My lashes fluttered involuntarily. "No, I wouldn't. And I wouldn't want to raise my baby in a world like that either."

I squared my jaw and turned the doork.n.o.b. I'd faced death and demons before. Surely, I could withstand whatever waited for me next.

SIX.

White Room Despite what the storybooks say, witches do not throw around curses w.i.l.l.y-nilly.

Two of the cornerstones of the craft are: you should do no harm, and whatever you put out into the world returns to you threefold. It is a system of checks and balances, and witches are taught early on that using one's powers indiscriminately will surely reap repercussions.

Our mother, Sasha Shantay Benbridge, had looked down upon those who bedeviled others. She considered curses a lowbrow form of magick. Any woman with real power wouldn't stoop to such tactics.

And yet...

Mother's words rarely matched her actions.

We had seen Miss Sasha imbibe in black magic from time to time. She had accursed her own spell book so that only her direct descendants could remove it from her shop. She had blighted her cousin Larinda for trying to ruin The Council. She had also sentenced a salesgirl in Linsburg to a month of stuttering for suggesting that a woman of Mother's age should not be wearing her hair so long.

Whether these curses worked, I do not know. But Mother performed them with vigor and ritual, then shielded herself with thrice as many levels of protection to thwart off any repercussions. She was a complicated woman, with more layers than one of Aunt Dora's spice cakes. She forged her own version of morality and it was difficult for others to understand where she drew the line.

For one thing, the line was always moving, and always in her favor.

I thought about all thisMother and her ways, curses and their repercussions, and the justices and injustices of the worldas I made my way through the narrow foyer and into the living room of Harvest Home, the gracious Victorian house I shared with Aunt Dora. I was under a spell, a dark spell that had taken a month of my life, but who cast it and why? Larinda and her daughter Leah were the obvious choices, though no one seemed to worry much about them. That left my father, Armand, a powerful warlock whose actions had dissolved The Council.

But why would he curse his own daughter?

To stop her from having a child?

I shivered at the thought, then recited a silent spell of protection, willing my father's image from my brain.

The scent of homemade apple pie wafting from the kitchen brought me back. It was good to be home, I thought, listening to the familiar thump and press of Aunt Dora's rolling pin and her harsh words at the noncompliant dough. I ambled towards the galleymy favorite room in the houseand caught a glimpse of my fiery aunt in a pink nightdress, kneading dough with one hand and leaning on her gnarled cane with the other.

"Hi, Auntie," I said, feeling suddenly shy.

She dropped the pin and turned to take me in. Though the lines on her face denoted her many years, her eyes were still as sharp and all-seeing as ever.

"My Maggie girl!" With the aid of her cane, she trundled over to greet me. She looked me over, head to toe. "Ya look pale. Ya haven't seen another ghost, have ya?"

I shook my head, uncertain if she were joking. "Just side effects from Merry's tea."

"Aye. I've been workin' with her. That'll clean ya out, good and bad. Well, ya know where the bathroom is. There's a scented candle, if ya need it."

I laughed and gave my aunt a tight hug. "No side effects that way," I a.s.sured her. "Tiredness mostly. I can't seem to stay awake for long."

"Ya been crossed into the Netherworld. I'm surprised yer standin' at all."

"The Netherworld?"

"Aye, the place between this world and the next. And the place o' dreams. But I don't suppose ya were having any dreams, were ya?" She nudged her chin towards a rickety wooden chair near the small table in the center of the room. "Now take a seat before my legs give out."

I sat, re-familiarizing myself with the quaint kitchen and taking comfort in its cozy checkered curtains, an old double-sized stove, and a refrigerator that had somehow missed the safety recall. There were flowers in the windowsill, probably picked that very morning and copper pots that hung from the ceiling. The evening's last light filtered in through the window over the sink, casting a halo over Aunt Dora's gray head. And in the center of the table was an apple pie and a blue and white china teapot.

"When I die, I want to end up in a room like this." I leveraged my too-large body into my too-small chair and leaned forward so that I could better view...and smell...the pie. Steam rose from the crust and my stomach growled in response.

Aunt Dora took that as her cue to fetch a small plate and cut me a slice. I sat with it in front of me for a long moment, afraid to start eating, afraid I wouldn't be able to stop.

"There'll be no more talk o' dyin', ya here?" She brandished her knife playfully. "Not on my watch. Now eat as much as ya like. I can make more."

I finished my slice, not bothering to pause between bites, and resisted the urge to ask for another. There were other scents in the airpotatoes, ham, and cornand I wanted to save room for them all. I wiped my face on a napkin, then pushed away from the table.

"I was just with Michael. I'm not sure where he wandered off to."

"Maybe he's playin' with the dolls in the attic?" she winked.

I laughed, imagining Michael surrounded by those frightening porcelain dolls nearly as large as he was. They had scared us as children and to this day Aunt Dora claimed that she had no idea how they had gotten there. "They're just part o' the house."

When Eve's boyfriend Paul took up residence in the attic, he hadn't minded them either. Perhaps men were immune to their pallid faces and spooky gla.s.s eyes.

"Ready fer some tea?" My aunt asked.

"Oh, Auntie, I've been drinking so much tea I'm afraid I'll float away."

"Hogwash. There's always room fer more tea."

I watched as she served me, mesmerized by the long stream of amber liquid arcing over the cup. Her pour was deliberate yet graceful, the pour of a woman who had spent her life in service. Next she added in one cube of sugar, a sprig of mint, a handful of crushed herbs, and a splash of cream. After stirring the concoction three times counterclockwise with a small silver spoon, she handed it to me. I placed my hands over the cup, feeling the cool touch of bone china between my palms.

"We are witches," she reminded me, her thick gray brow knitting across her keen small eyes. "And tea is what witches do best."

She poured a cup for herself then sat opposite me, clenching her drink in her aged hands. Her fingers were nearly claws now in their advanced arthritic stage, but she bore the pain privately and sipped on her tea with the grace of a queen. I watched her as her steely eyes softened, then moistened, and it took me a moment to realize they were damp because of tears and not the steam rising up from her cup.

"Aunt Dora, are you okay?"

She plunked her teacup into its saucer, rattling it and startling me. "I thought we lost ya, Maggie! Never scare us like that again. Got it?"

I nodded, my mood somber. Then seeing the fear in her eyes, I added cheerfully, "I'll do my best to stay around, but I hear I'm expensive to keep."

She rolled her broad shoulders back. "All the good women are, but worth every penny."

I drank my tea, surprised to find it sweet and not at all bitter. We finished, staring into our cups, neither of us knowing what to say after such a long time apart.

She broke the silence.

"I wasn't sure what ta think o' Michael when he first arrived. He was full o' authorityand himself. But he's been a blessin' around the house, fixin' up stuff that needs ta be fixed, and takin' on ch.o.r.es like he has. And he's been so worried about ya and the baby. Even an old hen like me couldn't stay angry with him fer long."

I lowered the corners of my lips. "You mean you like him, too?"

"Aye. I don' pretend ta know what he was like when ya two were together, but he's a good man now, Maggie Mae. And ya know how I feel about most men."

It was true. Aunt Dora didn't trust men, at least the straight ones. She claimed men cared only about achieving power and, with the exception of Shane and Paul, she didn't have a kind word to say about any man until now.

There was a scuffling noise above us, in the s.p.a.ce where my room would be, and we looked up.

"Rats?" I asked, lifting my feet and tucking them between the wooden rungs of the chair.

"Too loud fer rats," Aunt Dora said with a shrug.

I strained my ears to listen closer but the scuffling had subsided. "Probably Merry getting my room ready." The pungent aroma of sage wafted in, confirmation that a cleansing ritual was taking place somewhere in the house. The ritual served to purify the air, rid the s.p.a.ce of negative beings, and bring in positive energy. Merry, the honorary priestess of our little tribe, never went anywhere without her sage sticks.

"Drink more tea, luv." Aunt Dora nodded towards my empty cup. "It's goin' ta be a long night."

We sat, making small talk about the unseasonably warm weather, the plants we'd like to grow in our garden, and what to name the baby. Aunt Dora preferred old-fashioned names like Benjamin, Ethan, and Nathaniel.

"Enduring names," she claimed, "that won't be worn down by time."

At last, Michael appeared. He entered the kitchen through the back door, sniffed the air appreciatively, removed his brown leather gloves, and set them on the table. His silver ring sparkled beneath the chandelier, beckoning my annoyed glances. He kissed Aunt Dora on the cheek, nodded to me, then went to the sink and began peeling potatoes.

"See," she whispered, her normally rustic voice as silky as a schoolgirl's. "He's a real dream."

"More like a nightmare."

I watched in quiet fascination as Michael's hands glided across Aunt Dora's Yukon potatoes. Instead of endearing me to him, it only furthered my mistrust. During our seven years together, Michael had considered such tasks beneath him, falling under the category of "women's work." He had never touched a potato, except to eat one. As far as he knew, they peeled and mashed themselves.

Aunt Dora returned her attention to me, clicking her short nails on the table. "Everything's goin' ta be okay, now. I promise."

I leaned in, unable to keep up pretense any longer. "How can it be okay? Merry said you think I was cursed."

"Aye."

"Then it's gone?"

"For now, yes."

The chandelier flickered, responding to my apprehension. "Does that mean it will come back?"

"Perhaps. But we found a temporary solution. One that will see ya through the child's birth."

"We?"

"All will be explained later."

Aunt Dora stood with the help of her cane and gathered up the teacups. Michael left his potato post and took them from her, and the two chattered about the proper technique for cleaning fine china.

I swallowed down my fears. If my aunt thought everything was going to be okay, I had to trust that she was right, even if she was acting like a teenager with a crush right now.

Aunt Dora excused herself to set the dining room table as I sorted through a stack of mail that had been waiting for me. Bills mostly, with some junk mail thrown in. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor a mysterious curse could stop the postal service from delivering bad news.

The back door opened again and Merry and Ruth Anne tromped inside wearing matching yellow rain jackets, grinning as they carried in armloads of paper bags. They unloaded the groceries, chatting wistfully about Aunt Dora's famous fried chicken with the hope that it was on tonight's menu.

"Were either of you upstairs about fifteen minutes ago?" I asked.

"No, why?"

"I heard something up there, in my room. Scurrying noises, like large rats."

Michael dropped his peeler and reached for a hand towel. "You heard something up there and didn't tell me?"

"I don't need to report every strange noise I hear to you. This is Dark Root. There's nothing but strange noises here. Besides, I thought it was Merry, saging the room for me."

"She does that," Ruth Anne agreed.

Merry frowned. "It wasn't me. We were trying out Ruth Anne's new camera in the woods. It's supposed to take pictures of spirits."

Ruth Anne reached into her pocket and produced a bulky rectangular device. "My new mini full-spectrum camera." She gawked at its splendor for several seconds before handing it over to me. "It can see infrared, visible and ultraviolet lights. You can even mount it. Another neat gadget to add to my collection. Cool, huh?"

"Yeah," I agreed, though I had no idea what she was talking about. "Catch anything?"

"Just a squirrel brawl. Two rodents, one nut." Ruth Anne looked at Michael with a grin. "Sounds like Maggie's love life."

"You're funny," I said.

"I've got good material to work with. The stuff practically writes itself."

"Speaking of writing, don't you..."

There was a crash above us, like a piece of large furniture had toppled. Michael dashed out of the kitchen towards the staircase with Merry and Ruth Anne following after.

Minutes later they returned. Ruth Anne had a white washcloth pressed to her eye and Merry led her to the sink by the crook of her arm.

"What happened? I heard lots of noise."

Ruth Anne smiled, revealing a mouth full of pink teeth. "I tripped on the stairs." She peeled back the washcloth to reveal a bruise around her eye and a gaping wound in her temple. "I was so excited to use my new ghost camera, I didn't look where I was going." She shook her head, then stopped when she realized it hurt to move.

"No ghosts anyways." Merry shrugged. "Maybe our klutzy sister scared them off."

Michael entered the kitchen. "Let me help. I know first aid and CPR."

Merry held out a hand. "I've got this, Michael. Motherhood has taught me to be prepared for all manner of ouchies. Now close your eyes, Ruth Anne."

Ruth Anne did as instructed.

Merry blew into her cupped hands, then placed her palms over the cut, watching the clock on the wall for one full minute. Ruth Anne shivered under Merry's touch, her skin turning an opaque blue before settling back into its normal peachy complexion. At last, Merry peeked beneath her hands and smiled.

"Viola!"