“We call on you fire, earth, air, and water.
Will you come to me?”
Margot felt silly saying the words out loud. But she found that she wanted the magic to come—and when nothing stirred, she felt a crush of disappointment. Asking for something was the surest way of knowing whether you wanted it or not. And she wanted it.
She could see the Witch of the Woods’s leaves rustling. She could tell that the witch had grown impatient.
Margot closed her eyes and focused. She did what Ora told her to do. She went to the saddest place she could think of in her mind. Her mother had given her a wealth of bruises to choose from, but it was the parting from her brother just yesterday that she called upon.
Suddenly, she felt warm from the inside out, from her extremities to her core. Her hands began to burn. She lifted her hands in front of her and turned them over so that her palms were facing up. The air quivered between them and a flame appeared over each palm. Then, just as quickly, the flames went out.
She looked around at the faces of the other girls to see if they saw what she had seen. Ora was smiling. The Witch of the Woods and the Fire Witch nodded at each other.
“I have the gift?” Margot asked, looking around the semicircle.
“You show promise. Tomorrow we begin again,” the Witch of the Woods said.
But Margot was barely listening. What she had felt in the glow of that flame was comparable only to the warmth she felt with her little brother’s arms around her neck. It filled her with a sense of well-being and hope and power—a sense that nothing could hurt her and nothing was impossible. If she was being honest with herself, the feeling was even better than Go’s arms.
And so it was. Out of all that pain Margot had experienced, something good had come after all. She looked at her hands as if they were brand-new. They had been powerless for so very long. But now this.
6
Before Margot knew it, a month had flown by. It was time to visit Go, and she was determined not to break her promise.
“Leaving us so soon?” the Witch of the Woods commented when Margot started to climb the stairs up the tree.
“I’m going to see my brother. I will stay with you and I will learn from you. But I will never forget my brother,” Margot said with determination.
“Very well. But know that holding on to human things may keep you from ever becoming one of us.”
Margot heard the words, but there were some sacrifices that she was not willing to make. With a nod, she continued up the stairs.
Margot was surprised that she remembered the way back to the palace. She was grateful when she saw its white spire towering over the treetops. When she arrived, the guard gave her a pitying look before allowing her inside.
She was led to a large anteroom for visitors.
After a few minutes, Go finally appeared. He was holding hands with a maid who looked like she was barely old enough to hold the position. The girl was petite and smiling, in contrast to the hulking somber guards. Margot felt a rush of jealousy for that maid and her hand. Her own palm twitched as she remembered how it felt to have Go’s tiny hand in hers. But just then his face lit up as he found hers. He dropped the maid’s hand and they ran to each other as if an eternity had passed instead of just a month.
When she broke the hug, she noticed that the maid was gone. Margot pushed her brother away from her, holding him still at arm’s length. He sighed with annoyance but did not squirm away from her. He was happy to see her, too. He stood more upright than she had ever seen him.
“You’re taller. Tell me everything,” she insisted. “Tell me what the Prince is like.”
“It’s like he’s never had a friend before. He’s very odd.”
“Well, you can be his friend,” Margot said gently.
It was hard getting the words out. Some part of Margot hated that Go had been bought to be a companion to Prince Lazar. She wanted to tell him that he did not have to like him. But she also wanted things to get easier for him. She didn’t want to know what would happen to him if he was seen as an unfit friend for the future king. Still another part of her wanted to know what it was about the Prince that kept him from other children. He was rarely seen.
“I bet he’s just really lonely and doesn’t know how to make friends. Maybe you can teach him.”
She knew her little brother. She knew that what he liked most was to be helpful.
“I can try,” Go said finally.
“Good boy,” she said with a hair ruffle.
“Is it okay, where you are?” he asked finally.
She wasn’t sure how to answer. She didn’t want him to think that she didn’t miss him. She didn’t want him to know that her new life was filled with magic and wonder. Not yet. Not when he was so sad.
“It’s fine. It’s better than fine. I live in a tree house filled with witches.”
Go didn’t blink. He knew about witches. And he thought they were the best things in the world.
“Are the witches scary?” he asked, his eyes widening as he waited for her answer.
“Very,” she said dramatically. But thinking of Ora, she added, “But they are kind, too.”
Go frowned, suddenly remembering something.
“What is it?” Margot whispered, concerned.
“She’s not coming back, is she?”
Margot’s gut sank. He was asking about their mother. She couldn’t lie. And she couldn’t pretend not to be happy that she was gone.
“No, she’s not.”
He nodded. There were no tears this time. Only acceptance. Perhaps he was too young to understand that their mother had sold them, but he seemed to know this much.
The soldier who had led her in appeared again in the doorway of the anteroom. Their time was up.
She kissed her brother’s forehead and got up to leave. “I will be back as soon as I can come. Okay? And don’t you worry about the witches.”
“The food is strange. The boy is strange. I miss you. I don’t want you to leave,” Go’s words came out in a rush.
Each one struck Margot squarely in the heart. But she didn’t want Go to see.
“You know how stories begin, right?” she asked, forcing a smile.
“Once upon a time.”
“And how they end?”
“Happily ever after,” he said automatically.
“Well, right now we are still in the in-between. And I promise . . .” Her mouth stalled on the word “promise.”
There is no bind that cannot break, the witch had said.
“I promise you there is an end for us and it is happy.”
“And we will be together?”
“What other kind of happily ever after is there?” Margot asked with a smile.
“No, Margot, you have to say it. You have to promise.”
“I promise.”
She hated the lie. Nothing in their lives had ever ended up happily ever after. But she was not going to be responsible for turning out the light in her little brother’s eyes.
7
When Margot returned to the Hollow, she found Ora in the hearth room. Ora couldn’t wait to hear what the palace was like. Margot could tell that Ora cared about what happened to Go; but she also wanted to know about the royal family, what the castle looked like, and how the Prince was. If Margot didn’t know better, she would have thought that Ora wanted to be a princess in the palace more than she wanted to be a witch.
Just then, the Witch of the Woods appeared in the doorway.
“It is time for a lesson,” she said. Her voice was sometimes barely audible. Now it was a scratchy whisper, like branches clawing through the wind.
And then the witch cut off one of her branches and burned it down to ash. She took the ashes and put them in a little glass vial. She spoke into the vial and the contents liquefied. And then she handed Ora the vial and ordered her to swallow the contents.
Ora did so obediently.
“Speak,” said the Witch of the Woods.
“What’s happened to me?” Ora boomed in a mellifluous tone.
“I gave you the gift of song. It will only last a few minutes.”
Margot looked at the vial and said, “Teach me . . .”
8
The years passed, a blur between palace visits and witchy magic. Margot never stopped seeing Go. And she never stopped attempting to get that spark back. But the power that ignited that very first flame in her palm never came again. Instead, she found another kind of magic—one fueled by potions and silvery tongue and trickery—and took to it like a moth to a flame.
But there was a cost. Every visit with Go showed a change in him, not just his height but his manners. He became more and more of a gentleman and she became more and more of a witch. Margot noticed the distance between who they were becoming, but she still believed in their happily ever after.
There were other girls—witch apprentices—before her and there would be others after her. But Margot was the only one who had shown a real talent. There had been other glimpses of magic. A girl who made plants grow. A girl who sensed death. But none of those girls stayed as long as Margot. And almost none of them wanted to be a witch as much as she did. And Margot never bothered to make friends with them. She already had Ora. And the witches. And her brother. The other girls were temporary.
One morning Margot was fencing with Cassia, the Witch of the Woods, who wielded one of her branches while Margot defended with a real sword.
She pushed Cassia back, finally knocking her off her roots and onto the ground outside the Hollow.
“Better,” the Witch of the Woods said getting back on her roots. “Next time we try it again without the vials.”
“I can’t, Cassia,” Margot protested. She had swallowed a potion that had given her the strength to rival Cassia. Without it, Margot wouldn’t stand a chance.
“Perhaps I introduced the secrets of vial magic too soon,” the Witch of the Woods said. “You need to call on your inner strength. The Fire Witch was right.”
“I can do this.” Margot raised her arms in victory.
The Witch of the Woods’s twiggy brows knitted together. “Show me your arms, Margot,” she said pointedly.
Margot crossed her arms over her chest protectively.
Reaching out with one of her branches, the witch unfastened Margot’s dress with one swift move. The garment fell to the floor, revealing tiny cuts Margot had made over almost every inch of her body.
“You are hurting yourself and using the pain and power of blood to amplify your magic,” the Witch of the Woods accused with a stern look.
Margot attempted to cover herself up. “Why does it matter how I get my magic, as long as I get it?”
“Oh my child, you will bleed yourself dry . . .”
The witch laid a branch on each of Margot’s shoulders. Sap began to pour out of them, covering Margot’s scars. The sap stung as it poured into every wound.
Margot’s eyes burned, too. She let out a small moan and looked down, through the amber viscous liquid. She could see each tiny red slice on her body disappear. The witch was healing her.
When the sap fell away, Margot’s skin was as smooth and unblemished as a newborn’s. Margot reached to the ground to get her dress, but the witch stuck out a branch, stopping her with another quick move. She fished Margot’s dagger out of the dress pocket.
Margot felt her stomach drop. In all her years at the Hollow she had never been punished by the witches.
“No more sacrifices, Margot.”
“I am sorry, Witch of the Woods. It’s just . . . I know I went too far . . . but I need this magic.”
The Witch of the Woods’s lips were set in a firm line. “I can’t get Ora to mar one inch of that alabaster skin of hers, but you? I think it is time for you to find another way. Another place. A home with less temptation . . .”
“No,” Margot pleaded.
She realized instantly that the Witch of the Woods was about to cast her out of the Hollow. Where would she go?
“There are better ways you can carve out a life for yourself—a good life,” the Witch of the Woods said.
“Like the girls reading palms in the square?” Margot bit back bitterly. “That’s what you see for me?”
The Witch of the Woods reached out a branch and affectionately tried to put it around her, but Margot shrugged it off.
“There are other professions. Noble ones. There are healers . . .”
“I wish I’d never met you. I wish you’d never taken me in. It’s like you took me up to the clouds and gave me a home and now you expect me to live on land. It’s not fair.”
“Witches don’t believe in fair. I told you from the beginning this was only temporary.”
“Well, I’m not a witch so I can believe whatever I want now. Can’t I?“
“We will miss you . . . Remember this: a girl can start as one thing and become another. Magic helps. But you don’t need magic for true change,” the Witch of the Woods said, her twiggy eyebrows knitting.
Margot didn’t want her advice. She knew she couldn’t stay, but she wanted to. There was nothing else to say. Already feeling lost and alone, Margot turned to put her hand on the staircase to the world above—just as someone new came rushing down to the Hollow.
9
Nepenthe was half mermaid and half human. She would become the new River Witch, like her mother had been, if she chose the River over land. Nepenthe was also an orphan. Her parents were dead and, like Margot, she had nowhere else to go. The Witch of the Woods had brought her to the Hollow right after the tragedy, but this was the first time Margot had ever laid eyes on her.
When Nepenthe arrived she immediately dove into the River and her body transformed. She became part girl, part water creature, complete with tentacles and gills that formed parentheses around her mouth.
Margot had been waiting for time and practice to catch up with her to turn her into the witch she was supposed to become. She was waiting for the magic to happen. But it never quite did. And seeing Nepenthe in all her glory made it clearer than ever who belonged in the Hollow and who did not. With Nepenthe’s lineage, Margot should not have been surprised. Her mother had been part of the coven, after all. But in her years with the coven, Margot had never seen anyone her age with inherent magic except Ora. And while Ora was always holding her magic back, Nepenthe was not holding back at all.
Nepenthe was magic incarnate. She wasn’t trying. The magic just happened around her. Effortless. Pouring out of her and out of the sky.
With everyone’s attention on Nepenthe, it was time for Margot to go. Ora was the last person she saw on the way out of the Hollow. She pressed a beautiful spider silk shawl into Margot’s hands.
“You’re trying too hard,” Ora said.
Her sweet voice pulled Margot out of her reverie but not out of her despair.
“You don’t want to be like Nepenthe,” Ora said quietly.
“Why not?” Margot bit back, not meaning to sound bitter. Ora did not deserve her anger.
“Because Nepenthe doesn’t know what she wants. Her parents’ deaths forced her choice. If they were still alive . . .”
Margot shook her head. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel bad for Nepenthe. But Nepenthe got to stay, and she was being cast out.
“But still she got to choose. The choice is being made for me now.”
Ora pressed the shawl into Margot’s hands and kissed her on the cheek. “You would have been one hell of a witch,” she whispered.
“If you don’t have magic, make your own,” Ora said when they broke apart.
Margot turned and walked out of the Hollow.
When Margot pulled the shawl close, she felt that the lining held a dagger and dozens of potion vials. Ora had given her a parting gift.
10
Margot made her way through the woods to the palace gates. But she stopped short when she saw her brother playing in the distance. His fencing sword was locked with another boy?
??s. But not just any boy. The Prince.
In all the years, in all her visits she had never seen the Prince again. He was half-grown now, like her brother. And they each wore the same expression, semiserious at the sword play and partly content, like there was nowhere else they would rather be. Her brother had succeeded at making the Prince his friend just she had told him to all those years ago. She had been far less successful with the witches.
She didn’t ask to see Go this time. She didn’t want to disturb his happiness with her grief.
Margot turned away and headed toward town, not remembering her steps and losing her way more than once.
As she walked the black stone streets, a tiny voice called to her. Margot looked down and saw a boy younger than her brother. His large, sad eyes were as gray as the sky. And hungrier.
She didn’t have anything in her pockets to give him. She wanted to turn away. But the boy’s desperate stare kept her in their orbit. She felt herself drawn in and tethered to him somehow, even though he was a total stranger. It was a single look, but it felt like something more.
The boy spoke, his voice a raspy whisper. “Mother?” he said.
The spell was broken. The boy didn’t want food alone. He wanted family. And Margot had nothing to give him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, before racing away in the other direction.
Hours passed. Margot walked and wandered. She wasn’t paying attention to where she was going when she suddenly realized that she wasn’t alone. There were footsteps all around her. Too close. She counted six or seven boys about her age. And their expressions were not at all welcoming.
“Witch,” one of them said.
Margot felt herself tense.
She was not accustomed to being on her own. And among the witches, she had never felt fear. But she knew that there were some people in Algid who believed that witches should stay in the Hollow. And she knew that there were people who believed that witches did not belong anywhere.