The Witch Haven

by Sasha Peyton Smith

  “You killed my brother.” The words taste like poison in my mouth.

  He puts his hands up as if in surrender and takes a step toward me. “Aye, but I’m sorry I did it.”

  “Not that sorry. You’re about to kill my friends,” I reply.

  “Only because you forced my hand. I love you, Frances. No one will ever love you as much as I do.”

  Only the tiniest, most broken parts of me believe him. “If this is being loved by you, I don’t want it. I don’t want any of it.”

  Finn throws his hands up. “And you think I do? Love is a weakness!”

  I shake my head. “No, Finn. Wanting to control the people you love is a weakness.”

  His face crumples, and he looks so much like the same boy who was sleeping next to me just last night. “Do you think you could ever forgive me?”

  Saintlike, I step toward Finn and draw him into an embrace. But he has forgotten the first magic lesson he ever gave me: in my dreams I am the creator and the destroyer of worlds.

  I picture the pearl-handled dagger, and there it appears in my hand.

  Finn’s chest is solid and warm against mine. His heart kicks under his shirt. I let myself have this moment—for a breath I hold him. I close my eyes and rest my head on his shoulder.

  And then I count down the beats of his heart.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  I plunge the knife into his back.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I blink back into consciousness, back to the world that is solid and real. I gasp for air; it’s like I’m drowning, and my head has finally cracked the surface of a cold pond.

  First there is screaming, horrible and frantic. I blink my eyes open, but the starlight is dim, and the lawn is washed in darkness as black as ink.

  The screaming isn’t coming from me but from Finn, who is collapsed on the ground next to me. Very alive, no visible stab wounds, but howling in pain like an injured animal. The sound is so heart piercing, I have to remind myself to feel no sympathy for him.

  With aching arms, I push myself up off the ground.

  Before I collapsed into the dream, my power was a candle trying to stay alight in the wind. Now it is a bonfire. Like tongues of flame, my magic reaches out and takes hold of all twenty of Finn’s men. The control comes as easy as breathing. Something in me has been unlocked.

  I slam them to the ground with a rib-shattering crack. I am in control of their souls. I am in control of my own.

  “You will leave Haxahaven and never return. Do you understand?”

  Their moans of pain turn into words of affirmation, and without further hesitation they take off, some hobbling, some running, in the direction of the dirt road that will take them back into the city.

  I hope I don’t come to regret letting them live.

  I stand over Finn and despise the sight of him. I hate each angle of his perfect face.

  Once Finn’s men are out of sight, I crouch over his ashen form. He’s gone still and sweaty, but his eyes are open.

  “What have you done to me?” he pants. “The magic… I can’t feel it.”

  “Maybe it’s because you’re a soulless monster.”

  “Kill me,” he gasps. “I can’t live like this.”

  “I should kill you,” I say so quietly, only he can hear. “I should want to.” I lean down and press my lips to his forehead. “But not yet.”

  I rise from the ground and don’t look back. I walk across the lawn, letting Finn’s crumpled form fade from view into the darkness, among other shadowy broken things where he belongs.

  My steps pick up quicker and quicker until I’m running full tilt to Lena, Maxine, and Oliver across the lawn, lying agonizingly still.

  They’re laid out in a constellation. Lena is bleeding from the head. Oliver’s shirt is more blood than fabric. Maxine’s left eye is swelled shut. I reach them, and my soul, having expanded to the corners of possibility, sighs in relief. “I’m sorry,” I sob.

  And then the darkness swallows me, full and complete.

  * * *

  Everything hurts.

  I wake in my usual bed, covered in cold sweat and the creak that comes with being asleep for a long time.

  I can’t move my limbs. My throat burns.

  The images come flooding back to me all at once: Oliver being shot, the dagger going into Finn’s back, how it felt to know someone’s soul.

  Lena calls from her bed. “Are you finally awake?”

  “How long have I been out?” My voice cracks with disuse.

  “Three days,” I hear Maxine say from across the room. She’s sitting on Ruby’s bed, sporting a violently purple shiner and flipping through Vanity Fair. “You look terrible.”

  “I’m sorry, Maxine. I can’t believe I ever thought you could have had something to do with William’s death,” I croak.

  She silences me with a small shake of her head. “It’s all forgiven. Obviously a terrible thing to be accused of, but I do quite like that you thought I might have been interesting enough to be leading a second life as a late-night murderess.”

  A pang of hurt peals through my chest like a church bell at the sight of Ruby’s unslept-in bed.

  “Ruby?” I ask.

  “Alive, she went home yesterday,” Lena replies.

  “And Oliver?”

  A knock on the door startles us, and Florence strides in. No longer in her gray muslin kitchen dress, but a silk crepe gown of turquoise blue, the Haxahaven cape buttoned across her chest.

  She smiles when she sees me awake. “I’m glad to see you up.”

  “Florence is taking over as interim headmistress,” Maxine explains.

  “A fine choice.” My throat burns with every word. “Where is Oliver?”

  “Can you walk?” Maxine asks me.

  I’m unsure if my shaky joints will hold me, but it doesn’t stop me from rising from my bed. “Take me to him.”

  They’ve laid out Oliver in Maxine’s room. He looks like a ghost, pale as death under her canopy.

  I stumble to him and collapse on my knees at his bedside.

  His green eyes flutter open.

  “Oh, thank God,” I sigh. I’ve never seen anything better than the rise and fall of his chest, alive.

  He moves his hand weakly to touch mine.

  “Are you crying?” He manages a weak laugh.

  “No,” I sniff.

  “Good. I still have a million questions about magic you once promised to answer.”

  He smiles, and his face is brighter than the afternoon sun.

  Whatever exists between us feels deeply inevitable. An incorruptible truth. As unstoppable as tree roots pushing up through city concrete. And now we have all the time in the world.

  There are thousands of things I want to say to him, but I put my faith in the stars that we will have time to say them. For now, holding his hand and listening to our synchronous breathing is enough.

  But there is something I still have to do.

  I ask to meet with Florence, Maxine, and Lena later that night. I need to tell them what I’ve done.

  I pass Mrs. Vykotsky’s office door on the way down the stairs, and I feel a stab of guilt so sharp I nearly collapse.

  Lena, Maxine, and Florence meet me at the small circular breakfast table in the kitchen. I make a pot of tea, clutching the mug as if the warmth could leach back into the parts I feel most broken, and I begin.

  The three of them listen with patient kindness as I tell them what I did to Mrs. Vykotsky. How I killed her. How she didn’t deserve it. How I understand if they choose to never speak to me again.

  They keep their faces neutral, nodding at all the right moments.

  It’s Florence who pats my hand once I’ve finished. “It sounds like it was an accident.”

  “Yes, but—” I begin.

  She doesn’t offer me false smiles or coddling. She simply says, “We learn from our mistakes, Frances. They don’t make us irredeemable
.”

  Tears stream down my face. I didn’t realize I was crying. I am so sick of crying; I hope not to do it again for a very long time.

  I look between Maxine and Lena. “You don’t think I’m a monster?”

  Lena shakes her head. “Of course not.”

  Maxine agrees. “I think you’re plenty of things, but monster doesn’t make the list.”

  I clutch my teacup. Mrs. Vykotsky’s death is something heavy I will carry with me all the days of my life. But for now, this is enough.

  “You girls did a very brave thing,” Florence says. “I regret I wasn’t there to fight alongside you, but I had to get the little ones out of the school after Helen fled.”

  “She fled?” I ask.

  “We think she felt something coming. It was an act of cowardice,” Florence explains.

  Maxine sighs. “Good riddance.”

  “Who healed Oliver?” I ask. “Can I thank them?”

  “Magic isn’t much good at fixing broken bodies, so Maxine called up an old Haxahaven pupil who is now a medical student in the city. She said the bullet missed anything important. As long as he avoids infection, he’ll be fine. It was nothing short of a miracle that boy lived.”

  “Thank you.” I steal a glance at Maxine to my right. “I don’t know what else to say.”

  “What do we do now?” Maxine asks.

  “I wish to build a new Haxahaven,” Florence says. “One where magic isn’t treated as a disease, and where girls can grow up nurtured. Ann and I intend to train the girls of Haxahaven, truly train them for whatever it is that’s coming. And I would be honored to have the three of you by our side.”

  Lena doesn’t need a beat to consider Florence’s offer. “Thank you, ma’am, but I’m going home to my family. Haxahaven was never a place I intended to stay.”

  “I understand, Lena,” Florence answers. “You have my full support. We’ll do whatever we can to help you reunite with them.”

  “Thank you,” Lena says.

  Maxine shrugs. “Haxahaven is my home. I’ll stay.”

  To be a witch is to have power in a world where women have none. I’ve witnessed the Sons of Saint Druon use their magic to entertain, to grab power, to subjugate and do terrible things.

  But the witches of Haxahaven did nothing with theirs. The nothingness feels just as ugly. “Yes,” I finally say. “Yes, I will join you.”

  * * *

  Lena leaves for home on a cold Tuesday. I cry. She doesn’t, though she does hug me and promise to write.

  Aurelia returns home to her family just days later, and, unable to take the sight of my roommates’ empty beds, I move into Mabel’s room. She talks in her sleep, but her gentle voice reminds me I’m not alone in the darkness, so I don’t mind much.

  Oliver’s gunshot wound heals slowly, as gunshot wounds do. The judge and Mrs. Callahan, having left for an extended stay at their Paris home, deem Haxahaven an appropriate place for him to convalesce. It is, after all, a sanitarium. With a diet of biscuits and the fussing of all the younger girls playing nurse, he’s up and walking in less than a week.

  We take to strolling the path that borders the woods after breakfast, just the two of us. We walk in companionable silence. I think he craves the reprieve of giggling sighs. The novelty of a boy at Haxahaven hasn’t quite worn off yet.

  My magic feels both bigger and smaller now. Less like a chained animal, more like a muscle. It has taken hold at the base of my power, growing and twisting like the roots of a tree with the witch I was then and what I am now. Knowing parts of it belong to the people I love, I no longer fear it.

  I learn to believe in miracles. The forgiveness of my friends is holy, and when we laugh together, it is a promise to build a better world. Haxahaven becomes a place of joy. Filled to the brim with laughing girls and sloppy magic, I allow it to heal me.

  We make plans to get my mother proper care and an apartment in the city.

  Helen once told me I couldn’t burn down the world for taking the things I loved from me. Helen was wrong in many regards, but in that she was right. I take the endless well of love I have for my brother, and I whisper to it, a prayer to stop eating me alive. I learn to give it away. To the homesick Haxahaven girls. To my friends. To myself. I think the only choice any of us has is to take our pain and make a world that hurts its inhabitants a little less.

  I don’t dream of Finn. I don’t dream at all; it’s like I’ve lost the ability entirely.

  When the fighting was over, and my unconscious body was dragged inside by Florence and Ann, they found only a pearl-handled dagger in the place where Finn had once lain. I can’t think about him for long without being overcome by a sadness that reaches straight to my bones. I hope anger comes in time. It would be easier to understand.

  I think about William every second of every day, but the thoughts feel lighter with Oliver here to share them with me. I do not profess to know much about the afterlife, but here in the mess he left behind, I promise the stars that I will live enough life for the both of us. Death is senseless, but perhaps life doesn’t have to be.

  Oliver and I are on our morning walk one day when he turns to me, his hands shoved in his pockets, a scarf wrapped around his neck. The air is cool; his breath comes in puffs of vapor. The sky is a brilliant December gray, so bright, I have to squint up at him. It’s a single perfect moment, the two of us here, our boots crunching in the snow.

  “Will always said you were going to change the world, you know that?”

  I smile. “It sounds like something he’d say.”

  Haloed by winter tree branches, Oliver gazes down at me like I’m magic. “I think he was right.”

  I look past Oliver to the road that leads back into the city. “I hope so. There’s so much left to do.”

  June 1912

  Dearest Frances,

  It feels rather quaint to be writing you a letter with ink and paper after all the time we spent inside each other’s heads.

  I think of you every second. So much of me feels empty now that you’re so far away. How ridiculous I am to love someone who has taken so much from me.

  But time will march on, and we will be reunited, as the universe always fated it to be. There is so much happening here in Europe. What I’m building, I’m building for us.

  The clairvoyants say you’ll be here soon.

  I pray they are right, because we have so much to discuss. So much left to do together.

  Every night I dream of your lips on mine, my love.

  My soul feels empty, but we will remedy that upon our reunion. I look forward to reclaiming all that you’ve taken from me.

  So many cogs are turning, but still my heart beats only for you.

  We belong to each other—never forget that. In your heart, you know it as well as I do.

  Soon, Frances, we will be together again. Together, as we were always meant to be.

  Love,

  Finn James D’Arcy

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing the acknowledgments to my first book feels overwhelming, like attempting to thank the universe for conspiring to allow the exact conditions needed to make all of my dreams come true. Thank you feels too small, but it’s what I’ll start with. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  To Hillary Jacobson, your belief in me is the greatest gift I’ve ever been given. Thank you for always being in my corner and for guiding me into the world of publishing with grace and unfailing kindness. The term “dream agent” seems too small for all you do, so I guess we just have to work on one hundred more books together until I find the right words for all you mean to me.

  To my editor, Nicole Ellul, for somehow always knowing exactly what it was I was trying to say. Your ability to cut to the heart of stories is so magical, I’m not entirely unconvinced you’re a witch yourself.

  To the entire team at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, Amanda Ramirez, Katrina Groover, Cassie Malmo, Justin Chanda, Kendra Levin, Lauren Hoffman, Chrissy Noh, Vi
ctor Iannone, Anna Jarzab, Emily Ritter, Lauren Castner, thank you for believing in this book and me from the jump, and for welcoming me so warmly into the S&S family.

  To Heather Palisi, Faceout Studio, and Tom Daly for making both the inside and outside of this book so, so pretty (like… the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.)

  To Brian D. Luster and Kathleen Smith for fixing all my commas (and so much more.)

  To Roxanne Edouard, Savanna Wicks, Liz Dennis and Josie Freedman for working so hard on behalf of this story, it means more than I can say.

  To Stacey Parshall Jensen for her time, care, and incredible notes.

  Although this is fundamentally a fantasy novel, I’d like to thank those who assisted in the historical research, and acknowledge that any errors are my own. Thank you to the research librarians and newspaper archival teams at the Library of Congress, the Google Research Ngram Viewer team and the NYC Tenement Museum.

  To the booksellers, librarians, bloggers, and reviewers who had a hand in getting this book out into the world. There is nothing that means more to a debut author than your kindness, support, and enthusiasm. To Adalyn Grace, Alexis Henderson, Adrienne Young, Jessica Spotswood and Ashley Poston for reading early copies of this book and leaving such kind words. I look up to each of you so much.

  To the Pitch Wars organizers and the class of 2017. Thank you to McKelle George and Heather Cashman, my mentors who taught me from the ground up what it meant to edit a book, and my writing big sister Kristin Lambert for being with me through it all, there’s no one else I’d want to go on this journey with.

  To every teacher who told me I was a writer before I knew it myself; Mrs. Larson, Mrs. Mattson, Ms. Ide, Mrs. Bona and Mrs. Sidesinger.

  To my friends who were endlessly patient and unfailingly supportive, how lucky I am to have a coven of my own.

  To Allison Rich for living me while I wrote the majority of this book, and somehow still loving me, even though I turned our home into a coffee cup graveyard and left gummy worm dust on the couch.