Page 2 of Everything She Does Is Magic

“She lives with her aunt in that creepy purple Victorian house on Maple Lane,” Grace says. “You can’t tell me that’s not a witch’s house.”

“Everything here looks that way,” I say.

“Yeah, but her aunt stalks around town the same way Anya does.” Grace brushes her flopping dog ears out of her face with aheaving sigh, the fluffy fabric sticking to the gloss on her lips. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re the ones who used their magic to unleash the toads in the bookstore.”

“That was a prank, not an act of magic.” I stand up and return the brushes to the shelf. “We’ll start with painting our canvases a deep blue,” I announce to the class, showing them which acrylic to select, then squeezing it onto my palette. “Go ahead and grab the big brush that’s sitting next to your canvas. We’re going to make long, broad strokes. Just like this.”

A lot of our customers are adults. In every other area of my life, they are supposed to be the ones teaching me. But here I get to lead. They don’t know I’m seventeen, or if they do, no one makes a fuss about it. Not when they get to leave with their own Fableview painting that may or may not be of me, the supposed witch of good fortune, keeping our town prosperous and safe all year long.

Thisis what I will miss the most if I ever get the chance to actually leave Fableview—the permission to be powerful without any other box needing to be checked.

“Anya’s looking in the window right now,” Grace tells me as she grins at our audience with an expression that’s givingthis building is on firemore thanso excited to help you make your one-of-a-kind Fableview souvenir.

My eyes stay on my canvas as I drag my paintbrush back and forth. “What’s she doing?”

“She’s looking at you,” Grace tells me.

“No she’s not. Or maybe she’s familiar with the long-forgotten witch and basset hound legend, and she can’t believe we’re finally bringing it the representation it deserves.”

“Do something specific,” Grace commands.

“No.”

Grace taps my painting hand. “I need to track her eye movements.”

Despite my best interests, there has always been something about Grace that pushes me to be bolder. If she can move through the world as a glitter-encrusted basset hound who is known for being obsessed with reptiles, I can dance like no one’s watching or whatever.

“Yahtzee!”I shout, tossing my hands up into triumphant fists as I take a large, lunging step to the right.

Our painters give a collective gasp of surprise. Grace startles like I’ve thrown something. Refusing to explain myself, I continue to paint the blue background until Grace tells me if the plan worked. This is not my burden to bear.

“Okay, she’s definitely watching you,” Grace confirms. A hot lash of adrenaline singes my core. “What if she’s, like, obsessed with you?”

“Anya Doyle isnotobsessed with me,” I challenge as another lash, faster than the last one, almost knocks me over with its intensity.

“Yeah,” Grace says. “You’re right.”

It doesn’t bother me that Grace agrees, despite having pitched the idea exactly two seconds ago. Whatever makes the hairs prick up on the back of my neck must be an unrelated phenomenon.

“It’s probably nice to have no one in this town really know you. I’d be a brooding mystery too if anyone who lives here would let me,” I say.

“No you wouldn’t.”

“Okay, no, I have no idea how to brood, and I’d probably bevery bad at it, but it would be cool to make a single decision about my life that didn’t have to get run by the Fableview Fall Planning Committee.” Redirecting my attention to my painters, I raise my voice to the clear, confident tone I’ve grown accustomed to using in this setting. “We’re not chasing perfection here. A good painting is aboutfeeling. Give the blue whatever emotion you want it to possess. After all, art is its own form of magic. No matter how closely you follow our design, this painting will still be your own original creation.”

“Have you ever spoken to her?” Grace asks, not letting the whole Anya thing go despite my attempt to redirect her to the job we are supposed to be doing together.

“When she moved here last year, Madame Poncik sat her behind me in French,” I whisper. “On her first day, I turned around and said, ‘Anya’s a really cool name.’ She just nodded. Didn’t say anything back. So I tried again the next day. I asked her how she was liking Fableview. And she didn’t answer me.”

This makes Grace laugh. It comes out like a bark, which is fitting, considering her costume. “See?” she says. “Sinister.”

“I think she’s just shy,” I challenge, even though at the time, I took great offense at Anya’s silence.

We hadn’t had anyone new join our grade in years. Though we get many tourists in Fableview, we don’t get many new residents. Anya’s presence would’ve been exciting to me no matter what. But she seemed sointeresting. Completely unlike anyone else in our class. She was closed off, as anyone probably would be when moving to a place as tight-knit as Fableview, but she also seemed very herself. She wore all black—down to a thin velvet choker on her neck and stacks of black bracelets made of crystals and uniquely coiled metals—in a way that didn’t feellike a performance or a costume. She carried around tattered hardcover books that were so old they didn’t have dust jackets on them, just titles printed in small gold fonts. I couldn’t get a close enough look at any of them to know what they were. The bag she carried with her everywhere had buttons on it with the names of bands I’d never heard of. When I went home and played their music, it was all melancholic and deep, which was exactly how I imagined Anya herself would be.

I wanted to know her, but she didnotwant to know me back.

Whenever I turn around to pass her an assignment or get paired with her to go over a worksheet, I still try to get her to meet my eye. Ask me a question. Anything. But she won’t. Which is what makes it even stranger that she’s standing outside my parents’ art shop, supposedly looking at me.