“I cannot feel them anymore,” he whispers through cracked lips. “They’re gone.”
“They are,” I reply, as I press the back of my hand to his forehead. It is no longer icy against my skin. “But how did they come to be there in the first place?”
At first, I do not think he can answer. He is weak, his eyes rolling in his head as he struggles to keep them open. Just as I feel sure he has fallen into unconsciousness, his hand reaches up and snatches at my fingers. He squeezes them with a strength that startles me.
“I knew I saved you for a reason,” he whispers. “Oh what power we shall gather, my little one.”
We are bound together now. I can feel it.
He has saved my life. I have saved his. It is a deep magic that cannot be undone.
As the days go by, he waits for me. I see him in the trees.On the cliffs. In my dreams. He is closer now than he was. I can no longer ignore him, but I do not go to him. Not yet.
I am afraid. Not of him. Of myself.
The truth is that I know he is dangerous, and this knowledge only makes him more fascinating to me. I want to understand him. I want to be closer to him. This is why I am afraid. Because despite knowing better, despite all I have learned and all I have done, I do not run from him. I seek him. What does this say about who I am, and who I have grown to be despite all I have been taught?
There have always been kinds of magic that are off limits. From my earliest years, I endured scoldings about the things we must never wish for, the power we must never crave. We are instructed to humble ourselves, to respect the magic we have, and to be grateful for it.
And I am grateful. I am also hungry.
Hungry to hurt those who hurt me. Hungry to savor control when I am told to let go. He has never denied himself in this way. He is the hunger personified.
This is what he whispers to me in my dreams. These are the words carried to me in the wind by the cliffs, and in the rustle of the leaves in the forest, and I finally begin to understand. He is the presence we have always known to lurk here, the abomination that fed on the magic and twisted it to its own vile will. We have protected against him. We have shunned his energy and his influence. And yet, he has managed now to creep under my skin, to beguile me with promises and visions that live as deeply hidden in my own heart as they do bare and exposed in his outstretched hands.
You do not need to dream in shame of this power,he whispers to me.You can reach out. You can take it. We can take it together.
At first, I try to reason with myself. I do not want this power for myself alone. I want it for all of us, all the witches of the Cove. I wish to protect us, to enrich and empower us. Who should wield this power, if not us? Have we not proven ourselves worthy, the proper stewards of this place, and all its secrets?
But I am the one person I cannot lie to. I know the truth, and soon Iaccept it. I do not want this power for myself. I want it for us. For him. To witness what we could do with it together. He has promised to show me, and I am dangerously close to accepting that invitation.
At last, one night, my reserves of will power run dry. I wake from a dream, sticky with sweat, and gasping for something more than air. I do not stop to think. Just like the night I saved him, I simply open the door and run. My feet—and my heart—know where to find him.
The cave is tucked into the cliffs, a treacherous climb that leaves me bleeding, and drenched to the skin. The sea nearly plucks me from my path, the wind tears at me, but I tame them. By the time I stagger into the cave to face him, I have proven a power that even he must respect.
“You have come to me at last.”
“I have.”
He smiles, and I am undone.
“Why do you call me here?” I ask.
“You already know.”
I swallow hard. I do know, but my fear twists my knowledge into questions. I shake it away, and find my resolve again. “Show it to me.”
He reaches out his hand, and I take it. The connection that radiates through us is both terrifying and elating. He turns and leads me deeper into the cave, squeezing through the fissures in the rock, until it opens into a wide cavern. It ought to be pitch black inside the cavern, but it is not. The whole space is lit with an eerie glow, bleached like moonlight, and this glow emanates from a tall stone archway in the center of the cave.
I am not sure whether I pull away, or if he lets go of my hand, but suddenly I am moving forward on bare and bleeding feet, drawn by the inexorable pull of this archway. I walk in a slow, deliberate circle all the way around it, taking it in from every angle, trying to understand the storm of emotions coursing through me as I stare at it.
The archway stands on two circular stone platforms stacked one on top of the other, made from the same pale, weathered stone. There are symbols and words carved into the face of the platforms all the way around, but I can make sense of none of it. It is a language I do not know, and the symbols, like runes only unfamiliar, are still more strange. Butmost unnerving of all is the feeling that pulsates through my body, like blood in my veins—an almost dizzying draw, like a thousand strings have been tied to every true part of me, and are all pulling me forward.
“What is it?” I whisper.
“I don’t know. But it contains the secret of the Source. The deep and abiding magic that draws all here, like moths to the candle flame. I have found it at last, but it is like a door without a key.”
“I have seen your power. Surely you do not need me.”
