We are out of breath when we reach the small yard behind the recycling depot. It consists of four huge containers that block us from being viewed from the nearest schoolroom window.

Parusha leans the damaged Pearl against the concrete wall. Then she puts her hands on her knees and regains her breath.

I’m brimming with fear, excitement, but also anger.

“What the hell was that?!” I demand. Being lied to has filled me with outrage.

Parusha and Pearl ignore me. Parusha is inspecting Pearl’s face, which is sketched with red, angry-looking welts.

“Hello? Are you guys even listening to me?!” I cry out, exasperated.

“Shh,” says Parusha.

She grabs a leaf of ivy off the concrete wall, crushes it in her hand, whispers. As if by miracle, the crushed leaf transforms into a bright green, translucent gel that looks a bit like clear shampoo before it’s foamy.

Tenderly, and with the care of a doctor, she applies the gel to the streaks on poor Pearl’s face. Pearl grits her teeth in pain as Parusha applies the healing salve, dabbing it over the open wounds.

“Shhh, shhhh,” Parusha murmurs softly. Pearl’s shaking ceases. Then Parusha makes a circular motion with the flat of her palm, inscribing a circle in the air around Pearl’s face. The welts on Pearl’s face lighten, seem to absorb themselves, and then in less than a minute are completely healed, as if they had not been there in the first place.

Pearl touches her cheek. She smiles gratefully at Parusha.

“Sister to Sister,” she says, simply.

“Light to Light,” Parusha replies.

I can’t stand it anymore. This is mad. Crazy events, like something out of a horror movie. That hideous spider; its bony, crab-like legs. The secrecy; the strange, frightening words.

“What is this?” I say in a low voice. “What is going on? You have to tell me. Now.”

Parusha turns to me, and her eyes are like forests, like fields.

“We didn’t want you to find out like this. Everything happened too fast. The order of things … this isn’t the way you’re supposed to find out.”

“Find what out?” I say this slowly.

“You’re like us, Prudence,” says Pearl. “But we’ve known what we are a long time…”

“And we’ve been waiting for you,” concludes Parusha, finishing Pearl’s thought.

I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do. I am Prudence, a silent statue.

“What?” is all I can muster, even though I’ve probably already asked that.

My eyes search for meaning in Pearl’s eyes. Pearl looks to Parusha, then back at me.

“Prudence, Parusha is a witch.”

My heart skips a beat. I blink. Darkness. Light.

Pearl continues her equation.

“And so am I,” she maintains. “And so are you.”

I am electricity. I back away from them both.

“Don’t say that,” and I feel my breath catch in my throat.

Their eyes are moons. I start to see.

“You don’t need to fear us,” Parusha says, lifting her cupped hands to me in a gesture of supplication.

“We’re of the Light,” says Pearl. Her eyes are swirls of storm.

I back away. My back hits wall. “Just stay away from me.” I am surprised to find I am crying. Hot tears flow down my cheeks, but I hardly notice them.

I continue to back away until I feel the sun warm my back. Then I turn and run. I don’t think. I just speed off. I don’t realise I am skipping last period. It doesn’t even occur to me.

There’s a storm brewing inside my head. I grip the handles of my backpack with tight fists and march out of the school grounds, not even aware if anyone tries to stop me.

I don’t know where I’m heading. My body is just moving. I don’t understand anything. What were those girls trying to tell me?

You don’t just tell people they’re a witch, for heaven’s sake. You just don’t.

My mind clouds over with black clouds and strange shapes as I pass shop windows, the chemist, the Shoprite.

Witches don’t exist. Not really. They exist in movies, and books, and stories from when you’re little…

My mind hits a wall. I know what I saw.

And this is what hurts the most – when Pearl and Parusha said to me, “You’re a witch”, part of me knew, knew somewhere deep, that it was true.

The thought stops me like an invisible lightning bolt. I come to an abrupt halt.

I turn to a shop window. There is a mirror in the display and I scan my face for signs. I look fine, but my eyes…

Maybe it’s the lighting of the display, but my eyes seem to shine with a light that seems brighter than the sun’s.

A tiny patch of skin above my eyes, in the middle of my forehead, becomes lighter, the colour of the palm of a hand. It is in the shape of a little star.

I step closer to inspect this new feature, but when I take a second look, it is gone.

I hear a bell ring. I see a cloud. A mountain that is a woman. A sky full of locusts and flies.

I clutch my body, to make sure that it is still there.

I am here. I am me.

But.

Something is happening.

Something is happening to me.

End of Book 1

***

Tell us: Do you believe there really are witches? If so, are the ‘witches’ in this story the same or similar to any you might believe in? What does Parusha means when she says, “We are of the Light”.