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Hazel interjected. “Primrose, you won’t have to share what you’re thinking all the time. It would be maddening to hear each other’s thoughts constantly.” Hazel glanced at Gothel, who was giving her a look like she was surprised Hazel knew what she was talking about. “You’re not the only one who reads Mother’s books, you know, Gothel.”
Gothel smiled. “How should we spend our last moments as our current selves?”
“Gothel, you’re so weird! Seriously, what are you talking about?” asked Primrose.
“Our lives are going to change forever today, Prim!” said Gothel. She seemed almost giddy, and it was annoying Primrose.
“That’s true,” said Primrose with an odd look on her face that her sisters couldn’t quite read.
“What’s wrong? What’s that face you’re making? Did you change your mind?” asked Gothel.
“She didn’t change her mind, Gothel. Calm down,” said Hazel. She turned to Primrose. “And you stop teasing Gothel! She isn’t weird. She’s right. We will be different people after tonight. Different versions of ourselves. It’s not a strange question. How should we spend our last evening together before we start our schooling with Mother?”
“I don’t know about you two, but I’m going to spend it alone!” said Primrose, standing up in a huff and storming out of the room.
“Primrose! What’s wrong?” called Gothel as Primrose slammed the door behind her. “What just happened? What did I say?” Gothel was confused and hurt.
Hazel shook her head. “You didn’t say anything. Prim is just being her dramatic self. Her life isn’t going the way she planned and she’s sulking.”
“What do you mean?”
Hazel smiled at her sister. “You know Primrose. She just wants to have fun. She’d be content to spend the rest of our days wandering the woods and hanging her hearts in the trees as long as she has us, and that’s all changing. We’re going to be spending all our time with Mother, learning how to take her place. It won’t be the three of us together the way she ima
gined, and that frightens her. I think she already misses us.”
“But we’re here! We’re all here! And when we take Mother’s blood, we will all be more powerful. We will be able to do magic, not just feel each other’s emotions. We will be able to do real magic!” said Gothel.
“I know and I’m really excited about it. But I think Primrose agreed to do this only because she knows how important it is to both of us.”
“Is it really important to you?”
“It is, Gothel! I see us many years from now, witches together learning our craft, studying into the night, practicing our spells, maybe even meeting other witches, but that isn’t Primrose’s sort of thing. She’s afraid of how all of this is going to change our relationships. She’s afraid of losing us to magic.”
“But she can join us!”
“It isn’t her thing, Gothel. I think we should consider letting her leave the dead woods.”
“No!”
“Gothel, you realize she will leave eventually. If she stays here, she will be living the life you dreaded. Languishing forever with nothing to do! That’s exactly what you were afraid your life would become. Do you want that for her?”
“But she does have something to do! She can learn magic with us!”
“Gothel! Stop. Listen to me. She doesn’t want to do magic. She’s afraid of it! I think she needs to be in the real world. I can feel it. I know she doesn’t see herself here forever.” Hazel sighed. “Gothel, do you remember when we were small, how we would all run around the city of the dead, knocking on the crypts?”
“I do. Yes. It was our favorite game. We played it all the time. Primrose loved that game.”
“She loved it until the day Jacob answered her knock and scared the Hades out of her. It was the next day she started hanging her ribbons and hearts. Don’t you see? She’s trying to make our woods into a beautiful place, because it frightens her. She doesn’t belong here.”
Gothel sighed. “But it’s already a beautiful place.”
“Primrose doesn’t think so,” said Hazel with a sad smile.
“Well, I would never make her stay if she really wanted to go, Hazel. Of course, if she wants to leave, we should let her, but not while Mother is still alive. She would never allow it. Do you know what it means for a witch of our blood to leave the dead woods? They can never return. We will have to wipe her memory of this place and of us.”
“After Mother is gone, we can do things our own way, Gothel.”
“That’s true. Maybe. Can we decide how to handle it when the time comes? Together?”
