The Witches (Book #1)

𝔖𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔦𝔫 ℭ𝔬𝔪𝔪𝔬𝔫

I don't get three steps into our foyer before Yoomi yells, "How dare you come home this late and not call!"

I haven't had time to process what I saw, and Yoomi's yelling only agitates me further.

"You're filthy. Where were you?" She's talking at me, not to me.

"I was with some girls from school." I don't apologize, not after what she did today.

"Why didn't you answer your phone? I called at least five times."

Ignoring her never gets a good reaction, but it's not like I can tell her what I was doing. "I didn't want to talk to you."

She stiffens, and I know I've gone too far. "I'm surprised you have any friends with the way your principal says you behave. But we both know they won't last long."

"Really? You had to say that? I bet you feel awesome about yourself for finally gotting me into counseling. Maybe I can use my time to talk about what a crap parent you are.

"You just bought yourself a week before you see your father."

"You can't keep me from seeing my dad!"

"I can and I will until you learn how to behave."

I head for the staircase.

"You don't want me as your enemy, Sooji. You won't like it."

I don't bother to turn around.

I open the door to my room, and Joohyuk's sitting on my window seat. He takes one look at my expression and my clothes and stands. "I will leave you."

"Why would she say that?" I demand.

He shakes his head. "I cannot say."

"Why would anyone do that? It's just mean."

"Yes."

"Am I really that awful?" My bottom lip trembles.

His brow furrows.

"If I don't have my dad, I don't have anyone. I'm all alone."

He turns toward my window and doesn't answer. I just need someone to be nice to me right now. I've hit my limit. "Forget it. You can't stand me, either." I kick off my muddy boots.

He stares out my window. "I was just remembering that I once had a very similar conversation with Bona."

His comment surprises me. "Really? About what?"

"It is a long story."

Does that mean he might tell me? I wouldn't mind hearing about someone else's life right now. "That's okay."

For a moment he hesitates. Then he turns, his face etched with emotion. "Sit."

I look down at my legs. "My jeans are muddy. Turn around. " I don't care if he's been dead for three hundred years. He's the closest thing I have to a friend besides Sehun.

He looks at my legs, and seeing that I'm right, turns to the window again. I slip off my clothes and into my sweats.

I look back up at him and realize my reflection is visible in the window. Was he watching me? I sit cross-legged on my bed. "You can turn around."

He grips his hands behind his back. "You already know that Bona loved Siberian Chrysanthemum. She thought them the beauty of Korea, said we were lucky to have them. She used to pick them during the late summer, and I would find them the rest of the year pressed in books and journals and even in my accounting paperwork."

I wrap a blanket around my legs. "That's sweet."

He nods. "That bed you are sitting on. I had it made for her, along with all the furniture in this room. I rode to Jeju to have it designed and surprised her with it on her sixteenth birthday. You should have seen her face when she first saw it. She ran her fingers over the flowers and cried."

"So you're the one that had the secret compartment put in the back of the armoire? And the secret door in the library? You really like hidden things, don't you?" What I want to ask is, What were you hiding? But I know better. He's always just out of reach even without any instigation.

He almost looks amused by my observation. "Those letters you found, they were love letters between Bona and a boy we grew up with. He was a few years older than her—my classmate and my friend. I always knew there was something between them, but I never let on. I did not want to cause her any embarrassment.

His respect for his sister makes me feel self-conscious about trying to read her letters.

"One day, she confided in me that she was in love. She asked that I carry a letter to him in secret. I agrced but was nervous for her, knowing his family was pushing for him to marry the governor's daughter. If their love became public, they would have been kept apart. Or Bona's propriety would be questioned. Pretty soon, I became their direct line of communication." He looks at the armoire in a nostalgic way. "The hidden compartment was intended to give her a place to keep her private things."

"Did they end up together?" William's words in the letter I read sounded apologetic.

"No." he says.

I wait, but he doesn't continue. "Thank you for sharing that with me. When I found those letters, I knew they were special. Now I know why."

His face softens. "I have not spoken about her in hundreds of years. It is not entirely comfortable."

"I get that. Not the hundreds of years part, but I don't share personal things, either. I don't have friends long enough. And when I do, they tend to use the things I say against me. Its just easier not to talk."

"I hate to think that we have something in common." He sits next to me, and for the first time, I think he's joking.

"Yeah, that would be terrible."

The corners of his mouth move ever so slightly in the direction of a smile.

"Are you smiling?" I ask.

"Absolutely not." His mouth lifts a tad higher.

"Be careful. I might actually think you like me."

"I will be sure to leave you another book, then."

"Or another rock," I reply.

His smiles disappear. "I did not throw that rock through your window."

"Really?" I pause. "Do you know who did?"

He shakes his head. "Did you speak with the Lineages today?"

The events of my night rush back to me. "Yeah, they agreed to help. But . . . we went to the hanging location and, um. . ." How do I say this? "And we performed a ritual or a spell or something?"

His face turns serious. "You practiced witchcraft?"

I can't help it. I laugh. It sounds crazy. And now that I'm not in those terrifying woods, I'm starting to think I imagined it. "I guess."

"What happened?"

His tone worries me. I trace the lace pattern on my bedspread with my fingers. I thought if anyone would sav witchcraft doesn't exist, it'd be him. "The girls' faces blurred and became other faces. Then everything went black and I saw a guy crushed under a piece of metal."

He stands. "Whose faces?"

"I honestly don't know. They were older, though."

"You must return to the hanging location with the Lineages. I will observe this for myself."

"No way! I'm not doing that again. I almost threw up, I was so scared."

"Unless you can think of another way to see those faces, we are returning to that hill." His tone indicates that I'm not going to get any where by arguing.

"There's obviously something you're not telling me. What is it?"

"I took it upon myself to read some journals belonging to the lineages in the years with more deaths. Most of what I found was useless, mundane musings. But there was one thing that stood out. One hundred years apart, two individuals saw faces like you are describing."

"And then what?"

His forehead wrinkles. "They died shortly after."