Chapter 11
Sabine
We met at our secret spot, and I was grateful that Gwen hadn’t gotten lost for three hours trying to find it this time. At least now I knew that she could rub the stones on her friendship bracelet and I’d be able to locate her.
It was just after dinner, the summer sun hanging low in the sky.
We had an hour before dark and we had to be back in our respective cabins.
I enjoyed my evenings in the Harvest Moon cabin, playing cards with the campers and listening to Ophelia play her lyre like a Greek goddess.
I knew I’d miss it, these summers hanging out under the conjured air-conditioning on the hot nights with nothing to do, but I could hold the duality of missing something and wanting to experience life somewhere new too.
My thoughts of the city quickly drifted away when Gwen rounded an old elm tree and caught my eye. A hard-won grin was on her face, her skin looking like golden porcelain in the setting sun.
I heard Iris’s warning in the back of my head. If I got kicked out of camp for “fraternizing” with a camper, I’d have to do yet another summer, which meant it would be another year before I could become a full-fledged member of the coven.
A thought shot through my mind and landed like a stone in my gut: Maybe Iris wasn’t volunteering out of the goodness of her heart. Maybe she still hadn’t completed her camp requirements because she’d been hooking up with campers every year.
No. I shook the theory away. Dagmar would’ve told me.
Although, that still would’ve made more sense to me than Iris volunteering to do this every year.
I let out a little laugh as Gwen plunked down on the log beside me with a grumpy flomp.
“What?” she asked as she looked out over the clearing to the glowing orange lake.
“Nothing,” I said with a shake of my head. “How was your day?”
“Besides turning one of my cabinmates into a toad?” Gwen asked.
“You didn’t!”
“Don’t worry,” she replied. “Faith turned Melba back into her funky, psychedelic self. Melba thought it was, and I quote, ‘Groovy.’”
I stifled a snicker as I wiped a nervous hand down my thigh. “Well, I think our first order of business should be to practice controlling your magic.”
She folded her arms tightly across her chest. “I’m all ears.”
I toyed with my friendship bracelets. “What was the common thread that made you lose control?”
“I don’t know. Every time it happened, I was angry, I guess?”
“You weren’t angry when you turned that minnow at the lake last night,” I pointed out, remembering the way we’d stood in the shadows beyond the light of the bonfire.
“No,” she hedged. “But I was nervous then.”
“It was just the two of us. Why were you nervous?”
The sweetest blush stained her cheeks, creeping across her nose and out toward her neck.
Dear goddess.
I hadn’t been prepared for that response. There was no way someone like her could be made nervous by someone like me, right?
But her blush begged to differ.
I might have made Gwen nervous, but she terrified me.
Normally, I knew exactly what to do, what small talk to use, when to make a move—with Maple Hollow locals, that was.
But this witch had traveled the world. She had experiences and knowledge far beyond my purview.
Maybe I was entirely misreading this situation and I made her nervous for some other inane reason.
I tried to ignore the way my stomach was flipping. “So, heightened emotions, got it. Maybe we should try to change something now? You know, under controlled conditions?”
Gwen’s dark eyes flared. “I don’t want to turn you into a toad.”
“Please.” I let out a sharp belly laugh, clutching my chest. “I have some very sophisticated protection spells on me.” I lifted a quartz necklace from the top of my T-shirt.
“You don’t need to worry about that. I was thinking an inanimate object, maybe?
Then you could practice changing it back.
It would save you having to get the more experienced witches to do it for you every time. ”
“Oh,” she said with an adorable amount of snark. “Okay, well, since your magic is so sophisticated.”
I grinned. “You really think you could turn me into a toad?”
“I don’t know,” she challenged. “My magic might not be trained, but people keep telling me an affinity for transformation is powerful and wild magic.”
My gut clenched with how badly I wanted to feel all of her wild power.
“Try it, then,” I goaded, wishing she’d unleash herself on me.
“What?”
I squared my shoulders, a smirk on my lips. “Try to turn me into a toad.”
She balked. “But I’m not angry right now.”
“No.” I inched closer, and her eyes dropped to where my knee pressed into hers. “But you are nervous.”
She licked her lips. Those full, gorgeous lips.
Instinctively, I leaned in ever so slightly and whispered, “Try it.”
Her lips parted, and I swore she was going to close the distance between our mouths. In that moment, I didn’t care about the rules, about Dagmar, or about one more year at camp.
Consequences be damned, I needed to know what it felt like to have her lips on mine.
A loud, deep croak interrupted us.
We pulled apart to find that my backpack had disappeared, and in its place was a giant, wart-addled toad.
“Oh my goddess,” I said with a laugh. “Would you look at that? I’m still not a toad.”
Gwen’s laughter felt like the sweetest reward. She was so stubbornly surly that I felt like her smile was a gift that only I got to see.
Her cheeks flushed a brighter shade of crimson than her lips. “Next time, I’ll get you.”
I smiled back. “Next time.”