“Hey, Gwennie?” Faith said, tapping my shoulder and pulling me away from my book.
I hadn’t been reading it anyway. I’d just needed something to look at so the rest of Flower Moon cabin would leave me alone.
I was grateful for the busy day of relay race training for the camp games. Only one more week and camp would be over, and I’d start my new life in Maple Hollow. Faith had agreed to move there with me, and we were going to start our coven-organized apprenticeships together. It all would’ve been incredibly exciting if I didn’t feel like my heart was being tossed around a cement mixer. At least I was physically exhausted enough that I wouldn’t be crying myself to sleep anymore.
I rolled to the edge of my bunk. “What’s up?” I tried to sound lighthearted, but it came out just as grumpy and morose as ever.
As soon as I looked down, I saw that my other Flower Moon bunkmates all stood behind Faith. Celeste pressed her lipstogether to keep from smiling while Ivy bounced up and down on her toes. I climbed down from my aloft bunk, planting my feet firmly on the floor and wondering what on earth they had done to be looking at me like that.
“Here,” Faith said, handing me a friendship bracelet woven in orange, purple, and black thread. “We made this for you.”
I sat a little straighter. “What’s this for?”
“Strength,” she said simply.
My eyes misted again. I slipped on the bracelet, my gaze sliding to the one that Sabine had given me on the first day of camp. I wanted to rub those stones, to force her to come to me and take back everything that she’d said. Could we just reverse time and redo the last week?
“Thanks.” I could barely get the word out as I stared down at my wrist.
“It’s not just strength,” Aveline added from the corner. “It’s a swapping charm. It means that you can lean on whoever is wearing a matching bracelet. So you can use their strength when you feel like you have none.”
I looked from my wrist to see the rest of my bunkmates move their hands from behind their backs and reveal that they all were wearing matching bracelets.
“Curse you all,” I blubbered as more tears fell from my eyes, and they all rushed over and surrounded me in a big group hug.
I wept like I had never wept in my entire life, and my bunkmates all seemed completely unbothered by it, even honored somehow, like my display of emotion was a show of me trusting them.
I’d never had this in my life, not once. I had loving parents who always had my back, but I’d never had a friend group like this. I’d never had people who would still be there for me, even after summer’s end. But I knew no matter where I moved orhowever long we didn’t speak, this group would always be there for me like they were in that moment.
I finally had the community I’d always longed for.
And even though letting go of Sabine had shattered my heart, even if falling for her so quickly had been nonsensical, I knew I’d have my friends to pull me back together again.
31
Sabine
On the night of the games, Dagmar threatened to use her cauldron-brewed healing potions on me if I didn’t get out of bed. Even though I loved eye of newt and wolf anal glands as much as the next witch, I decided to rally and attend the end-of-summer games.
I hid amidst the throng of counselors, tucked like a kid behind Iris’s voluminous obsidian skirt, which was an entirely impractical outfit choice, but it was the camp games, and that meant dressing up. Iris’s version of dressing up was like a witchy cosplay of Effie Trinket. I, on the other hand, had donned my crushed velvet dress in a shade of emerald green that I hoped would make me blend in with the forest behind me. I didn’t want Gwen to see me, and worse, I didn’t want to see her because one glimpse would probably make my heart crack all over again.
I hadn’t known Gwen for long enough to warrant such a reaction, I knew that, but I wished someone could send myhormones that message. Feelings were illogical little cretins. I wasn’t grieving what we had, but what we could’ve had. I could see it clearer than a divination spell—our cozy, witchy future in the city all laid out before me—a future that would never come to fruition.
But I’d cried enough over the last few days. Now, I needed the break to calcify. I needed to be resilient enough to pretend I was okay, and eventually I knew I would be again.
Still, I scoured the crowd, searching for Gwen against my will. Every flash of dark hair snagged my gaze. It took several minutes, but eventually my wandering eyes betrayed me and I found her. She wore her matching olive-green shirt and bandana, looking like she was a contestant onSurvivor, ready to compete against the other camps.
Dagmar had dropped the wards around SCUW for the event so that the games could take place across all three camps, but still, it felt strange to have people other than witches on our turf.
I folded my arms tightly and forced myself to stare at the counselors from the other camps instead of at her. Normally, they were all community members, wolves, vampires, and monsters. They were coworkers and council members and even family members to some of the witches at camp. But right then, they were the competition, and every witch knew it.
We had to win this year or Dagmar might turn into a butch fire-breathing dragon.
As the moon started rising, the three heads of camp stepped to the center of the field: Dagmar, our camp director, Augustus, who ran the Lycanthrope Wilderness Camp, and Xivan, the pumpkin-headed monster in charge of Camp Cryptwood. The three met like umpires on a pitch, calling the game before shaking hands, splitting apart, and walking back to their groups.
A wolf streaked down the aisle made by the three camps and howled in the center, the wolf camp howling back. Then,a slithering monster crept into that spot, and all the monsters hissed. Then Iris left me and stalked to the middle, hands filling with static that lit up the night, and all the witches did the same, the sky dancing with our lightning.
My eyes landed on Gwen. Her magic zipped around her fingertips with ease, and I knew she was fully tapped into her power now, so different from the surly girl at the start of summer who’d just wanted her phone and to go home.
