Page 17 of Everything She Does Is Magic

Probably because I can’t share therealreason. We train with as many members of our extended family as possible to enhance our powers, learning different tips and tricks and hopefully deepening our own understanding of our magic in the process. We also get to experience various towns that have already been exposed to magic, with the idea being to choose one as ourlanding spot after our initiations. We meet and make friends with all the wonderful people who live in these places, recruiting one of them for our protection.

Quiet, sullen Aunt Calchoseto live in Fableview. She picked this place with its paper cutouts of bedsheet ghosts in every store window and a bronzed broomstick in the middle of the town square. Aunt Cal, the loner, chose a place that loves gathering for group activities. And she picked a person here to protect her.

His name is on the tip of my tongue. It was a man, that much I know. Someone she was not just friends with, but in love with. And he screwed her over. Which makes for the only additional rule Cal has ever given me, on top of the general one that goes for all Doyle witches, saying we are never to mess with the natural order of human life, which basically boils down todon’t use your powers to stop death.

Cal’s rule was much more specific. More pointed.

Never let your protector be a romantic interest.

Darcy Keller was crossed off my list from the moment I first saw her.

Losing my powers should be making me increasingly worried, but somehow, the further this goes, the more it feels like a relief. How the people of Fableview live—the mortal people, that is—thereissomething charming about it. They enjoy Halloween because it’s fun to dress up in different costumes and put plastic skeletons in their front yards. They make being a witch seem exciting, even to me, who has only ever seen my gift as a burden.

They make me believe it will all work out.

9

Darcy

“By the way, what’s happening with the shop?” Anya asks now that we’re far enough down the boulevard that Pam’s Paints is no longer in sight. “Did you make a decision about whether or not you’re going to take it over?”

“Yeah, I’m going to do it. Which reminds me, we should pass these out.” I hand her the cards I had printed. “It’s a mini scavenger hunt. If a tourist goes into five different shops on the boulevard and posts a picture online inside each one, they get 30percent off their purchase at Pam’s Paints.”

Anya reads over the details, and a slow grin creeps across her face. Her smile is as secretive as the rest of her, not easily earned. It’s a little thrill to know I’ve caused it.

“This is great,” she says. “You’ll get people posting, and then they’ll buy something at your shop. It’s really well-considered. Do your parents know?”

“Of course they don’t know,” I tell her, trying for a breeziness that isn’t landing, still stuck on everything I revealed to herthat first night she showed up at the shop. It’s hard to explain that that was only a momentary weakness. “By the time anyone completes this, I should be back at Pam’s, finishing up my shift. My parents never check our receipts very closely, so they won’t know about the discount. Hopefully, they’ll just see the uptick in business and be thrilled. And maybe the other shops will see what we’ve done and want to offer their own discounts next year. If I’m lucky, it will come up at next year’s planning meeting like it’s a tradition we’ve always honored that they just forgot about. That’s one big perk of having older parents. You can make them think they forgot something you never said in the first place.”

Anya nods. “Risky. I like it. What happened with the dog painting thing, though? Were your parents mad at you?”

“My parents don’t really get mad at me,” I say. “They getdisappointed. They gave me a long speech where they asked me not to betray them again.” I try to laugh, but the sound is too choked to seem real.

Anya looks at the card, reading through it again. “You really want to own Pam’s Paints next year?”

Being around her reminds me of a sleepless night, the kind when suddenly you can see ten years into your own past with clarity, running through every memory you’ve ever had, piecing your life together like a puzzle. She makes me feel alert, aware of myself and my decisions in a way I never am around anyone else. She doesn’t let me get away with my usual easy avoidances, and I don’t entirely know what to do with that.

It helps a bit that her aunt lurks behind us, watching our every movement. It’s like an extra layer of protection, keepingme from needing to go to the depths that Anya seems to want to take me to. Being around her, I want to say things likeActually, before I broke those ceramics, I wanted to leave. No one knows that, not even Grace. I even applied to one college already, just as an experiment. Only to see if I could get in.

The very things I cannot be saying, not now, when my parents have publicly pledged the shop to me. Not when I’ve accepted without protest. Not when I know things will break without me, and no one else will know how to fix them.

“I do,” I tell her.

The lack of conviction in my voice is obvious to us both, and she lets out a small “Hmm” before dropping it altogether. She hands me back half the stack of cards, and we begin passing them out.

As we go down the boulevard, I help Anya identify the tourists, and we approach them with the cards. Once you know what to look for, they’re pretty easy to spot. They’re always just a little bit in the way, not thinking about the flow of Fableview in the way the locals do. And they tend to take double the pictures of a normal person. Young Fableview kids participate in the parade too, but it isn’t the same banner spectacle that it is for a tourist’s family.

When we spot a smiling couple waiting for their kid to pass—phones out to take multiple pictures of the tree nearest them—Anya and I exchange a glance, knowing this is our next target.

“Hello,” Anya says to them, surprising me by initiating the conversation before I can. “Would you like to perform a scavenger hunt that results in a discount from a local business?” It’sher first time asking this instead of me, and the stiff formality in her tone almost makes me laugh. But she’s trying, forme, and I would never dare mock her for that.

“That sounds fun,” the woman says warmly. “How lovely. Thank you!”

Anya nods. “Of course.” She walks off.

“That was perfect,” I tell her.

“It was a start.” She wipes away the hint of a smile that had crept into her expression.