Chapter 1

Chapter

One

T he house on old Willow Grove Lane is where Aimee and I practice our magic in hopes of passing our final exams to become witches. It’s been a part of the coven’s circle for a century at least. Probably longer. It’s a black house with white shutters, and it was black long before anyone considered that a good color for housing.

It’s a modest two story with an attic and nooks and crannies, built in shelves and hiding spaces. I learned long ago that my mother knew them all.

Now, I live in the house with my mom, my sister Aimee, and our fickle feline Auda.

Today, Mom isn’t home and Aimee is in the attic waiting for me. We’re “crafting” as far as Mom knows. And neither of us is going to tell her any different. If she ever catches a whiff of our real intentions, it’s going to be over really quick because strict and iron-fist are her middle names. She’ll finish both of us.

Mom isn’t a woman who suffers liars or sneaks. And we’re not trying to be either, but desperation made us be the first, and the first made us into the second.

Mom has rules. Strict ridiculous rules for dealing with us. I’m nineteen years old for fuck’s sake. Aimee is twenty-one. But our mother takes it so personally when I break one of her edicts or when I drag Aimee into breaking one with me. Goodness knows Aimee would never break one on her own. She just doesn’t have defiance in her.

I, on the other hand, have never found a rule I won’t break, or at least bend to a solid ninety-degree angle. My motto is, and has always been, that it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

“RJ, it’s about time. I’ve been waiting an hour for you.” She shakes her head like she’s exasperated. But she points to the table. “I set up the glue gun over there.”

Aimee is standing near the window by the wall panel where we hide all the stuff we have to keep from our mother, but most importantly the grimoire we found.

She waves to a card table we’ve set up so that if Mom comes in, it’ll be the first thing she sees. It’ll give us time to hide what we’re actually doing before she finds us doing what we’re not supposed to at all. Ever.

I pull two rhinestone bedazzled oven mitts from a large brown envelope I told Mom was crafting supplies—which is only half a lie. I ordered the mitts already decorated online so they can sit on the table with the glue gun. It’s a shame we have to lie to her, but she isn’t the kind of parent who would understand. So now it’s all a matter of making the lie believable and hoping if she ventures up here she’ll be so wowed by “our” good work that she’ll stop to look, might even think we’re being productive, and it will give us an extra second to stow whatever it is we’re really doing. It’s the thought, anyway .

Well, my thought, the one I convinced Aimee to go along with. She’s the older sister, the smarter sister, the sister who has all the skills, and I’m the one who makes sure that she’s safe and sound, protected and included. She doesn’t give anyone any shit and I don’t take any.

We each have our roles to play—she’s the good girl and I’m…me.

She lives hers, and I play mine, usually out of necessity.

Aimee glances at me as I set the oven mitts on the table and walk back to where she is. “Well?”

She knows what I’m asking. I need to know if it’s the grimoire that’s faulty or if it’s me. I’m not usually afflicted with self-doubts. That’s more her thing, but our lives are on the line. Well, mine. She’ll do fine, I’m sure.

“I don’t know, RJ.” She pulls a lipstick-stained napkin from the cubby in the wall where we keep the grimoire when we aren’t using it. “Try the cleaning spell again.”

I’ve gone over it a thousand times. I know the spell by heart. But there’s a block somewhere. And maybe it’s something with the magic, but I doubt it. It works some of the time. Usually when Aimee is around to give me confidence to do it right. When she’s out of the room, I screw it up. I don’t know what I’m doing differently so I’ve decided it has to be the grimoire. It can’t be that I’m so dependent on my sister I can’t do magic without her. It cannot.

“Look, I’m gonna be right here.” She points at a spot beside the cabinet where we are doing the real work we hide up here from Mom. Then she smiles like it’s going to give me the needed boost of magic.

I take the napkin. I know what she wants me to do with it, and I shouldn’t be scared. I don’t get scared. And we’ve already established that in this room, with her beside me, the magic never fails .

But it’s failed enough without her that I’m worried. I don’t fucking like it, so I wipe those thoughts away and focus.

And refocus.

Focus again.

She huffs out a loud, exasperated sigh, snatches the napkin out of my hand, and spreads it on the cabinet’s white marble top. Then she gives me her get with it look. It’s a combination of one cocked brow and the tight line of her lips. It means business as much as she does.

I breathe in deep, blow it out slow, find my magic center, and rub my hands together. Magic is about being connected to my body, controlling my thoughts and my power. That’s what Aimee says anyway.

So, I give it a go. And the stain lifts. Like magic. Floats through the air then disintegrates with a pop.

“RJ!” She squeals and claps her hands together, even gives a quick jump that shakes the floor in the loft.

“Shh! If Mom hears us, you know she’s going to take the book…” I motion to the grimoire we found hidden in a loose panel in the wall. I love Mom, but I might love the book more since I’ve learned more from the book than I have in five years at the Institute where our mother is an alumna.

She quiets down but comes toward me, squeezing my biceps in her hands. Her nails dig into my skin, and I pull away. “What’s wrong, RJ? You did it!”

Yeah, I did it. I did it because she was standing right beside me, her presence, her confidence in me feeding my magic. That’s the only explanation I can think of.

“Try it again.” This time she pulls a tube of lipstick from her pocket and writes clean me on the napkin.

The stairwell to the loft is in what I call a noise tunnel. The slightest creak of the hinges on the door below is amplified by the close walls and short angled ceiling so that it sounds like a cannon going off through the tunnel. Then there’s a door at the top of the stairs that leads to the loft itself.

The loft is mostly just old junk accumulated by generations of our family living in a house since it was built. Mom calls them heirlooms, but it is mostly junk.

Things like a couple old sewing machines that need refurbished. The mannequin I’m sure was used by the family sewer—whoever he or she was. A baby cradle that may have been mine, or Aimee’s, or belonged to a hundred other family kids before us. Some old trunks full of antique clothes and blankets that even the moths didn’t care to eat. And photo albums.

Of course, we found the grimoire up here, so the place isn’t all useless antiquities. But it gives us a dedicated area to work and practice, and with our final witch exam coming up, it’s ever more important that we do so.

How am I in Aimee’s classes even though I’m younger? Well, it’s not because I’m some spellcasting genius, that’s for sure.

It’s because of connections, biases, and maybe a bit of nepotism.

Since Mom has history with the Institute, I was allowed to start classes at the same time as Aimee. So I’m younger than everyone else here, my magic lacking in areas, but my sister tries her best to help me stay afloat.

Before Aimee’s finished laying the napkin out a second time for me to clean it, the hinges below squeal and Mom’s footsteps pound up the stairs.

Aimee panics. She stuffs the napkin down her shirt so it looks like she’s grown a third boob, and she slides the grimoire onto the seat of her chair, instead of simply opening the cabinet and stuffing the napkin in the grimoire and the grimoire in the cabinet. She’s making things more complicated than they have to be, but I don’t have time to tell her before Mom reaches the top step.

By the time the door swings open, we’re holding our bedazzled oven mitts and Mom’s eyes widen and her smile spreads across her face. She’s one of those women who gushes about her kids, the kind of woman who brags about her girls when she’s with her friends. Aimee, as the good one, always makes sure she has something to gush about. Because she’s the better of us, she also makes sure that Mom’s bragging includes me. Lying to Mom is killing her.

Mom walks in. The trust she has in us built up over years is shining in her eyes. “Those are gorgeous.” So the gushing begins. “So much attention to detail!” She turns one over in her hands, inspecting the details. “This is some fine craftsmanship girls.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I murmur when Aimee doesn’t look up. I would roll my eyes at her guilt complex, but it would make her feel worse and I don’t know that I’ll be able to work her through it if she slips any deeper into it.

“You could sell these on eBay or Etsy.” She holds mine up and slides her hand in then holds her arm at a forty-five-degree angle and twists it back and forth, letting the silver rhinestones catch the light. “But won’t the rhinestones fall off in the heat of the pans?”

She has a point. And I don’t know how to counter that more than to say, “They’re for decoration.” Obviously.

The smile she flashes isn’t the RJ is about to have a tantrum one she sometimes has no choice but to use. It’s genuine. A for-Aimee smile.

I don’t sigh out loud, but my soul is sighing down deep .

“I’m so proud of you girls.” She hugs Aimee, who is one gush away from cracking under the pressure.

“Thanks, Mom.” I say it loud enough to snap Aimee out of her guilty trance. She wants the grimoire magic as much as I do. She just isn’t as sure about lying to Mom as I am yet. But she will be when she realizes that the grimoire is going to be the thing that takes us to the next level.

“I won’t bother you, then. You girls seem busy.” Mom backs out of the room, eyes trained on us but a smile plastered on her face, and shuts the door.

“That was close,” I say, but I chuckle.

Aimee nods. “Yeah. Let’s get to it before she comes back.”

Our final exam is coming up. We’re fifth-year students at the Institute for the Arts and Sciences of Magic. But if we don’t pass the final exam, there are no do-overs. No second chances.

I’m okay at potions. Mostly. I follow the grimoire, the same as Aimee, but when I practice without her, it never goes well. Once, the potion bubbles ate the swoosh right off my running shoes.

I don’t know why I can’t work spells and potions at will.

“Maybe we should find some of the others to study with, RJ. Maybe they can see something I can’t.” I know that she’s trying to be helpful. She wants me to pass as badly as I want to because Aimee is a person who genuinely cares about others.

But I don’t want anyone to see me struggle, and I sure don’t want to fail in front of anyone who isn’t required to love me.

“Maybe.” I hate this.

She turns to me again. “And maybe we should tell Mom. ”

That’s it. She’s out of her mind.

“Aim, no way. We aren’t supposed to be practicing magic outside of the Institute. You know how she is. And she’ll lose her shit. Probably kill us.” And by us, I mean me.

“She might be able to figure out your magic block.” It’s a reasonable thought. Probably makes sense, but the last person in the world I’m ever going to be able to stand to disappoint is my mother.

“I’ll figure it out on my own.” And nothing is going to stand in the way of that either.