The Wicked Deep

by Shea Ernshaw

“There’re always reasons to stay,” he says. “You just need to find one reason to leave.” His eyes hold mine, and something familiar stirs inside me—something I want to pretend isn’t there. A flicker that illuminates the darkest part of my insides. And I absorb it like sunlight.

myrrh, tansy, and rose hips. A fragrance to ease sadness and clear away mistrust in others.

For in a place like Sparrow, rumors spread quickly, like small pox or cholera, confusing the mind, rooting itself into the fabric of a town until there’s no telling truth from speculation.

Love is an enchantress—devious and wild. It sneaks up behind you, soft and gentle and quiet, just before it slits your throat.

This thing I feel for him is working its way into my bones, like water through cracks in my surface.

He’s made of something different, his heart weathered and battered just like mine, forged of hard metals and earth.

He tastes like a summer wind far away from here, like absolution, like a boy from a different life. Like we could make memories that belong only to us. Memories that have nothing to do with this place.

He looks at me like I am a girl brought in with the tide, rare and scarred and broken. A girl found in the roughest waters, in the farthest reaches of a dark fairy tale. He is looking at me like he might love me.

Magic is not always formed from words, from cauldrons brewing spices or black cats strolling down dark alleys. Some curses are manifested from desire or injustice.

But magic was not always so linear. It was born from odium. From love. From revenge.

If only love were so easily conjured, there wouldn’t be so many broken hearts,

But right now he just smells like the sea. A boy drifted in on the tide. Like a dream, like a memory I hope I’ll never forget.