Page 33 of Everything She Does Is Magic

As if she weren’t the one who’d targetedme. Sought me out, knowing I came from a family of witches.Shemade me her friend.Sheused me.

It’s taken me years to accept that. I’ve been so caught up in the mean things she said to me, trying desperately to fix it, that I haven’t allowed myself to admit that I didn’t deserve any of it in the first place.

I made the right choice by not helping her with my powers.

But she’s here at the worst possible time. A time when Darcy almost kissed me. It’s the kind of hopeless utopia that would swallow me whole, until one day I got regurgitated back into the real world—where Darcy Keller is a girl from Fableview who’s destined to go somewhere else, and I am a girl from somewhere else who’s destined to go nowhere.

“Darcy’s busy,” I tell my mom. Another truth. Darcy somehow teaches art classes, runs the art club, sings in the school choir, helps her parents organize the Halloween schedule,andattends every event. In a themed costume, no less. She is the definition of “busy.”

Cal, with a knowing smile, revealing more with her face than she has with her words, says, “We should go see her at the apple orchard.”

“Yes! Ilovethe apple orchard,” my mom says.

It’s not fair. My mom loves most things.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “She has a lot on her plate. We should get food instead. I’m sure my parents are hungry.”

Maybe this is what Cal saw—me being dishonest with myself. The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen was seconds away from kissing me, and I stopped her in the worst way possible, by inviting her to a dinner that was never supposed to happen. Adinner that will now get moved up the moment Darcy sees my parents are here ahead of schedule.

“Embarrassing” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

“We should go to the apple orchard,” Cal repeats.

“I liked you better when you’d taken a vow of silence,” I say.

15

Darcy

“No costume?” Grace asks, pointing to my overalls. She doesn’t bother with shielding her horror. It’s almost funny with prosthetics glued to her cheeks and a light green body paint covering her skin. I’m being judged by an alien for dressing normally.

“It wasn’t meant to be a statement,” I say. But maybe it was. I wanted to look cute just to be cute, not look cute as a character.

Everything has felt different since the almost kiss. I couldn’t muster up the interest in putting on my costume and pretending to be something I’m not, because it seems like I’m pretending everywhere in life, and putting on one more costume would be a bridge too far.

“You’re being very mysterious these days,” Grace says, waving her green fingers in my face.

Piper walks up with a crate of apples. She’s wearing one of her hand-embroidered sweaters. This one has a single tiny apple in the left corner. No one gives her a hard time about her mildcommitment to our event themes. Not that I think we should start. Splitting time between her divorced parents’ houses is already tough enough on her. I’m just feeling the weight of my own burdens in a way I haven’t before. The pressure to be perfect all season long.

“Will Anya be joining us?” Piper asks, never one for subtlety.

“I’m sure she’ll skip this,” I tell them both.

“I’m sure she won’t,” Grace says, more to Piper than me. The two of them laugh. Then Grace picks up an apple from the crate and takes a bite. “You know, she’s not as sinister as I first thought.”

Grace’s opinions of people tend to be stubbornly fixed. Even if someone has spent years proving her otherwise, she almost always goes back to her gut.

“She’s definitely not sinister,” I confirm, wanting to validate this. If nothing else, I would like my friends to like Anya. Since Anya is apparentlyalsomy friend. A friend with secrets. A friend who Julia told me not to trust. Not that Julia’s worth trusting herself. But something specific happened between them that I don’t know about, and it seems connected to everything else I don’t know about Anya.

“You’re right. Anya’s kind of, like…” Grace lets the thought hang, searching for a word that’s very obvious to me.

“Thoughtful,” I fill in for her.

“Exactly,” Grace says. “And she’s also, like…I don’t know…kind of…” She waves her half-bitten apple around.

“Funny?” I guess. Grace doesn’t accept that one, so I keep going. “Observant?”

“Amazing?” Piper interjects. “Incredible? Perfect in everyway?”