Chapter 2

2

A t the top of the narrow staircase was a door painted red, with shiny gold hardware and a tarnished brass plaque on the door that read, “The Vesper Apothecary.” Rhi paused in front of it, and tapped the plaque with her pointer finger.

“Before we bought this building and started Shadowkeep, the Vesper witches ran their business out of Lightkeep Cottage. This is the plaque that used to hang on the side porch,” she said.

“How do customers find it now?” I asked. “You can’t just keep letting them go through the staff entrance. People will notice, won’t they?”

Rhi smirked. “Follow me and I’ll show you.”

And instead of taking me through the door, she squeezed past me back to the landing halfway up the staircase, where there was a small dusty window set into the wall that looked over the side of the building. She gestured me over, and we both peered down into the side garden, which was separated from the sidewalk by a gate and a fence.

“What do you see when you look out this window?” Rhi asked me.

I squinted down through the dusty panes. “I see… grass? And some azalea bushes? A sundial. Sorry, what am I supposed to be looking for?”

“Do you see a way up to this floor?”

I frowned. “I…” I looked again. “No?”

Rhi was grinning now. “Now I want you to think about Lightkeep Cottage… just picture it in your mind in as much detail as you can, and then look out the window, but only from the corner of your eye.”

Bewildered, I did as she instructed. I thought about Lightkeep, about the wide sagging porch, the colorful riot of a garden, the little room where I slept, the way the salty breeze from the ocean whistled around the eaves in a familiar song. Then I looked out the window again and, in my peripheral vision, a staircase had appeared running up the side of the house to the second floor. I blinked and turned to look at it head-on, but it had vanished again. Then I turned to Rhi, my mouth hanging open.

“There’s an invisible staircase?” I asked, my voice rising to a squeak.

Rhi shook her head. “Not invisible. It’s a glamour.”

“What’s a glamour?”

“A glamour changes your perception of the world, rather than the world itself. Most people think of glamour as related to beauty, and it is often used that way—Persi is particularly adept at glamour spells—but it doesn’t always have to do with personal appearance. Often, it simply has to do with desire—what you desire to attract in your life, and what you desire to keep away. In the case of Shadowkeep, we want to keep curious outsiders away from the upper level of the store, while still making it possible for the local witches to find it. So, Asteria put a simple glamour on the building. It’s a spell that tricks your eye into not acknowledging the staircase. It’s not invisible—it simply deflects your gaze. It’s there, but your mind refuses to notice it.”

“And everyone here—all the other witches, I mean—know how to find it?”

Rhi nods. “Over time, a witch becomes more adept at recognizing a glamour. There’s a certain feeling that comes over you, a tingling sort of sensation, like the way the hair stands up on the back of your neck when you’re being watched. It’s easy to miss, but if you’re on the lookout for it, you can often spot it without too much difficulty. Some glamours are more powerful than others, however, and the glamour on Shadowkeep is particularly so. That’s why we have that little trick to get around it.”

As she said it, I looked out the window and saw a woman stopping at the gate of Shadowkeep. She looked familiar—it took me a moment to recognize the stout, swaggering form of my friend Zale’s grandmother, Davina. She opened the gate and stood near the side of the house, still for a moment. From where I watched her, it looked as though she was examining the large lilac bushes that ran along the side of the shop, their blooms drooping and past their prime. Then, a moment later, she charged purposefully up the stairs, passing right by the window where we stood.

“Come on. We’ll need to let her in,” Rhi said, and I hurried up the staircase behind her.

Rhi pushed open the red door at the top of the stairs and revealed a room that was, in many ways, the polar opposite of the room below. Now this was what I thought Shadowkeep would look like on the inside. Shelves ran from floor to ceiling on two of the walls crammed with ancient books, their spines peeling and stamped with titles in runes and symbols and languages I didn’t recognize. Apparently, my four years of public school Spanish had left me ill-equipped for this particular collection. One wall had been turned into a floor-to-ceiling apothecary, with row after row of tiny square drawers. Each drawer bore a circular brass ring as a handle, and also a handwritten label designating the contents. I drew closer to read a few of them: “Powdered Raven’s Claw.” “Bleached Mouse Bones.” “Dried Frog Skin.” I swallowed hard and prayed my magical education wouldn’t mean I had to actually touch any of those particular ingredients.

There were bins and baskets and pottery bowls full of feathers and precious gems and smooth, polished runestones. One shelf held a collection of mortars and pestles in a variety of sizes and materials. I moved closer to a white one to examine it, and felt my pulse speed up.

“Is this one made of…”

“Bone, yes,” Rhi said.

“Human?” My voice rose about an octave and a half on the single word.

Rhi eyed me somewhat warily, as though carefully weighing what she thought I might be able to handle before answering, “Fox, I think.”

I tried to keep my face entirely impassive, but my head swam as I moved away to examine something less disturbing. I may have decided to embrace my witchy heritage, but it was obviously going to take some adjustment.

I had barely a moment to take in any more of my surroundings when a second set of bells jangled, and Rhi hurried over to a door in the back corner of the room. She pulled it open to reveal Davina standing on the landing, arms crossed over her formidable bosom.

“Hello, Davina. How are you?” Rhi asked, as she stood back to let Davina through the door.

“Nae bad,” Davina said with a shrug. She swaggered over the threshold into the room with an appraising glance around. “I dinnae suppose you’ve got any more of Xiomara’s Florida Water? I’ve been by to see her, but it’s the lunch rush.”

“Yes, she furnished us with some new stock just last week, but it always goes quickly. What we’ve got left is over there by the herb-infused candles. I’ll show you,” Rhi said.

I was still staring around at all the labels on the apothecary wall when I heard whispering behind me. Davina was a member of the Conclave. Suddenly, goosebumps were breaking out all over my arms, and my heart began to pound so that my pulse thudded in my ears, which made it hard for me to pick up on anything she and Rhi were saying. I had to take several deep breaths before I could catch even a word.

“…cannae tell you any more except that the Conclave has all but concluded its investigation, and Ostara will let you know when she wants to see you.”

“Surely you can tell me more than that!” Rhi hissed.

“And risk Ostara’s wrath? Not on your life, lassie.”

Rhi glanced over at me, and so I started opening the little drawers in the apothecary cabinet, pretending to be fascinated with the contents, and then losing the thread of their conversation when I found myself momentarily distracted by what appeared to be a pile of bird bones. By the time I recovered, closed the drawer, and tried to listen again, they had moved on to another topic. It took a few sentences before my ear adjusted to Davina’s Scottish cadences again.

“…cannae decide what we ought to do about Bernadette,” she was saying as Rhi nodded along with a solemn expression.

Bernadette Claire. The name sent a shiver of dread down my spine. Bernadette was one of the Claires, the other oldest family in Sedgwick Cove, known as the Second Daughters. When the Vespers had worked to banish the Darkness, the Claires had helped them; but one of their own had fallen to the Darkness and betrayed them all, a woman named Sarah Claire. It was Sarah’s ghost, accidentally dragged earthside by Bernadette’s well-intentioned but dangerous meddling, who had turned Bernadette’s already fragile mind, and weaponized her to kidnap my mother and lure me into a trap. I’d been waiting for news of her for nearly a week, but the Conclave, notoriously tight-lipped at the best of times, had been virtually silent on everything to do with the events on the beach, and that included Bernadette. I shifted myself subtly toward Rhi and Davina, listening hard even as I pretended to still be examining the drawers.

“…but Ostara won’t back down,” Davina was muttering.

“But surely it’s in the best interest of all involved for a Cleansing to take place?” Rhi hissed back.

“Without a doubt, but you know Ostara. Stubborn as a mule, and with a mightier kick,” Davina grumbled under her breath. “We’ll have to sanction her if she does nae relent, but it will nae be pretty. She’s been through the wringer; the whole family has.”

I suddenly felt eyes on me and chanced a glance in their direction. Damn it. I’d been too still, listening too hard, and Rhi had spotted me. She raised her voice again and said, “These are what we have left in stock from Xiomara. Did you have a particular scent in mind? I know you’ve favored the orange and clove in the past, but we’re out of that at the moment.”

After what seemed like an excessive amount of deliberation, Davina settled on a bottle of Florida Water, and Rhi rang her up at the antique brass cash register tucked into the corner under the window. Shards of shattered rainbow light danced all over her pale skin and wild blonde curls, refracted from the crystal wind chimes hanging behind her. She slipped Davina’s purchase into a small cheesecloth bag with drawstrings. She tied it with a ribbon and a sprig of something that might have been rosemary. Davina tucked it into her bag, and with a curt nod in my direction, slipped back out the door and down the hidden staircase.

I pretended to be engrossed in the apothecary drawers so that I could mull over what I’d heard. The Conclave was arguing over what was to be done with Bernadette. It was the first news I’d heard of her since the events of a week ago, despite asking my mom and both of my aunts about it repeatedly. Each time, the answer had been the same: “The Conclave will handle the matter.” Well, it sounded like the Conclave wasn’t handling it at all. And what was a Cleansing? I hadn’t made it past burning scones in my magical education, so it was no wonder I didn’t have a clue. I thought about asking Rhi, but decided against it. She hadn’t wanted me to overhear her conversation with Davina, so I doubted she would answer my question.

Luckily, I knew a few witches who would. But I would have to wait until after the lunchtime rush.

There was no set menu at Xiomara’s Cuban Cafe. You showed up, and they were serving whatever Xiomara decided she wanted to cook that day. Today, according to the Instagram page Eva ran for her grandmother, it was classic Cuban sandwiches, black bean soup, arroz con pollo, pork tamales, and tostones. I could smell the mouthwatering aromas from a block away, and as I turned the corner, and the cafe came into view, I understood why. The line to get in was out the door, which had been propped open to allow for the come and go of satiated customers. It also had the added effect of wafting the enticing aromas of Xiomara’s cooking out into the street.

Xiomara, like my aunt Rhi, was a kitchen witch. They had a playfully antagonistic friendship, trading recipes and spells back and forth, each insisting the other’s were rubbish while secretly enjoying each other’s truly magical—and delicious—gifts. As for the hordes of summer tourists, they didn’t know that Xiomara’s cooking had an element of magic. They simply knew it was some of the best food they’d ever eaten.

I waited for the line to die down, and then slipped inside the cafe to find Eva and another girl handing out to-go orders, and wiping down tables. Eva looked up, and her face split into a grin.

“Hey, there she is—the girl who banished the Darkness!” she said, laughing as she watched my face turn beet red.

“Yeah, I’m thinking about putting it in my social media bio,” I said, attempting a level of cool I definitely couldn’t achieve. “By day, theater nerd. By night, banisher of ancient evil. What do you suppose the post-graduate job market is like for a skill set like that?”

“Hm. Limited. You should probably study accounting or some shit,” Eva said, nodding sagely. “Have you eaten yet?”

She didn’t even wait for me to answer, ducking immediately through the door behind the counter and shouting something in Spanish as she went.

I felt the distinct impression of eyes on the back of my head, and turned to see that the younger girl who had been wiping down tables was staring at me. She dropped her gaze the moment I turned, fumbled her bottle of spray cleaner, and dropped it. It rolled under the nearest table, and she ducked down to retrieve it with a squeak of embarrassment. The bottle continued to roll, coming to a rest right against my sandal. I bent down and picked it up, noticing that the girl was still under the table, frozen like prey that had scented a predator.

“Uh, here you go,” I said, holding the bottle out to her. Blushing furiously, she reached out from under the table and took the bottle with a shaking hand.

“Thanks,” the girl whispered. She had Eva’s prominent cheekbones and pointed chin, and looked to be about nine or ten years old. Her hair had been beautifully braided, with blue beads affixed to the ends that clicked together quietly as she moved. I wanted to know if she was Eva’s sister, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask the question; she looked so flustered to be talking to me. Luckily, at that moment, Eva backed through the door from the kitchen with two heaping plates of food in her hands, and a knowing smirk on her face.

“You know, Bea, if she wanted to banish you too, I don’t think hiding under the table would stop her,” Eva teased. She set the food down on a table in the corner and wiped her hands on her apron. “Why don’t you stop hiding and I’ll introduce you properly.”

Bea, her face scarlet with mortification, crawled out from under the table, looking anywhere but at me. “I wasn’t hiding. I dropped the spray bottle,” she muttered.

“Whatever. Bea, this is Wren. Wren, this is Beatriz, the bane of my existence, and also my baby sister,” Eva said, but her voice was full of teasing affection.

“Nice to meet you, Bea,” I said, smiling warmly, but Bea still looked like she wanted to flee the room. She nodded at me and then returned to wiping down tables.

“Don’t mind her; she’s just a little starstruck,” Eva said, rolling her eyes and pulling out a chair so we could sit together.

“Are you sure that’s it?” I asked, watching Bea out of the corner of my eye. “Because it looked more like abject terror.”

Eva shrugged as she bit into her sandwich. “What can I say? You’re a local badass now.”

“But like… is that the vibe now? People are scared of me?” I gasped. “Eva, I can’t even follow a magical scone recipe.”

Eva batted my words away like insects. “Okay, first of all, baking is hard. Xiomara has tried to teach me, and I just don’t have the patience for it. Not all kinds of magic are for all witches, and it’s not a reflection on you if you have to try out a few before you find one that vibes with your powers. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said, not because I believed it but because she was trying to help.

Eva narrowed her eyes at me like she knew exactly what I was thinking, but she chose to let it go and continued, “And secondly, chill. It’s just because the Conclave has been so tight-lipped about everything that happened on the beach. No one knows what’s a rumor and what’s the truth.”

“What kind of rumors?” I asked. My stomach had been rumbling a moment ago, and now I wasn’t sure I could eat even a bite of the sandwich in front of me.

Here, Eva gave an uncomfortable little squirm. “Nothing specific. Just… people speculating. You know how people are. They love to form opinions about things they know absolutely nothing about.”

“And those opinions are…?” I prompted.

Eva smiled grimly. “That you are some incarnation of or tool of the Darkness, and that your power is unhinged and dangerous, and we should probably all be scared of you?”

I swallowed hard. “Right. Cool. So, normal new kid stuff, then.”

Eva reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, shaking it in a congenial way. “People are idiots. And hey, it could be worse. You could be Nova.”

Nova Claire was Bernadette’s niece. From the moment we’d met, she’d had a certain resentment toward me—a resentment born of the fact that I was one of the First Daughters who had saved Sedgwick Cove, while she was a descendant of the woman who had nearly allowed the Darkness to triumph all those centuries ago. It was an unfair burden to carry, that kind of generational guilt, and having me around was a constant reminder of it. We’d walked away from the events of last week on okay terms—and I’d done everything I could to assure her that she was forging a new legacy for her family, but it had been radio silence ever since. It wasn’t that I thought we’d become instant best friends or anything like that, but I had hoped, after everything we’d been through at the lighthouse, that we might find our way to friendship. Now, I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.

“Are people talking about her too?” I asked.

Eva rolled her eyes. “Very few people have the guts to criticize the Claires publicly—they’ve got too much money, too much clout. But behind closed doors, yeah, I think a lot of people are judging the whole Claire Coven based on Bernadette’s actions.”

The shift in conversation opened a direct path to what I’d wanted to ask Eva about in the first place, and so, though I still very much wanted to torture myself with specifics about local gossip, I forced myself to satisfy a more pressing curiosity.

“I just came from Shadowkeep, and Davina came in there,” I began.

“You haven’t touched your sandwich. Do you want something else?” Eva interrupted.

“No, no, this is great. Sorry, I’m just distracted,” I said, picking up the sandwich and taking a bite to appease her. Then I groaned as the flavors exploded in my mouth. “Oh my God.”

Eva grinned. “I know, right? Every time she makes them, we sell out. Sorry, you were saying something about Davina.”

“Right,” I said, around another mouthful. “I overheard her mention something about Bernadette, and how the Conclave hasn’t been able to make a decision about her because of Ostara. She said they want to perform a Cleansing.”

Eva shook her head, looking disgusted. “Typical. Of course, Ostara would hold them up. Anything to shift the focus off of the Claires. No wonder Xiomara has been so short-tempered. I thought she was worried about something, but when I asked her about it, she just told me to mind my business and make more tostones.” She picked up a tostone and popped it into her mouth.

“But what is a Cleansing?” I asked. “What exactly are they trying to get Ostara to agree to?”

Eva threw a glance over at Beatriz. She had gone quite still, listening hard while she wiped the same spot on the same table over and over again.

“Bea, why don’t you go see if Xiomara needs help with any online orders?” Eva said.

Bea jumped at the sound of her name, and though she threw her sister a frustrated look, she did as she was told.

“Bea’s a good kid, but she scares easily. I don’t need her crawling into my bed with nightmares for the next week,” Eva muttered, watching Bea disappear through the swinging doors into the kitchen.

“Why would a Cleansing give her nightmares? What is it?” I pressed.

“When a space or a person or an object seems to have a negative energy associated with it, a witch will sometimes perform a Cleansing to get rid of that energy,” Eva said.

“Oh.” I felt almost disappointed. “So like, when people use sage in their house, stuff like that?”

“Sage is a well-known traditional method of Cleansing, yes,” Eva said, nodding. “It also happens to be very effective when done correctly. But there are lots of different kinds of Cleansings, lots of different rituals and traditions from all over the world. Sage smudging is a Native American tradition, and other cultures have their own practices. But sweeping away a bit of bad vibes in your new apartment is one thing. The deeper and more insidious the negative energy, the harder it is to get rid of.”

I felt my stomach do a flip. “And in this particular case, the negative energy is the Darkness.”

To my surprise, Eva shook her head. “I mean, I guess it’s possible, but I don’t think so. From what we saw, I’m not sure that Bernadette was ever in the Darkness’ thrall. It wasn’t directly from the Darkness that she was taking orders, remember?”

“Oh. OH.” The bit of sandwich I was holding slipped right through my numb fingers and onto my plate. “So then, the negative energy is the spirit of Sarah Claire.”

“Bingo,” Eva said. “Yet another Claire. No wonder Ostara wants to shift the blame elsewhere.”

We sat quietly for a minute or two, listening to the clanking and sizzling sounds emanating from the kitchen, punctuated by snatches of song in Xiomara’s rich, husky voice. Another few customers came in, and Eva jumped up to get their orders, which left me free for a few minutes to process everything Eva had told me. I honestly hadn’t thought at all of Sarah Claire since that night, which was foolish, I supposed, and yet somehow unsurprising. After all, Sarah had been an almost invisible presence that night. If it hadn’t been for Bernadette communicating with her, I wouldn’t have even registered that Sarah was there. She hadn’t appeared in any sort of physical form. She hadn’t made contact with me in any kind of tangible way. She had been merely a theoretical threat—the mysterious spirit that would take over my mother’s body once Bernadette had killed her. But once we’d struck our bargain—my life for my mother’s—all thought of Sarah Claire had evaporated. She had become, at least for the moment, irrelevant. But if she’d been powerful enough to influence Bernadette and, therefore, help orchestrate the events of that night, she was dangerous enough to still be wary of. I felt her land on the heaping pile of anxieties already crowding my brain, and sighed. I ought to have been worried about her all along. I thought about the past few days: how Rhi had distracted me with books and introductory lessons, how my mom had kept us mind-numbingly busy with packing and unpacking, and finally, I recognized it for what it was.

“That night on the beach, it felt like the end of something scary,” I said to Eva as she ushered the customers out and slid back into the seat across from me. “Everyone’s been trying to push me forward so that I wouldn’t look back, but the truth is that it wasn’t the end at all. It was the beginning, wasn’t it?”

I looked up and caught Eva’s eye. She didn’t look away. She didn’t even blink.

“I’m no oracle, but I’m afraid so,” she said. “Hence why I kick my scaredy-cat sister out of the room every time we talk about it. Everyone’s on edge, worried about what will happen next. I know she picks up on it. And she’s even more anxious than your average kid because she hasn’t really found her magic yet.”

“Found her magic?”

“Yeah, you know, her spark, her affinity. I’m sure you’re learning all about it now. Every witch is drawn to some kind of magic—think of it like your own personal talent. Bea hasn’t found hers yet. It makes her even more anxious, knowing that she can’t defend herself the way another witch might be able to.”

I swallowed hard. I knew how she felt. Here I was, simultaneously untrained and yet, by all accounts, very powerful. I felt exposed, undefended, like someone trying to navigate their way through a hostile new place with a blindfold on.

There was a pinging sound, and I snapped back out of my thought spiral. Eva reached into her pocket for her phone, and checked her notifications. “It’s Zale. He wants me to come help him with Litha pageant preparations.”

“Litha?” I asked.

“Midsummer. The summer solstice,” Eva said, and her eyes lit back up with an excited sparkle. “Didn’t you notice the banner? It’s one of Sedgwick Cove’s biggest events of the year!”

“Oh, no, I didn’t, I… sorry, I’ve been a bit preoccupied,” I said. Uprooting my entire life. Recovering from a brush with the deepest evil. Seeing my dead grandmother in the garden.

“Well, don’t worry, you’ll soon know more about it than you’ve ever wanted to,” Eva said with a laugh. “Why don’t you come to the meeting tomorrow night at the playhouse? Zale has bitten off way more than he can chew, and he’s gonna need all the help he can get.”

Suddenly grateful for a distraction, I nodded. “Yeah, okay! What time?”

“Seven.”

“I’ll be there. What are you all planning?”

Eva’s smile broadened into a grin. “You’ll see.”