We saw the girl at the edge of the woods in early September. Her red sports car was parked under the trees, and she was wearing a green coat. She looked like a car advertisement that might convince any boy he wanted to buy.
I’m not too bad myself. My aunt Hilda tells me I’m cute as a bug’s ear, and she genuinely believes bugs are adorable. I would’ve mentally congratulated the girl on being airbrushed by Mother Nature and walked on without another glance—if my boyfriend hadn’t been giving her so many.
Harvey was walking me home from school. We’d been hurrying before he caught sight of the girl, because the wind was rising. One gust of wind curled around us now like an invisible whip. I watched the first leaves fall from the trees in a sudden bright, beautiful flurry of green. They glistened in the air like a rain of emeralds, and I felt a sudden pang. Summer was so close to ending.
A blanket of thick gray clouds had rolled over the treetops. Greendale was lost to sun and in shadow. Night was coming early.
I nudged Harvey and tried to keep my voice light. “She’s hot, but it’s freezing out here.”
“Hey, she’s nothing compared to you,” said Harvey. “Nice car, though.”
“Sure, you were looking at the car.”
“I was!” Harvey protested. “’Brina!”
The wind tugged insistently on my jacket as I ran through the new-fallen leaves, as if there were ghosts trying to get my attention. Harvey chased after me, still protesting and laughing. We left the girl in green behind us.
Harvey, Roz, Susie, and I became besties on our very first day of school, in the way kids do: strangers at first bell and soul mates by lunchtime. People said that a boy would stop wanting girls as playmates, and we would lose Harvey as we grew up. We never did.
I’ve loved Harvey my whole life, and I’ve had a crush on him almost as long. He was my first kiss, and I’ve never wanted another.
I remember going on a school expedition through the Greendale woods and finding an abandoned well by a stream. Harvey was so excited by the discovery, he sat on the bank of the stream and sketched a picture of the well at once. I sneaked a look at his dark head bowed over the pages of his sketchbook and wished for him. But I didn’t have a coin to throw in the well, and when I tried to throw a pebble in, I missed.
It was winter when Harvey asked me if I wanted to go to the movies. I showed up and was shocked and thrilled to find it was just the two of us. I was so excited, I still have no idea what happened in that movie. All I remember is the brush of our hands as we both reached for the popcorn. Such a simple, silly thing, but the touch felt electric. He reached out and twined my salty fingers with his own, and I thought, This is how witches burn.
My most vivid memory of the night is when he walked me home, leaned in, and kissed me at my gate. I closed my eyes, and the kiss was soft, and I was surprised that the whole apple orchard did not transform into blooming red roses.
From then on, Harvey and I held hands in school, he walked me home every day, and we went on dates. But I never brought up the issue of whether we were official-official, boyfriend-girlfriend. Other people call him my boyfriend, but I never have … not yet.
I’m afraid to lose what we already have. My family keeps telling me that it can’t last.
And I’m afraid he doesn’t feel the same way I do.
I know Harvey likes me. I know he would never hurt me. But I want his heart to pound at the sight of me, as if someone is demanding entry to his soul. And I wonder if he settled for something safe and familiar. The girl next door, not the forever girl.
Sometimes I want him to look at me as if I’m magic.
I am half magic, after all.
Harvey left me at my gate with a kiss, as usual. He’s come in to say hello occasionally, of course, but I keep my friends and my family apart. I shut the door and moved toward the delicious sugary smell floating through the hall.
“Possum, you’re home,” Aunt Hilda called out from the kitchen. “I’m making jam! It has all your favorite things from the garden—strawberries, blackberries, squirrel’s eyeballs—”
“No!” I exclaimed. “Aunt Hilda! We’ve spoken about this!”
I stopped in the kitchen doorway and regarded my aunt with horror and betrayal. She stood at our black cast-iron stove, mixing jam the color of blood in a pot the size of a stove. She wore a pink apron that read KISS THE COOK!
She blinked at me. “It’s delicious, you’ll see.”
“I’m sure I’ll see,” I said. “The question is, will the jam?”
Aunt Hilda’s mild, sweet face became mildly and sweetly perplexed.
My family don’t really understand about mortal palates. When I was young, Aunt Zelda would deliver long, fruitless lectures on how nutritious worms are, and how there are young witches starving in Switzerland.
Aunt Hilda, who is much more easygoing than Aunt Zelda, has always accepted my silly mortal ways with a shrug. She walked over to me and gave my hair an affectionate tug with the hand not holding the red-stained wooden spoon. “My fussy girl. You never want to eat anything that’s good for you. Maybe after you come into your full power, things will be different.”
Even in my cozy kitchen, the warm air laced with sugar, I felt a chill. “Maybe.”
Aunt Hilda beamed at me. “I can hardly believe your sixteenth birthday is almost here. It seems like only the other day when your aunt Zelda and I delivered you. You looked so cute all covered in blood and mucus, and your placenta was deli—”
“Please stop.”
“Aw, are you embarrassed?”
“Um, more grossed out.”
“It was a beautiful and special moment. Your poor dear mother wanted to have you in a hospital. Can you imagine?” Aunt Hilda shuddered. “Hospitals are unsanitary. I would never let you near one of those awful places. From the very start, you were my best girl, and I promised myself I’d take care of you. Now look at you. My baby, all grown up and ready to sign away your soul to Satan!”
Aunt Hilda pinched my cheek and turned back to her jam. She was humming as if there was no more charming idea in the world.
This was my family: fond of me, even fonder of embarrassing me, constantly fussing over what I ate and strict about my lessons, always wanting the best for me and expecting so much of me.
Not so different from any other family—except for the dedication to the Dark Lord.
Aunt Hilda’s humming died away. “All’s very quiet here. Your aunt Zelda is off on a consultation with Father Blackwood, so it’s just the three of us for dinner. How is your beau?”
“He’s not officially my boyfriend,” I said. “Or my beau, I guess, but he’s fine.”
“That’s good,” Hilda said dreamily. “He’s a sweet boy. I worry about Harvey and that brother of his. In a house with no mother, where a cold man rules, a child pays.”
The thought of Harvey was usually a comfort, but not today.
I cleared my throat. “Where’s Ambrose?”
“Oh, your cousin is up on the roof,” said Aunt Hilda. “You know how Ambrose loves a summer storm.”
I climbed out through the attic to find my cousin.
The sky was black with night and the air wild with leaves. Ambrose stood on the very edge of our sloping roof, dancing and singing to the last wind of summer. There was a cobra wrapped around his waist, its domed head in the place where a belt buckle would be, its golden eyes shining like jewels. He was holding a second cobra like a microphone, the scaly tail wrapped around his wrist. He sang right into its fanged open mouth as he swayed and spun as if the slope of the roof and our gutter was a dance floor. Ambrose danced with the leaves, danced with the winds, danced with the whole night. Leaves whirled down all around him like confetti, and the wind hissed like a thousand more snakes.