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I blow on one fork, and the loose sand drifts away to reveal even smaller tendrils of glass, almost like bubbles on the branches.
Aspen squats next to us. “It’s beautiful. The wildness of nature immortalized.”
The large piece tingles in my hands, like static electricity, and the fine hairs on my arms lift.
Aspen studies my expression. “You sense a connection.”
“Yes.” I shake my head. “But breaking off a piece to make my wand would diminish the magic.”
I gently set it on the sand next to my bucket, since it’s too big to fit inside. “Let’s keep looking.”
We move to the next rod, then the next, but neither yields what we want.
At the final rod, apprehension fills me as we dig. There were no tingles from the first piece of fulgurite that we found, and I don’t want to break up the second one. But if this lightning rod also turns out to be a dud, I may not have a choice, and the realization makes me sad.
Maybe I can just wait for another storm, and we can try again.
“I found one.” Owen sweeps the sand away on his side.
After a few seconds, he lifts out a small piece the size of my finger. One end looks bulbous, while the other ends in a point, and two small knobs stick out from one side.
I laugh and take it from him, turning it to put the bulbous end at the top. “It looks like a little man.”
“It does,” Owen agrees.
I smile as I wiggle the little man but feel nothing except amusement. With a sigh, I turn and place it in my bucket with the first piece we found.
Aspen lifts the lightning rod from the sand. “We got more pieces than I expected we would, so I’d say this was a worthwhile experiment.”
“Yeah, you have some good ideas.” I cup my hands around the dirt pile in front of me, ready to push it back into the hole when something in the hole left by the lightning rod catches my eye.
I reach for it just as Owen dumps in the sand from his side. It buries my hand, but not before my fingers close around a rough little piece of fulgurite that sends electricity skating up my bones.
A small oomph of surprise escapes me, and goose bumps rise all over my body. My pulse quickens with excitement, and I pull my hand from the sand, shaking off the granules to stare in amazement at the little piece of lightning I hold.
No bigger than the top knuckle of my pinky and looking more like coal than glass, I hold the first piece of my wand.
I twist to look up at Aspen. “This is it! I feel it!”
A smile breaks over his lips, and he crouches next to me to squeeze my shoulder. “I’m so happy for you.”
With a sense of purpose now, I turn toward the potted trees. Lightning had missed one, but the other lies on its side, the pot it came in shattered into pieces around the tangled ball of its roots.
I clutch my piece of fulgurite in one hand as I crawl toward it.
Owen scrambles to his feet. “Watch out for the pottery, Rowe!”
He lifts me onto my feet, and I pat his hands in thanks as I continue forward.
Lightning had split the center of the trunk down the center, with one side thicker than the other. Black char shows where it briefly caught fire before the heavy rain put it out.
I squat next to it and run my hand over the seam. Tingles rush over my palm, up my arm, across my chest, and down my other arm, connecting with the piece of fulgurite I hold.
My hair stirs on my shoulders, and the top of my head buzzes like it did when I pulled the town’s barrier through me. My lips part in a quick breath.
I thought this sensation was from the magic that generations of Wendall witches had set in place, that I had simply reinforced. But now I feel it again, with no other witch having touched it. Magic that calls to me, magic that sinks into my bones and rings inside my body like a bell, announcing its presence within me.
A lump forms in my throat, and I swallow it down as I turn to gaze up at Aspen. “I think I’m a witch.”
