Sweet & Bitter Magic by Adrienne Tooley (best ereader for textbooks .txt) 📕

THREE

TAMSIN

No one had called on Tamsin in four days.

Her mornings bled into afternoons that melted into evenings like fire turned to embers turned to dust. Her fingers itched to work. Panic flared in her chest, rising higher each day her door went without a knock. Her store of love continued to wane.

Thanks to the rapid spread of the plague, she feared it might never be refilled.

Tamsin tried to distract herself. She stared at the walls, searching for shapes in the discolored stones: a cloud above the hearth, an ear of corn by the crack near the window, and a tiny dog next to the door that was visible only when she turned her head and squinted so hard she could feel it in her brain.

Tamsin took a needle to several hole-ridden pairs of thick woolen socks. She told herself that she wore through socks so quickly it wasn’t worth using magic to mend them. She didn’t need to battle hiccups every time her big toe forced its way through the worn wool.

But of course that wasn’t the whole truth.

After her banishment, Tamsin’s relationship with her power had changed. Gone were the days of fulfilling every whim with the flick of her wrist. No longer did she flaunt her prowess or push her abilities to their limits. This Tamsin no longer trusted her instincts. This Tamsin no longer deserved the convenience her talent provided. Not when she was living and Marlena was dead.

The needle plunged itself into the thin skin beneath her fingernail as though in confirmation.

Putting her darning aside, Tamsin used a long iron poker to stoke the fading flames in the fireplace. She was nearly out of firewood, running low on supplies and sustenance. She glanced at the basket she had taken to market five days earlier. There was nothing left inside save a head of pale green cabbage and a single brown-speckled egg.

It was hardly enough to feed a child, yet Tamsin could not be bothered to venture back to the town’s square to fill her pantry. Not when the townspeople’s opinion of witches had shifted so dramatically. She had gone from being tentatively trusted to fully vilified. Hated, even.

Their whispers had trailed Tamsin home from the market, pushing against her throat like a cloak tied too tight. In the days that followed, their accusations began to root themselves into the walls of her cottage, carving out spaces between the loose stones, swirling beneath the boiling kettle, nestling themselves atop her worn gray rug until Tamsin felt she had always lived with their words.

Her fault, this dark magic. She’s dangerous. Evil. Steer clear of the witch.

Tamsin had heard similar sentiments before. Only then she had actually deserved them.

Now she was alone, trapped within the confines of her hut. Each day that she went without a visitor, the walls seemed a little bit closer, the roof a little bit lower. Her house was closing in around her, inch by inch. Soon she would no longer be able to move. Soon she might actually be as useless as she felt.

A light rain began to fall, tapping a steady beat against the roof of the hut, pattering softly against the wooden shutters barring the window. Tamsin sat, stoic and silent. Once, the sound of rain had been comforting, had given her a clear mind and a sense of peace. But now it was just water, falling from the sky, hitting her house. A sound and nothing more.

Tamsin reached for the shawl draped across the back of her chair and wrapped it tightly around her shoulders. She cleared her throat, the sound sticking. She wished she had someone to talk to.

She’d had someone, once. Leya, with her big eyes, was a source: a girl made of pure magic. But Tamsin could not remember her best friend’s laugh or the heat of her hand in Tamsin’s as they snuck out of the dorms to lie in the long grass and stare up at the stars. She could, however, recall the way her heart had broken as Leya shouted at her retreating back: “You’re going to regret this.”

As usual, Leya had been right.

Her throat grew tight with the memory. Tamsin reached for her jug of water, hoping to rinse the sour taste from her mouth. Instead her fingers grazed something soft. Her hand closed around a black leather-bound book.

One that had definitely not been there moments before.

Tamsin flung it across the room as though it were on fire. The book skittered and stopped, landing open to a creamy white page covered with loopy handwriting. Heart hammering, she grabbed the iron poker from the hearth and approached the book like it was a feral creature she was trying to tame. She kept her eyes carefully averted from the words scrawled across the pages.

Tamsin nudged the book with the sharp end of the poker. It did not jump to life, did not leap forward to attack. For all intents and purposes, it appeared to be nothing more than a book.

But it was more.

This diary had lived buried at the bottom of Tamsin’s cupboard for nearly five years. It had taken the journey from Within to Ladaugh tucked into the waistband of Tamsin’s travel skirt, the only relic from her old life. Never once had she peered at its pages. Never once had she taken it from its hiding place.

Yet here it was before her, laid out like a curse.

Tamsin backed away from the diary slowly, reaching for a tea towel. Once she had it in hand, she sucked in a shaking breath, then lunged for the book, using the cloth to fling it into the cupboard. She slammed the doors shut and leaned back against the wood, trying to catch her breath.

The sour taste of grief had been replaced by a dry-tongued sense of discomfort. Tamsin’s cottage had an order; everything had a place. Then again, she had gone four days without human contact.