Song: “Bottom of the River” by Delta Rae

They didn’t drown me at age five because a crow landed on my shoulder—never mind the bread roll in my pocket. At age ten, I threw a stick from the village bonfire onto a nearby hut and told them I started it.

At age fifteen, there’s no escaping the river.

They lead me and three other girls my age to the edge of the water. I hold my stomach and glance up at the sky, where a few crows circle overhead. I wish I had wings that could carry me away, but I know it’s the river that will do that.

One of the girls beside me, a redhead with freckles and a pointed nose, nudges me. “Don’t be nervous,” she says. “There’s no way a firestarter is a mortal.”

I nod because how else can I reply?

They start with the thin blonde on my left. She’s scared, and she should be. She only survived the first and second Water Tests because her mother paid off the Purifiers. There’s no way she’s a witch. You should see how much the crows hate her.

Sure enough, she goes limp minutes after they hold her head under the water. They push the rest of her all the way in and let her body float down the river.

The Purifiers murmur something in the ancient language and spit on the ground where the girl just was.

The redhead is next, and after she survives fifteen minutes underwater, the Purifiers decide she passes. They release their tight grip on her, and she lifts her head out of the water. She doesn’t gasp for breath—they might think she cheated if she does—but she stays on her hands and knees.

I’m next, and I hope the afterlife will be kinder.

Before I can get one last glimpse of the sky, of my mother, of the redhead who might’ve been my friend, the Purifiers unceremoniously shove my head into the river.

I don’t mean to thrash, but my body does all the same. Seconds feel like minutes, and I wonder if I’ve somehow passed. Then I feel the burning in the back of my throat and the violent urge to draw breath.

My legs kick out behind me, and my entire body falls prostrate on the muddy riverbank. My head tries to snap up, but the Purifiers are strong.

In moments, I’ll be gone. I know this. And then the river will carry my body to the waterfall that disposes of all the failures.

Although, I think suddenly, maybe it can carry me—not my body.

I decide to take my chances with the waterfall. I let myself go limp.

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