Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft

by Jessica Spotswood

Maybe we were just two people chasing numbness because we didn’t know what the stardust inside us was for.

Maybe she was tired of feeling different. Tired of the magic and the way it made everything seem so significant. Tired of the way someone was always watching, waiting to see what we would become.

Whatever’s out there, though, it’ll be me going to meet it, not my ghosts.

“But there is no devil in the book,” I whisper. “No evil.” “Deliverance, they will see the Devil in those pages because they will choose to.”

Is Bette the opposite of herself now? Or is she who she’s always been: someone who chose the right path, not the easy one?

A PERSON CAN tell you anything, but bones—those tell the truth.

mad that the meanest, most hateful thing that someone could say was just another way of pointing out that you were a girl.

If you don’t feel safe enough to yell back, you’re not safe enough.

Here’s how to fulfill a prophecy: you are a woman, you speak the truth, and the world makes you into a liar.

Then I think of witches, and understand that there are too many people in this world who would rather see a woman burn than wield power.

The most terrifying thing in the world is a girl with power. That’s why they watch us burn.”