Sweet & Bitter Magic by Adrienne Tooley (speed reading book TXT) 📗

the Year of Darkness,” her father was insisting. “Get away from here before I make you.”

Even Wren—who had been huddled in the chicken coop for hours at her father’s insistence, her knees red with the imprint of the straw beneath them—knew the threat was empty. Her father was not a cruel man. He was merely afraid. Had been since the moment the farmer came banging on the door to let him know there was a witch in town.

“They won’t take another child from me.” Her father simmered and stormed, ranted and raved, anger turning his face ruddy and red. His fear was so thick that Wren nearly choked on it. But the pain behind his eyes, his frenzied fervor, was enough to keep her silent despite the way she watched the air crackle and shimmer around the witch. Her little heart ached, so desperate was she to be discovered. But the witch never looked toward the chicken coop. Instead she sighed dispassionately. Then Wren blinked, and the woman was gone.

As she relived the memory, the Witchwood grew darker, the colors swirling into shadows, the night endless and suffocating. It suddenly took a great amount of effort to force her legs forward. The dizzying roar of the trees echoed in her ears like the furious churning of water through a wheel. Everything was imprecise, like an off-pitch note or a too-bright flame. Wren wanted to crawl out of her own skin. Her heart was hammering. And through it all, a worry wormed its way into her head. Wrong, it seemed to say, but Wren couldn’t tell if it was her surroundings or herself that was wrong.

The word tolled endlessly, like a bell, the darkness of its tone creeping across her body like the scurrying of beetles that sometimes crawled across the stale crusts of bread in the cupboard. This is wrong. Maybe she shouldn’t have come here. Perhaps she’d make it through the trees and find that the witches didn’t want her at all.

Would she be punished for having evaded them so long?

Something’s wrong. Wren clapped her hands over her ears.

“What’s wrong?” This voice was different from the one in her head. Wren lifted her eyes from where they were fixed upon the grass and gasped as she took in the shining, shimmering outline of the woman before her. It was her mother, familiar in her broad hips and thick arms, her red hair piled atop her head. Her cheeks were plump and had the faintest hint of pink. She looked so alive. Which of course she couldn’t be. Her father had burned the body. Wren had helped him scatter the ashes to the wind.

“What are you doing here?” her mother asked. Wren bit her lip so hard it bled. She focused on the pain, the bright, rusty tang on her tongue. She would not cry. She could not cry.

“I’m magic, Mama,” she said, the words catching in her throat.

Her mother stared at her, shimmering. “Magic killed your brother, you know.”

“I know.”

“Are you wicked, Wren?”

“No, Mama.” Wren took a step forward, but when she reached out a hand toward her mother, it moved right through. Wren had known it was just a trick of the light, a test of the trees, but disappointment still crashed over her like a wave.

“Then go,” her mother said, her voice hoarse and sharp, her figure shimmering faster, as though the magic was fading. “Turn back and go home. Back to your father. Where you belong.”

Wren choked back the lump rising in her throat. “I belong here, too.”

“Save yourself,” her mother said. But it wasn’t her mother, not really. It was her image, perhaps, but not her heart.

“I’ll show you,” Wren said, careful and quiet. “I am good.” And though regret swirled in her chest, though she felt her heart splinter and crack, she walked away, past the image of her mother and deeper into the Witchwood.

She knew now it was the only way out.

Tamsin was screaming.

Wren hurried toward her, stumbling over sharp branches stuck in the muddy earth and leaping over logs as wide as she was tall. When she found the witch, Tamsin’s eyes were wide with horror, her face pale, her gaze fixed on something Wren couldn’t see.

“It isn’t real,” Wren said softly, her hand hovering over Tamsin’s shoulder. “Whatever you’re seeing, it isn’t real.” When Wren touched her lightly, Tamsin yelped with alarm, her face crumpling with hope and despair as she took in the girl before her.

“It’s okay,” Wren said, her shaking voice revealing how little she herself believed it. “You’re okay.”

“It isn’t.” Tamsin’s mouth twisted wryly, her whole body still trembling. “I’m not.”

Wren tugged on the tail of her braid to stop herself from reaching toward the witch. “What did it show you?” For it was clear that Tamsin had come face-to-face with something haunting, something as horrible as what Wren had faced.

“Nothing.” Tamsin’s eyes dimmed, her mind far away, wrapped up in another secret Wren was not privy to.

“I saw my mother.” Wren could still see her shimmering outline, the hope in her eyes that Wren would listen and abandon her quest. “She told me not to give in to my magic. To go home to my father. And I walked away. Because I knew I had to keep going. I left her behind.” She looked the witch in the eyes and made her hold on to the horror of what she had dealt with. “So don’t act like you’re the only one who has suffered.”

Tamsin did not look away. Finally she sighed with resignation. “That girl who died? I’m the one who killed her.”

Wren felt as though she’d been punched in the gut. “What?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Tamsin said, blinking furiously. “I was trying to save someone’s life.”

The fact that Tamsin, the most selfish and self-centered person Wren had ever met, had tried to do something that immense for another person was so unfathomable as to be impossible.

“Anyway, it didn’t work. Two lives were lost, thanks to