Wild is the Witch (8)

“Are you not quite ready for books with words yet?” I ask him, looking over his shoulder.

He rolls his eyes and doesn’t look at me. “It’s a textbook,” he says. “You know, for studying. Not all of us are lucky enough to have a job we didn’t earn waiting for us after high school.”

I graduated last year, and Mom and I talked briefly about college, but it didn’t make sense. I already have all the skills I need to work at the refuge, and spending four years in a classroom, when I can gain more experience under the cover of evergreens, wasn’t something I wanted.

I look at the drawing of the owl. It’s lifelike and detailed, with all the anatomy precisely labeled. The owl’s dark eyes stare at me from the page, reminding me of the spotted owl outside. I walk around the desk and put on my raincoat.

“I may be lucky, but I earned my place here. That book can’t teach you intuition or warmth. It can’t teach you the things you’d need to learn to be even half as good with the animals as I am.”

“Maybe not, but at least I’m working at it. What are you working on? Because it certainly isn’t your people skills.”

“I’m more comfortable with animals,” I say, ashamed when my voice gets quiet.

Pike doesn’t seem to notice, though. “It’s too bad you aren’t a witch, then you could just force people into liking you. Did you hear that the girl on the news was released after only two years?” He shakes his head. “Ridiculous.”

“What’s your deal with witches?” I do my best to keep my voice steady, even, not letting him know how hard it is to ask the question. If he’s going to be interning with us, I want to know.

His hazel eyes get glassy, and he looks down at his book for several moments, staring off into a place I can’t see. “I don’t trust magic,” he finally says.

The words make me sad for some reason. I trust magic more than anything else in the world, more than I trust most people. I shake my head and turn to leave the office.

“That was a rather big sigh,” Pike says, any hint of seriousness gone from his voice.

“Did I sigh?”

“A big one,” he says. “An ‘I’m so exasperated with Pike I can’t even be here anymore’ sigh.”

“Well, you do have that effect on me.” I try to match his joking tone, but I don’t quite succeed, and the words sound mean and aggravated. I walk back to the desk and lean my arms on it. “Seriously, why do you hate witches so much?”

I’m surprised when my voice breaks, threatening to expose all the things I keep hidden. I want him to say that he doesn’t, that he’s just joking around. My palms sweat, and I suddenly feel like I’m that girl back in Nebraska, staring at the word witch graffitied across the front of her home, not understanding how anyone could use the word as an insult. Not understanding how anyone could see it as anything other than wonderful.

Pike stands and walks around the desk, just inches away from my face. “You really want to know?” His voice is soft and low.

All I can do is nod. My heart races, and I swallow hard. I wait for him to laugh and say it’s nothing, to wave it off as one big joke. But he doesn’t.

He leans in close to me, so close I could snatch the glasses off his face or smooth down his wavy brown hair. So close I can smell the spice of tea on his breath. “I’m not going to tell you,” he says. “But I will say one thing. The girl on the news? She should have been the one to burn.”

He turns and walks out the door before I can respond.





Three


When Mom and I get home that night, Sarah is already in the kitchen. The house smells of herbs and spices, and I take off my coat and breathe deeply, trying to forget the words Pike spoke to me earlier. Trying to forget the way his voice held a darkness that scares me.

She should have been the one to burn.

Mom goes upstairs to shower, and I walk into the kitchen and sit down at the counter. I always love seeing Sarah in our home—she brightens everything. She lives a couple miles down the road, but she’s here all the time, and I suspect that one day I’ll realize she came for dinner and never left.

She’s a big reason I believe my mom when she says moving is one of the best things that happened to us. Mom and Sarah have been friends for years, and when we moved out here, their friendship deepened.

Now, when I see the looks that pass between them, when I hear my mom hum to herself around the house, it eases the sting of guilt that lingers in my chest. A few months ago, Mom told me that their love changed to in love, and the words healed something in me I thought was forever broken. After everything she went through with my dad, she found her person in the heart of the Olympic Peninsula, and all I want is for her to keep smiling and humming and laughing.

It’s all I want for Sarah, too.

“How was your day, hun?” She hands me a few slices of bell pepper, the ones she didn’t chop because she knows I like them raw.

“It was fine,” I say between bites. “We got a new wolf today. He was hit by a truck on the other side of the mountains, but he’ll be okay.”

“Such majestic creatures,” she says, and I smile because it’s what she always says when we talk about the wolves. Sarah was my mom’s first close friend who is also a witch, and the awe she has for the world around her is unbridled.