Witch of Ware Woods by Sonja F. Blanco

Author:Sonja F. Blanco [Blanco, Sonja F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Five and Three Press
Published: 2021-10-18T16:00:00+00:00

Violet wasted no time in pushing Sara’s physical capabilities. Most of the day they ran through the forest, around the soul trees, beside the protective stone wall, and along the lake. She allowed occasional water breaks and a quick lunch of sandwiches and trail mix, which she pulled from the tactical bag. But instead of rest, every break involved a lesson in knife throwing.

Violet eyed Sara like a coach assessing a new player. “Did you do any training in the outside world?”

Sara grabbed a water bottle from the tactical bag and contemplated the question. Her parents had no weapons—at least that she knew of—and she didn’t think any of their frequent day-long hikes in the woods met Violet’s definition of training. Sara helped with garden and yard work, and she occasionally ran for the sheer joy of it.

She gulped the cool water and remembered a failed attempt at training. After the sleepover incident, her parents enrolled her in a mixed martial arts studio—to bolster her confidence and calm her nerves, they’d said. But the class fueled her aggression despite her sensei’s best efforts to encourage discipline and respect. He said she scared the other students and needed to work on calming her mind to balance her aggression. After a few months, her sensei told her parents not to bring her back to his studio.

Sara turned to Violet. “Unless you consider hiking and climbing trees as training, then no. My outside life was pretty dull.” She chucked the bottle back in the bag and broke into a jog, preferring to run rather than discuss her lack of skills and her life before the accident.

By late afternoon, her legs were trembling with exhaustion. Violet stopped running, picked a fallen log as their target, and handed a knife to Sara. Every time Sara tried to focus on the log, her vision blurred and the knife wobbled off course. All day, her aim had been terrible, most throws skidding along the forest floor until Violet stopped them and whished them back.

“You’re not trying,” Violet chastised. At sixteen, she had the mature focus and discipline of a seasoned soldier, always aware of her surroundings and confident in her capabilities.

“I am trying,” Sara said through clenched teeth. The log seemed to shimmer in the hot, humid air. She squinted and threw again, more forcefully; this time, the knife landed with a satisfying thunk but in a large pine to her far left. “Why are we just running and throwing? Shouldn’t I be figuring out my gifts and learning how to control them?” The idea of seeing Kane in a few hours twisted in her gut.

Violet whished the knife back and carefully plucked the black blade from the air. “Ian said you have some kinetic abilities. Go ahead then. Try to explode that log. It’s all rotted out, should be easy.” She gestured to a partially decomposed log about fifteen feet in front of them.

Sara hesitated.

Violet raised her brow and gestured again.

Heaving a sigh, Sara stared at the log, with no idea even where to begin until she remembered Gran’s words.

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