Coming next in the Sacred River Series
The postcard arrives with a return address of Amsterdam, and the date from more than a month ago. On the front is a picturesque photo of a green windmill set against an idyllic stream, and there, gracing the back in purple glitter pen, of all things, is the instantly-recognizable handwriting of Fennec O’Fallon. I’d recognize it anywhere at this point, glitter pen or not.
I turn to the world map next to the card catalog and find The Netherlands on it. After a moment’s consideration, I twirl my finger in the air and point at the country. The map fills in with the same purple glitter shade of as the writing on the postcard.
I look back at his words.
A.,
Would you believe that Manhattan smells more like weed these days than Amsterdam? I –
F.
The desire to know what’s beneath the swirls of purple pen after that first sentence—the burning need to read what he wrote, then scratched out—might be the death of me. I hate not knowing things, and Fennec is well aware of that tidy little fact. He probably laughed as he wrote gibberish and then crossed it out, imagining me muttering a spell to make the words reveal themselves and getting nothing.
“Another letter from your pen pal?”
I nearly leap out of my skin as I turn to scowl at my sister. “Was that really necessary?”
Willow smirks on the other side of the counter and performs a dead-on imitation of what I must have looked like mere seconds ago. “You look like you’re trying to decipher one of the world’s greatest mysteries.”
Pretty sure I was. Fennec O’Fallon has been a mystery to me since we met in a chat room as teenagers, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. I shrug, folding the postcard and tucking it into my back pocket. “His handwriting is terrible.”
My sister considers me, humming thoughtfully, before pushing a thick, cream envelope toward me. “You forgot this in the mailbox.”
I didn’t forget it. I avoided it. There’s a difference.
“Oh?” I do my best to affect an air of nonchalance. As though the envelope doesn’t have the power to upend my entire life.
“Don’t give me that crap. You know what it is, and I’d bet a dose of Truth Tea that you saw it and left it there.” Willow raises her eyebrows and tilts her head, entirely too pleased with herself for figuring me out.
“You should have left it there.”
“And miss out on torturing you with one of the few things that gets under your skin? Absolutely not.” She grins and rubs her palms together in a poor imitation of an evil genius.
I ignore her and the envelope and open the cash register, waving my fingers over the till and using my magic to count the money. It’s faster and more accurate, and unlike some of the witches in this family, I use magic every chance I get.
“Where is he now?” Willow asks, changing the subject.
Look at that. She is smarter than she looks. “Fennec?”
Willow snorts. “No, the other world-famous musician who’s your pen pal.”
“I don’t know. This is from over a month ago.”
She grabs the postcard, sliding it across the smooth wood before I have a chance to snatch it and shove it into my pocket. Like me, she inspects it closely, spending almost the same amount of time staring at the ink blot. “What do you think he wrote there, before changing his mind?” she murmurs.
My skin prickles. Annoyed, I snap my fingers and send the postcard flying out of her hand and into mine. “Nothing.”
It’s always nothing.
Willow makes sure to point the invitation out to Mom when she arrives later that afternoon, loaded down with supplies for the shop from her week-long trip to New Orleans. It’s still lying next to the cash register, taunting me every time I ring a customer up. I can’t bring myself to touch it. Once I do, it’s an acknowledgment that I’ve seen it, and they’ll expect a response.
I am nowhere near ready.
Mom knows better than to handle the envelope. Instead, she looks from the intricate golden calligraphy to me. “Are you going?”
“Don’t see that I have much choice.”
“You always have choices, Aspen.”
I hate it when she goes all motherly on me. As if we haven’t practically grown up together, given that she’s only twenty years older than my forty-three years. “Not about this, I don’t.”
Her expression softens. “You know I’d go for you if I could.”
“I know,” I sigh. She would, too, but she can’t. It’s the First Daughters Ball, something a firstborn witch is invited to only upon turning forty. I’ve avoided going for three years. The whispers about my absence are unavoidable, even here in Sacred River, and we’re approaching gossip levels of the Ton in one of Jasmine’s historical romance books. Not that I’ve read them.
Lies.
I’ve read all of them. Not that anyone knows that—it’d ruin my reputation, and I quite enjoy my place as the black cat of the family. Not a literal one, of course; we’re not shifters and Uncle Fester is our actual black cat, whenever he deigns to grace us with his presence.
“Calliope went, you know,” Mom says.
I raise my eyebrows. “And?”
“And she managed it all just fine.”
“Expectations were different then.”
Mom laughs, the sound like little bells. “They most certainly were not. She went in the 1980s, not in some prehistoric time. Why do you think I’m the one who’s still here, in Sacred River, when the rest of my sisters aren’t?”
She doesn’t get it. Doesn’t understand the pressure. Mom is the seventh daughter, and that’s a far different situation than being the first daughter. Honestly, I’m not sure how Calliope managed to avoid the responsibilities of it all. “It’s still different,” I insist.
“If you say so,” Mom says, shrugging and moving past it like she always does. She tilts her head toward the counter. “Should I throw it away?”
I stare at the invitation, willing it to give up its secrets. Maybe I’d feel differently if I knew where it was going to be—there’s a big difference in flying halfway across the world versus somewhere in the contiguous United States.
Okay…I’m lying again. I’d give anything to get out of here, even if it was just for a little while. But too many people depend on me, and the shop would probably go under in a week flat if I weren’t here to keep Mom focused and Willow on track.
Willow snorts a laugh. “You know it’s spelled, Aspen. You’re the only one who can open it, and it won’t reveal squat until you do.”
I barely repress a scowl, and it makes my sister laugh even harder.
“Two weeks,” she sing-songs, plucking up the envelope and waving it at me.
Two weeks.
Two weeks to decide which way the rest of my life is going.