No Good Witches | ONC √

Broom Closet Burial

Rebecca was crying. I was oddly transfixed by the sight.

"This is not happening." I didn't think people actually paced until I saw Mallory do it. It was three steps in one direction , a sharp pivot on her heel, and then three brisk steps in the other.

"Can everyone just...calm down. I need to...to think." I sank slowly back into my chair, running a hand through my hair. I'd dyed it silver a while back, but it had since faded to a dirty white. I needed to redo it.

Why was I thinking about dying my hair right now?

"We killed her! We, we..." Rebecca took in a hiccup of a breath. "God, what did we do?"

"We didn't do anything!" Mallory had stopped pacing. Now she flung her finger outward, aimed at me. It shook in the air. "This is all Cass's doing."

My eyes widened. "Are you really blaming all this on me?"

She crossed her arms, but her boundless confidence seemed to end right here, and fear radiated off of her shivering form. "You're the one who cast the spell." Her voice was shaking. "All we did was–"

"All you did was lend me your magic, right? Magic that is all over her body right now." I shook my head, sitting back in my seat.

Rebecca whimpered.

"Plus." I said in a quieter voice. "I would've never done this if you hadn't practically forced me to."

"Forced you to!" Mallory exclaimed.

"The point is," I continued, "there isn't a point in throwing around the blame, not to each other. If we're going to fix this, we have to work together."

"Fix this?" Rebecca asked, dumbfounded. Her sniffles had paused for the time being and she turned her horror filled gaze on me. "She's dead Cass."

I stood from my seat gingerly. "Well...not exactly."

Mallory glared at me. "Really?" She gestured to the body sprawled out between the three of us on the ground. "She looks pretty dead to me."

I sighed. "Well, yeah, she's sort of dead, but..." I took a deeper breath in a approached the sort of corpse. "But the body is still...fresh. Which means that with...some persuasion, we can bring her back."

"What kind of persuasion?"

"There's a spell–"

"Are you joking?" Rebecca asked. "More magic?"

"Listen–"

"I think if this day has taught us anything, it's that we're pretty shitty witches, Cassandra!"

Why was I thinking about how much I liked hearing her say my full name like that right now?

"She didn't deserve to die." I said, "Magic is the only way to bring her back."

"We could..." Rebecca started. She swallowed. "We could turn ourselves in. Find a licensed magician to do the spell."

I shook my head. "That's not how it works." I looked over to Mallory. "This was our doing. Our magic. We're the only ones who can reverse it. The only hope she has."

"And going to jail for murder isn't a very cute look, is it?" Mallory offered.

I felt my eye begin to twitch. "No. It isn't."

"Rebecca?" She asked.

The blond girl frowned. "What?"

"Cass is right." Mallory conceded. "If we're going to do this, it has to be all of us. All in. And you've been against the rest of us this entire time."