Page 47 of Everything She Does Is Magic

Please.

“I don’t want you to fix it for me,” I tell my mom. “I want to have figured it out on my own. And I hate that I haven’t. I want to change, and I just can’t. I’m not ready.”

My mom, usually one for words, knows there is nothing more to say. This is a fight I’ve won. And maybe with time I will eventually surrender to the devastating pits of embarrassment that will come from having someone like Kyle Holtzenberg at my initiation because my family paid him off. The first person in our coven to have an arranged friendship.

For now, my mom comes back to hold me as I cry.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” I say.

“I know you didn’t, sweetie,” Mom replies. She thinks I mean Darcy, and part of me does. But there’s another part of me that’s thinking about Julia, all those years ago. How even though she was awful and she manipulated me, I still let her down.

At first I think Mom is holding me so tight that she’s surrounding me on all sides. But then I hear another voice, a little sharper.

“Heartbreak hurts.”

It’s Aunt Cal. She’s crawled up onto the other side of my bed to hold me too.

“There’s no way out but through,” she says.

“Is this what you saw in your vision?” I ask her.

“It doesn’t matter what I saw,” she tells me. I’ve never heard her voice this soothing. “What matters is that you know we’re here. You won’t go through this alone.”

And that’s how we stay for the rest of the night.

23

Darcy

My parents have been disappointed in me, and they’ve been frustrated with me, but for the first time in my life, they are trulymadat me.

“We’re holding an emergency family meeting,” Mom says, gesturing for me to take a seat on our couch.

It would be easy to slump down and listen. In all my other, less serious offenses—which have been few and far between—that’s what I’d do. But this is different. This I haven’t earned atall.

“I want to say something first.” I hold my spot in the space between the living room and the hallway. “I think I have a right to want something outside of Fableview. I love it here. Really. You guys are great parents. And I have great friends. It’s a great town. But everything I do is foryou. I work atyourbusiness. I sign up foryouractivities. None of it feels like it’s trulymine.”

They look at me with that same startled expression I’ve beenseeing all month, like their beloved daughter has been swapped with a changeling.

“We hoped meeting Anya would help us understand all this,” Mom tells me. “But now we know her family wants to rope you into her magic. And it’s time for us to take more serious measures to intervene.”

“Why are you talking about her like she’s dangerous? She told me my grandma was best friends with her grandma.”

“She was,” my dad tells me. “My mother was best friends with Agnes Doyle. They were inseparable right up until Grandma died. Called each other on the phone almost every night. I never understood why Agnes didn’t move here, but that didn’t seem to stop the two of them from staying close.”

“So you guys knew Anya was a witch?” I ask.

“We live inFableview,” Mom says. “A lot of people here are witches.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me that they werereal?” I ask. “I thought they were like Santa Claus. And you guys have always treated the magic of Fableview like a business decision, not a reality.”

“It’s a complicated subject,” Dad says. “We knew from your grandma that the Doyle coven prefers to operate under the radar. The whole reason they have protectors is to help keep them safe.”

“Safe from what? Our town is obsessed with magic! Everyone would be thrilled to have them practicing out in the open. I’ve seen what Anya can do. It would amaze people.”

“Magic is something all regular people want to believe in,” Dad says. “They want to think they could be witches too. That’s what we sell them on, that hope. If they learn that some peoplehave actual, genuine powers, they stop hoping that they might have them too. Like your mother said, Cal and Anya aren’t the only witches in town. The Blakes have powers too.”

“Piper?”I shake my head. They’re sidetracking me, like they’re so good at doing. “So what’s the problem with Anya, then? Why couldn’t I be her protector if I wanted to?” Who knows why I’m asking this? I don’t want the job. But this whole situation is ridiculous. “Is it that she and I are…that we kissed?”