Even magic needs a home.
In many ways, I’ve been preparing for the ball for nineteen years. It makes sense to share it with Landon.
My mother has never sat down with me to ask my thoughts on the plans my grandparents set in motion, to find out if I would be okay with leaving the Witchery and becoming part of the mainland’s ruling family. If I would trade my magic for jewels, my swims for social calls.
Every so often, I think it would be nice if she asked, if only so I could look her in the eye and tell her with absolute certainty that yes, I’m committed to this path we’re on.
I love my parents and my coven with my whole heart. I love this island with my whole heart. And I will do whatever it takes to secure our place in this world, even if it means marrying a man I don’t love in order to protect all the things I do.
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I always take the long way home. I like to breathe the salty air and feel the rocks under my feet, listen as the waves roll onto the shore over and over again. The eastern edge of the Witchery disappears into the Passage, giving way to the arm of the sea that separates us from the mainland.
The mainland rises in the distance, countless buildings and crowded streets stark against the horizon. A large clock tower anchors the city, and while we can’t hear the bells this far out, its presence is undeniable. It’s an impressive sight to behold, and from the shores of the Witchery, it looks almost fanciful, like something from a book.
It’s hard for me to picture what my life will be like when I marry Landon and live on the mainland. The Witchery is my home, with its rocky beaches and cobblestone roads, old stone buildings and plants that cover every inch of them. I love it here. And even though the mainland is only an hour-long ferry ride away, it feels too far.
I’ll still come here, of course. I’ll help my parents at the perfumery, and I’ll be here every full moon for the rush, but I want these moments of walking home, stopping on the beach, looking out at the mainland in the distance.
I don’t want to look at the Witchery in the distance instead.
I shake my head. It’s not that I don’t want it, I tell myself. It’s just that I’ll need to get used to it. I take comfort in knowing the earliest witches lived on the mainland, that they moved only to preserve their magic. If they could build lives there, so can I.
Sunset is in one hour, and the last ferry out will leave several hours after that. The island will rest, breathe in deep after a long day of busy streets and eager tourists and delicate magic. Magic that can’t meaningfully change a person’s life or even make much of a difference, in the grand scheme of things.
Magic that is only a shadow of what my ancestors practiced. But that’s the price of being accepted in society, of having our hands shaken instead of bound, our cheeks kissed instead of slapped, our island celebrated instead of burned.
I’ve never known more than the gentle magic of the Witchery, but I’ve heard rumors about what our ancestors were capable of. Controlling the elements. Cheating death. Compelling others. Sometimes it scares me, knowing the same magic that ran through their veins runs through my own, that there is something inside me far stronger than the perfumes in our shop or Ivy’s most potent tea.
I sit down on the shore, not caring that my blue dress will get damp and dirty, not caring that my mother will comment on my appearance when I arrive home, the way she always does. She wants me to be more put together, more polished, more presentable.
More like her.
But she doesn’t see what I see: the most beautiful things are wild.
I push my fingers into the rocks and sand, feel the jagged edges and rough grains. Our shore is smaller than it used to be, the angry currents carving away at it, carrying it off to other parts of the island or swallowing it altogether.
My mother says I spend too much time worrying, that she and the other coven leaders have things under control. But the currents are getting stronger, and it won’t be long before they snatch a boat from the surface and pull it to the bottom of the sea.
We’ll see how fully the mainlanders accept us when our currents drown one of their own.
But once I’m married to Landon, his father will extend the government’s protection to us, not only in promises spoken at fancy parties but in written law. There will be no going back after that, not even if a ship sinks in our waters or our currents grow more violent.
This is the kind of security my ancestors only dreamed about, the kind of security that not even moving off the mainland could afford them. Because as soon as the witches made the island their home, fear among the mainlanders ran rampant. The only thing more terrifying than seeing our magic on their streets was not seeing us at all; we could be doing anything on the island.