Page 36 of Everything She Does Is Magic

Grace relishes the chance to show me the prize, reaching behind her podium to hoist up a giant trophy with an apple at the top of it. “This is only for the grand prize winner, though,” she cautions. “You’re in the first of five semifinals right now.”

“You get five hundred dollars if you win it all,” Kyle whispers. “So I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mess up my flow. I want that money.”

“So do I,” I say.

Ineedit, actually, for when I turn down the chance to join my family’s coven and begin my regular life.

Piper comes around to tie my hands together with a bandana. “Do you want me to go tell Darcy you’re competing?”

I pull the green goggles over my eyes. They provide me enough privacy to really let her question roll off my back. “That’s not necessary,” I say.

“Well, I think you guys are cute together,” she tells me. “And I have a gift for knowing this sort of stuff.”

Both of Darcy’s closest friends have now mentioned her to me, and Piper’s made it sound like we’resomething. What has Darcy told them? And what else does Piper know? She has that same energy about her that Grace does—that knowing. The only person I’ve ever been fooling about anything might really beDarcy.

Piper ties up my hands.

Grace begins the countdown.

There is a brief moment when I entertain the ridiculousness of this—me, Anya Doyle, in an apple bobbing contest. Then Grace calls out, “Go,” and I plunge my face into the bucket, and the water is so cold and the apples are so slippery that all my self-consciousness disappears. It feels the same as my magic, the way my breath steadies my body, all my focus and intention going toward my singular goal. Grab every apple I can.

My teeth find something to hold, and I bite down, then spit out the apple into the basin at my feet. It’s exhilarating. Fun, even. There is no sense of time and place, only me and this task.

Dive. Bite. Plop.

Dive. Bite. Plop.

When it’s done, Grace calls out time, thrusting me back into the now. I’m drenched from head to toe, water splashed down my shirt and onto my jeans and boots and in a pool three feet wide around my body. My short hair is stuck to my forehead and cheeks, sopping wet and cold.

Piper unties the bandana around my wrists. “That was incredible,” she says.

Heaving, I pull the goggles off my face and look over at Kyle’s bucket. He’s done very well. It will be close.

I look out into the audience, prepared to see my family’s amused faces. This will be a nice last memory of me they can cherish after I’m forced to move to god knows where and fend for myself.

But it’s Darcy I see instead. Front row.

17

Darcy

Grace taps the mic to gain everyone’s attention. “The winner of our first-round semifinal, with an amazing twenty-six apples captured in a minute, is Anya Doyle!”

Anya sulks her way to the front, claiming the smaller semifinal trophy.

“We’ll have four more semifinal rounds, so it’s not too late to enter,” Grace announces afterward.

Kyle jumps off the front of the stage, making a beeline for me. “Can you tell your girlfriend to leave me alone?” he asks. “She sabotaged me up there, cutting in front of this old guy who was just about to volunteer to be the fourth bobber. Did you put her up to it? I just—”

He’s still talking, but my mind has snagged on “girlfriend.” He called Anya my girlfriend. And it wasn’t even judgmental. At least not judgmental of us dating. Judgmental only of Anya beating him. Why does Kyle think that? And why did Anya do the apple bobbing contest in the first place?

“I have to go,” I tell him, cutting off whatever point he’s rambling on about. “If you’re nice enough, I’m sure Grace will let you enter another semifinal.” Grace would never break the rules like that, but it’s the only way to get Kyle off my trail. He can’t be stalking behind me, distressed about his loss, when I have more important things to handle.

Anya slinks off the stage with her trophy and the towel Grace has handed her. She’s out of view from the rest of the audience, hiding between the back curtain of the stage and the side of a tent. There are stray props back here. Extra medals and ribbons. Tubs full of unused decorations.

I’m not sure what energy I have, but I have a lot of it, and it has me storm up to Anya and say her name like an accusation. She startles, fumbling the towel she’d been cupping around the ends of her hair.

The wobbly, heart-squeezing feeling inside me only swells at the sight of her this close. There are goggle indents around her eyes and a red oval on either side of her nose. Her black tank top is wet, with her black cardigan falling off her shoulder. Her chin-length hair is usually stick straight and tucked behind her ears. Now it’s flung across her face, stuck to her cheeks.