The Witches (Book #1)

𝔐𝔦𝔡𝔫𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱 𝔐𝔦𝔰𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫

The clock on my bedside table reads 2:27 a.m. I snuggle farther into my down comforter. With the crap sleep I've gotten recently, I should have passed out hours ago. But all the details of the curse won't leave my head, and it's driving me crazy that I can't connect them. How much time do I have left?

There is a soft tapping on my window, and I launch myself from my bed in a tangle of blankets. I squint at the crouched silhouette on my roof and can just make out the red hair color in the moonlight. "Seulgi?"

"Sorry," she says, but her voice is muffled by the glass.

I kneel on the window seat and open the window. "How did you get on my roof?" I peer behind her just to make sure she's alone.

She slides into my room and closes the window. "I climbed the latticework and jumps up."

She scaled my house?

I flip my bedside lamp on. She's wearing green plaid pajamas and a fluffy white winter coat. Okay, so she's not wearing black, she's a mini ninja, and she's on a midnight mission. What else don't I know about this girl?

"Everything's a mess, Sooji," she says, and sits down on my window seat.

"Yeah, I know," I say. I'm not sure how to process this visit. I'm partly relieved and partly suspicious, especially after Soojung's hateful speech.

"No, I mean it's gotten worse. I need to know—have you had any more visions?" she says, and I can hear the fear in her voice.

"You mean other than the one of you?" I wish I had phrased that better.

"Yeah. Anyone else? Even someone you don't know."

I recognize the look on her face. I've worn it myself. "Your sister . . ."

Her eyes widen.

"No, I mean, I didn't see your sister. But did something happen to her?"

Her panic deflates. She nods. "She was admitted to the hospital not long after I came home from  school. She collapsed." Her voice shakes.

I sit down next to her. "I'm so very sorry. I don't know what to say."

"And she's not the only one. Soojung's brother and cousin got into a car accident. Her cousin's dead and her brother's in the ICU. And Wendy's uncle, the one that owns The Brew, had a heart attack."

Soojung's brother and cousin? That's what those purple roses in town were about. It takes all my self control not to jump up and start pacing. "It's escalating."

"I think you might be the key to figuring this all out."

I'm so nervous, I almost laugh. "You guys have been keeping me in the dark. Why would you do that if you think I can solve the curse?"

"That's why I'm here. Anything I know that can help you, I'll tell you."

I definitely didn't expect that answer. "What changed?"

She takes a breath. "We did the clarity spell with Soojung and it didn't work."

"Do you mean you didn't see the blurred faces?"

"Let me back up. Wendy, Hyeri, Soojung, and I  have been friends since we were little. Our mothers were friends, and their mothers. And from the time we were ten or so we were casting. It took us a long time before we could make anything work, and it wasn't until recently that any of us besides Soojung could do spells individually. We always needed the circle. We still do, for most things."

"The circle?"

"Four of us."

"What about Kai?"

Seulgi hesitates at the mention of his name, and I regret bringing him up. "He wasn't interested as we were. When he was there, it was mainly for Soojung."

"So everyone knows you do witchcraft—they're not just spreading rumors?"

"Not exactly. People make guesses, but we never discuss it with anyone outside of ourselves. That's why I didn't answer when you were asking me questions the day I came to your house."

I was right. They're like a secret society. "But you did a spell with me. Isn't that a violation of your secrecy?"

"Yes and no. The thing is, I get a feeling about people. Not everyone, but certain people I just know things about. And as much as Soojung and Wendy kept saying you were the bad thing coming to Manyeo, I knew the moment I met you that wasn't true. Wendy argued with me, but Soojung wouldn't hear it. Eventually, Wendy agreed that if I could prove it, she would help me convince Soojung. That's when we met you in the garden, and that's why Wendy agreed to do that spell."

Wendy reads bones and Seulgi reads people?  I'm really not sure which end is up anymore. "You were testing me?"

"Yes. The clarity spell should have told us something about you, brought to light the truth. But those blurred faces were something no one planned on. Nothing like that had ever happened before. When we saw Changbin, Wendy and I started arguing all over again. We decided to go back one more time to sort it out before discussing it with Soojung."

"But why were you arguing with your friends about me?" What does she see when she reads me?

She places her hand on mine. "Sooji, Wendy's bones kept directing us to you. You are obviously connected to us for better or for worse."

"And so what happened with Soojung?"

"We tried the clarity spell in the same spot in the woods, and we didn't even get a normal reading. We got nothing. It didn't work at all."

"Could it be a fluke?" I don't know how this stuff works, but it sounds like I need to. I look at my dad's picture.

Susannah shakes her head. "Things like that don't happen randomly. You made that spell work; I'm sure of it."

I open my mouth to protest, and shut it again. "Did you ever tell Soojung?"

Seulgi fidgets with the zipper on her coat. "Wendy brought you up in the auditorium, right before . . . everything happened."

Oh no. That has to be the worst timing ever.

"Soojung's not thinking clearly. She's coming after you. She's convinced that these deaths and accidents are your fault, and she's doing everything she can to convince the town of the same thing. And because she's angry with us, she's not telling us what she's planning. But it's not just gossip. Her family is well connected here."

"What do I do?"

"Meet us tomorrow in the woods behind the pharmacy at midnight. We'll bring Soojung, and we'll sort this thing out. If we can't work together m, then we're all gonna lose. These divisions are costing us time."

A chill runs through me. "Okay."

Seulgi pulls out her phone. "I have to run. My parents are expecting me back at the hospital." She lifts my window and slips through it.

"Seulgi, be careful. That vision I had . . ."

"Just meet us tomorrow," she says, and closes my window behind her.