Cauldrons & Campfires (Lake Nevermore #1)

Chapter 1

Gwen

If you’d asked me before my twentieth birthday if I believed in magic, I would’ve said absolutely not. But there I was, staring at my ex-boyfriend . . . whom I’d just turned into a toad.

I let out a disgusted scream as Brayden licked his eyeball.

“Gwen?” Mom called from the living room. “You okay, honey?”

“Uhhh, I’m fine! Don’t come in here!” I screeched in a way that only made my mom’s footsteps quicken. “Oh god, oh god, oh god.”

I stared at the brownish-green toad on the kitchen floor.

My first thought was to start live-streaming the incident just in case my ex magically re-Brayden-fied before our very eyes.

After all, I was studying social media marketing, and this was one hell of a viral moment .

. . not that anyone would believe me. And then I wondered if turning one’s ex into a toad was a criminal offense and decided to put my phone away, lest it be used as evidence.

I opened the window to the fire escape and peered down into the alley below. Would anyone notice if I flung him outside? Stranger things happened in our New York City neighborhood every day.

Car horns blared outside as a taxi rear-ended the vehicle in front of it. A thick Brooklyn accent shouted profanities that echoed up to our two-bedroom apartment. Normally, the hubbub instantly quelled my nerves, but toad magic was above even New York City’s pay grade.

Of all the nineteen cities I’d lived in during my twenty years of life, New York was my favorite. Something about the constant hustle, the raw humanity, and the excitement and absurdity of it were comforting to me. I liked being anonymous, a small fish in a giant pond.

And speaking of ponds . . .

I looked down at the amphibian—who seemed more confused than terrified—and knew what I had to do: get rid of the evidence.

Inching closer, I cupped my hands around his plump body and lifted him off the floor. His cold, bumpy skin sent a chill up my arm. But before I could fling Brayden out of the window, Mom stalked in and shrieked.

“Mom, I-I don’t know what happened,” I said, my words coming out in a violent, panicked flurry. “One second, I was shouting at him for drunk-sexting Sophie, and the next . . .” I held him up for Mom to see, and Toad Brayden gave a confirming croak.

Mom looked between the toad and me. “So that is Brayden?”

“Yes.” I panted as if I’d just been running full tilt. “I know it sounds crazy, but one second, he was here, and the next poof! Toad!”

Mom’s cheeks flushed as her brow furrowed. Speaking slowly, as if her mind were catching up, she said, “You turned Brayden into a toad?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Dammit.” Mom groaned, stamping her foot in indignation. She pinched the bridge of her nose, seemingly no longer shocked but rather peeved. “I was afraid this would happen.”

“Huh? What do you mean you were afraid this would happen?” I narrowed my eyes at her. “It was already a possibility in your mind that I might turn someone into a toad?”

Mom grimaced at me in the way she always did when she’d been caught telling white lies to protect me. But this time, it was far more than a white lie.

She threw her hands up defensively before I even had a chance to speak again. “You showed no signs of magic! I thought we’d made it out of the woods when you turned eighteen and still nothing.”

“What?!”

“Oh goddess, okay, uh . . .” Mom started pacing back and forth. “Where do I begin?”

“How about you start by telling me how to fix this?”

Brayden gave another long croak as if he, too, were hoping she’d have a solution.

Mom took a deep breath as if it would calm the both of us. “Okay, so . . . I’m a witch, and you’re my daughter, and magic runs through the women in our family.”

“What!”

Mom cringed. “I know, I know.” She waved her hands like windshield wipers. “Remember that cute little town that we used to get postcards from when you were young? Maple Hollow? Well, it’s more than a spooky gimmick. That’s where my coven lives—”

My voice rose to a pitch only dogs could hear as I screeched, “Your coven?”

“Can you please stop shouting at me? You’ll scare the toad.” Mom hastily tiptoed around my outstretched hands and shut the window behind me.

I guess throwing Brayden out of the window isn’t the best way to handle the situation.

I tracked Mom’s frantic movements. “I’m sorry, but I’m reeling from the fact that my mother is confessing that she lied about being raised by a disbanded hippy commune in the woods and instead grew up in a coven! Why have you never told me?”

“I may have changed a few minor details about my upbringing,” she said tightly. “But I left when I met your father. I didn’t think you’d have magic in you since you’re half human.” She frowned at Toad Brayden. “Well, that’s it, I guess. I’d better call the summer camp.”

“I’m sorry. I think I blacked out for a second there. Did you just say you need to call a summer camp?”

Mom pursed her lips. “Yes.”

“You need to call a summer camp because I turned my boyfriend into a toad?” My hands bracketed the two parts of that question, trying one more time to grasp the train of thought I’d clearly missed.

“Yes.”

“Which means I’m a witch?”

“Yes.”

“For fuck’s sake, say more words, Mom!” I exploded. “Why do you need to call a summer camp now that I’m apparently a witch?”

Mom sighed. “So that you can learn about our history and how to properly use your magic,” she replied.

“And so that you can decide if you want to be part of the coven one day. From the ages of eighteen to twenty-one, coven witches attend a summer camp, both to bond and to learn more about their magic. The first two years, you’re a camper, and the second two, you are a counselor.

And at the end of your fourth year, you become a full-fledged member of the Maple Hollow coven. ”

I looked at her like she’d just sprouted horns. “And you attended this summer camp when you were my age?”

“I did,” she admitted with a sad smile. “And honestly, they were some of the best summers of my life, honey. I think you’ll have fun there.”

“Wait, just so we’re clear, you’re sending me to summer camp to learn how to be a witch?”

“Yep,” she said with a grin. “I know it sounds strange, but I swear it’s great. All the girls are your age, and you learn scrying and hexes and potions. There’s a lake and whittling and archery. And you compete against the other camps in the end-of-summer games.”

“Witchy summer camp?”

“Uh-huh.”

“There’s just one small problem,” I said, once again holding up the bumpy creature I’d configured.

“What?”

“I don’t want to be a witch, Mom!” I shouted. “I have an internship with the Sinclair Society this summer that I need to complete.”

“Ooh, the Sinclair Society,” Mom muttered, shaking her jazz hands at me. “Why does a social media marketing major need to be in a secret society, hmm?”

The Sinclair Society was a not-so-secret, secret club at my university that was one of the best ways to guarantee myself a job in the future.

It was like the business nerd version of a sorority.

They would be my people forever. I needed that community and those alliances, especially since I was the new kid in town—again.

The Sinclair Society was my way to get the leg up I so desperately needed.

Mom pursed her lips. “This is more important than your club,” she said, ignoring my guffaw of protest. “If you don’t go now, you’ll never have another chance to be initiated into the coven, even if you want to be. This camp is essential.”

“I don’t want to be in a coven,” I snapped.

“Then don’t be,” Mom spat back in the same exact tone that I’d learned from her.

I didn’t know how Dad put up with the two of us.

We were both black cats to his sunny disposition.

“Or you could learn some cool magic over the summer and”—she looked at Brayden—“learn how to control it, more importantly, before you turn your whole family into newts the next time you’re PMS-ing.

” When I rolled my eyes, she added, “It’s happened before. Ask me how I know.”

My mouth fell open. “You turned your family into newts?”

“Briefly.” Mom shrugged. “I turned them back.”

“Oh, that’s fine, then,” I snarked. “Can you wave your magic wand or whatever and turn Brayden back now, please?”

Mom walked over and scooped him out of my hands before he could squirm away. “I’ll handle him,” she said. “It’s been an age since I’ve reversed a transformation spell. It’ll be fun.”

I blinked at her. Mom had always been a little kooky—a slightly gothic, lovable grump with a penchant for the macabre. My eyes landed on the bat skeleton in her lineup of curiosities on the kitchen window.

How had I not ever questioned it before?

I just thought we were a “Halloween family.” No matter where we lived, we did Halloween big every year.

Now that I knew Mom had grown up as a witch, it actually made a lot of sense.

And, as angry as I was at her for keeping all of this from me, I really didn’t want to accidentally turn her into a toad or newt or lemur or whatever else. . .

Or at least if I did, I wanted to know how to turn her back.

I looked around the kitchen as if I might find the answers written in the belladonna-print cabinetry.

My eyes shifted back to my mother holding the toad version of my ex-boyfriend and I croaked, “When does this witchy summer camp start?”