The Once and Future Witches

by Alix E. Harrow

There’s still no such thing as witches. But there will be.

But oh, not this time. This time the girl has the words and ways to change the story.

But all the caring was beaten and burned out of her, and now she’s just hate with a heartbeat.

The Calamitous Coven.” “No.” “Eve’s Army.” “No! It ought to be about, I don’t know, sisterhood or union—” “The Ladies Union of Giving the Bastards What’s Coming to Them.” “James Juniper, if you can’t be serious, at least be quiet.”

“You’re here because you want more for yourselves, better for your daughters. Because it’s easy to ignore a woman.” Juniper’s lips twist in a feral smile. “But a hell of a lot harder to ignore a witch.” The word witch cracks like lightning over the room. Another silence follows, tense and electric. A voice cuts through the hush, hard and foreign-sounding. “There’s no such thing as witches. Not anymore.” It’s the big Russian woman from Agnes’s mill, arms crossed like a pair of pistols across her breast. “No,” Juniper parries. “But there will be.”

Bella’s voice is warming with the kind of scholarly enthusiasm that means she could keep going for hours or possibly weeks, when a second pillow whumps into her and Agnes grates, “Go to sleep, you ingrates.” The ingrates go to sleep.

well… I wonder sometimes where the first witch came from. If perhaps Adam deserved Eve’s curse.” His smile twists. “If behind every witch is a woman wronged.”

I am terrified and I am terrible. I am fearful and I am something to be feared.