Page 41 of Everything She Does Is Magic

Sitting in her aunt’s car in the dim of the alley, just a singlestreetlamp illuminating us both, Anya searches my face for areaction.

“You’re anactualwitch?” This time it’s a question. My last chance at understanding the world as it’s been.

Anya reaches up to grab one of the dried flowers her aunt keeps inside her car. She picks a rose that’s dark red and so dehydrated that it looks ready to crumble to pieces at her touch. The gesture seems out of place. Is she about to hand it to me as some sort of strange joke?

Instead she does something even stranger. She releases the stem of the flower and holds just the petals. When she closes her eyes, shereallycloses them, like she’s gone into a deep sleep.

Her breaths get so drawn out that I start to count them—six seconds in and six seconds out. I’m so transfixed by her face, calm and serene, that I almost miss what’s happening in her hands.

The rose has begun to bloom again. What was once dull and crinkled is now teeming with life as something like dust whirls around the air. Anya remains still, like she’s cast in amber.

My brain struggles to make sense of it all, thinking of the parlor tricks I’ve learned through my years at Pam’s Paints. Perhaps in the time I was looking at her face, she was able to swap out the flower? Maybe the rose is made that way, and there’s a button she’s pressed where she’s transformed it?

Or…

Maybe, just maybe…

“You’re an actual witch,” I say.

This time I believe myself.

This time it’s real.

Anya opens her eyes. She moves her hands down to hold the stem again, displaying the rose. It looks new as ever—a rich,deep red that I can tell even from here would feel like velvet on my skin.

Anya tucks it back into its place along the seam of the sunroof. “This is from my parents’ wedding. Aunt Cal thinks it’s good luck to have it, because my mom grew it. Mom has a gift for gardening, so it’s way more resilient than your usual rose. I have a bouquet of them in my room too. They’ve always been my practice flower. They’ve died and been revived more times than I can count. Because I’m a mender. I can bring things back to life.”

“Your mom is a witch too?” I ask.

Anya looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to keep unraveling this.

“Aunt Cal,” I whisper. Of course Aunt Cal is also a witch. There’s never been a woman more like a witch in all of Fableview. But up until now I didn’t believe that witches had actual, tangible powers.

“Everyone on my maternal side has the gift,” Anya tells me. “I don’t have my dad’s last name. My dad doesn’t even have my dad’s last name anymore, actually. I was born to be a member of the Doyle coven. I’m sorry I lied the last time you asked me.”

“To be fair, you told me the truth a few times before that,” I say. “Would be kind of hard for me to be upset about it. I just…I can’t believe it’s real.”

The joy that’s started to flood my system reminds me of what I used to feel late at night on Christmas Eve, looking out my bedroom window, trying to catch Santa on my balcony.

Fableview’s magic is real.

I can’t help the tear that falls down my cheek.

“Oh no. I didn’t mean to upset you,” Anya says.

“You haven’t,” I tell her, smiling through my crying. “I promise. I just have seventeen years’ worth of Fableview stories to work through now.”

Anya kisses my cheek. “Take your time with it. If we have to cancel the dinner, I understand.”

“We’re definitely not canceling,” I say. “I’m not passing up my chance to eat with a family of witches.”

Witches.

Real, actual witches.

By the time I make it back to my room, I still have that same warm sensation. I used to get it on Halloween too, I realize. Before it became too much of my responsibility. This pure contentment and wonder has finally come home to me.

Grace picks up on the second ring. “What’s wrong?”