The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

by Sangu Mandanna

Niceness is all about what we do when other people are looking. Kindness, on the other hand, runs deep. Kindness is what happens when no one’s looking.”

“Who said anything about transforming the world?” He shrugged. “What about just making it a little better? And then a little better? And then a little more, until, one day, maybe long after we’re gone, it has transformed? You deserve more than what you’re allowing yourself to have.”

“I’m afraid.” “Of what?” “Of the heartbreak when I fail,” she said simply. “Of rejection. Of wanting too much. Of discovering again and again that I’m unlovable.

People are usually like the sea, a constant, unerasable part of something bigger, but I’m more like a single wave that washes over the shore, ebbs away, and doesn’t leave a trace behind.”

“It’s not always enough to go looking for the place we belong,” Jamie said, his eyes on the house ahead. “Sometimes we need to make that place.”

It’s a leap of faith to love people and let yourself be loved. It’s closing your eyes, stepping off a ledge into nothing, and trusting that you’ll fly rather than fall.

Danger rarely wore a monstrous face and a wielded a pitchfork. No, danger came most often in the form of people like Edward, the nice people whose niceness only went so deep, who saved their niceness for people exactly like them, who believed they were more deserving of power and respect than anyone who was a little bit different.