Lily ignored her, not stopping her quest to smooth the wrinkles in the shirt Katherine had lent her for their trip to Sunspot.
“My mom says it’s important to look like you take care of yourself.”
“Well,” Katherine said, pulling the door open and gesturing for Lily to head inside, “given the night you had, I think everyone will forgive you. Plus, the state of that shirt reflects more on me, and everyone in there knows I can’t fold properly.”
“Damn right she can’t.” The stunning Black woman with unicorn-colored braids put down the rag she’d been using to clean a nearby table and walked over to Lily and Katherine. “I’ve been trying to get her on board with the KonMari fold for years, but she’s too damn lazy. Hell, there’s even a spell for it, but she says it’s a waste of magic.”
“It is,” Katherine insisted. “Just because we’re witches doesn’t mean we need to use magic to do every little thing.”
“And you can have fun dying on that shitty hill. I, for one, would rather use a quick rune than ruin my manicure doing dishes.”
“I’m too lazy to get my nails done in the first place, so I don’t have that issue.”
The woman rolled her eyes before turning to Lily. “I’m Fiona, by the way. Are you hungry? Katherine probably tried to feed you canned soup for breakfast, right?”
“Frozen waffles,” Lily replied.
Fiona laughed. “Oh, big step up to actual meal-appropriate food.”
“Let me guess, she tried to serve them to you plain,” said another female voice. “And still frozen.”
Lily turned to see a tall Black woman leaning against the doorway of the kitchen, rubbing her hands on a stained apron.
“Fiona already got you on board the ‘Katherine needs to eat real food’ train, huh, Tess?” Katherine said, chuckling.
“She mentioned that you once spent a week subsisting on gas station burritos and I nearly threw up.”
Despite herself, Lily laughed. It was strange but nice to hear people talking so normally, so close to her life being upended.
“Wait a second,” Katherine said. “Fi, why are you wearing that?”
Lily looked at Fiona, who was wearing a flowy skirt and a bustier with puffy white sleeves.
“Fuck,” Katherine said. She cursed a lot. Lily wasn’t scandalized by it—she was a city kid, baptized in the fires of public school and the LA Metro. Still, it was strange to her that this woman who promised to take care of her might not be all that put together herself.
“It’s not Halloween already, is it?” Katherine asked.
“Yes, it is,” Fiona said. “And if you don’t get yourself in the Halloween spirit ASAP, I’ll have to make you walk the plank.” Fiona grabbed her purse, rustling around for a second before pulling out a fake hook hand. “Argh.”
“Wait, witches celebrate Halloween?” Lily asked.
“Everyone celebrates Halloween,” Fiona said. “Well, not everyone.” She gave Katherine’s decidedly not-a-costume outfit—baggy jeans, a cropped tee, and sneakers—a judgmental look.
Katherine crossed her arms defensively. “Tess isn’t wearing a costume either.”
“Au contraire.” Tess gestured to her all-black ensemble. “I am the night.”
“That’s cheating.”
“You’re just saying that because you wish you’d thought of it.”
“Touché.” Katherine turned to Lily. “Halloween isn’t a special nightfor witches or anything. We just happen to have a coven meeting tonight because we do one on the last Friday of every month.”
Lily nodded, adding this to the list of facts she was collecting about this new world. She was out of her depth. This time yesterday, her biggest question had been if she should start doing a ten-step skincare routine. Now, she was wondering whether witches actually had warts.
She couldn’t handle warts on top of everything else.
Lily’s stomach growled, the frozen waffles from that morning refusing to tide her over.
