The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

by Sangu Mandanna

“but one thing I’ve noticed over the years is that some people are nice and some people are kind. Lillian sounds like she’s more nice than she is kind. Does that make sense? Niceness is good manners, and stopping to give someone directions, and smiling at the overworked cashier at the supermarket. These are all good things, but they have nothing to do with what’s underneath. 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.”

She hadn’t realised just how heavy her mask had been until she’d discovered what it was to live without it.

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.”

Jamie had said it was a leap of faith to love people and to let yourself be loved. It was closing your eyes and stepping off a ledge into nothing and trusting that you’d fly instead of plummet to your tragic and poetic demise.