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“Are you comfortable up there?”
The shout from below makes her jerk out of her half-asleep state. Not exactly sleep. More of a self-induced coma, really, the same one she got herself into after breaking up with Harvey. She is not even sure how long she’s been sitting there on the hanging tree branch, the exact same place she burned Thirteen witches to ashes.
Sabrina looks down and sees somebody’s dark hair. She can’t really see their face. Well, she can’t really see much at all since she spent at least twelve hours here, mostly crying, and her vision is kinda blurry. She recognizes the voice, though.
“Leave me alone, Nick.” Her voice cracks, almost an ugly sob, and Sabrina feels that she’s ready to cry again. She didn’t even know she had so many tears inside her. Her body is numb and cold, like it’s dead. She can’t force herself to move. Her heart is aching, and she can barely feel it beating behind the pain.
“Not happening, Sabrina,” he shouts back, and his presence, his voice is too vivid for her to ignore and to fall back into whatever state she was in. “Can I come up?”
“Go back to the Academy!” Her voice sounds even weaker now and as her throat is sore. Sabrina isn’t even sure Nick hears her.
She doesn’t want to see anyone. The reason she fled home after having discovered that everyone is okay, and then went to the Academy, trying to hide from anyone who could care, is that she didn’t want anyone to see her hair, the scar on her hand, her eyes red from crying. It’s painful and embarrassing. Sabrina doesn’t want to explain.
Nick appears right next to her at the branch, smug but warm smile on his lips. “I was going to do that anyway, but I thought it’d be polite if I asked first.”
They sit like that for a moment. Sabrina should probably clean up her face, because she undoubtedly looks wrecked and miserable, but she can’t care enough to do that.
“I don’t want to see anyone,” she repeats that like a motto, her voice hollow. She stares somewhere to the horizon line, the blurry mix of colours, just to escape looking at Nick.
Nick nods. Out of the corner of her eye Sabrina spots him turning to look at the same far away spot where she is staring at. It’s nice that he doesn’t make any deal about how horrible she looks. “So I’ve heard from Ambrose. Sorry, didn’t listen to him.”
Despite herself, Sabrina huffs sarcastically at the tone full of sincere regret Nick managed to apply to his apology. Every careless motion is repeated by the dull pang of pain in her head, in her chest.
“Well you get a mess of a witch as a prize,” her voice breaks again, tears threatening to well out, but she wipes them away. Nick will notice anyway, but she doesn’t want to burst out crying right in front of him, so she just says, her voice more firm this time, “Nick, I’m fine, really. Just leave me alone. I’ll get back at some point but not,” she imagines how awful she must look, in her two days old clothes, with her messed-up hair, sobbing at the scene of mass murder she commited, “not now.”
“You don’t need to go back,” Nick doesn’t sound judgmental or angry, just a little worried, but also much less than Ambrose or her aunts would be, “but I thought you might want someone friendly next to you.” Nick finally turns to look at her. “Maybe you can try talking to me?”
Sabrina shakes her head. “Have you ever grieved over your mortal life and soul that you had to sacrifice to save people that will never know about this?” She turns to him sharply, angry tears rolling down her cheeks. “Being sure you betrayed your mother, and your mortal friends who will now turn their backs at you?”
Nick still holds his cool, even though she almost hisses the last part, but his reply is obviously a no.
Sabrina wipes her tears, all the energy gone again after the small outburst. “Then I guess you can’t help.”
At this his composure breaks a little, a shadow of sadness running over his features, and Sabrina remembers that he nearly sacrificed himself to save her boyfriend (ex-boyfriend, she has to remind herself) and his douchebag of a father from the Thirteen. And here she is, so polite and grateful.
“Look, Nick, I don’t mean--” What does she not mean? She knows that Nick regrets not having a mortal soul, not being able to love and be devoted, as he told her. Even though he just did the most selfless thing there is just because he feels… whatever he feels about her. Sabrina changes the sentence, “I don’t want you to be angry with me. Or sad, it’s just. I think I really need my alone time. I don’t want anyone to have to deal with me right now.”
Nick smiles, although it doesn’t reach his eyes much. “I am not angry with you. I won’t be. And you know I wish more than anything to know what you have lost, but--” He sighs. “Sabrina, it’s been almost two days since you escaped home. And approximately forty hours you spent on a hanging tree. And you weren’t even the one hanged,” Nick smiles at her and Sabrina giggles weakly at the stupid joke. “Also, Salem is worried.”
The meaning of his words slowly reaches her brain. “What do you mean forty hours? And what do you mean Salem is worried?”
Nick shrugs. “Your cat brought me here. He thought I’d be a reasonable choice since you explicitly told him you don’t want to see your family.” Sabrina keeps looking at him. “What? This guy really likes you. Besides, you don’t have that many people he can bring here. Unless you thought Pru might be more appropriate.”
Sabrina shudders imagining Prudence coming here with the weird sisters. What’d they do? Congratulate her with the power? Envy her for that ugly cut on her hand carved by Satan himself? Make her think like she is supposed to feel the luckiest?
At least Nick acts like he cares about her mortal soul. Feels sorry for what she had lost.
“No. Not really. I’m just surprised Salem went through all that trouble.” She looks around the forest, finally noticing the clear autumn day going to its end. “Did I really spend forty hours here? I’m not even hungry.” Apart from that she isn’t sleepy, or cold, or in need to go to the bathroom, which is concerning.
Nick nods. “Familiars really do sometimes know better. And yes. About forty hours, which is, honestly, pretty impressive.”
Sabrina suddenly feels even more miserable. If she were still human she definitely wouldn’t be able to do this. But she isn’t human anymore.
Nick continues, “But you just had your baptism and your power given to you. And judging by the thing you’ve done so far, that was a lot of power.”
Sabrina vaguely remembers how she didn’t have a single doubt when she called for the hellfire. Knowing that it will answer her call. How she became the fourth witch in history able to do that.
“Everyone already knows?” It’s not like she cares, not really, just curious about how fast the news travel. She didn’t tell anyone. Maybe Ms. Wardwell did.
Nick’s eyebrows move up in surprise. “You’re kidding, right? You summoned hellfire and burned Thirteen which hunted us for hundreds of years. It snowed with ash. Our Coven might not be filled with that many bright witches, but you’d really have to be blind to miss that.”
It doesn’t make Sabrina feel better, surprisingly. Back then she felt on top of the world watching her enemies’ souls burning in the blue fire, but the feeling is long gone together with the pride of it.
“Are you really not angry?” She decides to change the topic. The warlock gives her an unimpressed stare.
“Sabrina, I can’t really be angry with you. You know that, right?” Nick’s voice turns soft, affectionate at that. Not like Harvey’s, different. Much more mature and much less endearing but still, there is that feeling of love in it. She remembers Nick said he can’t feel love, not like a mortal could, but she is starting to doubt that it is really true. In the end, her father loved her mother more than anything in the world and he was a warlock.
She doesn’t know what to say to him, just nods, feeling her tears coming back. It’s becoming frustrating, the way she cries like a baby everytime she thinks of something related to that night.
They sit on the tree branch in silence, and Sabrina wonders why the tree remained almost unchanged after she burned it. Though it seems like the life and the spirit are gone from it, and maybe it wouldn’t keep standing here for much longer now, but it is still here, like hellfire could only burn its soul, not its body.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Nick interferes her train of thoughts.
“Go on, I guess.” Sabrina already knows he can’t make Nick leave that easily, so she just lets it be.
“Why did you say you disappointed your mother?” The question hits just between her ribs. Her mother wasn’t there, not this time. Wasn’t there to see how her baptized daughter signed her name in the Book of Beast.
“Do you know,” her voice is hollow again, just like her ribcage feels, air out of her lungs when she starts speaking, and it feels so horrible that she’s almost ready to puke, “that I was baptised in the Catholic church?” The last part comes out barely as a whisper.
To her surprise Nick nods easily, like it isn’t any kind of revelation to him, like he sees children of Night being baptized with the False God every day.
He notices her surprise. “I mean, your aunt Hilda was excommunicated for baptising you so,” he adds sheepishly, but Sabrina keeps staring at him with wide eyes. “Come on, Sabrina! It was a public hearing. Everyone was talking about it for weeks.”
Turns out Zelda had all the rights to be worried about the image of their family in the coven.
“My mother baptized me.” Nick nods but still doesn’t seem to understand, “It might sound strange but--” She invokes the memory of her first Dark Baptism, and her mother telling her to run from it. “During my first baptism, I saw her. She didn’t want me to sign the Book.”
“Your father did sign the Book for you, though, didn’t he?” Nick reminds her of that, even though she doesn’t think she could ever forget.
Sabrina still doesn’t know how to feel about that. She was two days old when her soul was sold to a False God by her mother, and three days old when her father gave it away to the Dark Lord. Almost since her birth her soul never actually belonged to her, split in two, between two opposites, her own limbo of sorts.
“Look, from what I know about your mother,” Nick switches on the mentoring tone he usually takes in the school, when he talks to her about Edward, “she followed your father on the Path of Night as far as a mortal could.” Sabrina knows that, but there is something oddly satisfying in hearing this story once again told by Nick’s soft voice.
“She knew spells he created, she wrote his works clean and checked them for publishing. He was quite sloppy with his writing, you might have noticed.” Sabrina nods, remembering her father’s journal. “Diana was there for every single one of his speeches, and even though not everyone would like to remember that, she had never failed to show devotion to the Dark Lord.”
Sabrina can’t imagine her mother being devoted to Satan, but she barely knows anything about her, which means she has no reason not to trust Nick or her family who told her exactly the same thing. Diana did support Edward in everything he did.
But she still has doubts. “Then why did she baptise me, Nick? Do you also know that?” There’s too much sorrow in that, unnecessary aggression directed at Nick, but she can’t hold it back.
Nick doesn’t seem bothered, letting it go easily. “I don’t know. But it’d make sense for her to try protecting your right of choice, I guess.”
This thought is so sweet that Sabrina has never tried thinking about it for real, afraid to believe again that her parents cared about her. She remembers the way her trust shattered during the trial, and she is afraid that if she believes in it again, the same thing might happen.
But Nick keeps talking with his calm voice, “She would have known your Dark Baptism isn’t a choice, so maybe she did the only thing she could to fight it: she baptised you in a Path of Light. Didn’t that give you your only chance when you needed it?”
It did. What her mother has done was the only thing that protected her soul during trials and her first baptism. She fought for her human nature as long as she could have.
“And in the end,” Nick cautiously moves a tiny bit closer, like she is a wild animal, which might be partly true. It is nice to feel the warmth of another person next to her. “You do realise, that you saved all of us? Well, only first borns, but that’s kinda a lot of people. You saved both of your best friends, weird sisters, your aunt Zelda. You saved Harvey’s father and he knows that. You saved me, because I’m also a firstborn. You saved half of this town, Sabrina.” Nick takes her left hand in his own warmer ones. “I don’t think your mother would be disappointed about that regardless of what you paid for this.”
“You wouldn’t be dead if you stayed in the Academy.” She doesn’t know what to say with Nick’s warm fingers holding her hand, so she just changes the topic again, smooth conversationalist she is. She’s still uncomfortable about asking Nick to risk his life to save her mortal ex-boyfriend, but he agreed without even asking for anything in return.
Nick shakes his head, “I don’t think Academy would have held out the night. The curse that Red Angel lies upon the city can sneak anywhere. It’s not an enemy you can fight, it’s the air itself that turns red.” He pauses, thinking of something while still stroking the back of her hand lightly. “I guess most powerful ones could have probably protected themselves but I doubt they would be able to keep it out of the Academy. Holding the door closed is one thing, but sealing the air is another.”
They sit like that for some time. If feels like barely five minutes, but Sabrina can’t trust herself with time anymore. Nick keeps touching her hand and it feels nice. She still doesn’t want to go home. Feels like she doesn’t belong there anymore. Too close to her school, to her friends, to Harvey. She puts her head on Nick’s shoulder and lets him wrap an arm around her waist. She only did that with Harvey before. Maybe with Ambrose, too, when she was younger.
It’s almost dark now, sun setting behind the clouds. She still isn’t hungry or cold, numb at her brain and body, but at least she can move, even if just a little. The wind makes the branches creak.
“Is there something else bothering you?” Sabrina can’t see Nick’s face, but there is a lot of care in his voice. She wonders why it can’t be him who she loves. Loving Nick would be so much easier -- she doesn’t need to hide, can bring him home, can spend Yuletide with him listening to ghost stories told by Ambrose.
When she relaxes, Nick takes advantage of that, pushing slightly, making her open her left hand, where the scar should be. It stopped bleeding almost immediately back there, in the forest. Without even aunt Hilda’s creams and herbs. But the scar is still there, fading but prominent. Nick strokes it with his thumb lightly, and it tickles.
“Who baptised you?” Nick asks. It’s a question she would like to have an answer for herself. It couldn’t have been Ms. Wardwell, could it? Where did she, an excommunicate, get the Book?
And then, it wasn’t her voice. Wasn’t her arms that held her. That smell. That horrible smell of burned flesh. That sharp claw cutting her hand, guiding her hands to the book. She shivers uncontrollably at the memory, and Nick tightens his grip. “Shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay, Sabrina.”
“It was,” she swallows, afraid to say the next word. “I think it was. Him.”
She can’t say any of his names out loud, just praying Nick would understand. Praying he won’t tell her how lucky she is to be baptised by the Dark Lord himself when she is almost ready to die from that memory alone. But Nick just holds her close, whispering something in her hair, telling that it’s going to be okay and something else equally kind until the shivering stops. It feels safe here. In his arms, next to him, knowing how powerful he is. It’s almost the same thing Sabrina feels around aunt Zelda when it comes to magic, sure that she can just hide behind her aunt’s back.
Nick is perfect for her. Should be perfect for her. Might as well just say yes to him right away -- spend a night in his bed, in his warm arms touching her, making her forget about everything. About the fire, about the Dark Lord holding her. The fear pushes that idea forward in her brain, making it seem good enough as a solution for that cold horror she is feeling.
It makes her heart beat faster, and there’s finally something else in her heart, not just pain and grief. She is already on the path of Night, might as well take it as far as she can imagine for now. Spend her first night with Nick because Harvey doesn’t need her anymore.
Sabrina licks her dry lips. “Do you remember when before the Feast of the Feasts you asked if I want to join?” She doesn’t need to remind him the details, she hopes.
Nick sneers. “I don’t remember much of that night, as it usually happens with weird sisters, but that part I do.”
Her heart skips a beat when Nick emphasizes ‘that part’. She thinks of how hot he looked half-naked on the floor. “I want to take that offer now. Not with the sisters,” Sabrina feels like she needs to clarify.
Nick freezes for a moment, but then relaxes. “Where does this come from?”
She lifts her head from his shoulder, leans back to look at him: beautiful features, warm skin, dark hair. Strength of a warlock, brains of an exceptional student. Everything Harvey is not. Nothing like him.
“Why not, Nick? I am a witch now, I am on the path of Night, and you like me and I like you. Why the hell not?” Now it makes a lot of sense in her head.
Sabrina closes her eyes and leans closer, hoping he stops questioning her and just leans in for the kiss. Nick doesn’t. He holds her by the shoulder, keeping the distance between them. Sabrina blinks and looks him right in his devilishly pretty eyes. His brows are furrowed and there’s no heat in his glance. But before Sabrina feels rejected, Nick speaks.
“You know that I always want sex. Any sex, but with you in particular, Sabrina.” He raises his hand and puts a strand of her messy hair behind her ear. “And if you think I refuse because I am upset that you do it to sweeten your break up with Harvey, that’s not the case. I am horny enough to be up to it.” Nick smirks, “But you need food, and a bath, and to stop thinking that signing the Book took your heart away, not an orgy with a warlock.”
Sabrina suddenly feels angry at him (or at herself). Everyone seem to know better what she needs in her life, who she should be, how she should act. “I know what I need, Nick. You don’t need to babysit me.”
Ambrose here would laugh at her, say something like ‘look who’s an all grown up dark witch’. Harvey would hug her and try to calm her down.
Nick just looks her right in the eyes, examining something inside her, and then nods. He slides his hand over her cheek, cupping it gently, “I don’t.”
The kiss that follows is nothing like when Harvey kisses her. It’s not gentle, Nick’s tongue moving straight to her lips to open them. He pushes it further, making Sabrina uncomfortable but she just gives in, answering him. It’s filthy and open-mouthed, like she saw Prudence kissing the other guy before the Feast. But his lips are warm, so she concentrates on that feeling, hoping he will kiss the pain and that fear, and her horrible thoughts away.
But it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t feel good. It also doesn’t make her stop thinking about Harvey. She suddenly realises Nick was right. She doesn’t need that.
Sabrina also doesn’t know how to stop this, taken aback. But Nick stops first, letting go almost completely -- his hand moves from her cheek to her shoulder, gently pushing her away, but not too far. Still holding her.
Nick licks his lips and asks, “Did that help?” He’s not sarcastic, just concerned, but she can see in his eyes that he wasn’t serious about this.
Sabrina shakes her head, feeling both embarrassed and really stupid. “No. That’s why I asked you to leave me. I am just a stupid half-mortal teenager”.
Nick repeats the gesture with her hair, this time tracing the fingers over her forehead. She probably looks horrible. She hasn’t seen herself in a mirror since that morning. Sabrina feels tears feeling up her eyes again. This time she’s just angry at herself, stupid teenager with her stupid feelings. She really doesn’t know what she wants and who she is anymore.
“Not more stupid than any other witch.” Nick thinks for a second, considering. “I’d say less stupid than most of the witches of your age honestly. And the mortal part… I already told you that I think it’s beautiful. It makes you very special, Sabrina.” Nick extends his arms and hugs her gently, making the awkward spark between them disappear. She would even think the kiss was a dream if she couldn’t still feel it lingering on her tongue and lips.
“Made me special. Now I’m an evil witch serving the Dark Lord.”
Nick makes and amused sound, but Sabrina can’t see his face so she is not sure what it means. “Evil witch? And what exactly makes you evil?”
She is at loss of what to tell him. Is she more evil now, when she signed the Book of the Beast? Was the old Sabrina capable of what she did to the Thirteen?
She thinks of all these moments from before, when she cut the Agatha’s throat, the way she looked at the kids choking Weird Sisters almost to death. She really meant it, what she said to Prudence. She knew she would choke her to death next time they crossed paths. Does that mean she was always evil?
“I don’t know.”
Nick sighs. “Have you ever read the False God’s book?”
Sabrina feels her cheeks redden, now of all times and she almost wants to ask Nick to never tell aunt Zelda, but then overcomes the urge, “The Bible? I did. For an assignment in school, really.”
Nick nods, completely uninterested by the details. “When I was finishing the theology course, I read it and wrote a whole paper comparing it to the Book of Satan.” Sabrina almost feels him smirk. “There was a lot of curtsies towards the latter of course, otherwise they’d never let me publish it.”
He pauses for a second. “We talk a lot about the Path of Light and the Path of Night as if it is really related with the good and the evil. And then, mortals link the first one with the Bible, and second with the Book of Satan.”
Sabrina is afraid he’s going to say the exact same things as the Father when he tried to trick her into her Dark Baptism, but Nick doesn’t, putting up his usual ‘I’m so smart’ voice. “Well, if you think about it, Satan is definitely a darker guy than the False God, but is he really? He allows murder, he allows sex, he encourages blood, he also encourages free will, though.” Before Sabrina can say anything about that ‘free will’ she is sick hearing of, Nick raises his voice slightly, “Well, not absolutely free. Not until he calls for us, but up to that moment it is free. False God prohibits all of this. Desire, knowledge. He prohibits his people to take the lead over their own destiny, obliges them to submit to him, prohibits his own priests to have children.”
His tone gets angry, the most engaged she’s ever heard him speak. “I told you before that the Dark Lord is the jealous one, but didn’t the False God make his servants watch their families being killed? Didn’t he announce that the love to him must be greater than your love to the people which are closest to you?”
“Do you say he’s also jealous? The False God?”
“You tell me.”
Sabrina remembers herself reading the Bible in the school library. The frustration she felt when people betrayed Jesus, the devastation when his own students turned their backs on him. All those of the False God’s slaves who spent their lives sacrificing themselves, refusing themselves the anger, the desire, the love, even the basics like food. Getting nothing from it but the promise of heaven, always frightened with the promise of hell. Vulnerable to illness, to death and war. If she were to follow the False God, what would she do against the Thirteen and the Red Angel? Pray for him to protect her and her family? Would have he ever listened to her?
She would rather stand face to face with the Red Angel than to wait for someone to show mercy on her and her friends.
“They both certainly do seem pretty evil. Sometimes good too,” Nick finally says. “Your father was the High Priest of the Dark Lord. A brilliant servant to him, but was Edward Spellman evil?”
Nick smiles, she can feel it in his voice. He strokes her back, gently, a calming motion. “It’s not a wonder you feel dark. You just got lots of power from the Lord, Sabrina Spellman.” The way he says her name, just like he just said her father’s, is nice. “More than most of us ever dreamt of getting. You also used it to summon the darkest power there exists. The fire straight from the hell. But you got it to save this city and I don’t think there’s a better reason for that. And by better I mean more good.”
By now it’s completely dark, as the sun have set some time ago. Sabrina hasn’t even noticed when it became like that. The crow croaks somewhere, the wind runs through the forest, making the leaves whisper. It still feels like autumn, but the wind is just a bit colder, reminding of the upcoming Yuletide. Her aunts are probably worried, if even Salem went around to search for Nick. And she is just here, crying on Nick’s shoulder about being able to save Greendale. Stupid teenager.
All her grief seems to be taken away. Maybe it’s some spell Nick has been casting on her, or just his kind, firm presence. Now her heart is numb and empty, tears dried on her cheeks. The feeling seems to return back to her body, her limbs, instead of just being in her chest. She finally feels tired, cold, hungry. Even more miserable, but less desperate.
Nick removes one of his hands and snakes it in between them, touching his slender fingers to where her solar plexus is. “This feeling here, it’s not evil, Sabrina. It’s not darkness. It’ s power.” The same thing Ms. Wardwell told her. “You are free to use it as you wish. Like your father did. Like your aunts do.”
“Until the Dark Lord calls for me.” There’s no sorrow in that anymore. She would have done it again, if she had to, for saving everyone. The life of Greendale was worth her sacrifice. And Nick is right. Her parents probably weren’t there to stop her this time because they knew that was the only way she could have done this. They would have respected her choice.
She wants to sit upright, look at Nick, tell him that she is grateful, but she can’t move. Her whole body is like jelly melting in his arms. Maybe it is his spell. Maybe it’s just time to go home.
“Until then,” Nick says quietly. Then he removes his hand from her chest, putting it under her knees instead. “That’s enough, Sabrina. Let me take you home. Your aunts are worried and you shouldn't miss out on your lessons in the Academy, okay?”
She nods, feeling that there’s no tree under them anymore. Should be some teleport of sorts. There are Ambrose’s and aunt Zelda’s voices, shouting “Sabrina!” And then there’s nothing but quiet darkness of sleep.