Like, say, her witchcraft supplies.
I could come up with an explanation for the glass jars, like, they were for makeup or something, Nadia mused as she unwrapped them from wads of newspaper. But the powdered bone? Forget it. Dad would probably think I was on drugs.
It felt stupid to have kept everything. Without Mom, there was no hope of continuing her training; witchcraft was a closely held secret, passed down between female relatives in the rare bloodlines that had the power. Mom had never revealed the other members of her coven to Nadia—which was just how things were. Nadia wouldn’t have expected to learn any of their names until she was a true witch herself and able to join the coven in her own right.
Still, she’d thought one of them might reveal herself after the divorce—come forward and offer to teach Nadia, or at least give some advice—
But nothing. Mom probably hadn’t even told them that she’d abandoned her own daughter half-trained, with only enough knowledge to get herself in trouble, not nearly enough to solve any of her problems.
No matter how good a student she’d been, no matter how hard she’d worked her whole life—Nadia would never get to become a witch now. Mom had taken that with her, too.
Even as her throat tightened with unshed tears, Nadia tried to snap herself out of it. You know enough to do some things. It’s still useful, right?
Useful enough to get us in a car crash. If I’d faced facts and ditched my Book of Shadows—
But no. She could never do that. A Book of Shadows—even one as new as hers—had power. You couldn’t leave that lying around. And she didn’t have the heart to destroy it.
Despite everything, Nadia didn’t have the heart to walk away from the Craft yet.
As she thought of the wreck, the images of that night swept over her so vividly that it was like she was back there in that ditch. The way the storm had crashed and rolled overhead. The terror of feeling herself sliding down into the cold muck, not knowing whether she could escape.
And Mateo’s face, outlined by lightning, as he reached in to save her—
Nadia’s breath caught in her throat. Who was he? And how had he known her?
But that wasn’t the biggest mystery of that night, and Nadia knew it. The biggest mystery was—who had put up that magical barrier around Captive’s Sound?
And why?
“Make a Mickey Mouse one!”
Nadia poured the pancake batter into three circles, two small ones for the ears and a big one for Mickey’s face. “No whipped cream for the smile today, buddy, but you’re going to eat him too fast for that, anyway, aren’t you?”
“Definitely.” Cole walked to the kitchen table with his glass of milk—way too full, Nadia saw, but he didn’t spill any.
“What’s this?” Dad came into the kitchen of their new house; he was moving easily now, without pain, but the stark white of his bandages still showed through his dress shirt. “I was going to make you guys breakfast. To celebrate the big day.”
“Nobody celebrates the first day of school,” Cole said as he took his seat, tiny sneakered feet now dangling above the wood floor. He was in such a good mood—so confident and easygoing—and Nadia and her father exchanged a look. Cole was finally doing better; maybe the fresh start was working precisely like they’d hoped.
“Making breakfast is no big deal,” Nadia said. “Anyway, I’m a better cook than you, and you know it.”
Dad nodded, acknowledging this, as he took his seat. “But how else am I going to learn?”
Cooking wasn’t a chore for her; it was a hobby, even a passion. She’d filled some of the hours that had once gone to her witchcraft lessons with studying cookbooks and experimenting. Still—one way or the other, she wouldn’t be at home full-time after graduation, so maybe she ought to teach him a few things, just to make sure they wouldn’t starve. “I’ll give you lessons. Wait and see.”
Although Dad looked like he wanted to protest, he’d also caught sight of the bacon she’d put on the table. Distraction provided; discussion over.
The kitchen in their new house was one of the few things about it Nadia didn’t like. In their Chicago condominium, they’d had the best and brightest appliances her father’s big law-firm salary could buy, and oceans of counter space. Here, everything was old-fashioned and a little shabby. But what she disliked in the kitchen was precisely what made the rest of the house so awesome. It was an old Victorian, two stories not counting the large attic she’d claimed as her private space—the perfect hiding place for her Book of Shadows and the supplies for her magic. She’d expected Cole to pitch a fit, but he was so thrilled by having a real, true backyard of his own that he showed no signs of coming indoors of his own free will ever again. The oaken plank floors creaked comfortingly, and a stained-glass window let cranberry-tinted light into the stairwell. If it was all slightly run-down, it was also beautiful—and as big a change from their high-rise condo as she could imagine.
Nadia didn’t want any reminders of their life before. She wanted to seal her family into a place where nothing could hurt them—not memory, not her mother, not whatever weird magic was at work in this town. This house seemed to provide a chance, and she knew just enough of the Craft to help that along.
So she’d whispered the spells, encircled it with the best protection she knew. She’d slipped out in the night to bury moonstones next to the steps; she’d begun the work of painting the attic ceiling blue. To make it cute, she’d told her dad. The real power of that particular shade, what it meant for a home to be protected from above—those were things he never had to know.
Great, Nadia thought as she stared at her new high school, Isaac P. Rodman High. Just great.
Just the fact that it was a high school was bad enough. On top of that, it was a new school for her senior year. She’d accepted they needed the move, but that didn’t mean she was looking forward to navigating completely new people and teachers and cliques for the nine and a half months before she’d graduate and be free again. Her new school was far smaller than the one she’d attended in Chicago, but in some ways that was more intimidating, not less. Everyone here knew one another, and probably had for their whole lives. That made her the odd one out.
But beyond that, there was something else. Something shivering just beneath the surface—once again, something magical, though it was different from anything else she’d ever known. Precisely how it was different, she couldn’t say, but this energy was familiar and unfamiliar at once. Nadia could feel it coursing all around her, that static-electricity thing all over again.