Chapter 13

Chapter 13

W hen I woke the next morning, stiff from being out in last night’s chilly rain, the house was filled with the scent of coffee and woodsmoke. Muffled sounds from the kitchen floated up the stairs: pots and pans clattering, snatches of conversation, the gentle clack of claws on the floor. I swam through memories of last night. It took only a few moments for the enormity of what had happened in the Ravens’ Wood to get me out of bed.

I peeked into Naomi’s room. There was no sign of Becca or Tamsy. As for Pip, he and Apollo were still snoring in my father’s old bed, the griffin’s wing slung over his charge like a feathered blanket. Usually, Apollo and Ardwinna slept together downstairs, but we’d made an exception last night.

As I descended the staircase, the conversation in the kitchen grew louder and more distinct with every tread.

“Ravens and wolves are friends, moonbeam,” Matthew murmured, against a background of whirring and rinsing as he made another pot of coffee. Based on the house’s roasted aroma, it was not his first. Based on what had happened last night, it would not be his last.

I paused, my hand on the banister. Matthew and Becca were both light sleepers and early risers. Part of their father-daughter routine was a daily coffee ceremony, which involved Marcus’s old French siphon coffee maker and whatever light roast coffee Matthew could find in a town like New Haven that preferred cold brews and espresso. The siphon resembled a chemical apparatus, and from it Matthew drew a pure, delicate brew that made Becca feel grown-up without packing a wallop to her finicky digestive system.

“Have you played with ravens before, Daddy?” Becca asked. The squeak of wheels across the floorboards indicated that she was settling Tamsy into the chipped wooden high chair parked in the corner.

“I have,” Matthew replied. “Remember how I worked in the snow so I could learn about wolves?”

Matthew’s tales of the wolves and their pack and hunting behaviors had been an important component of the twins’ early education regarding what it meant to be a vampire.

“Uh-huh,” Becca replied.

“I saw ravens and wolves playing there, dodging and tumbling in the air and on the ground,” Matthew explained. “They were friends and shared meals, and sometimes a raven would adopt a wolf. They would spend lots of time together, and even when the wolf left her family to start her own pack, the raven would go with her.”

This was a story I had not heard before.

“Like best friends!” Becca said. “Like me and Tamsy.”

It was an opportune moment to break the intimate father-daughter bubble. It worried me that Becca felt her closest companion was a doll occupied by the spirit of a dead girl.

“You two are up early,” I said breezily, giving Becca a peck on the cheek. I drew back and spotted something more worrying than the doll.

Becca always wore the key to Tamsy’s Hadley chest on a coral satin ribbon around her neck. This morning, the raven’s ring hung from it, too. The juxtaposition of the coral ribbon, the brass key, and the white-and-dark bone ring sent a shock through me, as though these were signs waiting to be understood.

My fingers itched to consult the black bird oracle, but I’d left the cards in Grandpa Tally’s study, locked within their wooden coffer for safekeeping. Katrina was right; I needed to keep them with me. I wondered how Matthew would react when he saw the full deck, and understood their significance. I’d meant to show him last night, but events had overtakenus.

Matthew was at the stove, stirring oatmeal with a wooden spoon. It was a crisp morning here by the sea, and warm food would be welcome. He smiled, and his eyes lit up as they always did when I entered the room.

“Is that for me?” I said, rising on my toes for a kiss. Matthew tasted of coffee and Darkness, the aftereffects of the wood still with him.

“Of course it’s for you.” Matthew cast his eyes toward the stairs. “And Philip, should he ever wake and join us.”

“Enjoy the quiet while you can.” Stifling a yawn, I rummaged through the tea stashed on the shelves of the old dresser. Did I want English Breakfast? Pu-erh?

Matthew was ahead of me, as usual.

“Already made.” Matthew nodded in the direction of a teapot encased in a crocheted cozy. He ladled oatmeal into a bowl, sprinkling it with cinnamon, walnuts, and blueberries. “Come get your porridge, Rebecca.”

Matthew prepared a second bowl for me, with bananas and walnuts and brown sugar. He knew everyone’s favorite toppings, and we each got a bespoke bowl. Though the scent of coffee might not rouse Pip, the oatmeal likely would.

“I smell breakfast!” Pip pelted down the stairs. “Morning, Mommy!”

I opened my arms. Pip knocked me back in his eagerness to fill them.

“Gently.” Matthew beetled his brows at his son, fixing the third and final bowl of the day.

Pip took two moderate steps in Matthew’s direction and then leaped to pluck his breakfast from his father’s hands. His generous portion of oatmeal boasted a thick swirl of cream and a heavy dose of cinnamon sugar.

Once it was safely in his possession, Pip inhaled the aroma and sighed with reverence. “Thanks, Daddy.”

“You can have a snack, Tamsy. Then we’ll get dressed for our hike.” Becca put a single blueberry and a walnut on the tray in front of her doll.

“What hike?” I spooned oatmeal into my mouth.

“I thought I’d take the children on a walk.” Matthew poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. “I’ve taken a look at Gwyneth’s syllabus and you have a busy day of hexes ahead of you. Ardwinna and Apollo could use some exercise after the long car ride. We will venture forth into unknown lands, and pretend Ravenswood is a map that we must read closely.”

Matthew tousled Pip’s hair, and our son giggled.

“That’s what Tamsy’s grandfather did when he came to Ravenswood,” Becca said, tracing a ribbon of sugar in her bowl. “It was all new and he had to clear the trees and cut the wood to make the house.”

My spoon of oatmeal hovered halfway to my lips. Matthew and I exchanged a worried glance. When the oatmeal finally made it into my mouth, it was difficult to swallow, my throat tight with concern about what information Tamsy was imparting to Becca, now that she was back at Ravenswood.

We chatted easily while the twins finished their meal. Becca was suffering no ill effects from last night’s strenuous play, and Pip—who thrived on any amount of sleep—was energized and curious about the prospect of combing the edge of the property for buried treasure.

When the twins went upstairs to change, Matthew and I tidied the kitchen. We’d learned our lesson and kept our voices low and calm.

“I’m worried about that doll,” I said, running the water full force into the sink to further muffle my words.

“I’m worried about Ravenswood,” Matthew confessed, his expression grim. “Philip is still wary of the place—and with good reason—while Rebecca is already deeply attached to it.”

“Gwyneth will make sure that the children come to no harm,” I assured him. “She’s attuned to everything that happens here.”

“Your aunt didn’t know Rebecca and Philip had run away,” Matthew observed. “Nor that Rebecca had gone deep into the wood, though I suspect that there was nothing she could have done about it.”

I thought of the ring around Becca’s neck, and the easy way she spoke about Ravenswood’s past.

“Becca’s coming into her power.” I wasn’t going to sugarcoat this pill. “She has a talent for higher magic, Matthew, just like me, and Mom, and Dad’s sister. The Congregation is going to recognize she’s suited to the Dark Path the minute they examine her. We can’t prevent that, either.”

Matthew put his back to the sink so that he could meet my eyes. He adopted the stance he usually did when faced with an uncomfortable truth, legs slightly bent and arms crossed over his chest.

“Very well. But Rebecca will make her own choice about whether she wishes to study higher magic,” Matthew warned. “Neither you, nor her DNA, nor the Congregation will decide for her.”

I was stung by his belief that I would force Becca’s hand.

“Higher magic may be an inextricable part of Rebecca’s constitution, and I won’t keep her from it,” Matthew continued. “But I won’t encourage her to pursue it. Neither should you.”

A knock on the screen door interrupted our talk.

“Come in, Gwyneth,” Matthew said, pulling himself away from the counter.

My aunt’s eyes were sharp. Gwyneth had overheard part of our conversation about higher magic, and she wasn’t happy aboutit.

“I promised the children a tour of the Ravens’ Wood,” Gwyneth said. “Is this a good time?”

“Thanks for the offer, Gwyneth, but we’re headed out on a long walk toward the water,” Matthew replied. “Rebecca and Philip require a great deal of exercise, especially when they’re under stress.”

It was not an ideal way to start the day, with Matthew making pronouncements and building defenses around Orchard Farm and the children. But he was on Proctor land, not his own, and it was Gwyneth who ruled here.

“Excellent,” Gwyneth replied. “The quickest way to reach the river is through the woods. I’ll show you the way.”

Check. I was reminded of the de Clermont family’s regret that Matthew was such a terrible chess player. Unlike Philippe, it could be easy to predict my husband’s next move, especially if he was wearing his Master of the Universe cape.

“That sounds delightful,” I said, giving my aunt an appreciative hug and a kiss. “Did you sleep well?”

Becca and Pip had heard Gwyneth arrive, as had Ardwinna, who let out a sharp bark of welcome and plummeted down the stairs. She was followed by a ball of fur and feathers.

“Hi, Aunt Gwyneth!” Becca came next. “Are we going back into the woods? Can I lead the way?”

Matthew might be able to argue with me, but he could not oppose the collective will of two Bright Borns, a deerhound, a griffin, and my aunt. His plans for a family walk, getting the lay of the land and scouting for small rodents and other edibles, vanished into thin air. Coolly, he accepted Gwyneth’s offer.

“We are going back to the wood but this is your aunt’s house, Rebecca Arielle, and she will lead the way,” Matthew said sternly.

“Okay,” Becca replied, slapping a hat on Tamsy’s head and putting shoes on the doll’s feet.

“Can we go now ?” Pip asked, his baseball hat askew.

After a liberal application of bug spray, we trooped toward the trees. The green flies were biting, and the children’s tender flesh would be irresistible to the persistent bloodsuckers.

We took the same path we’d taken to find Becca last night. Tamsy came with us, and Pip hopped alongside Apollo. Ardwinna, who knew all about pack rules and was fully aware of Gwyneth’s position in ours, stuck close to my aunt.

Without the distorting lens of panic, I was able to see the Ravens’ Wood clearly, and better feel its magic. This morning the wood was not a place of nightmares but an enchanted forest from a fairy tale, where Darkness and Light were held in perfect balance and anything was possible.

“Look, Pip. That’s the tree house I told you about.” Becca pointed out a particularly lofty perch with wooden boards that circled the trunk of a stout oak tree like a crow’s nest on a schooner’s mast. Someone had propped a rickety ladder against the rough bark. It was made from fallen tree branches lashed together with rope, the uprights twisted.

“And this is where I want to build a cottage for the fairies,” Becca said, crouching at the base of the tree, where the moss was thickest. She beckoned to her brother. “Come see, Pip. You decide if it’s a good place for a house.”

Eager to share his architectural skills with his sister, Pip raced to the prospective building site.

“This brings back happy memories.” Aunt Gwyneth’s eyes were brilliant with unshed tears. “I never thought I’d see any of Tally’s great-grandchildren here.”

“Becca!” Pip cried in a loud whisper. “I see a fairy.”

“Where?” Becca’s head swiveled like an owl’s.

“There.” Pip pointed to an agitated huckleberry bush. “I think she’s stuck.”

“Let’s rescue her!” Becca said, leaping to her feet.

Happily, the fairy—if indeed there had been one—could not be found, and we resumed our progress through the wood. Gwyneth laid out the rules should the twins wish to return, doling them out one at a time so that Becca and Pip would remember them. My aunt might have retired from teaching, but she had not lost her gift for gauging how much new information a creature could absorb.

“The Ravens’ Wood prefers you keep to the paths,” Gwyneth warned when Becca got entangled with a baneberry bush. The goggle-eyed berries rolled on their bracts in agreement.

“I wouldn’t dig the earth up with that stick, Pip,” my aunt advised. “It disturbs the trees’ roots and they get annoyed.”

Overhead, the limbs of an oak tree whipped this way and that. They quieted as soon as Pip put his digger down.

“You’ll find the river is this way, Matthew,” Gwyneth told my husband when he caught scent of the sea and forged ahead toward the water. “There’s nothing but bog and marsh in that direction.”

Matthew, who was as eager to bash through things as his son and daughter, paused in his tracks. He turned.

Gwyneth pointed to an old sign in the shape of a manicule that read river this way. Foiled again, Matthew pressed his lips into a thin line and stalked ahead ofus.

“Sorry,” I murmured to my aunt. “He likes to be in charge.”

“So do I,” Gwyneth said, blue eyes glittering.

The path to the river wended this way and that so that we headed north, then west, then south around a clump of trees, then north, then east, until I was bewildered and gave up trying to remember how we’d gotten here.

“Just stick to the path and everything will be fine,” Gwyneth said whenever the children asked if we were there yet.

The more often my aunt said it, the more I suspected that there was a deeper meaning to her words.

When at last we reached a bit of solid ground where the Ipswich River touched Neck Creek, we looked out over a complicated maze of estuaries, salt marsh, and streams that ran from inland to the sea. The waterways were crowded with all types of craft from clam boats to sailboats.

“Wow!” Pip hopped with excitement. “Look at them!”

“Your aunt Grace is out there,” Gwyneth said. “Can you see a boat flying a Jolly Roger?”

Mount Holyoke women were part pirate, too. This made perfect sense based on the alumnae I had met thus far.

Though we all searched, we couldn’t find such a vessel. Disappointed, the children now had a chance to focus on their other wants.

“I’m hungry,” Pip said.

“I’m thirsty,” Becca complained.

Gwyneth turned to where a small clutch of houses perched close to a road.

“Looks like Betty’s home,” she said. “We can stop there for a visit before we go back to Ravenswood. And I know another way home, too.”

Betty was pleased to entertain a griffin for the first time, and supplied Apollo with a bowl of birdseed. She gave the children lemonade and lavender shortbread, while Matthew and Ardwinna opted for fresh water, and Gwyneth and I had cups of Earl Grey tea. We spent a pleasant hour with the coven secretary before Gwyneth led us home via the road that passed by the entrance to Ravenswood.

Matthew was eager to get away from my aunt and replenish his patience with something stronger than Betty’s refreshments, but my aunt had one final ace up her sleeve.

“Who would like to see the barn before I take my nap?” Gwyneth asked no one in particular. “It’s where your mom will be studying higher magic.”

The children’s hands shot into the air. Matthew’s lips tightened. His red wine and coffee would have to wait.

“Let’s take a peek inside.” Gwyneth beckoned the children forward toward the sliding doors. “Can you feel something?”

“Not a tingle,” Pip said with a frown. He pushed his finger at the door to be sure. “Ow! That stings!”

“My famous wasp spell. It keeps people from poking their fingers where they don’t belong.” My aunt’s face twisted into a grimace that made both twins laugh. “Make sure you have permission from your mother or me if you want to go inside. If not, you’re going to feel like you’ve stepped on a hornet’s nest.” The look Gwyneth gave Matthew notified him that he was included in this warning.

“Can you help me with the door?” Gwyneth asked my husband sweetly. “It’s quite heavy.”

Gwyneth routinely manhandled the door into place, and if that didn’t work she used a TNT spell handed down through the Finnish witches and quarry workers of Cape Ann, which blew the doors apart while causing minimal damage to the structure and its contents. She was up to something.

Matthew stepped up, happy to save any damsel in distress, and we filed into the barn.

“Whoa.” Rebecca looked around with wide eyes. “There’s more old stuff in here than in Grand-père’s room at Les Revenants.”

Matthew slid the door fully open at that startling announcement, for Philippe’s vast personal library at our house in France qualified as the eighth wonder of the world. It was stuffed with uncatalogued bits and pieces that the de Clermont family patriarch had collected over his very long life.

Ravenswood’s old barn was neither as large nor as imposing as the library at Les Revenants, but it was impressive nonetheless. I smiled at the children’s astonishment and Matthew’s surprise as they examined the riches within.

Becca and Pip raced around, finding the spell-looms and the library ladder. Becca squealed when she located the alchemical laboratory. Pip stared in wonder at the enormous mandrake root atop a cake stand, under its domed glass lid. Matthew examined the old instruments, a fond smile on his face as he remembered our friend Tom Harriot and his love of mechanical gizmos.

Matthew and the children were falling under the Proctor family’s spell, just as I had.

Thunder and lightning! Granny Dorcas’s pipe dropped from her lips, spilling burning tobacco everywhere. She was transfixed by the sight of Matthew and the twins. Babes. And a blood-letch. I saw them in the wood, Gwynie, but never imagined you’d let them in here.

Pip came to an abrupt halt before Granny Dorcas and swept a courtly bow. “I am sorry, Madame, I did not see you. I am Philip Bishop-Clairmont.”

And a very presentable lad, too, Granny Dorcas cooed, disarmed by Pip’s fine manners. She motioned Becca forward. Come here, lass, and greet your old granny. I won’t bite, like yourpa.

“Biting’s not polite,” Becca replied, inching her way toward the rocker. Like Pip, she had been schooled in proper creature behavior by her father and Ysabeau. Politeness was important in the de Clermont family—even if you were stabbing someone in the back, or plotting the ruin of their family.

Then what are you feart of, sprite? Granny Dorcas peered at her granddaughter.

Becca hesitated.

Helter skelter, hang sorrow, care’ll kill the cat, girl. Granny Dorcas patted out a small fire smoldering in her skirts. Spit it out, or it will turn into an evil toad and choke you.

“I beg your pardon, Madame, ” Becca began, “but what are you?”

Granny Dorcas stared at Becca, wide-eyed. Then she tilted her head back and roared with laughter.

I’m your granny, that’s what. Granny Dorcas wheezed and chuckled.

“You smell like a ghost,” Becca replied, wrinkling her nose, “but you don’t look like one.”

“Proctor ghosts aren’t like Bishop ghosts, honey,” I said, putting my arm around her shoulders. There would doubtless be many nighttime metaphysical conversations about the nature of ghosts, why some were nothing but green vapors, and others more substantial. I looked to Matthew for support.

My husband, I saw, would be no help at all. Though he’d seen the ghosts last night, being so close to one again had rendered him mute. He stood, dumbfounded, with John Proctor’s very fine brass gunner’s compendium in one hand, staring at my great-grandmother.

Matthew crossed himself with his free hand.

A blood-letch and a papist to boot! Granny Dorcas angled her head to see him better, enfolding him in pipe smoke. Go on, rapscallion. You know you wantto.

Matthew touched her on the shoulder. He pressed a bit farther, poking his long finger deeper until the tip disappeared into Dorcas’s flesh. He jumped.

Don’t be such a barmpot, Granny Dorcas said. What did you expect? I’m dead, man. And you better get used to it, for I’m not the only ghostie around the place.

Pip and Becca listened attentively to this exchange, squirreling away papist, blood-letch, rapscallion, and barmpot for future use.

Overall, Matthew’s first encounters with the Proctors, living and dead, were going better than I’d feared. Gwyneth was turning out to be something of a mistress of ceremonies herself. I could detect her guiding hand in everything that happened today, as she got Matthew and the children feeling safe and secure at Ravenswood. Becca’s next words made it clear that she was ready to cross over from guest to summer resident.

“Can we stay with Aunt Gwyneth, Daddy, until all the ghosties meet us?” Becca asked her father. She knew better than to wheedle. Instead, she fell back on logic and reason.

“I’d like to play with the ravens again, and pretend I’m a wolf,” she continued. “And there are lots of chipmunks and squirrels in the wood—more than in England, even. We could go on an overnight hunting trip and stay in one of the tree houses.”

Becca, who already showed signs of a Scholastic bent, was mounting an excellent argument in favor of her proposal. Matthew’s efforts to share his medieval education with his children had, like the raven in the wood, come back to bite him.

“I think Philip would prefer to go to England, moonbeam. So would your mother,” Matthew countered.

WouldI?

“I don’t mind. There are woods and fields here.” Pip shrugged. “And Ravenswood already has tree houses. We just need to fix them up and make them nice again. Apollo’s happy to stay, too. He wants to meet the herons who live out there.” Pip used the spell-loom he’d removed from the wall to gesture toward the marsh.

“You mean The Nestling,” Gwyneth said. “That’s where the herons hatch their eggs. We can walk out there at low tide.”

“Tamsy was right, Pip,” Becca said. “Aunt Gwyneth does know how to find the herons, and she said Aunt Julie will take us out there on her boat if the water is too high to walk.”

A touch of magic washed over me, faint but distinctively Becca’s, with its honeysuckle sweetness and blackberry bramble core. With Tamsy in her arms, Becca didn’t need oracle cards. She was relying on the spirit of her ancestor to see the future. I thought of Bridget Bishop, and the poppet the authorities had found tucked into her wall. Perhaps training in higher magic began with dolls, then moved to oracle cards. If so, then Becca was right on track.

“Aunt Gwyneth no doubt has her own summer plans,” Matthew said. “We don’t want to disturb them.”

“This was my summer plan,” Gwyneth replied, squashing Matthew’s penultimate line of defense. “Welcoming you to the family, and showing you the magic of Ravenswood.”

“And learning how to sail,” Pip chimed in, “so Apollo can meet the herons.”

Gwyneth chuckled. “And sailing. And herons. And clambakes. And playing with your cousins. And even going to magic camp, if your parents want some well-earned peace and quiet.”

The prospect of magic camp was met with enormous enthusiasm.

“Settle down, or I’ll use my mother’s troubled waters spell on the pair of you.” Gwyneth waggled a finger for emphasis. “She used it on your grandpa Stephen and aunt Naomi. They were twins, too, and as wild as grimalkins when they were your age.”

“What does the spell do?” Pip asked, wide-eyed.

“It makes you tired for days,” Gwyneth said. “All you’ll want to do is nap, and I don’t imagine you’d like that one bit. You might miss something interesting.”

Matthew laid down what he hoped was his ace.

“Your mother has important work to do in the library,” Matthew said firmly, drawing the discussion to a close. The whole family knew that if I didn’t get regular boosters of the Bodleian’s unique magic, I was no fun at all.

“But I have a whole new library right here,” I said, sweeping my arms out, “just waiting to be explored.”

Matthew’s face darkened like a thundercloud scudding across the marsh.

“I have a lot to learn from Aunt Gwyneth,” I said. “We can all be students together. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

The twins’ nods indicated they agreed. Ardwinna’s tail thumped as she cast her vote to stay where we were.

“Daddy needs to learn about the magic, too.” Becca’s remark was not a question. It was a statement. “He’s a vampire, but he knows a lot of witches. It would be polite for him to understand them better.”

Poor Matthew had been outvoted again.

“I think that’s a grand idea,” Aunt Gwyneth said.

“It’s your decision,” Matthew told me, still hoping I would choose another path.

I weighed familiarity and safety against curiosity and the unknown. I balanced Matthew’s reluctance to uncover the secrets tucked into our children’s lineage against my own horror at the thought that Becca and Pip might be swept up into the Congregation’s desire for power and control. My fingers itched to begin doing alchemical experiments and learning curses—not to mention preparing some adequate wards to use when Meg challenged me at the Crossroads.

“Let it be the twins’ decision,” I said, reminding him of his earlier words.

“Very well,” Matthew said, his expression one of grim resignation. “We’ll stay at Ravenswood. For now.”

There were whoops and hollers from Pip, Becca, and Granny Dorcas. Ardwinna barked along with their exuberant cries. Apollo took flight and soared between the rafters, coming to perch on one of the oak beams.

“Three came by land, and one by sea, and two were already present—blessed be!” Julie beamed at us from the entrance to the barn. She was wearing one of her wide-brimmed hats, knee-length white shorts, and a poppy-red shirt. “What’s all this racket?”

“We’re staying all summer,” Becca said, dancing around Julie. “We’re going to go to magic camp, and Mommy and Daddy are going to magic school—”

“Can we sail on your boat?” Like his father, Pip was dogged in pursuit of his objectives.

“Of course you can!” Julie conjured up two sparklers and gave them to the twins. “That means you’ll be here for the Midsummer potluck.”

“Potluck?” Matthew said, his face blanching.

“All the Proctors on the North Shore get together on Midsummer Eve to celebrate the summer solstice,” Julie explained, conjuring up a couple of additional sparklers. She handed both of them to Matthew. “Here. Take two. It looks like you could use some brightening up.”

“And it’s not just a potluck for grown-ups,” Julie continued, sticking more sparklers through the ventilation holes in her bucket hat. Thankfully, the sparks were made of witchlight, otherwise Julie’s hair would have gone up in flames. “All of your cousins will be there, too. Everybody brings a signature dish, and sometimes all we get is dessert, but nobody minds. There are three-legged races to see who can fly the farthest, and egg-and-spoon games to test your prognostication skills, and cousin Rachel tells fortunes that will make your eyeballs fall out.”

It sounded like a witchy version of the June Fete held at the children’s school in New Haven. Except for the eyeball-popping predictions.

“Which reminds me,” Julie said, handing Gwyneth another sparkler. “I thought we should gather at Ravenswood this year.”

“Absolutely not!” Gwyneth exclaimed.

“It’s been years since we celebrated Midsummer here,” Julie said, her bottom lip pushed out in a pout.

“You children moved out and moved on,” Gwyneth said, “tramping around Europe in the summer instead of staying at home. William has done a superb job hosting the annual picnic.”

“I guess,” Julie said. “But nobody likes his deviled eggs, and he can’t light a clean witchfire so the barbecue always smokes. Besides, his backyard is too small for a proper egg-and-spoon contest, and we have to get in the pickup truck and drive for three miles just to dig for clams.”

Becca and Pip listened to every word Julie spoke, dazzled by the prospect of the wonders in store. Julie had transformed a family reunion into a magical theme park, complete with rides and too much heavy food.

“Julie Proctor Eastey.” Aunt Gwyneth was horrified. “What have you done?”

“Everything!” she said cheerfully. “It won’t be any trouble at all. You won’t have to lift a finger except to put on fairy wings and join the party.”

Gwyneth did not find this reassuring, but it brought the twins to new heights of excitement.

“Can I wear wings?” Pip asked.

“Everybody wears them,” Julie explained, as the children peppered her with additional questions. “Wait until you see Aunt Sally. She looks like a giant bumblebee, but she can still clear the tops of the trees when she flies.”

“It’s too late to change plans,” Gwyneth protested weakly. “William’s already bought the charcoal.”

Matthew, for whom revenge was a dish best eaten cold, smiled with satisfaction as Gwyneth failed to persuade Julie to her point of view.

“Will’s delivering it here tomorrow.” Julie beamed at her aunt. “I told you. Everything’s taken care of. Trust me, Gwynie. I know how to throw a party.”