The Importance Of Power In Mariah Fredericks's Season Of The Witch

I believe that the power among teenage girls is overlooked by many. There has always been a secrecy to the lives of teens and to really experience that feeling, Fredericks helps readers by conveying the intensity of adolescence. In the novel Season of the Witch by Mariah Fredericks, 16 year old Antonia, or Toni, has been branded as the school slut for having an intimate relationship with Queen Bee Chloe’s boyfriend over the summer. But the truth was that she had already broken up with him yet she decided to still cause Toni to suffer through threats and harassment. To retaliate, she forms an alliance with her friend’s cousin, Cassandra, who has also had her fair share of a nightmarish summer. Together they get revenge on Oliver, Chloe, and

With all of her pent up hate, she called Cassandra and told her, “I know what I want…I want her gone forever” (113-114). Her alliance with Cass finally made her feel strong and powerful. She felt like she wasn’t behind Chloe’s bars anymore. But Cassandra took what she said too literal, so the spell that they casted resulted in Chloe losing her life. This brought a lot of pressure onto Toni because she believed that it was her fault. Chloe’s death really turned things around for Antonia and her perspective on her surroundings. She showed this by going to Chloe's service, making up with Isabelle, and even telling Cassandra what they did was wrong. But the most prominent moment where she showed guilt was when she broke one of her glass animal figures that her dad had given her each birthday. She had broken Phoebe the unicorn, who represented Toni’s purity. Breaking it was symbolic to her because she knew it meant that her intentions were no longer pure after she purposely wanted Chloe to be gone forever. “I knew she would break; I wanted her to break. But seeing her destroyed, I burst into tears…Going to the bureau, I try to put her back together. Little Phoebe, my symbol of purity” (152). This demonstrates how Toni felt responsible for Chloe’s death and that she regretted her actions. In the modern world, Toni’s power of hate represents

She told Toni that her reason was that she had always been the one to handle his tantrums, her parents would always rely on her to calm him down. But one night it was the worst that Eammon had ever been before. Cassandra could no longer take any of his whining, his screaming, and his kicking; So she held him down in the bathtub and went to her room with earbuds in to have a moment without the screaming. Eventually she checked on him and found him motionless in the water, “The horror of it jams up in her throat; I can feel it, a ball of sharp, tangled wire cutting her inside. In a shred of a voice she says, ‘ And I just pushed him into the tub and I yelled, ‘Now stay there! You stay there!’ And I went to my room and I put in my headphones because I needed not to hear from him just for a little while and–’” (247). She continued to cry while Antonia did what she could to console her. She had been overstimulated and because of that, all of her rage and hate pent up, causing her to murder her beloved little brother. She also acknowledges the power that had taken over her and it proves that she does feel incredibly guilty, “Do not tell me I didn’t mean for that to happen, I knew. I knew better. I had power and Eammon had no power and I used my power and he died” (247-248). After the event, Cassandra was no longer the same, hence why she took up