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It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t burn. My heart is still beating and my lungs are still breathing.
I slowly bring the flower to my face and inhale.
The petals brush my skin, and I remain unharmed. Every text I’ve read has described the pain as instant, followed quickly by death, but I feel normal. I’m trying to work through what I’m experiencing, knowing full well it’s impossible, but no explanation comes to mind. I’m at a complete loss.
“Did you put a spell on it?” I ask.
“How could I have done that if it’s poisonous to witches?”
I shake my head, staring at the bloom. I don’t understand, and I’m distraught that I don’t. Moonflower is the first plant I learned to identify because it’s so crucial to know what it looks like. So imperative to our survival. And here I am, holding one in my hand as if it’s a common lupine.
I scramble for anything that will make it make sense, that will tie up the threads unraveling in my mind, but I come up short.
A drop of sweat rolls down the back of my neck. Then, all at once, I come back to myself and realize what I’m doing and who I’m speaking with.
I drop the flower and jump back. My heart is beating so hard it feels as if it could crack my ribs.
“The old coven isgone,” I say.
“Now, how would you know that?” His voice is casual, taunting even, and heat rises to my face.
“I don’t know who you think you are, but this isn’t funny. The old coven doesn’t exist anymore.” This must be some kindof joke, some elaborate prank to humiliate me. But then I think back to the way the wind picked up, the way it felt on my face, and I know it’s real. I look at the flower on the ground and can’t stop the questions that cascade through my mind one after another. The loudest, most incessant one of all—the one that should be simplest to answer and yet feels as if it’s threatening everything I’ve ever known—repeats over and over again:
Why didn’t it hurt?
At that moment, a raw, guttural roar comes from the shoreline as the witches rush their magic in unison.
I whip around toward the sound. Dread moves through me in a slow, steady crawl.
No. This can’t be happening.
The sound gets more crazed the longer it goes on, and all I can do is stare in the direction of the sea, stunned. Then all at once, it stops.
The silence of the night takes over again, and my entire body begins to shake with terror.
I missed it.
I hear the waves of the ocean and the rustling of grass, the wind in the trees and the hoot of an owl. Then I remember the boy.
I slowly turn back around, but he’s gone.
My head falls into my hands, and I close my eyes, wishing with every part of me that I could go back in time to twenty minutes ago and ignore that damned light.
I can’t believe I missed it.
My legs finally react, and I run toward the shoreline and hide inthe shrubs, watching as the witches wade out of the sea. The rush takes an enormous amount of energy, and they walk as if in slow motion.
No one can know I missed it. Not with my upcoming engagement and my mother’s place on the council. I wait until the eldest witches are past my hiding place, then run into the water and soak my gown. The fabric clings to my legs as I trudge up the shore. My parents are on the sidewalk, leaning into each other, and I slowly make my way to where they’re standing. We walk home together, but I can’t stop the shaking that has taken over my body.
The only person in recent memory who ever missed a rush was Lydia White almost twenty years ago.
She died ten days later from the excess magic building in her system.
No one has missed a rush since. We find a way to get everyone to this shore, no matter how difficult it may be.
My eyes fill with tears, and I take several breaths, not wanting my parents to see. Even if I told them what happened, there would be nothing for it. The only reason the rush works is because we use our collective power to make it happen.
An overwhelming sadness moves through me. My eyes burn, and it feels like shards of glass are lodged in my throat every time I try to swallow.
