The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches — Chapter no 29

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

et me make something perfectly plain, Primrose,” Mika said calmly, even as her body locked up with nerves. “Those kids are staying rightL here, together, in their home, with their family.”

Primrose gave her a look of tired disappointment. “Mika, you know the Rules. That you’ve been breaking them for weeks is something I have no choice but to overlook at the moment, but you know why it’s important to keep those children apart. I don’t like to do this,” she said to the others in a voice that was sincere and almost kind, “and if it would make you feel better, I would of course be happy for one of you to stay with each of the

children, but—”

“Like hell we—”

“Primrose, you’re not listening to me.” Mika cut Ian’s explosive outburst off. She took Primrose firmly by the elbow and yanked her some distance away.

Primrose, disapproving of anything so uncouth as dragging someone, tightened her lips in annoyance. They were now standing in the shelter of one of the house’s gables with a warm, lit window beside them. Fairy lights twinkled above them and the gathering dusk had turned the air even colder.

Mika’s breath frosted white.

“Don’t force me to kick up a fuss and upset those children more than they’re already going to be,” Primrose said. “I shouldn’t have to remind you of how this works. Alone is how—”

“—is how we survive, yes, you’ve said,” said Mika. “I can’t say whether that’s true or not, but one thing I do know, Primrose, is that alone is not how we live.”

Primrose’s brow wrinkled. She was taken aback, and annoyed about it.

“What would I have done today if I hadn’t been able to ask you for help?” Mika went on. “I know you’re afraid to maintain anything but the most rigid control over everything, but if you extended the same rules to yourself that you extend to the rest of us, you wouldn’t be here right now. I wouldn’t even have been able to reach you. How can we possibly exist alone in this world when you know how much we need each other?”

“That is different,” said Primrose crisply. “As I’ve said before, a short meeting like this, or a brief gathering of adult witches in one place, poses very little risk. Three young, untrained witches living together, on the other hand, is a disaster and I cannot fathom why you seem unable to see that.”

“I do see it,” Mika said, laughing as she recalled the last few weeks. “As a matter of fact, I’ve seen quite a few disasters. I’ve also had a glimpse into a happier kind of life than anything I’ve known before.”

“I suppose you would argue that that happiness is worth any risk,”

Primrose said contemptuously, but Mika knew her too well and beneath that contempt, she could hear an old pain.

“Why didn’t you raise me yourself?” Mika asked.

This seemed to throw Primrose, who blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Why the nannies, and the tutors? All those non-witches, who had to be replaced so often, when you could have simply raised and taught me yourself?” Mika kept her voice gentle, though it was hard because her heart was pounding and she was fiercely, furiously determined to make sure Primrose did not get her way. “I know it wasn’t because you were afraid of what would happen if two witches of such different ages lived together because I know for a fact that an adult witch is perfectly capable of keeping one child’s power in check. So why?”

“Mika, the irrelevance of these questions is beginning to strain my patience,” Primrose said icily, but Mika was unmoved.

“You were kind to me,” she said. “Not especially nice, but kind. Tiny kindnesses that no one would have given a second thought to. When I went back to that house in York, I remembered some of those kindnesses. I also remembered some of the less kind things that happened in that house. Like the caretakers who made me feel small and unworthy. That trauma stuck

with me for a long time, Primrose. And I’m wondering now if the reason you kept me at arm’s length, if the reason you cling so tightly to control, is because of a trauma of your own.” Mika watched as Primrose’s face went white. “Your aunt and uncle, I assume? They taught you to believe that you’re unlovable? That you’ll ruin anything you touch?”

Primrose’s angry eyes were ablaze and the air felt heavy with power and electricity, like a thunderstorm was on its way. Mika stood her ground, refusing to break eye contact.

And, for the first time in Mika’s lifetime, Primrose looked away first.

“Primrose,” Mika said softly. “Please. Don’t let what they did to you make you afraid to take a chance on something more than the Rules.”

“I cannot only consider myself, or you,” Primrose said. “I have all the witches in our group to watch over. I have to consider all our safety, the consequences to all of us if those children, through no fault of their own, expose our power to the world. Happiness cannot be worth the risk.”

“But it is,” Mika said passionately. “I know you did what you thought was best, but the way you chose to raise me did far more harm to me than you could have ever done to me yourself. I know there are risks when too much power gathers in one place. I know it’s risky to share who we are with other people and allow them to glimpse our power and trust them with the enormousness of our secret. But I’ve come to believe—really, truly believe —that if we can just be brave enough, we’re strong enough to take those risks. We can protect ourselves and each other. We can cast wards and smooth over mistakes. We can grow together instead of apart.”

“Romantic twaddle,” Primrose muttered under her breath.

“Maybe, but we deserve better than this. All of us.” Mika looked at the house beside them, where the fairy lights were warm and welcoming. “I know these kids. They’re not just surviving together. They’re thriving.

Don’t take that away from them.”

“My sister wanted them to be raised by a witch.”

Mika smiled. “They will be.”

Primrose was quiet for a long, long time, searching Mika’s eyes like she was searching her soul. Mika did not look away. Instead, she reached out

and took Primrose’s soft, wrinkled hand, holding it tightly.

“I shall need to be kept abreast of any and all developments,” Primrose said at last, each syllable crisply enunciated. Her voice hid apprehension and anxiety and other old, complicated feelings that would not be shaken off easily, but she was trying.

Mika let out a trembling breath, but only said, “You could visit and see how things are going for yourself.”

At that, Primrose’s face softened slightly. “That would be acceptable.”

Before Mika could say another word, or turn to tell the others, the front door burst open and three girls tumbled out, closely followed by a dog.

Primrose raised delicate eyebrows at the sudden onslaught of noise, which reached its crescendo when Altamira, running up to Jamie and the others, yelled: “Mika did it! Primrose isn’t going to try to separate us! She’s not so

scary after all!”

“They eavesdrop,” Mika said sheepishly.

“You told them I was scary?” Primrose demanded, affronted.

“Well, I—”

“Stand aside, Mika,” Primrose said. “Let me make the acquaintance of these children, so that they may see for themselves that I am not the terrifying Medusa you have painted me out to be.”

Altamira tugged Jamie’s sleeve to get his attention. “I thought Medusa was a fish,” she whispered, confused.

Mika, who had won her battle and felt both exhausted and exhilarated, practically collapsed into Jamie’s arms.

“Thank you,” he whispered in her ear, and it was very difficult not to kiss him. (But she didn’t, because while she might be a full thirty-one years of age, she would never be old enough to allow Primrose to see her kissing someone!) Primrose and the girls, it turned out, got on like a house on fire. By the time they’d stopped telling her every detail of their lives, night had fallen.

“Oh!” Mika gasped. “It’s snowing!”

Her car keys glinting in her hand, Primrose prepared to set off. She allowed the girls to give her a hug, then turned back to Mika. “What about

you? Should I expect you to use the house in York?”

“No, you absolutely should not,” said Terracotta at once, stomping to stand in front of Mika and directing the full and mighty power of her belligerence on Primrose. “You can’t have her. She’s ours.”

Jamie had said it was a leap of faith to love people and to let yourself be loved. It was closing your eyes and stepping off a ledge into nothing and trusting that you’d fly instead of plummet to your tragic and poetic demise.

So Mika stepped off the ledge at last, into nothing, and wouldn’t you know it? She flew.

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