Usually it wasn’t, though. Other people who had heard this story, like her former friends back in Chicago, would pile on the questions: Really? Never? That’s so awful. That’s so weird. Did she have a nervous breakdown? Did your father hit her when he got mad? Was there, you know, somebody else? These questions always made Nadia want to scream. She had no answers, none, and Nadia didn’t see why she was responsible for explaining why her mother was such a loser.
Ms. Walsh didn’t ask any more questions. She only nodded. “You don’t have a lot of extracurriculars in your record.”
Nadia had more extracurricular interests than nearly anyone, but witchcraft wasn’t something you could put down in your college application. Honing her skills in magic, reading the ancient books her mother had given to her—it didn’t leave much time for show choir or the debate team. “Guess I’m not a joiner.”
“We should try to get you into something this year, though. To show colleges that you’re well rounded.”
“I’m not even sure I’m going to college. I’d rather look at culinary schools.”
“A chef, huh? You should have told me. If I’d known baked goods were involved here, it would’ve changed everything.”
That was almost funny. Nadia didn’t let herself smile. “Anyway, culinary schools don’t care about extracurriculars. They care about your flaky pie crusts and your béarnaise sauce.”
“You could always go to college and then culinary school.”
“Oh, yeah, more years of school. Fabulous.”
Ms. Walsh cocked her head, studying Nadia closely. “I realize how that sounds. But you strike me as a young woman with a great deal of potential. If you go to culinary school without getting any other education, you’re eliminating a lot of possibilities for your future. Never limit yourself like that.”
“Is this the part where you tell me there are no limits besides my dreams?” Gag.
But Ms. Walsh started to laugh. “Oh, no, Nadia. There are plenty of limits, and trust me, the world will smack you down and teach you where they are. But make the world do that. Don’t do it to yourself.” She snapped the folder shut. “Enough for today. Check in with me soon, okay? And let me know what I have to do to taste this pie crust for myself.”
Bribing school officials with pie: well, there were worse ways to get out of show choir.
The rest of the day passed more or less without incident. Mateo turned out to be in her chemistry class right before lunch. He sat all the way across the room and never even glanced at Nadia—if anything, she thought he was ignoring her—so she only learned two things about him that whole time.
One, his last name was Perez. Two, he apparently had a girlfriend.
Which was disappointing, even if she hadn’t intended on going after him. But not surprising, she told herself. Mateo’s a gorgeous guy, apparently an athlete—plus he goes around saving people from disasters in his spare time. He could be with anybody he wanted. Of course he’s already with someone.
And Elizabeth Pike looked like the kind of someone he’d pick. She was beautiful—not the shallow kind of beautiful most people could buy with stylish clothes and good makeup, but the kind that shone from her even with a bare face and a plain cotton dress. The same fluorescent classroom lights that made everyone else look like zombies made her perfect skin peachy, and her reddish-brown curls shone as if she were in a shampoo commercial. She and Mateo had a lab table together, and she was superattentive to him—watching him almost every moment, sitting in the desk next to his. It was pretty obvious what was going on.
While Mateo never looked over at her, Elizabeth did once. Her blue eyes met Nadia’s steadily. There were no “stay away from my boyfriend” vibes there; she just seemed interested in the new girl. Maybe Mateo told her about the wreck.
And he hadn’t said anything to make Elizabeth jealous. So, okay. Nadia figured at least she knew where she stood.
The mystery of how Mateo seemed to know her would have to remain unsolved. Probably that was something I dreamed up because I was stunned in the wreck, she decided. Something like that.
Her heart told her that wasn’t all there was to it—but her heart told her lots of stupid things these days. Things like Mom will call soon, or You’ll find another teacher in the Craft somehow. She didn’t need to add Mateo will leave his gorgeous girlfriend for you to the list.
Besides, there was that feeling again—that static-electricity feeling that told her magical power was near, very near....
Nadia found herself glancing down at the floor of the chemistry lab, as though she would be able to literally see that force for herself. Which was ridiculous—magic didn’t glow green or anything like that, not unless you were a Steadfast, which she wasn’t. And yet the force was so near—so vivid—
—as though it were directly beneath her feet.
Under the floor of the chemistry lab? Come on. You’re so freaked out about not having a teacher any longer that you’re … making up stuff. Trying to create a crisis where there isn’t one, so you’ll have something to tell Mom that would make her come back.
And yet she felt it. Whatever this odd power was simmering beneath the surface—Nadia couldn’t ignore it. Couldn’t wish it away.
After school, Mateo parked his motorcycle at the bottom of the hill … the Hill, always capitalized by people who lived in Captive’s Sound. This was where the wealthy and privileged lived, in great houses with iron gates. At the very top of the Hill, shining white as though it were made of marble, was Cabot House.
Yours, someday, his father would always say, like that was a good thing. But Mateo found Cabot House creepy as hell and tried to visit as little as possible.
That suited his grandmother fine, most of the time. Mateo wondered if another guest had crossed the threshold of that house anytime in the past five years. Maybe not since Mom’s funeral, and even then, people came more to gawk than to sympathize. Not once had he ever dropped by unannounced.
Today, though—Mateo needed to learn more about what was happening to him, and there was nobody else who could possibly know.
He walked up the Hill. If she didn’t hear the motorcycle’s engine, then she wouldn’t know he was coming, wouldn’t have time to tell the butler not to let him in. The neighborhood was weirdly hushed, as if the residents kept noise out along with the poor people. Jaguars and Mercedes gleamed in the driveways, and more than one person had hedges cut into weird shapes. Who paid someone to cut a bush into a cone shape? Mateo figured that even in a world where he had infinite money, he wouldn’t see the point.