The Bewitching

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Could someone plateau at twenty-four? Could your brain shrink? She felt tired and listless all the time. Often, she was sad for no reason.

“It’s okay to relax occasionally. Otherwise you’ll burn out.” Witches burn, she thought. At least in the stories, in cheap horror films. Not in real life.

“The romance of it. It’s as if you’re conducting a secret, passionate love affair. You know every detail about someone, their every word and thought. When you look at their writing, you swoon over a sentence fragment or a turn of phrase. It’s as if, through the mists of time, someone reaches out and touches your hand.”

“Each day I feel an evil, like an invisible noose around my neck, tightening an inch,”