A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping

by Sangu Mandanna

“I was loud and excited and too much of everything as a child, but I learned very quickly that it was much easier and that my parents liked me much better when I wasn’t so me. So I did as I was told, and I was careful about what I said and what I did and how I behaved, and eventually, I didn’t even have to try very hard anymore.

This is the life I wanted. This life of contentment and unexpected excitement, of little everyday joys, where I don’t just get to be myself but also get to be embraced as myself. It’s miraculous.”

Like the old Seras, who hadn’t abandoned her either. They’d stayed with her all this time to tell a story, every time she forgot it, about flying and defying and what an incredible, joyful act of resistance it was to simply exist.

You’re still here, they said, those echoes of all the Seras that ever were. You went up in flames, but you’re still here. You’ll go up in flames again, but that’s okay, you know what to do now. You’ve done it already.

The dying wasn’t what mattered. Unfurling your scorched feathers from the ashes and getting up again. Growing. Staying. That...