SILLA

My breath rattled up my throat, sounding like the wind through the brown cornstalks behind me. Shaky, dry, and empty.

I closed my eyes, felt the weak sunlight against the back of my neck, the hard twigs of grass under my butt. A distant crow called, and my stomach tightened.

I dialed Reese’s number on Nick’s cell, and watched the display until it began ringing.

Please be Reese. Please be my brother.

On the fifth ring he picked up. “Yeah?”

“Hey, it’s Silla.”

“You’ve been crying, bumblebee.”

Relief like cool rain poured over me. It was him. “I’m okay. I need you to go home. The person who killed Dad and Mom is definitely still around. Her name is Josephine Darly, and she possessed Wendy today and tried to steal the spell book. I’m afraid of what she’ll try next. We need to talk, and to find a way to protect ourselves.”

Reese didn’t say anything for a moment. I could hear the roar of a tractor and yelled conversation faintly in the background. Then he said, “We can try the protection charms in the spell book. Is Nick with you? Do you have the book?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll have to go through it and look for—” He stopped, then whispered, “Look, I can’t talk about this here. I’ll head home.”

“I hate that the important ones are the complicated ones. Why can’t we just bleed on each other and voila?” I tried to make my tone light, to insert some levity, but it fell flat.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll see you at home.”

“Be careful, Silla.”

“You too.”

Reese hung up.

Nick, on the other side of the ditch, climbed into the convertible and pulled it all the way off the road. As I watched him, the twist in my stomach slowly relaxed. He moved like an awkward marionette as he climbed out of the car, and it was easy to imagine someone else manipulating the strings. But I didn’t believe it. The sun caught some surprisingly bright auburn highlights in his hair, and I wondered if he even knew they were there. I wished I could forget Josephine and my parents, forget the magic, possession, blood, all of it, and just draw Nick back up here so that I could run my fingers through his hair and find more colors.

Instead I dialed Wendy’s number. Went straight to voice mail. Her voice, peppy and bright, declared, “Hiya, you’ve almost reached Wendy—leave a message!”

“Hey, it’s—it’s Silla. I wanted to make sure you’re okay. I flaked, I know. It was just …” I licked my lips and then lied, “Um, the blood. I lost it, you know. The blood.” My voice fell to a whisper. “Anyway. I know you’re okay, but I don’t have my cell. You can call the house or something. Or this—it’s Nick’s phone. Sorry.”

Before I babbled for another twenty minutes, I snapped the phone shut. Wendy would believe me. I’d been so stupidly delicate about blood and everything lately, it wouldn’t be a stretch.

I shoved to my feet, head pounding with gentle but constant waves in time with my heartbeat. God, I hated crying like that. I didn’t feel right again for days. And doing it in front of anyone who wasn’t my mom … who, of course, would never care if I cried or not again … I stopped, closed my eyes, and took a long breath. I had to calm down. So much had happened in just an hour. Less than an hour. I could be steady. I could be fine.

The calm, sea-green mask settled into its place. As Nick got out and moved around to the trunk, popping it with his key, I thought about what he’d said. That I was hiding behind masks. Maybe he was right about the silver and white one. It was cold and meant to be empty. But this one, or the sky and sun mask for joy, so many of the others, they were just part of who I was.

After a final steadying breath, I walked to the car. Nick pulled a box out of the trunk. He tucked it under one arm and slammed the trunk shut, then placed the box on top of it.

“What’s that?” I leaned my hip into the taillight, touching one finger to the lovely glossed finish of the box. Black crows were inlaid in the lid, against a purple sky.

“My mom’s magic box,” he said, pushing aside the broken lock and opening it.

I gasped, despite myself, at the contents. Tiny glass jars filled with differently colored powders and flakes of dry plants, seeds, metal filings, a feather quill, little slips of paper, ribbon. Wax. “Nick,” I breathed.

He pulled out a jar. The glass was thin and cloudy, with a cork stopper. The jar was labeled blessed thistle. In Dad’s handwriting.

“Nick!” I took it, caressed the curling paper glued to the bottle. “My dad wrote this.”

Tugging at his bag, which hung off my shoulder, he dug in for the spell book. Flipping it open, he held up a page and compared. It was perfectly, obviously Dad’s writing. “They must have shared it,” he said. He glanced up at my face.

“Judy said they dated in high school.” If my cheeks hadn’t already been blotchy from crying, I’d probably have blushed.

Nick set the book on the car and rubbed his face. “Jesus, this is complicated.”

I leaned into him, putting my cheek against his. “Yeah,” I whispered. “Let’s get home.”