She exchanged a fretful glance with the ground for a few seconds before she looked up at my mother and changed the subject.
“I’m having Lois assemble the town books for you to have a look at. While she’s working on that, perhaps you’d like to see your new office?”
“Very much,” my mother said.
“Great! I’ll take you myself. I have to make one quick call . . .”
While we waited for the mayor outside in the square, my mother grabbed my arm.
“You never told me what happened to you last night,” she pointed out.
“I just hung out in the woods with a couple of kids,” I said vaguely.
A look of tired disapproval came over her face.
“Why are you wasting your time there?” she sniffed. “Kids don’t know anything.”
“I’m a kid,” I snapped.
My mother gave me a long look.
“I’m worried about you, Macie. I think you need to pull a job.”
“Now?” I asked, incredulous. “It’s too early! We can’t steal something the second we get to town!”
That was practically Thievery 101. And my mother knew it.
“We need some seed money—” she started.
“No we don’t,” I barked. “We still have the money we got from the last town.”
“Fine. Then maybe I just need you to prove to me what side you’re on. I’m having doubts.”
She caught my eye. And before I could look away, I could tell that she saw the same doubts reflected there. Dammit.
“Something small,” she cautioned. “Nothing flashy. Just something to get your confidence back. Today. Tonight, at the latest.”
“You’re not even going to help me?” I pleaded.
She shook her head.
“I think it’s about time we see what you can do on your own. Impress me.”
“You know that I—” I paused, and ground my back molars together. “You know I can’t do what you can do. How am I supposed to—”
“You’ll figure it out. Use your strengths. Stop depending so much on mine.”
“What if—hey!”
My mother grabbed my hand without any sort of warning. I tried to pull away, but her grip was bone crushing. She was staring, wide-eyed, at something behind me.
I turned my head to see.
It was an old lady, coming out of the Witchtown Post Office. One of those impossibly old women, with skin as thin as paper and prominent bones that look too delicate to hold them upright. I could tell she was petite even though her frame was concealed beneath multiple layers of ratty sweaters and shawls. Her long gray hair looked like it had been carefully styled about a decade ago but left to fend for itself ever since; two messy French braids hung down like dreadlocks to her waist.
I was at a loss to explain this woman’s effect on my mother, until she shifted a grocery bag from her left hip to her right, and the silver ring on her hand flashed in the sunlight.
“The other Natural,” I said, mostly to myself, staring at the ring.
“Well,” my mother murmured. “I never thought I’d see her again.”
I blinked over at my mother in disbelief. “You know her?”
We did not know people. Witches (with the exception of my mother) like to put down roots, so they tend to stay in one place. And since we never went to the same Haven twice, we never saw the same people more than once.
Not that it would have mattered if we did. We always made sure no one would remember us. Which is to say, she made sure.
We did not know people.
The vicelike grip on my hand suddenly loosened, and my mother’s expression shifted from shock back to her usual knowing smirk.
“I knew her,” she corrected me stiffly. “A long time ago. Too many Havens back to count.”
I looked over at the woman again and tried to imagine her younger, less wrinkled. I couldn’t, but even so, I was fairly certain I had no memory of her. I must have been very young when we had encountered her before.
A thought occurred to me. I bit the inside of my lip and braced myself, proceeding carefully.
“If it’s been that long,” I began, “are you sure the spell is still—”
“Of course I’m sure,” she snarled. She was always touchy about that spell. The one that erased our very existences, over and over again. The one that made us ghosts in the memories of everyone we had ever met. She performed it at the conclusion of every job; it was the last thing we did before we left a Haven.
I had no reason to doubt her, or the spell. But I had never actually seen it in action before—we had always left too quickly. My eyes flickered back over to the old woman, who was rooting through her purse with her free hand and muttering to herself.
“Watch,” my mother said irritably, and slid around me until she was in front of the woman. “May I give you a hand?”
“My glasses,” the woman mumbled, still staring down into the purse.
“Perhaps I can find them,” my mother suggested, smiling so sweetly it made my insides clench. “May I?”
The old Natural looked up, squinted for a moment, then shrugged and placed her tattered, moth-eaten purse into my mother’s waiting hands.
My mother fished out a beat-up silver case.
“Pardon me for saying so,” she said, as she removed a pair of glasses with the thickest lenses I had ever seen and held them out for the old Natural to take. “But have we met before? You seem very familiar to me.”
The woman slid the enormous frames onto her nose and I held my breath as she gave my mother a thorough going-over, from head to toe.
“Don’t think so,” she pronounced finally, and put out a hand. “I’m Pendle. Pendle Bishop.”
My mother introduced herself, and me, and Pendle Bishop gave no sign that she had ever seen us before. Once, I thought I caught her looking at my moonstone. But at second glance, I saw that her eyes were so cloudy and unfocused it was a wonder she could see anything at all. Even with the thick glasses.
Eventually, she puttered away. My mother flashed me an “I told you so” expression just as the mayor reemerged from her office.
“A job,” my mother reminded me, lowering her voice. “By tomorrow.”
Then she smiled and tossed something at me. I caught it. I didn’t even need to look to know that it was Pendle Bishop’s wallet.
“Easy as that,” my mother trilled, then winked as she turned to meet the mayor. “Darkness and clouds!”
“Darkness and clouds,” I muttered at her back.
I turned sharply in the opposite direction, my nerves still humming slightly at the memory of Pendle Bishop’s milky, unfocused eyes. I concentrated on keeping my feet moving, telling myself forcefully that her eyes were only like that because she was very, very old.
Rafe’s eyes did not—could not—look like that.
I didn’t have my map with me, but yesterday I had noted the location of the Magic Supply Depot. It was one of the buildings on the main square, just a few doors down from the mayor’s office. I still needed elder and valerian, and I had been too freaked out by my faux Rafe sighting yesterday to venture out in search of them after the farmer’s market.
Stalling, a pesky voice in the back of my head accused. You’re stalling.
I shook it off. I was not stalling. The early stages of a con are all about getting the lay of the land. You have to understand how a Haven works in order to figure out where the money is. The real money. Every Haven has a town fund or some other bank account where they keep the funds the government gives. In the poorer Havens, sometimes that was all there was to steal. But we were counting on Witchtown having something better than that.
If I was going to find it, I was going to have to figure out how things worked here. What the power structure was. Because all of my instincts were telling me that the mayor was not it. Mayor Bainbridge may have been the head of Witchtown, but I was after the heart. That would be where the money was. That woul
d be our “in,” the spot where we had to strike.
Per my mother’s command, I also had to find something quick that I could steal by tonight. Downtown seemed like the logical place to start looking.
I had only gone a few steps before I started to get a weird, prickly feeling on the back of my neck. Like somebody was following me. I didn’t let on. I just kept strolling casually, even as I spotted the shingle with the words MAGIC SUPPLY DEPOT on it and my hopes of finding my herbs quietly died.
The Depot’s door was boarded up and the windows were papered over. Odd, because the building itself seemed quite new. The white on its walls was slightly brighter than the buildings on either side of it, and when I sniffed the air I caught the faint whiff of fresh paint and just-sawed lumber.
Was I imagining things, or was the shingle over the door a little bit singed at the corners?
Sigh. I was going to have to think of another way to get my herbs.
I continued walking, as though the Depot had not been my destination at all. There was still someone behind me, I could tell. And suddenly, I was tired of playing this game.
I turned the corner onto Swords and Cups Avenue, then stopped walking abruptly and turned around so I would be face to face with my shadow when they came around after me. Whoever they were. I didn’t know many people in town yet, so my list of suspects was pretty short. Kellen? Perhaps. Autumn? No, she wasn’t the kind to do her own legwork. She would most likely send Royce. It was probably Royce.
But the pigtailed girl who came around the corner a moment later could not have been less Royce-like. She was wearing an electric blue tank top, white sequin leg warmers over fuzzy, purple pants, and a pink cowboy hat. She was also carrying a broom.
She skidded to a halt at the sight of me.
“Gotcha!” she said, with an embarrassed giggle. “Now it’s your turn, okay? Chase me!”
She turned on her heel and looked eagerly over her shoulder to make sure I was going to follow her.
I could think of no good excuse not to do as she asked. After a moment’s hesitation, I followed her around the corner, back to the front of the Depot, where I ran right smack into the girl in black.
“Ooooffff!” The girl—what had Kellen said her name was? Talya?—recovered first, took a step back, and glared down at the small girl in the hat.
“Aimee!” she said accusingly, and grabbed the girl by one arm.
“I told her to chase me,” Aimee admitted, and the brim of the cowboy hat obscured her face as she looked down at her feet.
Talya turned to me. She was wearing all black again: jeans, boots, and several layered T-shirts, the same as last night. But today she was also wearing a black bandanna over her short black hair. The broom in her hand was a size larger than the little girl’s.
“I’m Macie. Macie O’Sullivan.” I said, extending a hand. I wasn’t quite sure why I did it. I couldn’t think of a way that knowing the girl in black would be of any help to me. But still, there I was, offering her my hand.
She hesitated before letting go of Aimee.
“I’m Natalya. Talya. Cohen,” she said at last, taking my hand lightly in what my mother would’ve called a weak handshake. “And this is my cousin Aimee.”
She gestured down to the little girl, but she didn’t take her eyes off me. She stared at me, her brown eyes expectant. Like she was waiting for something.
The staring went on for so long that I started to feel like I should do something. Like dance, or burst into song. But instead, I just stared back. Her gaze was unflinching. Her eyes were that light shade of brown that makes eyes look lit up from the inside. They looked especially bright alongside her black clothing and hair.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. You’re new here, right?” she asked. “Are you lost?”
I gestured toward the boarded-up building behind us.
“I was looking for the Supply Depot, but it seems to be closed.”
“It’s been closed since I got to town,” Talya informed me. “Most people here order stuff online. What do you need?”
“Some herbs,” I said vaguely.
“Which ones?” she pressed me.
I scowled again. I didn’t like being pressed.
“Elderflower,” I told her. “And some valerian root.”
She nodded slowly, as though filing this away, then looked over her shoulder toward a group of people who were gathered around the altar in the square. “Aimee and I are supposed to be over there,” she said. “You can come with us if you like.”
It was impossible to tell from her tone whether she was extending the invitation out of politeness or if she actually wanted me there. She didn’t seem like someone who was overly concerned with social niceties. So I decided to call her bluff.
“Sure. Let’s go.”
Talya turned without a word and began to walk away, dragging her cousin along behind her.
What a weird girl.
But was she a Void?
I shook off the thought and, with one last glance at the defunct Depot, I hurried to catch up to her.
The people in the square were industriously sweeping up the shattered orb glass and assorted other odds and ends that remained from last night’s ritual. I recognized Autumn and Royce.
There was no sign of Kellen, I noted with relief.
Autumn bent to sweep a pile of broken glass into a dustbin. When we approached, she straightened up and glared at Talya.
“You’re late.”
“That’s my fault,” I jumped in. “I got lost and needed directions.”
Talya looked at me curiously. It wasn’t quite true, of course, but at least it got Autumn off her back. The junior High Priestess looked away from her and shot an uncertain glance at Aimee, who was smiling up at her.
“Let’s just get on with the ritual,” Autumn resolved.
The rest of the sweepers gathered around us and took turns dumping their dustbins into a trash bag that Royce was passing around.
“What ritual?” Talya asked Autumn, her voice sounding tight. “I thought we were just here to clean up the glass and stuff.”
“We finished that part,” Autumn informed her, “no thanks to you. Now we have to balance the energy.”
She looked at Talya like she was daring her to argue. Talya drew in a breath, then pursed her lips and took a step backwards, falling into line with the rest of the broom squad.
Autumn picked up an earthenware jar from the altar, then turned to assess the dozen or so people assembled before her. Her eyes fell on me and my lack of broom, and she thrust the jar into my arms.
“Macie will scatter the salt around the square,” she announced. “The rest of us will sweep. Clockwise, of course. And let’s make it quick, people. We all have more interesting things to do today, I’m sure. Stupid orbs.”
Oddly, Talya’s obvious lack of comfort with the ritual was making me totally forget my own. I reached into the jar, grabbed a handful of salt, and tossed it onto the ground. The others, including Talya and little Aimee, spread out behind me to sweep the salt, along with all of the negative energy the Zealots had brought with them, out of the ritual area.
As I worked my way clockwise around the circle, as directed, I pretended that I was scattering sprinkles on top of a cake. Mhmmmm, cake. I had been a raw vegan for less than forty-eight hours, and already it was getting old. I had eaten only a large spoonful of peanut butter and a handful of strawberries for breakfast, and my stomach was starting to growl.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Autumn light a white candle on the altar. She stood in front of it, raised her arms to the sky, and mumbled a few words. She was still scowling.
My usual ritual nerves were just starting to spring to life when Royce came up alongside me and whispered into my ear.
“Don’t mind Autumn. She’s grumpy today.”
“She really hates those orbs,” I remarked, also in a whisper.
Royce laughed quietly at this.
<
br /> “Yeah, Autumn prefers rituals to be simple. More natural.”
“Oh,” I said, remembering my no-frills initiation in the woods. “What about you?”
Royce leaned on his broom as he pondered this.
“I don’t know,” he said again, shrugging his mountainous shoulders. “I guess—”
He stopped, his attention suddenly caught by something on the other side of the square.
It was Talya, and she was staring straight at Royce. But not in that awkward way she had stared at me earlier. This time she was standing motionless, one hand on the handle of her broom, driving the bristles into the ground. Her eyes were fixed in Royce’s direction, but it looked like they were zeroed in on something behind him. As though she was looking through him.
“Talya? What’s wrong?” Royce asked.
She didn’t move, except to abruptly cover her mouth with her free hand.
Behind the altar, Autumn opened her eyes at the sound of Royce’s voice, followed his gaze, and narrowed her eyes severely in Talya’s direction.
I don’t know where the thought came from, but suddenly it was very clear to me that I needed to distract everyone from Talya. So I did the only thing I could think to do; I dropped the jar of salt.
It hit the ground with a loud thud and shattered, spilling broken pottery and salt all over the cobblestones at my feet.
All the eyes in the square, including Autumn’s, shifted from Talya to me.
“Great!” Autumn said, her voice oozing sarcasm as she snuffed out the candle in front of her. “Now we get to start all over. Thanks, Macie.”
On the other side of the square, Talya lowered her hand from her mouth and tried to put it nonchalantly on her hip. But I noticed that her other hand, the one holding the broom, was shaking.
I had never really known another Void. I had seen one once, when we had passed through the city of San Francisco. She had been living on the streets in a pile of rags and garbage, and I had known her by the red, blistery V that had been branded on her left cheek.
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