Verlaine leaned over the table, obviously starting to digest everything Nadia had told her. “So, you don’t look like a witch.” She glanced around, but the din of laughter, conversation, and jukebox music made it obvious they wouldn’t be overheard. “Either the haglike, warty, green variety or the mystical pagan sexpot variety.”
“Uh, thanks, I guess.”
“You’re not going to try to recruit me, are you? Is this one of those things where you learn about the witchcraft and then, that’s it, you’re trapped in it for life?”
“No. I can tell you about it, and that’s fine. But you really shouldn’t tell anyone else.” There were spells Nadia could use to make sure Verlaine didn’t tell anyone—spells of silencing or forgetting—but they were drastic measures. Messing with another person’s head that way was nasty work, something you only did if you had no other choice.
But Verlaine said only, “Who could I possibly tell? Nobody would ever believe me.” Then she frowned. “Wait. You can teach me some spells, right? Without me being sworn to witchcraft for eternity or anything. I really want to stress that last part.”
“It’s too late for me to teach you,” Nadia said.
“You mean—too late today, or what?”
“I mean, too late ever.” Nadia made the words as gentle as she could. What would it be like, to discover that witchcraft was real but you were left out? “You have to start learning in childhood. The earlier the better, my mom always said. And not every girl can be a witch. If witchcraft doesn’t run in your family, you probably don’t have the blood for it. And even if you did, by now, you would have lost the potential.”
“Oh.” Verlaine frowned. “That leaves you with the power, then, doesn’t it?”
“Pretty much.” It was the truth; why should she apologize for it?
“How do I know you won’t turn me into a newt or something?”
“Honestly, where are you getting this? Listen. Most of what’s in pop culture about witchcraft is crap. What I practice doesn’t have anything to do with being Wiccan, either; that’s a religion of its own. I think the Craft I practice might have been linked to it way back when, but they parted paths a long time ago. And in neither of those is there any turning people into newts.”
Verlaine didn’t seem comforted in the slightest. “I wasn’t specifically afraid of newthood. What I mean is, it’s kind of freaky to know somebody has power over you that you can’t understand.”
Nadia shrugged. “Yeah. It throws a lot of people off. Which is exactly why we try to keep it secret. But you wanted to know. And now you do.”
After an awkward pause, Verlaine said, “Okay, no newts. But what kind of stuff can you do?”
Nadia felt weird—beyond weird—talking about this with someone who wasn’t a witch herself. Mom was the only witch she’d ever known well; Grandma had been in the Craft herself, of course, and had taught Mom, but she’d died when Nadia was eight and had learned only the basics. Not every witch was so isolated—some cities and even small towns had active communities—but Mom had stuck to her one secret coven in Chicago. Nadia had never been introduced to them, and had not expected to be; usually you only met witches outside of your family once you were grown and fully possessed of your power. And while it wasn’t forbidden to reveal witchcraft to a woman who didn’t practice, it was something you were supposed to do as little as possible … which Nadia now understood completely.
Secrecy is important, Mom always said. Secrecy is what protects us from the ignorant and the hateful. Secrecy is the first and most precious rule.
Well, Mom always said she loved us forever, Nadia thought savagely. So who cares about her rules?
“The only real limit on what a witch can do is how much she’s learned so far,” Nadia said. “Well, that and the First Laws, of course.”
“What are the laws?” Verlaine asked. But that was the moment the waiter strolled up to their table.
“Hello there and welcome to …” Mateo’s voice trailed off as he recognized them; his eyes widened as they met Nadia’s. But he barely paused in his spiel. “La Catrina.”
“You work here?” Nadia asked, then felt stupid. He wasn’t walking up to their table in a black apron because he was trying to set a fashion trend.
“This is my dad’s restaurant. I help out after school, on weekends—that kind of thing.” Mateo took out his order pad and stared down at it as if he was unwilling to meet her eyes one moment longer. “What can I get for you guys?”
“Not dinner, sorry. Maybe some salsa and chips, though,” Verlaine said cheerfully. “Oh, how about two virgin margaritas? What do you think, Nadia?”
“Sure.” Nadia never stopped looking at Mateo; he never looked back at her.
“Got it,” Mateo said, scribbling it down. “Have that right out to you.”
As he walked away, Nadia said, “Did it seem like Mateo was, I don’t know—trying to ignore me?”
“He always ignores me. Which makes him one of the nice guys. I mean, at least he’s never mean to me.” Verlaine stopped. “Wait. How do you know Mateo? I thought you just moved to town.”
“I don’t know him, really. But I met him when—when he pulled me out of a car accident.”
“What?”
Nadia retold the whole story while Verlaine stared, open-mouthed. Only when it was all over did Verlaine manage to say, “That is wild.”
“I wish I knew why he acted like he knew me that night,” Nadia said. “Or why he acts like he wishes he didn’t know me now.”
“Well, probably because he’s crazy.”
With a shrug, Nadia said, “Like all guys are crazy?” The ones she liked never seemed to be the ones who liked her.
“No, I mean, crazy crazy.” Verlaine glanced over her shoulder to check for Mateo. “I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings. Like I said, he’s always been nice enough to leave me alone. But his mother was a Cabot, and everybody knows all the Cabots eventually lose their minds. It’s the family curse.”
Nadia didn’t hear those words; she felt them. Literally felt them as a sudden sickening drop in her belly, like she was riding a roller coaster that had started to plunge downward. “What did you say?”