She exchanged a brief look with my mother and tossed a file on the desk, right under Lois’s nose.
Lois jumped.
“I’ve got this,” the suit told her curtly. “Take a break.”
“But—but I was just—”
“Break, Lois. Now.”
Lois bowed her head and skittered backwards, toward a smaller desk on the other side of the office.
The blonde strode forward and put her hand out to my mother.
She introduced herself. “Brooke Bainbridge. Mayor of Witchtown.”
“Aubra O’Sullivan,” my mother said, taking the offered hand and shaking it. “This is my daughter, Macie.”
“Nice to meet you, Macie.” The mayor shook my hand too and then gestured to a waiting area with an uncomfortable-looking couch and several armchairs.
I made a beeline for one of the armchairs, but my mother cleared her throat, sat down gracefully on the couch, and patted the cushion next to her.
You and me, her eyes reminded me. You and me.
I gritted my teeth and sat down beside her, as the mayor took the armchair closest to my mother’s side of the couch.
“Please forgive my assistant,” the mayor said, picking up a clipboard. “She was rather hasty. I’m sure we’ll be able to accommodate you and your daughter. Let me just take you through a few lifestyle questions . . . Yes, here we are. Which pagan tradition do you practice?”
“We’re Eclectic, for the most part,” my mother answered. “Mainly Northern European traditions. Some Greek and Roman. Smattering of Egyptian.”
The mayor checked several boxes on the form.
“And how long have you identified yourself as a witch, Aubra?”
“All my life,” my mother answered patiently. She tapped her ring, which caused the mayor to give her an embarrassed smile.
“Of course. My apologies. I’m just so used to interviewing Learned witches.”
“Oh?” my mother raised an eyebrow. “There are no other Naturals here?”
“Well, we do have one,” the mayor said, with a grimace. “But she’s quite old, I’m afraid, and not quite all there, if you know what I mean. She doesn’t practice anymore.”
“I see,” my mother said, and she was sitting close enough to me that I could actually feel her tense up and then relax.
“You’d be the only true Natural in town,” the mayor said, and then glanced over at me. “Unless Macie . . .”
She trailed off as her gaze fell to the fingers of my right hand. I tucked my naked digits self-consciously underneath my leg.
“No,” my mother cut in. “Macie is not a Natural.”
“Shame,” the mayor muttered to herself as she checked the box marked “Learned” next to where she had written my name. I did not correct her.
There was no box on the mayor’s form for what I was. If she knew the truth, we wouldn’t all be sitting around, bothering with paperwork.
But she didn’t know, so she continued on in a cheery kind of a way.
“How old are you, Macie dear?”
“Sixteen,” I answered.
“And how long have you been a Learned witch?”
“I’ve been teaching her since birth,” my mother jumped in, before I could respond. “Macie is a very gifted herbalist.”
That, at least, was true. The herbalist part. Not the teaching part. My mother didn’t know a comfrey from a clover. I was entirely self-taught, and proud of it, but now didn’t seem like the best time to point that out.
“And have you previously lived in a Haven of any kind?”
“Yes,” my mother replied. “Several.”
“I see. Where?”
“Here and there,” my mother smiled and then sat forward, her eyes full of secrets. “Let me be honest with you, Madame Mayor—”
“Brooke, please,” the mayor insisted.
My mother kept smiling. It looked predatory to me, but it must have seemed friendly to the mayor because she leaned in closer as my mother continued.
“My husband was killed in the Second Inquisition. Since his death, my daughter and I have found it necessary to move around quite a bit. I am unregistered, you see. I hope that isn’t a problem?”
“Oh, no,” the mayor assured her. “We don’t discriminate here.”
The mayor’s voice was calm, but her eyes were darting back and forth excitedly. I could practically see her going down her mental checklist, ticking off the categories my mother could fill for her.
Widow of a martyr. Devoted mother. Natural.
My mother was a gold mine for any Haven. A catch.
I, for one, was stuck back at my mother’s mention of a husband. That was a new one. I was fairly certain that my mother had never been married to my father. Not that we had ever discussed the subject at any length. All I had been told about my father was that he left. And it had been made clear to me that asking any more questions would not be tolerated.
“Macie and I both feel that we have been on the road for long enough,” my mother went on. “We are looking for somewhere to settle permanently.”
“You won’t be disappointed,” the mayor said, with a smile. “Just a few more questions. What level of formal education do you have, Aubra?”
“I have a master’s degree in accounting,” my mother replied. “And I’m a certified public accountant.”
Unbelievably, that was true.
The mayor raised an eyebrow.
“That will come in handy,” she said, mostly to herself.
It always did. Even witches need accountants.
“Any dietary restrictions?” the mayor asked.
“Macie and I are committed raw vegans,” my mother told her, and I was barely able to hide my groan. “We believe in putting our spiritual needs above our physical ones.”
“That is very dedicated of you,” Mayor Bainbridge said admiringly, then capped her pen and turned the clipboard over in her lap. “Well, I am happy to tell you that by lucky coincidence, we have a need for an accountant. Our previous one left us rather abruptly . . .” Her words trailed off and she made a face, but pulled herself together quickly. “I can offer you his residence. It’s a one-bedroom apartment. Will that be sufficient for the time being, until something bigger opens up?”
“That will be lovely,” my mother said, and I saw a flash of a triumphant grin behind her appropriately grateful smile.
A blur of signatures and forms later, the mayor walked us down the street. She whisked us through a lobby, mentioned something about an initiation ritual tomorrow, and opened the front door of our new apartment with a flourish.
“Welcome home!” she said grandly.
I managed only a weak smile in return. Because I knew that we hadn’t come to make Witchtown our home.
We had come to rob it.
Chapter Three
The next morning, I grasped the edge of the bathroom sink and watched my wet hair drip into the deep white basin.
Get a grip, I commanded myself. Get. A. Grip.
The couch in the former accountant’s apartment both looked and smelled like it was made out of old jeans, but it was surprisingly comfortable. I had passed out on it not long after my mother claimed the apartment’s only bedroom (and the queen-size bed that went with it). I didn’t wake up until sunlight started fighting to get through the ugly blue curtains.
The calm, the exhaustion—whatever it was that had allowed me a good night’s rest—was gone now. I was wired. But not in a good way. My mind refused to settle into the focused, hyperaware state that it normally assumed at the start of every job.
And this isn’t just any job, I reminded myself, wringing the water from my hair into the sink. This is Witchtown. You can’t screw this one up.
For as long as I could remember, my mother and I had robbed Havens. We knew our jobs well. Hers was to hide in plain sight, to distract, to captivate, to get people’s attention. She was like the beautiful, exotic street performer who drew the crowds. I
was the lowly assistant who moved, unnoticed, through her spellbound audience and eased the fat wallets out of people’s pockets.
The thought gave me a twinge. I tried to shake it off, but it was no use.
Things were different now. They had been, ever since Rafe.
I grimaced as the now-familiar pain squeezed my chest. I gripped the sink harder, willing the pain to go away, but I drifted instead down a dusty road, thousands of miles away, toward a Haven that had cornfields instead of walls. I had seen the cornstalks close-up. Seen them grow blurry as I blazed through them, with the wind in my face and solid arms around me, keeping me from flying off—
I raised my eyes from the sink and glared at myself in the mirror.
Stop thinking about him.
I kept staring. I didn’t like what was staring back at me. The girl in the mirror looked wrecked. Defeated. Her eyes were mournful and faraway.
All those towns. A never-ending string of them. For as long as I could remember. All that money. It had never been enough.
But Witchtown would be. The money that Reginald Harris had left Witchtown would be enough. She had promised. It had always been our endgame. Our final con. After Witchtown, we could go anywhere. We would settle down. Stop moving. But it all depended on getting a big enough score out of Harris’s town, the crown jewel of all the Havens.
If I was going to pull this off—big if—I was going to have to do something about the dead-eyed girl in the mirror.
An idea came to me, and the girl in the mirror raised an eyebrow.
You wouldn’t dare, came my mother’s voice, from deep inside my head. For a moment, the eyes in the mirror flashed vividly green.
Wouldn’t I?
I flipped my damp hair over my shoulder and went to search the kitchen. Luckily, the former occupant seemed to have left behind all of his kitchen supplies. I rooted through drawers full of measuring cups, ladles, and whisks until I found what I was pretty sure were poultry shears. Perfect.
Back in the bathroom, I felt a shiver of the old excitement as I pulled my long hair back into a ponytail. The eyes in the mirror grew slightly less foggy as I positioned the shears just above my hand. I cut once, then again, and then one more time until I was holding the severed ponytail over the sink.
The eyes approved. I blinked at myself in the mirror once and then kept going.
I had never cut anyone’s hair before, to say nothing of my own. The result was a little bit shorter and choppier than I had intended. Kind of like a shaggy pixie cut. I couldn’t even tuck the front part behind my ears. And I was pretty sure that one side was slightly longer than the other.
I smiled at the eyes in the mirror as I set down the shears and fluffed up the jagged layers in the back.
This girl looked bold and daring. Ready for anything. She had never left anyone behind. I didn’t know her yet, but anything was better than the shattered soul that had stepped out of the shower just a few minutes ago.
I gave the girl in the mirror one last tiny smile before I gathered up my damp, discarded locks and chucked them into the trash can under the sink.
Once I was dressed, I glanced at my mother’s bedroom door. It was still shut; I didn’t expect to hear a peep from her until at least noon. But just in case she woke up before then, it would be better for me to be gone.
Quickly, I dug through one of our suitcases and pulled out a small black shoulder bag and an oversize jewelry box.
Setting the bag aside for now, I opened the box.
My herb journal, the sum total of all the wisdom I had managed to gather about plants, resins, and other things that grow, sat inside. The compartments beneath the journal held dozens of baggies of dried herbs plus a small scythe, my mortar and pestle, several scraps of cloth, and a tangle of cords for making sachets. My collection produced a strong, heavenly, and strange mixture of scents; I bent my head lower so I could breathe it in. Tradition warned against bringing old herbs into a new home, but those customs must have been invented by an herbalist who could afford to replenish her stash every time she moved.
I evaluated my neatly labeled baggies and found that I was nearly out of valerian root and elder. I would need them both later, so I added them to my mental list, replaced the journal, and closed the box. Surely Witchtown had a place where I could restock. Right after I found some food. I hadn’t eaten dinner last night, and right about then I would have given my left arm for a stack of pancakes.
The mayor had given me a map last night, and I studied it as I walked out the door. Downtown Witchtown had a circular layout. I had noticed the ring of buildings around the “square” when we arrived, but according to the map there were actually two rings: the inner one (made up of the real estate office, the mayor’s office, our apartment building, and a few other businesses) and an outer ring (which housed more shops and various municipal structures). Everything was within easy walking distance.
Which was a good thing. Because I wasn’t totally clear on what had happened to our car. The mayor had mentioned something about Witchtown being a green city, and I didn’t see any other cars around. Maybe they weren’t allowed.
When I looked up from the map, I was surprised to find that the deserted central area I had seen last night had been taken over by a bustling farmer’s market.
My mother’s raw vegan pronouncement from last night came back to me then, and my stomach growled anew. Partly in hunger and partly in protest. Reluctantly, I put my pancake craving on the shelf. It would be nothing but uncooked vegetables and fruit for the duration of this job. But given that, I guessed there were worse things than stumbling upon a town square packed full of produce.
Everyone seemed to have a basket. I spotted a pile of them on one side of the circle and picked one up for myself. Thus armed, I waded into the fray and tried to look like I belonged.
Strawberries must have been in season, because they were everywhere. I walked up to the nearest vendor and picked out two overflowing cartons of them, plus a smaller container of raspberries.
I went to pay and then paused, considering my options.
A lot of Havens used the barter system, but I had nothing to barter with. Except herbs, but I wasn’t going to part with anything in my box until I had a better idea of what my restocking options were in this town. I was relieved to see the person in front of me pay with an ordinary ten-dollar bill. My mother had given me some cash to get the con going. That was the obvious thing to reach for at the moment. But I hesitated.
The three twenty-dollar bills my mother had given me were part of our take from the last Haven. And I didn’t feel like paying with someone else’s coin today.
I had earned some money in the last Haven. Earned, not stolen. It pained me to part with any of it, for a number of reasons. Before I could think about it too hard, I dug into my own cash and handed the berry vendor several bills.
“New here, are you?” he asked, smiling at me through his thick mustache.
“Yes,” I said. Everyone in Havens always knew everyone else. There was never a place to hide, especially not when you were “the new girl.” “My mother and I arrived yesterday afternoon.”
“Welcome, then!” he said. His smile broadened as he loaded the berries into my basket. After a moment, he added a plastic bottle of juice.
“A welcome gift,” he explained. “That’s pure strawberry juice—nothing healthier in this world.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I made a slow circle of the market as I munched on the berries. They were not pancakes, but they quieted down my angry stomach and gave me a needed surge of energy. By the time I was done I had added some beets, an armload of carrots, a container of cherries, a bundle of spinach, a bag of assorted nuts, a large jar of freshly made peanut butter, and a bag of salt to the basket. I also had a new broom, wedged awkwardly in the crook of my arm. The haul had cost me a fair amount of my cash, but the weight of the basket made me feel more confident about the prospect of a decent meal in the
near future.
The only things remaining on my mental list were elder and valerian, but there had not been a single vendor selling herbs. In the short term, this was inconvenient. Especially for the protection sachet I was planning to make later. But in the long term, the lack of a resident herbalist might provide me with a means of making some money. So I was in a surprisingly good mood as I carried my heavy basket and my broom back in the direction of the apartment.
Until I saw something that made my stomach drop down to my knees.
Rafe.
It was just for an instant, and then he disappeared into the crowd. I followed without thinking, terrified I’d lose him. I darted between shoppers, dodging baskets and elbows, until my eyes fixed on the familiar head of dark, slightly shaggy hair hanging down over the collar of his favorite black shirt. I could recognize that back, and the slope of his shoulders, anywhere.
Unable to stop myself, I reached out my free hand to touch his arm. He turned.
“Yes?”
I drew back, deflated.
The guy who turned to face me had a friendly but questioning look on his face. It was a handsome face, with deep-set blue eyes and a defined jaw. But it was not Rafe’s face. Now that I got a good look at this guy, I realized his hair had looked black only because it was wet. The dry strands in front looked closer to chestnut brown. And although his skin was tanned, like he spent a lot of time outdoors, it was decidedly white. He also wasn’t quite as tall as Rafe. What had I been thinking?
Of course it wasn’t him.
“I—” I could barely get that syllable out. It was hard to catch my breath.
The guy extended a hand.
“Kellen Stewart,” he said. When I just continued to stare dumbly at him, he added patiently, “And you are . . . ?”
I took a step backwards, pivoted, and walked back through the crowd in a daze, far too lost in thought to consider how rude I was being. I must have been hungrier than I had realized. It wasn’t like my brain to just short-circuit like that. I didn’t have visions. Or hallucinations. Or whatever that had been.
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