Season of the Witch by Sarah Rees Brennan

Author:Sarah Rees Brennan [Brennan, Sarah Rees]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2019-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

Ms. Wardwell lived in a tiny cottage near the very edge of the deep woods. Her home made me think of the gingerbread cottage in fairy tales where a witch might live. Except instead of a witch luring guests into her cottage, a strange witch was being invited into this one.

There was a horseshoe hammered over the door: a piece of cold iron, meant to keep away fairies. When I stepped inside, I saw things like that everywhere.

The whole place was terribly quaint. There was a clock shaped like a teapot on the wall. There was a crucifix over the hearth fire with a painting behind it. Aunt Zelda always pointedly averted her eyes when presented with what she called images of the false god.

I stirred the tea in my teacup with my tiny silver spoon and said awkwardly: “Love what you’ve done with the place. Thanks for having me.”

“Thank you for coming,” said Ms. Wardwell. “I don’t have many visitors. Though I have found several young people rambling by that river near dark, and I do ask them in for a cup of tea. I can’t think why that spot draws them so.”

“I suppose they’re wishing in the wishing well.”

“Is that well a wishing well?” Ms. Wardwell asked with interest. “I’ve never heard that before. I must make a note of that. I collect town legends, you know. I consider myself the unofficial town historian.”

“Oh, right.” I scratched my head, dislodging my hairband slightly, and smiled. Ms. Wardwell and her cottage both seemed a little silly to me, but sweet.

“Oh, yes,” said Ms. Wardwell. “Not many people realize that we have a long history of witches in Greendale, to rival the stories of Salem.”

I took a careful sip of hot tea. “That is absolutely news to me. How interesting. And new. To me. Something I have never heard before in all my life. Ever.”

Ms. Wardwell glowed at the expression of interest. She jumped up from her wingback chair, spilling some tea as she did so, to take a large, leather-bound book down from a high shelf.

“Would you like to hear this contemporary account of a witch?” she asked. “It’s said to have been written by an ancestor of the Putnams.”

“The Putnams, as in my friend Susie Putnam?” I asked, lost. “Yes, of course.”

“The young witch came to me again yesterday,” Ms. Wardwell read aloud. “She speaks in riddles, but sweetly. She says she will be kind for my kindness to her kind. The crops this year looked to fail, but now we think the crops are flourishing late. Perhaps it is only chance, but everywhere the crops are growing now are places the young witch walked yesterday. I can see her now, Freya of the long hair and the summer song, with the edge of her gown lost in the green grass. Surely God made her. The devil could not make anything so lovely.”

Ms. Wardwell replaced the book on the shelf and began to talk about the fact that

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