The Orphan Witch

by Paige Crutcher

  “It’s time to break the bond,” Amara told True. “The bargains we’ve struck have cursed us.”

  But True didn’t want to lose her power any more than she wanted to lose her sister.

  “I won’t do it,” she said, vehement in her resolve. “Breaking our bond would kill you.”

  Amara tried to cut off the siphon to her sister, to destroy the spell, but it was no use. They were bound and the darkness was growing. So she came up with a new plan. “We only need a place to store the excess magic, the darker shades,” she wrote in her journal one night. “We are amplifiers, but we aren’t meant to hold or amplify this magic.” Amara remembered her grandmother mentioning a hinterland—a lost land behind the veil of this one. It was a place only witches of great power had access to, and Amara planned to use it as a kind of vessel to hold the dark magic running in her veins.

  True, on the other hand, was busy with her own plans. True saw how her power could empower not only the other witches on the island but also the visitors. She created the Menagerie of Magic, a night to display her magic and its power to the people of Wile. True believed with the dark, they might find the light, and use the magic to teach every woman how to tap into their inner witch. To throw off those trying to oppress them.

  So it came to be that one sister wanted to keep the dark, and the other to drive it out.

  “It’s too much,” Amara told True, which was not a lie. She took to her bed after she poisoned herself with bloodroot in her last effort to break the bond.

  True felt the effects of her sister’s ailment through the bond. The weakness and pain. She did not feel how, without her permission, Amara had woven a spell connecting herself to the island beyond the veil. Amara, who loved her sister fiercely and had never felt like she belonged anywhere to begin with, made a new bargain using her blood: she offered her life to the hinterland in exchange for ridding Wile of the dark magic the sisters had invited in.

  The night of the menagerie arrived, and True acted to save her sister. She knew she could do more good with the dark. She could free her sister and remake their world at the same time. True called down the blood moon and siphoned her sister’s magic without her permission, pulling it all into herself. At the same moment, Amara slipped into the menagerie and wove her own spell, which would open a door to the hinterland. She would save her sister and her island from the poison she could feel fighting to get free.

  In the end, the spells ricocheted and both witches were cast beyond the veil—each bound to the other and the promises they made. Amara and True were trapped inside the hinterland, along with those True had promised freedom and magic to—the visitors in the menagerie and the witches on the island who came for the show.

  True had planned to share the powerful magic with the witches, to siphon strong magic into each of the visitors to the menagerie, to grant them all power, and in that power, freedom. She had tethered herself to the magic of the island and the souls she had ushered into the menagerie, and Amara had failed to break her bond with her sister—tethering herself, and the hinterland, to them all.

  Like a tree with its roots spreading out, each connecting to another, every life on Wile Isle inside the menagerie was now a bargain struck, and a debt unpaid.

  * * *

  HYACINTH LEANED BACK onto a rock, her tale concluded. The world within the arch had grown silent as the witch spoke, and now distant seagulls crooned, waves crested and clapped back against the base of the cliffs, and thunder rumbled far off in the atmosphere like an afterthought to the rain Persephone tasted on her lips.

  “How are you here, if all the witches were locked away in the hinterland?” Persephone asked, rubbing her arms to try and rid the chill that had settled in.

  “All were, save two who skipped the menagerie at the last minute—our great-grandmother and her sister. They went off island to perform a gratitude spell to the Goddess in the ocean when the curse was cast,” Moira said. “Eleanor Mayfair had a vision later that night. She foretold it would be one hundred years before the curse could be broken.”

  “Though the prophecy hasn’t stopped us from trying,” Hyacinth added. “There are a thousand ways to attempt to break a curse.” She winced, and for a moment a deep sadness passed behind her eyes. “Failing to break a curse carries a cost, and unfortunately none of our attempts ever worked.”

  “And you think I’m going to be able to break it? Just like that?” Persephone asked.

  “Not just like that, no,” Hyacinth said. “But yes, we do think you are the one.” Moira made a noise like a horse huffing at hay and Hyacinth reached for Persephone’s hand. “I know it’s you.”

  Before Hyacinth could continue, Persephone took back her hand. “How? What is this island to me? I mean, no offense, it’s horrible and tragic what happened to them, but who are these people to me?”

  “Who do you think?” Hyacinth asked, her tone gentle, eyes kind.

  Persephone looked from Moira to Hyacinth, licked her lips, and asked the question that had been resting on the tip of her tongue. “Are you my family?”

  Hyacinth tilted her head. “Yes.”

  Persephone let the answer wrapped itself around her. She studied Hyacinth, with her expressive eyes and quick smile. Her cousin. Her family.

  The feeling of air slipping under her feet, of floating, tugged her up. This is what she had dreamed of her whole life. But …

  She drew in a deep breath. “Where is my mother, my father? I … all I’ve ever wanted is to find my family. To find them.”

  Moira’s and Hyacinth’s eyes met for the briefest of seconds, and in it Persephone was certain an entire conversation passed.

  She tried again, speaking past the lump growing in the back of her throat. “Why did they abandon me?”

  “Your gran left Wile Isle sixty years ago,” Moira said.

  “And?”

  “She never came back.”

  Persephone wrapped her arms around her waist. “Why not?”

  Hyacinth offered an apologetic shake of her head. “We don’t know. I’ve been scrying for years, and you only popped up on my map a little over a year ago.”

  “I don’t understand. What does that mean?”

  “It means…” Hyacinth hesitated, reached again and squeezed Persephone’s arm. “I wasn’t only scrying for you. I’ve been trying to track your grandmother Viola for most of my life. For any member of your family. Since you were the only one we could find … we believe you are the only living member of your line. I’m so sorry.”

  Persephone had to force herself to keep breathing. Her mother and grandmother. Viola. She had a name and yet … “They’re gone? Just like that? I was so sure—” She looked around. She knew the island, had as soon as she’d stepped foot on it. Deep down, she’d been so close to certain that everything she’d wanted was waiting for her.

  “We are truly sorry,” Hyacinth said, pain for Persephone raw on her face.

  Persephone couldn’t swallow past the lump lodged in her throat. She felt like a child who had been given a handful of balloons—she had family!—only to have two immediately popped. Persephone may have never known her mother or her grandmother … but dear god how she had wanted to.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, and the next thought rammed into her. “And my father?”

  Moira brushed the question off with the wave of her own hand. “Only the Goddess knows. He was not of the island, and so he is not of us.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we can’t track people not of our lineage,” Hyacinth explained. “Your father was never on island, that we know of, so he’s out of our reach.”

  Persephone tried to grasp that single straw of hope like it was a lifeline. He could still be out there.

  She turned back to the view, tears pricking her eyes faster than she could blink them away. Persephone thought of the peace the view had afforded her moments ago and found her gaze drawn to the angry way the waves smashed against the bas
e of the cliff on the northern shore. Peace could so quickly turn to violence in the blink of an eye. “How on earth can I help you break a curse? I can’t control my magic. I don’t understand it at all.”

  “This is the land of your ancestors,” Hyacinth said, as she watched the tears stain Persephone’s face.

  Moira’s low hum in the back of her throat had the hairs prickling down Persephone’s spine. “Witches of Wile can do anything, Persephone.”

  Persephone thought of the stranger from the boat. “It’s not just the two of you, is it? Witches on this island, I mean.”

  Moira’s stare was cold, and Persephone rubbed her arms to try and block the frost. “No. There are also the Way sisters, Ellison and Ariel, who live in the yellow cottage on the beach.”

  “There was also our mother and aunt,” Hyacinth said, “but they both … left.” She cleared her throat. “Fifteen years ago was their last attempt and failure to defeat the curse. Once you leave Wile with the intention of staying gone, you can’t return. It’s part of the curse.”

  “That’s awful,” Persephone said. “But if you need help, why not ask the other sisters—”

  “Unlike us,” Hyacinth interrupted, “the Way sisters don’t want to save the island. In fact, they want you off this island. You are their greatest threat.”

  Persephone’s mouth dropped open. “How am I the threat?”

  “Without you the curse cannot be broken.”

  “But why would they…”

  “Because they fear freeing the trapped witches will be all of our undoing.”

  Persephone rubbed at her eyes. “I’m confused.” She looked at Moira. Looking into her eyes was like looking into a curtain. “Undoing how?”

  “No one knows Amara’s or True’s current state of mind, or what either has been planning for a hundred years,” Hyacinth said. “What power they have amassed in the hinterland, or what exactly they plan on doing with it. The rules there aren’t finite. The land is cut off from us completely, and that makes it a danger. Once it and they are freed … well, fear of the unknown can lead people down the darkest of roads.”

  “You don’t share their fear?”

  “We have faith in the Goddess,” Moira said, not quite meeting Persephone’s eyes.

  “I still don’t understand how I can help. You said it yourself; I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to use my magic, I never have.”

  “If you are the key, Persephone May,” Moira said, “then you were fated to return.”

  “The prophecy?”

  Moira nodded. “Eleanor Mayfair foretold that a time walker of the Mayfair line will one day have the power to unmake the world.”

  As the sky around them darkened, Hyacinth plucked a sprig of jasmine from a low-hanging vine. She tucked the jasmine into her dark curls, and considered Persephone. “It is you.”

  “I don’t walk in time, whatever that means.”

  “You don’t know what you can and can’t do.”

  Persephone paused. “How much power do you think I have?”

  “Enough.”

  “Is it really just you and the other witches? You’re all alone here on this island? I mean, can’t someone else help?”

  “We are the only remaining members of the original witches here, besides the Ways,” Hyacinth said. “But we were not the only people who were on island when the curse fell. An island such as Wile has always pulled in travelers, vacationers—those seeking the light. Just as it called to you, it has called to others. Their ancestors are here yet, but they have little in the way of magic.”

  “And they can leave,” Moira added, her face turned away.

  “Yes,” Hyacinth said, her mouth turning down. “As I mentioned, that’s part of the curse. We witches of Wile can only leave the island from the spring equinox to the eve of the autumnal equinox, and we must return before sunset. We are cursed to remain on island the other half of the year. Frozen in our own way. You shouldn’t have been able to arrive on island on the equinox, but you are of our blood. You are who we’ve been seeking.”

  Persephone tried to digest all the information the witches had dumped in her lap. She tugged at the skin on her elbows. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s a lot to process,” Hyacinth said, her smile slow but reassuring. “I wish we had more time. Unfortunately, that’s the thing we are shortest on. Eleanor saw the curse would be broken in one hundred years from when it was cast because it has to be. The magic won’t hold beyond a hundred years; if we don’t break it now, all of the witches will remain lost forever. We have until Samhain. Will you help us?”

  Persephone looked up at the sky. She thought of all they had told her. The improbable and the impossible. She thought of her faceless mother and grandmother, and all the forgettable foster parents. She looked over at the witches, and they stared back.

  “I want to know how to use my magic,” she said at last. “I need to control it.”

  “So?” Hyacinth asked.

  Persephone took a breath, because there was really only one thing to do. “So yes. I’ll help you.”

  * * *

  PERSEPHONE WRAPPED THE afghan Hyacinth had handed her more tightly around herself. She was vibrating, a strange combination of adrenaline and overstimulation. She had family, but was still missing the gaping hole that was her parents. She wasn’t made wrong, like she’d always feared, but was made a witch. Which was a lot to get her head around. She was relieved and heartbroken, and still buoyed by hope because Hyacinth sat on one side of her and Moira across from them.

  It was clear she, Persephone, mattered to them. Moira might be a stern, brash person, but she was blending tea from five little sachets, and murmuring to herself about Persephone’s color being peakish. Hyacinth was offering Persephone a magician’s bag of smiles. Worried, kind, compassionate. She flashed them all over and over.

  “Tea is good for the soul,” Moira said. “Drink this up, save for two sips at the end.”

  Persephone accepted the second cup of tea this morning from Moira. “Save two sips?”

  “She wants to read your leaves,” Hyacinth said, pulling a blanket over her lap and wiggling her toes with the bright pink polish. “You have to save a little so your essence is good and locked in.”

  Persephone looked down into the cup, at the loose tea floating inside it. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

  “Your saliva,” Moira said, building a second cup, not bothering to look up. “Saliva is sacred. It’s your life force. Drink the tea, taste the tea, but don’t drink it all. It’s not pocket science.”

  Hyacinth let out a fierce giggle. “She means rocket science.” She accepted her cup from her sister. “Pocket science.”

  “I mean what I say, little flower,” Moira said, though her own lips twitched.

  Persephone smiled into her cup, and drank. It tasted of roses and honey and something else, light and sweet.

  “What kind of tea is this?” she asked.

  Hyacinth peered over into Persephone’s cup. “Mmm. Moira’s hibiscus blend.” She wiggled her brows and settled back into her seat.

  Persephone focused on the taste even as she savored being cocooned in the house with the two extraordinary women. There was a sacred hush in the room. Everything was warmer, brighter, but not in an intense way. In the way that sunshine feels against your eyelids when you close them and lift your face up. Persephone wondered if this was what people meant when they talked about finding peace.

  “I love this,” Persephone said, then ducked her chin when she realized she’d spoken out loud.

  “It is good tea,” Moira said.

  “That isn’t what she means,” Hyacinth said, tossing a throw pillow at her sister’s feet. “Is it?”

  Persephone smiled. “It is good tea, but I guess I meant being here. It’s really something.”

  Hyacinth’s grin flashed bright, and even Moira raised her cup—slightly—in the direction of Persephone.


  “It’s home,” Moira said.

  “I’ve never had one,” Persephone said, her words light to escape the heaviness of her meaning. “You’re lucky.”

  Moira considered her, and her mouth softened. “Perhaps we are.”

  “Did you never have anywhere that felt like home?” Hyacinth asked, before taking another sip of her own tea. “You mentioned traveling in almost every email you wrote. I assumed you had wanderlust.”

  “Quite the opposite,” Persephone said. “I’ve always longed for a home. Like the ones I read in stories, but I was never Anne of Green Gables or even Pippi Longstocking,” Persephone said, thinking of the orphans she had wanted to be, the ones who found true family, who were secure in knowing who they were. “My trajectory was a transient one.”

  “Until now,” Hyacinth said, a knowing glint in her dark amber eyes.

  Persephone’s heart squeezed in her chest. Oh, how she wished that could be true.

  “How much tea remains?” Moira asked, setting her cup aside and looking pointedly at Persephone’s hand.

  She realized she’d almost drunk every last drop. “Just a bit.” She swished the remaining tea. “Two sips.”

  Moira nodded. “Then take the cup into your left hand and circle it clockwise three times.”

  Persephone did as Moira asked.

  “Now place this saucer on top of the cup.”

  She accepted the saucer, and did as she was instructed.

  “Flip the cup over onto the saucer to drain, and pass it to me when you are ready for your leaves to be read.”

  Persephone closed her eyes, flipped the cup over, and felt a tug at the center of her stomach. She squeezed her eyes together, and a row of books being trailed over by long, slender fingers flashed before her eyes. Persephone’s breath caught.

  Hyacinth leaned forward. “What just happened?”

  Persephone opened her eyes, started to tell her, and the words dried up.

  Moira raised a brow.

  “I…” Persephone shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Cup?” Moira asked.

  Persephone gave a short laugh of confusion. Hyacinth leaned back, rubbed at her cheek.