Spells for Forgetting

by Adrienne Young

I’d lived enough years now to know that there were some ghosts that haunted you forever.

Nearly six weeks late, and with no warning at all, every tree on Saoirse had turned in a single night.

It was the time of year when the veil between worlds was thin, and in that moment, I could feel the tingle of the Otherworld tiptoeing lightly up my spine.

One day, he’d get tired of asking me to move in. To marry him. To start a family. There’d be no more late nights by the fire in his cabin or weekends at the beach. The idea was as terrifying as it was relieving, and that was the worst part of all of this.

Speaking to my soul right now

Sometimes the signs were subtle, like a fleeting shadow or an echo in the trees. Other times, the island wasn’t gentle with her words.

It was deep magic that ran through the blood of every woman on the island. It seeped into the earth of the orchard, its leaves unfurling every spring, falling to rot every autumn before turning back into the ground.

While the outside world was burning their witches, we were here. On the island.

about everything

I knew the name. I knew it in my bones. In my blood.

This feeling

There were times when I wondered if I’d dreamed it. If he’d ever been real or if he was a fragmented piece of my imagination, buried deep and painful within me like a splinter under the skin.

I wasn’t sure anymore which were memories and which were dreams. I’d lost track of that a long time ago.

I would curl into a ball beneath the quilts in the dark with my eyes closed, because when they were closed, I could see him. Sometimes, I could feel his hands on me.

“I’m not here to see her.” The words were true, but they felt like a lie.

Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with Emery in a way that I was both too young and too naïve for. I could see that now.

This is the most heartbreakingly beautiful line even though it’s so simple

“Everyone has a first love, Nixie.” “Not like that, they don’t.” The words struck hard, threatening to unravel the carefully constructed calm I’d managed to keep since I’d seen August. “The two of you were…that was no ordinary childhood love, Em,”

“You think I don’t know why you won’t marry Dutch?” she said, matching my tone. “You never wanted to get married because you couldn’t marry August. You didn’t want to have children because you couldn’t have his children.” She looked me right in the eye when she said it. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

THE MOST REAL CONVERSATION

There was some part of me that thought for a long time that if August and I still had this one last secret, we still had each other, somehow.

The cabin was the place we’d had almost every first. The first time she cried in front of me and our first real, screaming fight. The first time she’d ever given herself to me was in that cabin and it was also the last place I’d seen her.

This makes me want to cry.

“I meant it when I said I can’t do this, August.” “Well, I can’t leave until we do.” I just said it. There was no point in skirting around it. We weren’t going to get another chance.

THIS MANNNNN

When her eyes finally met mine again, I reminded myself to breathe. She was still so beautiful, in that kind of sea-swept way she’d always been. It hurt to look at her.

The way this man talks about her is literally everything to me

“And I think it should stay that way.” He leveled his gaze at me. “I get it. You don’t want me messing anything up for you.” “Come on, August, I just don’t want Emery—” “To find out I’m not the only one who lied that night?” I cut him off.

Ugh why am I starting not to like Dutch….

It took longer than I wanted to admit for me to realize that I couldn’t cut him from me. That some part of him had been fused to places I couldn’t even see. It followed me wherever I went.

“Would it kill you to mind your own business?” “Might.” She smirked,

Mad at Nixie but also love her attitude

It was no ordinary childhood love between August and me. It was something else entirely. And even if I’d wanted to, I didn’t know if I could have seen things clearly. I don’t think I would have believed it even if it came from his own lips.

But there was one thing that divided my dad’s story and my own. There wasn’t anything on Saoirse that he couldn’t leave behind. Not me. Not my mom. But I had Emery. And she was the only thing I’d ever missed after I left.

But I didn’t like that I could still read him like that. He was a language I hadn’t forgotten.

“I know.” “You left.” “I know,” he said again. “You left me.” I almost didn’t recognize the sound of my own voice. “And I don’t care if you’re sorry.”

I loved her long before that. I don’t really remember a time that I didn’t love her. But that summer was different.

I pressed a kiss to her throat as she looked up at the moon. Her face was washed white with it, and she whispered, “Swear that you’ll love me forever.”

UGH STOP

“Swear it,” she said again. The water lapped quietly against us as I studied her. “I’ll love you forever,” I said. “I swear it.” Two tears fell in tandem down her cheeks, caught by the corners of a smile that finally broke on her lips,

May this love find me in every lifetime

I didn’t know it was strange, because Emery and I had just always…been. I didn’t know that teenagers didn’t usually fall into that kind of love, or that there was anything unusual about us at all. I just knew that she felt like air to me.

it was the first time I’d ever felt that pull—that soul-deep tide that drags you under until you can’t breathe.

At times, I’d even felt like that one memory was the only thing that was keeping me breathing. And there were a million times after I left Saoirse that I wished to God it never happened.

It didn’t matter how grown I was or how hardened I’d become from what life had brought. I didn’t want to stand over my mother’s grave alone.

This breaks my heart

It had never mattered what was said, because we always returned to each other. Like gravity.

For the tiniest sliver of a moment, I forgot the last fourteen years. The fire. The months that followed. The half-life I’d made when we left. For a moment, there was no after.

And I could still feel his touch on my palm, like sunlight pooled between my fingers.

I’d been eighteen years old. I’d known nothing about suffering or responsibility or loss, but somehow, I’d known this soul-deep kind of love that I now wondered if most people never found. It cut open a vein in me that never stopped flowing.

Dutch was an expert at reading me, but I still didn’t know how to be honest with him. He was there after August left. He’d understood me, but that had never been enough.

SPEAKS VOLUMES

“My grandmother has a whole drawer full dedicated to cursing Henry Salt.” I laughed. “Why does she hate the Salts so much?” “She hates everyone.”

I need to know more about Leona LIKE YESTERDAY. She is suspect.

the more I realized that there was a part of me that craved being apart from Lily. I loved her, but she was more unpredictable than ever and I had less and less interest in getting sucked into her drama.

Got this from THE FIRST moment I read her in a chapter

Lily had no idea what it was like to do anything she didn’t want to do.

Clocking it

She shrugged. “I’d rather be loved than pretty.” “Lily, everyone loves you.” “Not like they love you,” she said, too seriously.

She literally want to BE Em…

But it turns out that sometimes, death is the only thing that can set things right.” “Set things right?” “Never mind,” Leoda said,

WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?????

“There are spells for breaking and spells for mending. But there are no spells for forgetting,”

Ugh we just love a title tie in

I’d felt it in the air between them when they were young—the strike of electricity. It was a rare thing, but not a delicate one. And if she cut the cord, she wouldn’t just lose August, she would lose a part of herself.

I am physically ill over this right now

My heart was that strange, shooting star. Always falling.

But that glow in her eyes would fade the moment I told her we weren’t leaving. That we weren’t special or different. That our lives would be exactly what we thought they wouldn’t be. I didn’t think I’d ever been more ashamed of anything. Ever.

But I wanted to see her one more time. I always wanted to see her.

“What the hell are you talking about?” “You think I’m an idiot? Lily was in love with you, you asshole.” “You’re not an idiot. Which is why I don’t believe for a second that you just happened to not go to Washington State. And then just happened to get with Emery. You were after her the second I left. You forget that I know you, Dutch. Lily wanted me, fine. I didn’t want her. But you always wanted Emery. You were using Lily the same way she was using you, so don’t act like it broke your fucking heart.”

THIS. PERIOD.