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Like snakes, the townsfolk shed their innocence, leaving it to stew in the bay, sink into the soil, and beat against the lighthouse. And like snakes, the lilies drew their outgrown magic into tangled roots and narrow stems and gilded pollen: an ouroboros consuming itself.
As it turned out, marriage wasn’t exactly what everyone made it out to be. It was coexisting in the same place, building bridges when arguments landed like grenades, worrying ceaselessly about each other, being irrevocably consumed by each other.
The storm stayed. Thunder cracked, rain fell, and Ethan hardly slept. He let his gaze wander, scanning the hamper, the crowded dresser, a photo-strip pinned to the wall. The wine cushioned him. It kept him woozy and dazed, acquiescing to thoughts of Nico, of Peter, of magic, of life, death, and children.
Like most places people came to explore, Casper was buckled together with oddities. The market was strangest of all. It was a town that leaned into rumors, most of which were half-true, and profited off the curiosity tourists and travelers brought to its streets.
Where hope trembled like an arrow ready to loose, fear stripped away his armor. Left him bare and easy to hurt.
Magic was a fickle thing. Ethan felt it like a quick-footed hare, jostling about inside her, collecting heartbreak and rotten love.
How strange to feel his heart rupture and rebel and restart. How comforting to brace for jealousy and find hope instead.
And perhaps a part of him would always try. He knew the bottlenecked fear he’d carried for years had driven him into a spiral, but how does a witch rework a ritual he’d never paid attention to? How does someone snap a heartbreaking habit in half?
The truth bubbled upward, something he’d known and never admitted. Fear—that awful, relentless fear—had stolen his ability to speak, to ask, to be open. Hurricane Katia, her raging seas, and all her power had snatched away his autonomy. He’d given it freely—that sense of self, that youth, that freedom—in a botched trade for Peter Vásquez. Maybe it was never a child. He opened his eyes. Light ribboned the door. Maybe the cost had always been this. The horror. The hope. The mourning.
