I wouldn’t be as happy as I could be, or as content, or as joyful. But maybe I’d be okay. And maybe okay would be enough.
I zip my bag and sling it over my shoulder, then open the door. A small package sits on the mat outside, and I bend to pick it up. It’s wrapped in brown paper and twine with an envelope taped to the front that has my name on it.
“Who’s this from?” I say to Nox as I walk over to my bed, tearing the envelope open. I scan the bottom of the letter and find Lila Hart’s name—Mr. Hart’s wife. I inhale slowly.
Dear Clara,
We’ve only ever met in passing, but I feel like I know you. Richard spoke of you often, and with such high regard. He loved teaching you and counted the years you spent together among the best of his career. I’ve heard bits and pieces of what you’ve accomplished this past year, and I know Richard would be so proud of you. I wish more than anything that he were here to see it.
I recently started packing up his office and came across this. He kept a logbook of all your sessions together, but it’s more than that. It turns out that he spent many late nights, coming to bed hours after I had fallen asleep, researching Everwitches. He made a few discoveries that I think will interest you.
Please read it.
And if there is ever anything you need, I hope you will consider reaching out. Richard cared for you very much, and after years of hearing him talk about you, I suppose I started to as well.
With love,
Lila Hart
I read the letter twice. I wish Mr. Hart were here and swallow the guilt I feel that he isn’t. I look at Alice’s memoir, the book that was wrapped in the same brown paper. He keeps finding his way back to me, and the thought makes me smile.
I start to unwrap the package, but a loud bell rings in the distance. It’s time to go. The buses have already started loading.
I set the gift down and give Nox a final kiss on the head. I put my hair in a ponytail and grab my water bottle, then pick up my duffel and leave. I’m halfway out the door when I turn back. Something tells me not to go without Mr. Hart’s logbook; at the very least, it will be good to have a distraction while I’m stuck in a hotel with nothing but my own thoughts.
I grab the package off my bed and gently tuck it inside my bag.
Another bell rings, and I rush to the parking lot. I don’t want to be left behind.
As soon as I think it, though, I know Mr. Burrows would never let that happen. He would drag me out of the eclipse’s path with his bare hands if he had to.
When I get to the parking lot, rows of buses are lined up along the curb. I get on the summer bus, relieved I don’t have to be on the same one as Sang. I haven’t seen him since we started growing flowers for each other to find. I hope he’s been busy with his research, spending hours in his immersion house, making up for all the time he lost when he had to start training with me.
I hope Mr. Burrows is making up for the deceit he used to bring him out here in the first place.
The buses pull away from the school one by one, and I lean against the window and watch as Eastern recedes into the distance. Even as we get farther away from campus, I know I haven’t fully made up my mind. I could decide at the last minute to head back into the path of totality, to greet the eclipse I’ve counted on for so long.
I close my eyes and try to sleep, but the bus is filled with conversation and laughter. I grab my headphones from my bag, and Mr. Hart’s logbook peeks out at me.
The drive is over two hours, so I put on some music and grab the logbook. I take it out of the brown paper and let my fingers brush over the soft cover. It’s old and worn, and I gently open it and flip through the pages. He started keeping records after the very first session we had together and continued through to our last, the one where Ms. Suntile showed up and I collapsed under the pressure of her magic.
I start from the beginning. Some entries are short, logging only what we worked on and what he felt needed improvement. But there are also longer entries, pages full of research and questions and theories.
From our very first session, Mr. Hart dedicated himself to researching Evers. He dedicated himself to me.
The more I read, the more it sounds as if he was forming a plan, the pages practically moving with his churning thoughts and ideas. But I’m unclear on what he wanted to accomplish. The entries are hard to follow, broken up by tangents and thoughts that seem unrelated to everything else. And the more excited he was when he wrote the entries, the more chaotic they get.
He details how much it hurts him to hear me say I hate the sun and hate my magic. How devastating it is to hear me say that my love kills people. He never believed that, was never once worried that I might cause him harm. He writes that magic is the deepest part of a person, that he understands why it would search out those I care for most. He doesn’t think it means to hurt them; he makes it sound as if it simply longs to touch the people I adore.
But he also acknowledges that it does kill people.
I’m struck by how deeply Mr. Hart believed there’s a solution, whether it’s me learning total control over my magic or something else
