Page 13 of Bound By Fury

carbonfiberfighter: no. Witches

QueenofDarkness69: witches?\

hellogoodbye: seems sus

QueenofDarkness69: like the woods are haunted by witches or the girl is a witch?

carbonfiberfighter: yes

hellogoodbye: AKSASKHAKSJAKS WAIT EXPLAIN

QueenofDarkness69: carbon?? Hello?

QueenofDarkness69: u can’t leave us hanging like this!!!

QueenofDarkness69: hello?!

hellogoodbye: all I know is that BMA is sketchy af…

Witches. The word reverberates in my head long after I leave the kitchen and go upstairs, slipping into the white porcelain claw-foot tub filled with lavender bubble bath.

In Appalachia you grow up knowing to come inside once the porch light clicks on. You know not to answer if you hear your name called from the depths of the woods, to ignore the whistles that sometimes ring out at night. But the Lee Valley Witches are a local fairytale. A myth. Even Gigi scoffed whenever they were mentioned. Offended that something as ridiculous as a devil-worshipping coven of witches is what people latched on to, when according to Gigi, there was real magic in the world. In the stars.

Though the stories of my childhood have all faded into still images of Gigi’s face as she whispered me to sleep, her love of astrology is ever present. She swore up and down that the stars can tell us the future. They can guide us. That it was ancient blood magic, the way people like us can connect to them.

My head is full of signs, of traits, compatibility, charts, and constellations, but she was wrong. The stars don’t whisper to me like they did to her. They don’t call to me. Not the way she wanted them to. Not the way Earnest does. But I couldn’t look her in the face and tell her that. I couldn’t bear the thought of letting her down, of severing the very thread she believed connected us. So like I’ve found myself doing more and more recently to bury every bad feeling filling me up inside, I lied.

And now that she’s gone, there can be no forgiveness for that sin.

My grandmother always told me that Earnest was mine for the taking. That the land was ours. That our ancestors built this town whether anyone wants to acknowledge that fact or not. She knew how much I love it here, dreamt with me of the day I got to hold the keys to Willow Estate in my hands, when I’d get to add my own lifetime of memories to our family’s legacy.

But BMA was off the table. A nonstarter.

And maybe that’s it. Maybe that was the thing that really did it. Really sealed my fate. For as much as my grandmother was my whole world and I was hers, the truth about Black Mountain Academy would always be a wedge between us, and I just want to know why. What is so rotten about it? Why, if it’s so bad, did we trek up there every third Wednesday and sit in the chapel for town meetings? Why did crossing those gates steal my breath?

When the water is well past cool and my skin is all shriveled and stinging, I let the tub drain and climb out, wrapping a striped towel around my torso. Or rather, as much as I can anyway, with the bottom corners splayed apart where my hips widen. I slap on my skin care and tuck my curls beneath a satin bonnet before pulling on a nightgown and padding to the window.

The military-grade binoculars still rest on the edge of the curved bench, and I grab them, peering into the glowing square across the way.

In the distance through the opening in the trees, Malachi sits against his headboard, nose tucked between the pages of a book. Aslan’s fat, orange belly rises and falls lazily beneath his hand.

Like he can sense me, he slams the book closed and stands, Aslan’s mouth widening in protest. I shrink back but straighten as he saunters to the window and flattens his palm against it. Tension blooms a sharp sting between my shoulder blades as he flips his hand over, his middle finger springing up as he uses his other hand to yank the curtain closed, blocking me out.

Whatever, I think as I turn from the window and slip under the covers.

The last time I saw Malachi Matsoukas, he broke my heart. Now my grandmother is dead, and there’s nobody to blame but god and time. Thankfully, I have enough anger inside me for all the above.

I stare unblinking into the night sky, allowing my mind to empty. Polaris, the North Star, twinkles like a taunt, and I turn my back to it, rolling onto my stomach and tucking my arms beneath my pillow.

When I asked the stars to save Gigi, nothing happened.

So why do I still yearn to hear their call?

SEVEN

SILVER, WAIST-HIGH FOG GLOWS against the moonlight as it creeps across the lawn, tendrils snaking, wrapping around ankles and thighs, grabbing on to the figures standing in the heat of a blazing fire, the wood of the crumbling structure crackling beneath its flames.

Without thinking, I step forward. The inferno’s flames are like forked tongues licking the sky, undulating, pulsating, throwing soot and debris as the wind blows. My skin itches with burning. The air reeks of sulfur, like the devil himself has opened up the gates of hell in Earnest.