But she did it anyway, because it felt like too hard a thing to explain.
They make their way slowly to the Longing, the conversation spinning off into music, TV shows, and they have a long conversation about how Quentin Tarantino glorifies violence against women in his films but manages to get away with it because of his talent （“You have to admit Pulp Fiction is crazy-brilliant,” Saffy offers）， and also because Hollywood was basically the patriarchy. Saffy still isn’t clear on the purpose of this chat. Maybe Rowan just wants to get to know her. She’s been Brodie’s girlfriend for a long, long time. Maybe she’s just trying to clear the air so that there’s no bad feeling between them.
“So, are you really a witch?” Saffy asks. “Like, can you cast spells and stuff?”
“Can you?”
“Well, no, but I never said I was a . . .”
“I call myself a witch primarily as a form of protest,” Rowan says. “In defiance of centuries of genocide in Europe against women. To say I’m a witch is to recognize my ancestors who were tortured to death.”
“Oh,” Saffy says, surprised. “So . . . it’s a performance, then?”
Rowan turns to her and frowns. “Just as much as your grunge-girl, Courtney Love–wannabe look is a performance.”
Courtney Love wannabe? Saffy pulls at her blonde hair. Grunge? She feels a stab of disappointment in Rowan. She’d almost figured her for the real thing, an actual witch, capable of conjuring darkness.
They are at the Longing now, the tall, menacing shape of it looming over them. Rowan tugs the door open and gestures at Saffy to follow her inside.
“My mum painted this,” she tells Rowan, flicking on a work lamp to reveal the half-finished mural in all its multicolored glory. They stand for a moment in dreamy, drug-infused silence. “I suppose you’ll recognize the runes, being a witch and all.”
Rowan looks up at the mural. “Oh, yes. It’s the sign for love.”
Saffy can’t help but smile to herself. Rowan hasn’t got a clue what the mural meant, and for a moment she relishes standing in the Longing.
Now that they’ve stopped walking, she feels woozy, and her cheeks are aflame. She presses a hand to her chest and feels the skeleton key there.
“Look what I have,” she tells Rowan.
Rowan’s eyes widen when she sees the key. “For the cave?” she whispers, and Saffy sways, her eyes taking in the grooves of the key. Her mind turns to the history of witches, a cinematic scene of naked, shorn-headed women being flung into a pit. How apt that they chose a phallic building in which to torture women and call them witches. The patriarchy, Alpha and Omega, eternal without end.
“Let’s open it.”
They slide down the long, narrow neck of the entrance, both of them collapsing with a loud “ow” onto the wet floor at the bottom.
Saffy wrenches herself up into a sitting position, though it takes a staggering amount of effort, like a triathlon—were there triathlons that involved sitting up? She hurt her knee on the way down, but the drug has made the pain fabulously distant. Her head is crazy heavy. She wonders if she might be wearing a crown made of some kind of metal that weighs a ton.
“Am I queen now?” she asks Rowan, completely serious.
Rowan stands and dusts her dress down. “I don’t think so.”
The cave spreads out in front of them like the mouth of an enormous beast. Jagged remnants of limestone skewer upward from the floor like fangs and the uneven, craggy floor glimmered with rock pools. Somewhere moonlight is seeping in, and it is astonishing that such a massive space exists beneath the Longing. It would be terrific for candlelight orchestras, Saffy thinks, though the damp would probably affect the instruments. The air is cool and clammy, the kind of dampness that gets into your bones. It is exciting, really, being in such a weird place with such a weird girl.