All Chapters of Bewitched: Chapter 11 - Chapter 17

  As I struggle my way through the basement's tight fissure, the wind whips across my face without stopping. This voyage has been one of the worst because I had to rush back here while delivering terrifying news to my unprepared determination. My quivering hands grab on to the creaky wooden railings of the wooden staircase to support my shaky legs. Because of the sprint, my chest is churning with heat. Tremaine is probably thinking I'm the one who's intruding on her private affairs right now. Even if I had doubts that she noticed me, there's no guarantee she wouldn't take me for a trespasser.   That means she'll be down here in no time to check things out.   I slam the door open I'm terrified it will break. Flynn gets up from his bed and looks at me, perplexed, as it swings. I don't quite appear to have succeeded in stealing his meal. I most likely appear to have witnessed a monster.   I, for one, did. It's

The night had been cruel to me. I had not truly slept, though I had tried. Perhaps I drifted once or twice into that shallow kind of rest that only mocks the body with its pretense of peace. Each time I closed my eyes, I saw it again—the warped reflection in the mirror, the grotesque thing that answered Tremaine in whispers. Each time I let my mind wander, I felt the beating of wings and the snap of talons from the dragon, as though it hovered still above the roof, waiting to tear us apart. No bed could protect me from that kind of remembering, and certainly not the splintered chair I had chosen to sit upon until dawn. When the first line of sun broke the forest’s edge, the air shifted. A light breeze brushed through the half-rotted shutters of the old house, and I stepped outside to meet it, hoping it might clear my thoughts. For a moment, the world seemed merciful: the leaves whispered against each other as though exchanging confidences, birds scattered notes into the still air, and

There had been a time when hopelessness wrapped itself around me so tightly I thought I might suffocate. It was not here in this prison, not even when the wardens’ hands bruised my arms and their chains carved into my skin, but long before. It was when my father—my father who once told me stories of my mother as if they were sacred relics—stood before the court and placed Tremaine at his side. I remembered that moment as clearly as though it had just passed. The chamber had been filled with whispers, the kind of silken murmurs that rise from curiosity and hunger, and in the middle of it all, I stood still as stone, watching my father vow himself to another woman while my mother’s memory still lingered like incense. I had opposed it. I had spoken, argued, pleaded. But my voice was as dust against stone walls. And when my father’s gaze slid past me, when it favored Tremaine’s jeweled smile instead of his daughter’s trembling hands, I knew something within him had changed forever. His lo