Clifftides

She stared up at the ceiling, tracking each slow, lazy rotation of the fan blades. One... two... three. Anything to anchor her drifting mind. Her long, silky dark chocolate hair spilled over the side of the chaise in a waterfall of black, brushing past her waist and pooling against the cushions like a shadow.

“Tessa.”

The older woman’s voice cut through the quiet.

Her gaze shifted. Dr. Jane sat angled forward in her chair, red hair pulled into a tight ponytail that gave her an almost clinical sharpness. Her pale blue eyes stayed fixed on Tessa, attentive in a way that felt constant rather than casual. A pen tapped against her notebook in a steady rhythm—controlled, precise, never quite absent. Tessa had learned over five years that Dr. Jane noticed everything, even when she said very little.

“Where is your mind wandering today?”

Tessa gave a small shrug, but it was automatic—habitual. After five years of this, she knew it wasn’t an answer that would hold.

“Are the dreams back? If so—”

“No, it’s not that.” Tessa pushed herself upright, the word dreams tightening her chest. It had been a year since she’d last revisited Clifftides in her sleep—since she’d relived the things no one believed, the things people whispered about behind her back. Unexplainable events. Strange flickers of lights, sudden wilting of plants, unexpected weather changes. And the name they’d given her: witch. That single word had uprooted her entire life, sending her mother scrambling across the country to outrun rumors, prejudice, and the shame of raising a daughter marked by her grandmother’s past.

“The hallucinations aren’t back, are they?”

Tessa let out a long exhale and collapsed backward onto the couch, the cushions sighing beneath her. This topic was a bruise—always tender, always prodded. The things she’d seen as a child hadn’t felt like imagination, no matter how many times adults told her otherwise.

“My mom doesn’t want me to go to the local high school graduation,” she said quietly, her eyes dropping to her hands. “I get it—I wouldn’t really know anyone there since I’ve done everything online, and everyone says it’s boring anyway, but… I still want to go. I want the experience.”

She wound a strand of hair around her finger, avoiding eye contact like the floor was suddenly more important. “Who cares if I graduated early, and I’ll be almost done with my first year of college by then? Mom got to go to all of hers… why can’t I just go to one?”

“I’m sorry?” Dr. Jane blinked, her pen pausing mid-tap. “Tessa, you won’t be here for graduation. Your mother told me you were moving next week.”

Tessa shot upright so fast the cushions shifted beneath her. “What?” Her voice cracked slightly on the word. “Moving where?”

Her heart thumped hard against her ribs as the room seemed to tilt just a fraction out of place. She had lived in the same cramped house in Havenwood, Pennsylvania, since they moved when she was twelve. It wasn't perfect--not even close. The place had flooded twice, the ceilings leaked whenever it rained too hard, and her mom's work transfer had turned a simple commute into two exhausting hours each way. There had been rodents, too. The kind of problems that usually pushed people out of homes, but her mother never considered moving. Not even once.

Tessa racked her brain to try to come up with any plausible explanation for moving acutely, but there was nothing.

Dr. Jane hesitated, her expression softening. “Back to Clifftides. I assumed you knew.”

The name hit her like a splash of cold water. Clifftides. Her heart fluttered in her chest—fear, excitement, dread, longing—all tangled together. Memories she’d tried to bury stirred anyway, rising like a tide she suddenly wasn’t sure she was ready to face again.

Tessa couldn’t focus after that. The moment the word Clifftides left Dr. Jane’s mouth, her mind spun off in a dozen directions—and two faces immediately rose to the surface, stealing all of her attention.

Marley and Ben. Her childhood constants. Her anchor points. They had stayed in her life despite the distance, despite the rumors, despite her mother’s frantic decision to pull them out of Clifftides without warning. Through it all, they had adapted—daily text messages, late-night FaceTimes that froze mid-laughter, shared movies watched in sync across screens that never quite stayed connected. Tessa loved those moments, imperfect as they were, stitched together by static and time zones and the effort it took to stay close.

But there was always something quieter beneath it. A small, persistent knot that tightened whenever they talked about life without her. Bonfires she hadn’t sat around. Beach days she hadn’t felt the sand of. Inside jokes she didn’t quite belong to, formed in spaces she no longer occupied. She laughed with them when they told the stories, she always did—but afterward, the feeling lingered, soft and sharp at once, like something she had almost been part of. Suddenly, it didn't feel quite out of reach anymore.

Dr. Jane observed her, a knowing smile touching the corners of her mouth as she watched Tessa glow with sudden excitement.

“I haven’t seen you this bubbly since Ben sent you that teddy bear for your birthday last year,” she teased lightly.

Heat flared across Tessa’s cheeks at the memory. Ben was—well, he was Ben. More than a childhood friend, even if she rarely admitted it out loud. Marley was the only person who knew the whole truth, who knew how Tessa’s heart jumped anytime his name lit up her phone.

She’d always wanted him to notice her. Really notice her. Not as the kid who needed defending from bullies, not as the fragile girl branded a witch by a cruel town, but as someone worth choosing. Worth loving.

She’d spent too many nights dreaming of him—ridiculous, romantic fantasies she’d never confess out loud. Dreams where he showed up out of nowhere, confessed that he’d always felt something too, and freed her from the shadows of her past. Where everything was simple. Easy. Perfect.

But lately she’d let those fantasies go. Maybe for good. Her mother had made sure she never had room to hope—Tessa wasn’t allowed out alone, barely allowed to breathe without supervision, and who in Clifftides would rent to the “witch girl” anyway? Returning to Clifftides seemed hopeless, impossible even. Why hope to end up with a guy she’d likely never see beyond a screen?

Only now... everything had changed.

“I know you’re excited,” Dr. Jane said softly, laying a gentle hand over Tessa’s. “But I worry about you going back there. Especially after all the progress we’ve made.”

Tessa gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll be okay. Promise.”

Dr. Jane’s expression shifted, something tender and protective flickering in her eyes. Their relationship had long since passed the line of typical therapist and patient. Dr. Jane knew what Tessa had endured. She’d seen the damage up close.

“You can always call me,” she said, voice low and earnest. “We can start doing virtual sessions if needed. If anything—”

TING—TING.

The soft chime broke the moment, signaling the end of their hour.

Dr. Jane exhaled, glancing at the clock with a slight, almost regretful frown. “I wish you the best, Tessa.”

Tessa offered her a warm smile and a nod before slipping into her jacket. Her heart was still racing, full of nerves and hope all tangled together.

She stepped out into the lobby to wait for her mother, feeling—for the first time in years—the faintest spark of something she’d nearly forgotten.

Possibility.

Her mother’s sedan rolled to a stop at the curb, its headlights cutting across the lobby windows. Tessa slipped outside and climbed in, the familiar scent of coffee and worn leather greeting her as she shut the door.

The ride was quiet—too quiet.

Wind hummed against the car, the engine thrummed under her feet, but her mother said nothing. Not a word about the move. Not a word about Clifftides. Not even a glance in Tessa’s direction. Her hands stayed fixed on the steering wheel, knuckles pale, posture stiff with exhaustion. The faint shadows under her eyes told Tessa she’d worked another double shift... again.

She always worked terrible hours. Tessa had long suspected that burying herself in work was less about the bills and more about drowning out everything else. Silence was easier when you were too tired to think.

Her mom hadn’t lived a fairytale life—far from it. She didn’t know her birth parents or what became of them. She’d spent most of her childhood bouncing through foster homes all over Pennsylvania. Painting was her only comfort. When she was eighteen, she took the money she had religiously saved and enrolled in Havenwood University with the goal of graduating with a degree in visual arts. She had to juggle multiple jobs during and after each semester just to make ends meet. Later, she met Tessa’s father while he was studying to become a doctor. They fell into an easy, simple kind of love. And from that came Tessa.

For a while, everything really had felt perfect. Her father opened a small clinic in Clifftides, Oregon, and quickly earned the community’s respect. Her grandmother—the original “witch” of Clifftides—spent her days muttering over herbs and stirring peculiar elixirs made from plants no one could identify. While others shied away from her strange ways, Tessa adored her. Grandma Ginny felt like magic in human form.

But perfection never lasted.

Tessa swallowed hard as the memory surfaced—the one that never left her, no matter how many years passed. Her mother’s screams. The sound of glass shattering. The harsh smell of liquor spilling across the floor. Her grandmother sitting eerily still, staring at nothing, and the realization that her father wasn’t coming home.

No one had explained what happened, not at first. Tessa had pieced the truth together on her own—an accident. Alcohol. A car that never made it back onto their driveway.

Her mother had never been the same after that. She’d become like a delicate porcelain teacup with a crack webbed through its center—still functional, still holding everything together, but one wrong move from breaking entirely.

Alcohol vanished from the house. Her father’s pictures disappeared slowly, one frame at a time. Her mother worked long hours yet she barely slept without the help of pills. The brightness in her eyes—once so warm—faded into something sharper, jittery, tinged with paranoia. And Tessa, over the years, had seen less and less of the woman she used to be.

Now, sitting in the passenger seat of the quiet car, Tessa watched her mother’s tired profile and wondered which version of her would be waiting back in Clifftides.

The silence stretched on, thick and fragile, neither of them willing to be the first to break it.