she couldn’t rid herself of a lifelong fear that it was too good to be true.

to be a witch is to be exploited when it’s convenient and turned against when it isn’t.

That any minute now, like every person who had flashed in and out of her adolescence, they would decide she was too something or not enough of something else and snatch away their welcome.

but here she was again, just as she’d been as a child, trapped on the hamster wheel of her mind, conducting a postmortem on every memory to find out what, if anything, had been real

She had once believed she would never have a family, but here they were, too.

She, who had once believed she would never leave a mark on anybody, knew now that the marks she had left were unerasable, as much a part of forever as the sea.

She hadn’t understood how exhausting and heartbreaking it had been to hide such a big part of herself all these years, to reshape and contort herself into something more acceptable. She hadn’t realised just how heavy her mask had been until she’d discovered what it was to live without it.

With practice, you’ll lose your fear and gain the confidence you need.”

“It might seem sometimes that all we are is odd and different, but the truth is, we’re amazing. We’re part of the earth below us and the sky above us. Our veins echo the patterns of rivers and roots. There’s sunlight and moonlight in our bones.”