“Rhi’s trying to convince me that Diana is four hundred years old,” I snorted.
My mom shrugged. “Oh I think she’s quite a bit older than that.”
I half-choked on my cookie. “Wait, seriously?”
At that moment Persi slunk into the kitchen, looking sulky. “You’re having a cookie party and didn’t invite me? Even the cats are here.”
Rhi threw up her hands. “Fine, let the vultures descend. It’s not like we need to restock the shop or anything.”
“I mean, we won’t eatallof them,” my mom said.
“Speak for yourself. I’m making no promises,” Persi said, grabbing two cookies at once, but stopping short of putting them in her mouth. “Wait, did you enchant these?”
Rhi raised an eyebrow. “I guess you’ll all find out, won’t you?”
We all looked at each other, shrugged in almost-perfect unison, and kept right on eating.
“Don’t you have class today?” my mom asked me, looking at her watch.
“No, but I do have to drop off a paper, so I’d better get going,” I said, hopping down off my stool and closing my notebook. “Do you want me to take these down to Shadowkeep?” I asked Rhi, pointing to the remaining cookies.
Shadowkeep was the Vesper-owned shop downtown. It was a typical witchy tourist trap downstairs, but upstairs it was the most expansive and specialized apothecary and supply shop any witch could hope to find.We also sold Rhi’s kitchen witchery there, when they managed to escape our collective greedy clutches.
“Wait, I’ve only had two!” Persi whined. “Wait, no… three…”
“Oh forget it, I know a losing battle when I see one,” Rhi said. “Luckily, I’m always prepared.” And she pulled a basket of pre-wrapped cookies tied into little bags with twine and a sprig of rosemary.
“When did you make those?” Persi asked, sounding offended that anyone would have the audacity to hide baked goods from her.
“While the rest of you were sleeping. It’s the only safe time if I want them to make it to the shop,” Rhi explained.
“I can take them when I head out to open up,” Persi said, her eyes wide and innocent.
“Not a chance,” Rhi said flatly.
I left my aunts and my mother to battle it out over the rest of the cookies, and strapped the basket carefully to the back of my bicycle. I’d been saving up for over a year for a car, but there seemed no point in owning a car in a place like Sedgwick Cove. Maybe I’d feel differently in the winter, when the long and unrelenting cold set in, and the snow and ice turned the streets to slick, treacherous ribbons of white; but for now, I was more than content to sail down the coastal paths with the briny breeze whipping through my hair. It was hard to imagine Sedgwick Cove in winter—to me it felt like it must always be warm and bright here.
Thanks to foliage chasers, New England in general was still teeming with tourists this time of year, but no place on the Northeast coast was busier in the lead up to Halloween than Sedgwick Cove, with the possible exception of Salem, Massachusetts. The towns had very similar witchy reputations, though Salem’s stemmed from the violence inflicted against supposed witches, while Sedgwick Cove’s was much more rooted in the community of confirmed witches that lived there. Both towns leaned heavily into their reputations—I’d even heard that the Salem High School mascot was a witch on a broomstick—but in the case of Sedgwick Cove, the embrace was more out of safety than for tourist dollars. I hadn’t understood this at first.
“But if we just advertise that this is a town fullof witches, then how is that protecting people?” I had asked one afternoon, a few weeks into our move.
“It’s like hiding in plain sight,” my mother said, laughing as she picked through her rose bushes—not only hers because we lived at Lightkeep now, but hers because, as a green witch, they always had been. The petals brightened at her touch.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “How can you hide while fully admitting what you are?”
“Ah, but we don’t fully admit it. You remember how we set up Shadowkeep?”
Of course I knew. I was getting as familiar with the family shop downtown as I was with the rest of the Cove. The downstairs level was crammed full of touristy junk: sparkly witch hats and broomsticks, mood jewelry, candles, and housewares decorated with black cats and silly sayings like, “I’m a real WITCH before I’ve had my coffee.” It was all campy, and even the items that claimed to be magic were not really magic at all. But upstairs, through a hidden door, the local witch population could find everything they needed to conduct their spellwork, charms, and sorcery: from rare herbs, to incense, to crystals and spotlessly cleaned animal bones.
My mother shrugged. “Shadowkeep itself is a good metaphor for the whole town. By presenting a silly, harmless version of witchcraft to the world, we can distract them from the real witchcraft flourishing beneath the surface—and the other, more nefarious things as well,” she added, her amused smirk melting away.
Because we knew better than anyone about just how nefarious those “more nefarious things” were.
And so, Sedgwick Cove became a wildly popular tourist destination in the weeks leading up to Halloween. All Hallows Eve, or Samhain, as witches called it, was just one of many important days in the wheel of the year; but for the outside world, it was the one day of the year where witches had a share in the cultural spotlight. Therefore, it was totally unsurprising to find the town full to bursting with tourists, even on a weekday morning. There were people already lined up outside of thetarot shop, even though the sign on the door said it didn’t open for another fifteen minutes. The Historical Center door had been flung wide, and Penelope was putting out a sandwich board advertising the walking tours that left from that corner of Main Street every hour, a queue already forming beside it. I waved at her, but her answering wave and smile seemed somewhat strained. At first, I thought it must be the stress of peak tourist season, and then I remembered that half the town was scared of me—it was one definite downside of discovering your power is coveted by the ancient evil that inhabited your town. I tried to shake it off, the fear behind the smile.
“It’s only temporary, Wren,” my mom kept assuring me. “They’ll come to their senses.”
But it had been months. If people were going to come to their senses, wouldn’t they have done it by now? The thought popped like a soap bubble, though, when I spotted the next face that smiled at me. There was no fear there.
