“Gorgeous.” The witch is right behind me and she coos this word into my ear. It sends a chill down my spine and my skin prickles up in response. I stare at her in the mirror, our eyes locked on each other’s. Then she gently pulls a thick strand of wet hair off my shoulder and smooths it down my back.
Again, I get the chills.
She’s making me feel weird and I don’t like it, so I step away, out of her reach, and cross the room to put some distance between us. “Now what?” I ask.
Her eyebrows go up. “Now? Well, now, Little Baby, we make a plan.”
“What kind of plan?”
“What kind of plan would you like to make?”
“I don’t know,” I say truthfully. “I don’t really understand what’s happening.”
“You mean you don’t understand whathappened. Past tense.”
I shrug up one shoulder. “Fine. I don’t understand what happened so I don’t know what to do next.”
“Well, you’re in luck. Because not only do I have a plan, but I know exactly what to do next.” She says all these words as she takes herself across the room to a couch. Then she sits down, pulling her legs up and tucking them underneath her, getting comfortable. She pats the cushion next to her. “Come. Sit. I’ve been dying to tell someone everything I know about mirrors.Thatsomeone”—she pauses to sigh—“is otherwise preoccupied. But you’ll do, Little Baby. You’ll do just fine.”
“And then what?”
“Then…” She smiles at me. And in this smile I see something new in her. Something evil. Something devious. Something sinister. “Then,” she says again, “we’ll plot our revenge.”
“Why would you assume I want revenge? You don’t even know what happened to me.”
“Oh, I can take a good guess, Little Baby. I am no ordinary witch, you see. I am one ofthemtoo. I drink the blood. Not anymore, of course. I’m dead. But I was you once. I was… Little Baby, though Josep never called me that.”
“You know him.”
“Of course I know him. Before he made you, he made me.”
