Wren had helped him scatter the ashes to the wind.

  “What are you doing here?” her mother asked. Wren bit her lip so hard it bled. She focused on the pain, the bright, rusty tang on her tongue. She would not cry. She could not cry.

  “I’m magic, Mama,” she said, the words catching in her throat.

  Her mother stared at her, shimmering. “Magic killed your brother, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you wicked, Wren?”

  “No, Mama.” Wren took a step forward, but when she reached out a hand toward her mother, it moved right through. Wren had known it was just a trick of the light, a test of the trees, but disappointment still crashed over her like a wave.

  “Then go,” her mother said, her voice hoarse and sharp, her figure shimmering faster, as though the magic was fading. “Turn back and go home. Back to your father. Where you belong.”

  Wren choked back the lump rising in her throat. “I belong here, too.”

  “Save yourself,” her mother said. But it wasn’t her mother, not really. It was her image, perhaps, but not her heart.

  “I’ll show you,” Wren said, careful and quiet.
“I am good.” And though regret swirled in her chest, though she felt her heart splinter and crack, she walked away, past the image of her mother and deeper into the Witchwood.

  She knew now it was the only way out.

  * * *

  Tamsin was screaming.

  Wren hurried toward her, stumbling over sharp branches stuck in the muddy earth and leaping over logs as wide as she was tall. When she found the witch, Tamsin’s eyes were wide with horror, her face pale, her gaze fixed on something Wren couldn’t see.

  “It isn’t real,” Wren said softly, her hand hovering over Tamsin’s shoulder. “Whatever you’re seeing, it isn’t real.” When Wren touched her lightly, Tamsin yelped with alarm, her face crumpling with hope and despair as she took in the girl before her.

  “It’s okay,” Wren said, her shaking voice revealing how little she herself believed it. “You’re okay.”

  “It isn’t.” Tamsin’s mouth twisted wryly, her whole body still trembling. “I’m not.”

  Wren tugged on the tail of her braid to stop herself from reaching toward the witch. “What did it show you?” For it was clear that Tamsin had come face-to-face with something haunting, something as horrible as what Wren had faced.

  “Nothing.” Tamsin’s eyes dimmed, her mind far away, wrapped up in another secret Wren was not privy to.

  “I saw my mother.” Wren could still see her shimmering outline, the hope in her eyes that Wren would listen and abandon her quest. “She told me not to give in to my magic. To go home to my father. And I walked away. Because I knew I had to keep going. I left her behind.” She looked the witch in the eyes and made her hold on to the horror of what she had dealt with. “So don’t act like you’re the only one who has suffered.”

  Tamsin did not look away. Finally she sighed with resignation. “That girl who died? I’m the one who killed her.”

  Wren felt as though she’d been punched in the gut. “What?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Tamsin said, blinking furiously. “I was trying to save someone’s life.”