But I agreed to this. I agreed to be her champion, however misguided I was, however desperate. I’m here, and I’ll face the confrontations and struggles I know are coming, so pouting about it will get me nowhere.
The voices chanting, the smells of herbs and candle smoke, the velvety warmth of the water and air—it all combines, egged on by my sleeplessness, and for a moment, I think it worked. This cleansing ceremony. I feel made anew suddenly, shoved into a dazed aura—
You ask too much of this one, sister, snaps a voice. Recognition shatters the brief aura of fogged drifting. Perchta, the Mother goddess.She will fail you and hurt what we have built.
You do not wish to change our ways, Holda says.You have made your stance clear. But you and Abnoba agreed, even so, to allow me to try.
Still in the water, still wrapped up in the chanting of the people around me, I go immobile.
Holda could have this conversation without me hearing. So she is letting me hear it.
The other goddesses are aware of what it is she wants me to do: remove the restrictions on magic so all witches can access it without the requirements of tapping into the Well. But last I knew, Holda was shielding my connection to wild magic not only from the council but from her sisters too. It is not surprising that the goddesses saw through her scheming.
I do not move, skin gone cold in the water, pinned in place by the sensation of being near something forbidden, something sacred.
“Water to wash. Plants to grow. Smoke to carry. Fire to ignite.”
The chanting continues, Cornelia, Liesel, and Hilde closest to me, but even their words are monotone, as though those who chant are no longer aware that they speak, like the whole of this cove has fallen into a lull under the conversation happening in my head.
Our priest and priestesses will never allow wild magic to be accepted, Perchta says, undeniable haughtiness in her tone.Especially when it is this one presenting such an ill change. She cannot be trusted. She will only disappoint you the way her brother did.
My chest bucks, heart wrenching hard, but I keep my lips pressed together, teeth digging into my cheeks until iron sours my tongue.
Holda doesn’t respond right away. Does she think I will argue with Perchta? That I will fight for my abilities and swear I am not my brother?
Where is Abnoba? What side of this argument does she fall on?
I say nothing. I do nothing. I just sit in the water, trapped beneath Perchta’s condescension, and stay silent.
You will not interfere, Holda tells Perchta.Friederike will have the best chance I can give her.
I will not interfere, Perchta says.But if she endangers us, you will not be able to keep her safe from me.
The air sucks out of the cove in a jarring pop that vibrates in my ears.
The chanting around me continues, but there is a livelier note to it now, not the droning, dizzying quality it had before. And behind me, Cornelia dips a cup into the pool, scoops water and a few pieces of rosemary, and dumps it down my hair.
“Water to wash,” she says again, in time with the other women. “Plants to grow. Smoke to carry. Fire to ignite.”
Her fingers on my scalp ground me. They still my shaking, shaking I hadn’t even realized I was doing.
Perchta’s words linger in my head. Holda’s defense and certainty.
My palm presses flat on the brand on my stomach. A spot on my thigh aches. A third on my chest.
Dieter’s brands. The scars he left behind.
I smell the stench of burnt flesh suddenly, hear distant screams—my screams—and I just want torest, I just want torun—
Cornelia shifts aside, making room for Liesel, who repeats the action, scoop, dump, recite.
This spell is unnecessary. This whole cleansing ceremony is unnecessary. All the spells we memorized because they werethe only wayto access the Well’s magic—lies. All the herbs we use, the potions we brew—lies. Catalysts, at most, ways to focus our intent. But they were just rules inflicted on us by the goddesses, who sealed away as much magic as they could in the Origin Tree so they could divvy it out in a controlled, methodical way, as opposed to the unpredictable, unrestrained might of wild magic.
Hilde is next. She repeats what Cornelia and Liesel did.
Their voices lock together, the women all behind me, a faceless, chanting sound rising, rising in volume.
“Water to wash. Plants to grow. Smoke to carry. Fire to ignite.”
