Good lord, the people in my life. I seize a bookmark from the coffee table and aim it back at her as if it’s a magic wand. “Ooga booga boo, turn Luna into a shoe.”
“You shouldn’t say stuff like that,” Ash warns. “Never know what’ll happen.”
“Actually, I know exactly what will happen. Nothing.” I brandish it at Snapdragon next. “Abracadabra, turn this cat into a capybara.”
“Stop that!” Luna shouts, being perfectly serious. “You might hurt him.”
Romina shakes her head at me, tutting.
“Oh comeon.” I stare, half-amused and half-exasperated with their sour expressions. “I’m yoursister, I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m not going to risk our business failing. Stop lying to me and admit you’re making it all up.”
Luna pauses the movie.
“Zelda,” Romina says primly. “You are starting to piss me off.”
Luna holds out her arms. “We’re not going to let this become an argument. Zelda has her feelings about magic, and we have ours. It’s okay to disagree.”
Ashhmphs, her face dark.
“If magic were real,” I can’t help saying, “everyone would know about it. Scientists would have found ten thousand ways to bind it to chemicals, to medicine, added it to every step of our daily lives. Billionaires’ companies would be exploiting it for profit. It would absolutely be common knowledge.”
“Itiscommon knowledge!” Romina exclaims. “Everyone’sheard about witchcraft! The fact that it isn’t taken seriously by absolutely everybody doesn’t mean it isn’t credible.”
“And ghosts are real, too,” Ash adds, crossing her arms.
“Aisling, it isn’t anything personal.” I try for a joke, to lighten the room. “I need for ghosts to not be real. I make a lot of stupid faces at myself in the bathroom mirror when no one’s around and I can’t handle the thought of being watched by some dude who bit it in the fifties.”
“He bit it in the 1860s,” Ash replies. “He also takes offense to the suggestion that he follows anyone into the bathroom. Samuel has better manners than that.”
“Where is he now?” Luna wants to know. “I told you he has to stay downstairs unless expressly invited up.”
“He was invited. By Grandma. They’re having ghost tea over there.” She points at the wall. “Oh right, you can’t see it. There are ghost rooms here, from where the building used to have an addition. It caught fire in the early 1900s, so you can’t see the parlor. It’sdivine, though. Drapey curtains, a big silver harp, a mirror that reflects the faces of anyone who’s ever looked in it.”
Good grief. It’s three against one, and I am not going to win this. I lug a gallon of chocolate ice cream out of the freezer and slap it onto the counter to soften up, Luna expertly deescalates by changing the subject, and I return to the couch with a neutral smile pasted on my face.
Underneath it, my every molecule itches. It feels like they’re in on a con together, a secret, and I’m the odd one out. I love them fiercely—I always will.
But I’ll never trust them completely until they admit they’re faking it.
Eleven
Hang a broom above your headboard, and fly in dreams.
Spells, Charms, and Rituals,
Tempest Family Grimoire
Two days later,I contrive to catch Aisling in a lie. She isn’t as experienced with deceit as her mother and aunt, so I figure she’s the weaker target.
“I read an article about an old ghost man who haunts the train station,” I tell her over breakfast, courtesy of Luna. My older sister likes to baby me now that we’re living together again, cooking my favorite meals. She’s been puttering around since the crack of dawn, the smell of animal-shaped waffles rousing me out of bed. My poor night-owl body is unaccustomed to this treatment, my eyesight so bleary that I can hardly see my own plate.
Aisling pauses with a bite of waffle halfway to her mouth. She’s wearing one of Luna’s old faded tank tops, blue with embroidered daisies, her unbrushed brown hair in a ponytail. Whereas Luna’s nose is long and narrow, Aisling’s is a short button. She’s got hazel eyes, unlike our blue, and her mouth is wider. I try to recall what her father looks like, but it’s been so long since he last came sniffing around that he’s a blur to me. “The train station?” she repeats.
“Yeah.” I sip my orange juice, playing it casual. “They say he has a striped tie. Carries a briefcase and black hat. Sits on the bench all day, waiting for his train.”
“Never met him.”
I stretch my arms. “Really? Lots of people have seen him.” Nobody has seen him. He is my invention.
