Page 102 of The Magic We Made

“Well, no. If I ever get my notes back from Jackie—she confiscated them all for the case against Haley—I plan to write this up as a short investigative piece forThe Dailybut pitch a much longer article to someone willing to pay me a living wage for it. I thinkVanity Fairwould love a story about a teenage witch death cult. I already have an editor who’s interested, not to mention a producer at Netflix.”

“Death cult?”Mrs. Giovanni sounds horrified.

“Well, that’s what I’m calling it. I feel like Teenage Witch Death Cult will get more clicks than the Green Witches from Greenwich, don’t you think?”

Finally I hear Frankie speak: “So this whole time you’ve been telling us you can’t come to Sunday Gravy because you’re working, you were with those witches?”

“That’s right!” Cat seems remarkably cheerful for someone who spent the evening with her wrists tied around the base of a tree. “It was going pretty well until Haley found my phone. She put me in charge of cutting everyone’s hair. I told them my sister cuts hair for a living, so—”

“Having a sister who cuts hair doesnotqualify you to be a stylist in the state of Connecticut,” Angie snaps. “I was wondering who gave these girls such appalling cuts, and then to find out that it was my ownsister? Donotput me in your article. I donotgive you permission to mention me.”

Cat only laughs. “Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure Haley was going to kick me out anyway. She kept asking me to sign my college fund over to her.”

“You don’t have a college fund,” Frankie says. “You already graduated.”

“I know, but I told her that my name is Trina, and that I’m only twenty. I’m sure if she hadn’t found my phone, she’d have made up some other excuse to get rid of me since I wasn’t tithing enough. She was ready to dragmeup onto that altar until she decided to sacrifice that rando she found instead.”

Frankie sounds as if she’s trying to remain calm.

“That wasn’t some rando,” she says. She, at least, has dropped her voice to a whisper, conscious that I’m supposed to be sleeping behind the curtain next door. “That was my neighbor, Ash.”

Cat sounds perplexed. “Wait...thatguy is Ash Merit? I thought you hated him.”

“I never said I hated him.”

“Uh, you’ve only said it every single day since he bought the place next door.”

“Well, I don’t hate him anymore.”

I know I shouldn’t be eavesdropping. But how can I help it? They’re right there next to me.

Still, this is a disappointing response. I know Frankie thinks I’m asleep behind my curtain, but considering what we’ve been through together, the least she could say is,Well, I like him now. I’m not even asking forI love him.

But I haven’t been able to ignore the fact that I’ve told Frankie several times that I love her, and she hasn’t said it back to me once.

And true, most of the times I said it, I was under the influence of a highly poisonous plant.

But I still meant it. It’s true we only met—officially—a few days ago. But I feel like I’ve known her for years.

And it’s also true Henry says I’m too quick to tell girls I love them.“‘You have ‘a heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,’”was how he put it, quoting some poet. I think he was specifically thinking of Nicole and those girls in Berlin, because I really haven’t told that many other women I love them.

But when you know, you know, am I right? And what I feel for Frankie is different from anything I’ve ever felt for any other woman. It’s something bigger, stronger... something I know is never going to go away.

Still, I don’t expect Frankie to feel the same way... especially not now that she knows the truth about me.

Though she has to like me a little. Why else would she have gone through so much to try to find me?

That could be another reason why she’s being so quiet. It’s hard on the science-minded when they’re suddenly confronted with something that can’t be explained rationally.

And what happened out there on Center Island is definitely something that can’t be explained rationally, though Troy keeps trying.

“I had no idea there was so much devil’s weed in the preserve,” he says every chance he gets. “It’s an invasive species, you know? And when it burns... well, there’s no telling what kind of hallucinations someone might get after breathing it in. When we were out there looking for you, Frankie, I thought I saw all sorts of weird things—but that was only an effect of the weed.”

It’s pretty apparent that this, along with the earthquake, is going to be the official explanation for what went on tonight. The last time West Harbor had been rocked by magic, it was blamed on a thunderstorm.

And that’s fine. It’s easier to believe than the truth, that a little grifter like Haley almost managed to take down Olympus.

It’s right then that the curtains around my bed part, and I see Frankie standing there, chewing her lower lip. She looks pale in the harsh fluorescent light from the overheads, her neck and wrists small as they jut out from the neck and cuffs of the oversized sweatshirt she’s wearing. Her eyes widen when she sees I’m awake.