Chapter 16
Gwen
The only thing I was worse at than archery was kickball. At least with archery, my failures were mine specifically and didn’t impact my entire cabin.
“Come on, Gwen! You’ve got this!” Faith called from the sideline with the rest of our cabinmates.
Next to her, Ivy and Celeste jumped up and down, heckling the pitcher. But no amount of shouted distractions was going to fix the fact that I was terrible at kickball.
I had not been a team-sports kid growing up. Moving around as often as we had made team sports difficult. Not to mention that I’d always preferred inside extracurriculars like jazz band or drama.
“Here it comes, Morales. Eyes on the ball!” Dagmar said from her squatted position behind the catcher.
She’d been using the game to scope out who was going to make the final end-of-summer games roster. And by the exasperated way she threw her bucket hat on the ground when I missed yet another ball, I didn’t expect to get an invite.
“Strike!” Astrid sneered from her spot at second base.
“Don’t let them get in your head,” Ivy yelled. “Last kick, come on, Gwen!”
Rosaline, the pitcher from the Harvest Moon cabin, scooped the dusty red ball and hurled it toward me. As if in slow motion, I watched it come sailing through the air and managed to catch the ball with my gut for what must have been the sixth time.
I grabbed my middle and sank to the ground.
“She’s fine!” Dagmar’s voice came from over my head. “Keep your place in line.” She gave me a gentle thump on my back. “Walk it off, Morales. Get some fresh air in your lungs, then you can try again.”
Yeah, right.
I didn’t argue. Stumbling off the field for good measure, I told Faith and the others, “I’ll meet up with you back at the cabin.”
“We have ibuprofen in the bathroom,” Faith said as she stepped up to the plate and sent the first pitch flying out to left field. She was too good at human sports, and I made a mental note to ask her about it later because I was not coming back to the game unless Dagmar hunted me down herself.
I was actually beginning to like all the witches of the Flower Moon cabin, and I didn’t want to be the reason my team lost.
I wandered up the hill toward the art hut for a blissful reprieve from the hubbub of witches fighting over whether using their animation magic was fair play. But when I ducked into the paint-splotch-covered hut, I found it was already occupied by one Sabine Stonewood.
She was sitting at a table that was covered in so many layers of dried paint that it was impossible to tell what its original color had been. When I realized I couldn’t UNO reverse card out of there before she spotted me, I lingered awkwardly in the doorway.
“Oh, hey,” I said, scratching the back of my head.
“Why do you look like you’re hiding from an invading army?” Sabine asked with a grin.
“Close,” I replied. “Kickball.”
As she dipped her paintbrush back into the tiny pot beside her, she laughed lightly. “I didn’t peg you for a sporty witch. I always assumed your affinity would be toward something slightly darker.”
“Definitely,” I agreed, watching as she returned her attention to the smooth rock in her hand. “What are you doing?”
She turned her hand around to reveal the jack-o’-lantern she’d painted on the rock. It was impressively done with shading and tight lines. It didn’t surprise me that Sabine was also an artist. Maybe it was linked to her affinity.
“I hide them in the pumpkin patch for the kids during the Halloween Festival,” she said with a grin. “One year, they practically became a currency. The kids traded them for kettle corn, apple cider, and games at the different fair stalls.”
“That’s adorable.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but it came out anyway.
Sabine’s eyes saddened unexpectedly, making me wish I could take the admission back. “I still care about my town, my people, even if I want to move away. I’m not going to cut them out just because I want to experience something new.”
“Okay,” I hedged, knowing that there was a whole bunch of context I was missing.
But she seemed so sad that I wandered over without thinking and sat down beside her.
I didn’t know what to say, so I mindlessly picked up a rock and started painting a cartoon ghost with rosy heart cheeks on it.
I stuck my tongue out to the side as I concentrated on the apparition, sitting so close that Sabine and I were fused from shoulder to knee.
I felt her eyes on me as I focused on my painting.
“I thought you wanted us to keep our distance?” she asked.
“I did,” I admitted with a sigh. I’d known she was going to throw that choice back in my face, but it didn’t make the moment playing out between us any less awkward.
“Then why are you here painting a very cute poltergeist on a rock while sitting right beside me?” She added little dots of fall leaves around her pumpkin. “You said—”
“I’m taking it back. I’ve changed my mind and think we should be friends,” I replied. “I’m a fickle witch, apparently. Sorry.”
I could see her eyes crinkle from my periphery. “I like it when you call yourself a witch,” she admitted. “So, why the change of heart?”
I shrugged. “Because you’re the only person who makes this camp bearable.”
“You seem to be getting along with your cabinmates,” Sabine mused. “You’re making plenty of other friends.”
“They’re great, but it’s not the same as being your . . . friend.” The word “friend” came out a garbled mess, like my body was rejecting it.
Sabine laughed. “Friend,” she repeated, tossing the title around as she weighed her head side to side. “I think I might have a hard time with that, but I’d like to try.”
I finally looked at her. We were so close that I could feel her body heat as her eyes snagged on my mouth.
“I might have a hard time with that too,” I whispered, feeling Sabine’s breath hot on my lips.
She swallowed. “Like right now, for example,” she murmured, leaning closer. She was only a hair’s breadth away. “This is one of those hard-to-be-just-friends moments.”
“Yeah,” I agreed breathlessly.
“I really, really want to kiss you.”
“I really, really want you to kiss me.”
I leaned in.
“Gwen!” a singsong voice called from outside.
“You in there? You can’t hide from me, missy!
” Faith continued talking as she marched up the steps to the front door.
“The Flower Moons won! We’re going to challenge the Blood Moon cabin next.
I don’t think we’ll be as lucky with them.
They’re cutthroat. But whoever wins that will face the other camps in kickball in the summer games. We could be champions—”
The art hut door was thrown open, and Faith’s rambling halted as Sabine and I shot apart. Granted, we’d had ample warning, but my eyes had been magnetized to Sabine’s mouth. It had taken the door opening to break the spell.
I hastily scrambled into a chair on the other side of the table. “Uh, yep! Cool! Congratulations.”
Faith’s smile faltered. She looked suspiciously at Sabine and then back to me. I saw the exact moment when she decided not to say anything. Though, I knew she’d make me spill every detail later.
“It’s lunchtime now,” Faith said. “You hungry? It’s roasted quail and pomme frites.”
“Why can’t you witches be normal and do sloppy joes or something?” I muttered.
Faith gave me a deadpan look. “There is nothing normal about sloppy joes. And no amount of stain removal spells in the world would make me eat one.”
I glanced at Sabine, but she was pretending to be engrossed in her painting again.
“Okay,” I said, but it sounded more like a groan. “Let’s go. See you, Sabine.”
“Bye!” she squeaked and then cleared her throat. “See you around.”
I felt Faith’s burning gaze as we trudged out of the art hut and toward the mess hall.
What Sabine and I had almost done was foolish. If we’d been caught by anyone other than Faith, Sabine would have gotten in trouble and I would’ve ruined her plans to leave Maple Hollow.
If we were going to do this, we needed to be sneakier. And I knew one thing for certain: There would be no escaping each other at this camp. I’d tried valiantly, and it had almost killed me.
No, Sabine and I wouldn’t be keeping our distance anymore.
We trudged across the now-vacant kickball field toward the mess hall. “Hey, Faith?”
“Yeah?”
“Friends can kiss occasionally, right?”
“What?” Faith asked with a laugh.
“Never mind.”