I almost missed my turnoff in the dark and guided the rusty jalopy I’d come to despise into a hairpin turn that strained the thing’s steering capacity. I thought I heard it let out an agonized groan, before settling back on the narrow highway.

  This road supposedly led to my new lodging. But, my GPS was on the fritz again. I wasn’t sure if it was the age of the device or a hex thrown by my scheming mother. It’d been leading me in circles for hours now. And that seemed like exactly the sort of thing she’d do.

  Well, she could shove the idea of Portland and Tacoma firmly up her couture-clad posterior where it belonged. I’d drive this secondhand piece of junk until it ran out of gas. Then I’d start walking. Someone in Haven Hollow would help me. It was a Hollow, for hell’s sake! The town had been founded with people like me in mind.

  “I’m hanging up now,” I warned her, quickly adding (before she could work up to a proper scolding spell): “If Astrid wants to talk, she can call. Goodbye, Mother.”

  There was nothing more satisfying than punching the end call button. I’d pay for it later, but damn it felt good to get the last word in, for once.

  But, then I started replaying the specifics of the conversation over in my head. I wanted to rail at Mother for casting Astrid at me like a weapon. Astrid was the first red-haired witch in our clan in centuries. Of course she’d be an upstart! The standard witch was born with raven hair, as black as night, and I was no exception. Red hair always meant trouble. The biggest names in our storied history, without fail, had red hair: Morgan Le Fey, Circe, Betanya Tayir, Adisa Delarosa, and the biblical witch of Endor. Astrid could be something special if Mother would stop trying to squash the sixteen-year-old into a box.

  I knew that box well enough.

  And now that I was out of it, there was no going back.

  The cottage in Tacoma would undoubtedly be a damn sight nicer than the duplex I was bound for, but it was also a trap. A way to keep me tethered to the coven, but neatly out of sight. After all, Mother couldn’t have her reputation sullied by a Blood Witch.

  Well, she could go sit on a broom handle!

  I was Wanda Depraysie, and I wasn’t about to be tucked quietly into anyone’s box ever again. If the Crescent Circle Coven could put up with fire-haired, Astrid and her aberrant older brother, Charmin, the first warlock in our line in over seven centuries, they could sure as spell put up with me.

  And with that thought firmly in mind, I gunned the engine, coaxing the jalopy to its top speed, a pathetic fifty miles an hour. I gritted my teeth through the potholes.

  My life had been full of them recently.

  What were a few more?

  ***

  I clutched the steering wheel tightly in both hands, staring at the duplex that loomed in front of me. This was it—my chance to start over, to leave my past behind me. And there was something… calming about that thought. To be in a place where no one knew me, where no one was wise to my history.

  The local night hag and realty office owner, Ophelia Ponsobby, had offered reduced rates for locations sold sight unseen, and though technically, I hadn’t bought the place, I’d still managed to get a discount on my rent… Apparently properties in Haven Hollow were staying on the books too long.

  I’d passed through Haven Hollow only once over the years, but it was a quaint enough town, if you liked that sort of thing. As a general rule, I was a city girl but that was before circumstances had become what they now were.

  The only listing that had stood out to me on Ophelia’s website had been a house just behind my duplex. Dilapidated, abandoned for years, and the perfect stomping grounds for a witch. It would never resemble the glory of my mother’s Portland home, but no one could complain it was drab.

  But, someone had already purchased it. Not that it really mattered, because even that house had been beyond my current price range (of $0.00). Right. When I’d been kicked out of my coven, I’d lost access to all my bank accounts, seeing as how they’d been sponsored by the coven. So, I was really, truly starting over in all aspects.

  For the last few weeks, I’d been forced to ask Mother to approve every transaction I made. I hadn’t been able to buy a morning coffee without getting her consent, for Tituba’s sake! And when she’d scornfully refused to lend me the startup capital to fund my enchanted clothing business, I’d realized I had to cut the apron strings and figure things out for myself.

  So, here I was.

  A week ago I’d sold my beautiful Lexus LC and most of my heirloom furniture. I had next to nothing to my name, but with what money I’d been able to scrounge together, I’d bought the rusted out, hideously yellow 1985 Chevrolet Vega.

  As a witch, I needed to plant my feet in a town I could claim as my own—one that didn’t fall under the jurisdictions of any other covens. And Haven Hollow fit that bill. There were no other witches claiming land here, and that had been a big part of the reason I’d chosen it.

  In order to claim Haven Hollow as my own and keep other witches away from it, I would have to purchase land. And, clearly, I wasn’t in a position to do any such thing. But, that was where my plan to open my own bespelled clothing store came in. As soon as I could save up enough money, I’d purchase a property ASAP.

  The only properties that had been on sale in Haven Hollow (which were few to begin with) were quickly bought up by yet another interloper. I’d been set to start looking in Jersey when Ophelia informed me the landlord of the duplex was willing to lease it and a shop on Main Street for seven hundred dollars each. A huge bargain, but she’d told me I would have to act quickly. So, I’d agreed to both without ever having seen either. Though I hadn’t been happy about the downgrade from the ornate Victorian I was used to in Portland, it was worth it to get out from under Mother’s thumb.

  Upon pulling into the driveway of my duplex, I’d braced myself for a tacky, cookie-cutter building with beige siding, badly in need of a power wash. But, this place was... nice. I mean, it was no Crescent Circle mansion, the next best thing to a luxury hotel, but it was charming in its own way.

  As a duplex, the building featured separate living spaces in one building, a pair of lovely wrought iron staircases leading up to matching antique doors. Hopefully I would get along with my neighbor because we were basically on top of one another, sharing a wall.

  The building was bungalow-style, two stories tall, made of cinnamon brown brick with lighter brown accents around the doors and windows. A chimney poked out above the gabled roof. The chimney was probably decorative and useless for potion making, but still, I hadn’t expected so much as a mantel to decorate. I’d always been awful at potion-making, anyway. Conjuration and charm work were my areas of expertise.

  Prickling began behind my eyes and I blinked fiercely to stem the oncoming tears as I took in my new home. It just… it was so different than what I was used to—so much more… modest, small, boring and utilitarian. Yet, it was still… quaint, I supposed.

  You won’t be here long, Wanda, I told myself resolutely. Once you open your store and business takes off, you’ll be able to buy whatever mansion this silly, little town has to offer. And then Haven Hollow will be yours.

  Now that the tears had started, I had a tougher time keeping them subdued. I’d cried more in the last few months than I had in the hundred and forty years I’d been alive. Mother had attempted to bespell the useless emotion out of her daughters over the years, but she hadn’t been quite as successful with me.

  Just the memory of the tickle charms made me squirm. I’d laugh until I cried, and then the spell would kick in again, curling me double. Then I’d laugh until I puked. Bile scalding my throat and the evidence of my humiliation on the floor, I’d slink away to be miserable by myself.

  And I hated crying—it was just such a useless, weak thing to do.

  The only call for witch tears was in potions, and I hadn’t made potions in years. Like I said, I wasn’t very good at it.

  Chapter Two

  An angry yowl knocked me out of my brooding, and brought a small smile to my face. Misery loves company, and my plus one was cursing me out from his carrier in the backseat.

  “Damn your eyes, vicious harridan!” Hellcat spat, baring his fangs in the rearview mirror. Meanwhile, he batted ineffectually at the locking mechanism on the cat carrier.

  “What’s the problem?” I asked, giving him a sweet smile that was sure to irritate the wretched, little beast even further.

  “Emancipate me from this reeking calaboose at once, or I shall use your Jimmy Choos as my scratching post!”

  He was all threats, really. He knew if he ever touched my Jimmy Choos, he’d become couch stuffing.

  “What’s the magic word?” I cooed sweetly, too amused by his distress to take the threat seriously.

  Mother had named him Abbadon Pompington or something equally pretentiously ridiculous when her familiar had kittens a century or so ago. To me he was and would always remain ‘Hellcat’: the bane of my existence.

  Hellcat was a nasty, little, black cat who got fur all over anything white, spied for mother, and generally made a nuisance of himself whenever he could. He loathed me, and the feeling was mutual. Mother hadn’t given me a familiar after all these years out of the goodness of her heart. Hellcat was here to do what he always did—report my misdeeds. He was like having a prudish school marm slapping your knuckles with a wooden ruler whenever you acted out of line.

  “As to the magic word,” the little reptile started, his hifalutin, English accent especially irritating this morning. He was born in Oregon so where the accent came from was anyone’s guess.

  “If you were a sophisticated spellcaster and spoke Latin, the magic word would be ‘apertum’. But, alas, as you insist on using the trash heap of a language that is American (he believed, like Oscar Wilde that Britain had ‘everything in common with America, except, of course, the language’), the magic word would most probably fall along the lines of something mundane and improper, such as ‘open sesame’.”

  “Oh, go sit on a broom handle,” I grumbled.

  “If you had any ability to handle said broom, I would happily.”

  He really had no sense of humor.

  And, furthermore, the last thing I needed to deal with at the moment was Hellcat. I was about to have a crying fit and I didn’t need the hellion reporting to mother that I was losing my mind and not even a day into this new adventure. That was exactly what she wanted to hear—that I couldn’t survive without her.

  As to why I didn’t drop the vicious creature off at the nearest animal shelter? Because he was my familiar and he’d been assigned to me which meant he was my familiar for life. No getting rid of him. Trust me, I’d tried—a week or so after he’d become mine, I’d stuck him on a cargo ship headed for England (I’d figured since he sounded British, he may as well go for a prolonged visit), but the little rodent had managed to find his way back to me a month or so later.

  That one had caused a huge uproar in the coven, and Mother was ‘completely mortified and embarrassed’ when everyone learned what I’d done with the rotten thing. It had taken the better part of five decades to live that one down.

  But, back to Hellcat. Even though I couldn’t stand him as a rule, I was glad to have him for purely practical reasons, because casting with a familiar to augment and guide your power made things easier. Like the difference between driving instead of walking to your destination. Both will get you from Point A to Point B, but the car takes way less time and effort.

  But on a purely personal level? I’d have rather slept in the same bed as a cranky porcupine.

  “Keep your fur on,” I grumbled as he continued yowling.

  I pulled forward a few inches, parking in the spot left by the departing maintenance van. A smiling soap bubble grinned at me as the van passed, ‘Nooks and Crannies Cleaning Service’ printed just below it.

  Hmm, so the landlord had hired a crew to clean the duplex before I moved in. That was a plus I hadn’t expected.

  Maybe things were starting to look up, after all.

  And if the landlord was cute? Even better. Maybe I could flirt my way into lower rent. I may not have been as nubile as sixteen-year-old Astrid, but I still had my looks. One hundred and forty was barely brushing midlife for a witch. I looked like I was about forty or so.

  I turned off the engine, which sounded like a bunch of boulders falling onto a furnace, and then opened the front door.

  “Release me from this prison at once!” Hellcat bellowed.

  I closed the door behind me and walked to the trunk, banging on it twice in order to open it. Then I unloaded the few totes I was able to stuff into the Vega’s narrow trunk and started for the front door of my new home. Using the key Ophelia had left me beneath the mat, I unlocked the door, shoving the totes in ahead of me before circling back for the spawn of Satan and my sleeping bag and pillow. I wouldn’t have a comfortable place to lay my head until the moving van arrived with my things in the morning.

  But, that was just as well. It was worth getting away from Mother.

  “I miss your mother,” Hellcat grumbled as soon as I opened the car door. “I daresay the Fancy Feast she fed me is now a thing of the past.”

  “Ha! I’d be happy eating Fancy Feast! It’s mice and rats for you from here on out. Time to earn your keep.”

  “Rodents! Have you lost your mind, woman! I will most certainly develop leaky gut!”

  I yanked his carrying case out of the back seat and trudged up the front steps, depositing him on the floor of the duplex as I closed the door behind us. I opened his cage and the foul little gremlin sauntered out like he owned the place, his tail flicking from side to side in little whip cracks of annoyance.

  “Shabby,” he muttered, taking in the living room with a disdainful sniff. “Quite banal.” Then he looked at me with that stupid face. “I can’t believe you’ve doomed us to this hovel! Are we peasants?”

  I cocked my head to the side. “Actually, that’s a fair assessment…”

  “You have condemned us and all for the sake of your blasphemous pride!” Hellcat continued griping. “And to think your precious mother offered to pay your way… our way. The suffering!”

  Yes, the duplex was small and felt a little cramped in comparison to the palatial place in which I’d grown up, but it wasn’t shabby, by any means. The hardwood floors were new—wide planked and stained ebony. They’d been polished so well, I could make out my reflection in the dark stain. The walls were ivory, with dark trim to match the flooring and crown molding decorated the tops and bottoms of the walls. The ceiling was high, and a Swarovski crystal chandelier sent shimmers of brilliant light over the modest living room when I flicked the switch on.

  And the mantel. Hecuba, the mantel! A classic, French-style wooden mantel, also stained dark, and embellished with polished iron accents to match the spiral staircase that led upstairs to the bedroom.

  There was even a small scarlet, pintucked velvet couch pushed to one side of the room like an afterthought. The sight of it made my throat close off, and I stood rooted to the spot, trying not to cry again.

  I just loved red and velvet.

  The place wasn’t just livable. It was damn near perfect for my current needs. It was as if a friend had come through and hand-selected everything to suit my tastes, from the monochromatic flooring and walls to the modern kitchen and the black and white marble countertops. And all the windows! Tituba, the windows—they were rows of them facing the rear yard of the duplex, each one floor to ceiling. One of the first things I would do was open each one downstairs and upstairs, so I could invite the winds of nature into my humble, little abode.

  Impossible, of course, because I had no friends. My only real confidant for the last few years had been Astrid, but now that I’d been booted from the coven, who knew how Astrid would end up.

  “Oh, fuss,” Hellcat muttered.

  He’d found a perch on the window sill and curled into a tight knot of feline limbs as he stared out into the dark night.

  My insides gave a nervous twitch.

  By the time familiars reached Hellcat’s age, they’d seen and done just about everything. You never wanted to hear one say ‘oh, fuss,’ with precisely that tone and inflection.

  “What?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Come hither and see for yourself.”

  Hellcat yowled when I unseated him, pushing him onto the couch below so I could stare out the window.

  “You ogress!” he seethed. “You foul, termagant! I shall…”

  “Do what? You channel magic, you can’t cast it. Keep it up and you’ll be an outdoor cat.”

  Hellcat finally fell silent, though his resentment boiled through the air. If there was one thing Hellcat hated more than me, it was the prospect of living outside. He groused any time his precious, pampered paws touched dirt, and he wouldn’t know what to do with a mouse if it flopped in front of him and doused itself in Bechamel Sauce.

  It took me a few seconds to understand his worry, but when the shapes outside the window resolved themselves, I finally got it. Silvery moonlight pooled on the upturned faces of stone angels, casting slanting shadows in the wake of mausoleums, and illuminated the numerous granite slabs that pushed out of the earth like giant’s teeth.

  The duplex sat on a hill overlooking a graveyard.

  Blast and conjuration!

  I should have known this place was too good to be true! It was the way of my life. Nothing ever went as planned.

  “Balls!” I yelled out and slammed my fist into the window sill.

  “This will not do,” Hellcat said, shaking his stupid head. “You simply cannot live next to a boneyard. Not in your state! A Blood Witch in proximity to this many dead? You’ll have a revenant army by the end of the month.”

  Anger bubbled to the surface, and my temper spewed out like brew from an overfull cauldron. “Blast Ophelia Ponsobby for leaving this little, important detail out!”