He faced me, drawing in a long sobering breath. "This is hard for me to say, Maggie, but I have to leave Dark Root for a while. I'm not sure how long."

I blinked several times, repeating his words in my head to make sure I heard them correctly. But even then, the meaning didn't register. "Where are you going?"

"Someone I know, someone I care very deeply for, is sick," he said. "I need to be there for her."

"Her? You mean your grandmother?"

"No." He allowed a long pause, rolling a piece of kettle corn between his fingers. "It's Irene, Mags."

Irene. His ex-girlfriend and the woman he had trained with in a secret government sponsored operation before they both went AWOL.

I propelled myself from the bench with one hand, dumping the kettle corn in the process. A nearby flock of birds waddled their way over and filled their greedy bills. Shane looked at me, his face a mosaic of sadness and resignation.

"You're really leaving me like this? I'm about to have a baby and I'm..." I stamped my foot in frustration. "I'm still under a curse and Jillian says I may get sick again, that it could worsen every day until the baby is born. Did you know that?"

He nodded affirmatively and I felt like I'd been stabbed in the heart.

"What about your Cowboy Code?" I demanded, waving my arms around enough to frighten off the birds. "Does that code say anything about leaving your pregnant fiancee to go be with your ex?"

"Mags, come on. It's not like that." Shane stood and tried to touch me but I sidestepped him.

"Then what's it like, Shane Doler? Because I don't know."

His mouth fell open but he didn't speak.

"You're no romantic hero," I continued, near hysterics. "You're just a guy behaving the way all men do when things get too tough. You leave. Well listen here, Cowboy. You don't have to leave me because I'm leaving you first." I marched in the direction of Mother's store. I'd hang out there until one of my sisters could come for me.

Shane jogged after. "Maggie, please..." he begged, catching me by the hand. "You don't understand."

I shrugged him off.

"Maggie, she's got cancer and it's terminal. She may only live another month. Maybe less. I put it off as long as I could, waiting for you to pull through. But I got a call today that things have taken a turn..."

I stopped in the middle of the road. "And if I didn't?"

"Didn't what?"

"Pull through? Would you have left anyways?"

"I-I...don't know."

"Yes, you do."

We made it to Miss Sasha's Magick Shoppe and I realized I still didn't have a key, and I wasn't about to ask him for it. One of Michael's stone angels stared down at me through the window, mocking me. "Take me home," I demanded, re-crossing the street and climbing into his truck.

"Can we please talk? We can still drive to Linsburg and have lunch."

I struggled with the lap belt, not getting it fully across my belly. Eventually, I gave up and let it slide back into its pocket. "No, I don't want a f.u.c.king sandwich."

He hopped into the cab, firing up the engine but making no move to drive.

"Ruth Anne was right. I guess I do have a type."

"Meaning what?"

"I fall for men who always want more."

"Maggie, you know that's not true." Shane banged his forehead against the steering wheel. "You know me better than that."

I crossed my arms, twisting towards the pa.s.senger window. "I thought I did."

"Fine. If you want me to take you home without talking more about this, I will. But I think we are both going to regret this." He drove, turning off Main Street and speeding down the backroads, without rhyme or reason. He muttered incoherently and I continued to ignore him.

"Please try and understand." He finally addressed me as we turned down the road to Harvest Home.

"What's to understand? You care more about Irene than you do for me."

"You're not being fair." He slammed his hand against the dashboard as we pulled into the lot.

Michael instantly appeared in the front window, as if he had been keeping watch. "I can't go in there," I said. "I'll walk to Sister House."

"No, you won't. I'll drive you there." Shane swung the truck around and barreled back down the road. I didn't want to stay in his presence another minute but I wanted to see Michael even less. "Let's not leave it like this," he said. "I don't leave for several more hours."

"Several more hours? Why wait?" I glared, hoping to turn him to stone. It didn't work.

As we approached Sister House I noticed the porch swing rocking gently back and forth despite the stillness of the air. I did a quick scan for Maggie Cat but he was nowhere to be seen, but the food bowl that Merry had placed outside the door was half-empty. When I found him, the two of us would cuddle up on the couch and watch static TV.

"I really am sorry, Maggie. If you'd stop being selfish for once, you might understand."

"Me? Selfish?" Shaking with rage, I floundered from the truck, slamming the door behind me.

Shane didn't give up. In an instant he was beside me, his cowboy hat falling to the ground. He grabbed me by the arm.

"It's something I have to do. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"You can stay gone forever, for all I care." I twisted the ring on my finger, trying to take it off so that I could throw it at him, but it wouldn't budge. "You know as well as I do that I won't be lonely."

"What's that supposed to mean?" The cords in Shane's neck tightened. I stared at him defiantly. After a long pause he nodded once, retrieved his hat, and returned to his truck. Throwing it in reverse, he peeled out of the driveway.

When he was out of sight, I slumped down on the bottom step and fished my house key from my tote bag. I needed to shed tearssome angry, some sadand I couldn't do it out here. I'd go inside and cry alone.

An owl hooted near the garden. I turned to look at it, and saw it roosting on the wrought iron gate. It regarded me with wide, knowing eyes. Its face was the color of day-old snow.

There was another noise above me, a scuffling sound, most likely a bird caught in the rafters. I looked up, expecting a robin or a wren.

Instead, there, in the nursery window, was a woman's face, deeply lined and so opaque I could nearly see through her. Wiry white hair framed her aged face. I swallowed, my heart nearly in my throat.

"Miss Sasha?" I asked, standing. "Mother?"

Her thin lips cracked into a smile. A sound followed but it was not human. It was the high-pitched screech of a yowling cat.

I spun towards the forest as terror supplanted grief. I would have run were I able, all the way back to Harvest Home. As it was, I walked fast enough to lose my breath, not looking back as I sensed the ghostly old woman in the window staring after me.

TEN.

Strawberry Fields "Back from your date so early?" Michael's eyes never left the TV as I slammed the front door.

Shane's confession, coupled with my quick exodus through the woods, had left me raw and unnerved. "Go to h.e.l.l."

"No can do." He lifted the cross around his neck and dangled it for me to see. "The big guy might object."

"In your case I'm sure he'd make an exception." I wiped the matted hair from my face and looked upstairs. I wanted nothing more than to shower and then crawl into bed for the rest of the day.

Ruth Anne, who had been sitting at a desk near the kitchen, removed her earm.u.f.f-style headphones and glared at me accusingly. "My computer just shut off. I can only guess that means you're in a bad mood. You could have let me save first."

I removed my boots and kicked them across the living room. "What makes you so certain it was me?"

As soon as I spoke the words, the TV fizzled, sparked and went dark. Michael punched the b.u.t.tons on the remote control to no avail.

"You're going to be the one to tell your Aunt Dora about this," he said, calmly placing the remote in his lap and stretching out his legs.

"I'll add that to the list of fun ways I'm going to spend my evening." I tried to stomp my way up the staircase but without shoes the effect was missed.

Eve was waiting on my bed, a magazine open across her lap. "Why is Michael sleeping in the attic? That's Paul's room."

"I don't know. I only work here."

"Well, he shouldn't be there. What if Paul were to come back right now? And what if he brought Nova with him? We'd need that room. You go talk to Michael, p.r.o.nto."

Michael appeared in the doorway, carrying an armful of towels. "Did I hear my name?"

"Eve wants to know why you're living in our attic." I said, tossing my tote on the floor.

"Because those life-sized dolls are the closest things I have to real love right now." He set three towels on my rocking chair and left without saying another word.

"It's almost incestuous," Eve complained, crossing and uncrossing her tanned ankles. She leaned forward, her perfect eyebrows forming a perfect V. "I swear he keeps looking at my b.o.o.bs."

"You wear a triple-D bra, Eve. Everyone is looking at your b.o.o.bs."

"Well, I'm going to have this out with him." She rolled up the magazine and marched from my room, cornering Michael in the hall. I half-listened as the two argued over whether or not Michael had been leering at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I shut the door and hedged my way to the bed, ready to bask in my own self-pity while trying to forget the face I saw in the window. My solitude didn't last long as Eve returned, shaking her head.

"He's a perv, Maggie. I know the type. Prays on Sundays but by Monday he's out stealing panties."

"He stole your panties?"

She gave me an exasperated look as she opened the closet door to inspect herself in the mirror. "It's just a saying."

"It is? How come I've never heard of the panty-stealing expression?"

"You've never been to New York."

"I'm never going there either if people are running around stealing panties."

Eve removed her sweater, leaving on only her slim leggings and her Victoria's Secret bra. Cupping her b.r.e.a.s.t.s she said, "Sometimes I regret going so big. I mean, they were great when I worked at Hooters but Nova keeps asking if her b.o.o.bs will get as big as mine one day."

"What do you tell her?"

"I tell her yes, if she saves up eight thousand dollars." Eve turned and winked, dropping her hands to her hips. "Or if she gets a sugar daddy. I didn't tell her that last part, of course. She'll figure that one out on her own."

"She's lucky to have you as a role model."

"I know, right?"

As Eve lamented her choice in breast sizes, Jillian poked her head into the room. As usual, her hair was neat, her makeup perfect, and her outfit impeccable. She was slim and unfairly pretty, especially for someone her age. Standing next to Eve she could pa.s.s for her mother, minus the enormous bosom.

"Am I interrupting?" she asked politely. Her eyes fell to the corner of the case that poked out from beneath my bed, lingering a moment too long.

"Eve was just complaining about the Michael infestation," I said.

"It's creepy, right?" Eve put her sweater back on. "n.o.body warned me that Professor G.o.d was going to be here."

I pressed my hands into the sides of my temples. "n.o.body warned me either. If they had, I might have fought harder to stay asleep."

Jillian laughed, though the lines between her brows deepened, evidence that her mood was anything but light. She took a seat in the rocking chair.

"Eve, can you give us a minute?" I asked, sensing Jillian's need to talk privately.

"Alright." She placed one foot in the hallway. "But if I get arrested for poisoning that man, you better post bail."

"Deal."

As Eve shut the door, I worried there might be truth to her words. She had be-spelled him once when he came for me last fall, giving him a love potion to redirect his interest. It had worked swiftly, and well, and Michael ran off in search of an actress he never met who lived on the East Coast. More recently, she concocted a perfume she dubbed Man-Catcher, which caused us to go down a very dark road I had no intention of revisiting. I almost called after her when I caught the strained look on Jillian's face.

Michael was on his own.

Jillian leaned forward, pressing her elbows into her knees, her face kind yet concerned.

"Are you going to scold me for being mean to Shane or to Michael?" I asked. "Because if you are, I don't want to hear it."

She put her hands up, palms out. "No, Maggie. I'm staying out of that mess. Your men. Your battle."

"Good. I think."