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Guilt hits me immediately, which is ridiculous because how am I supposed to mourn someone I never knew existed?

Still.

She’s family.

Was family.

“I’m so sorry, Mom.”

Something passes over her face so quickly I almost miss it.

Pain.

Regret.

Maybe both.

“Thank you.”

Then she slides the envelope across the desk.

“She left you this.”

Inside is a deed to a house.

Which is how I find myself here.

Three weeks later.

I am single. Thirty-eight years old. Official Coven reject. Magically mediocre Witch. Owner of one temperamental cat. And proud inheritor of a cockamamie property from a dead aunt I never knew existed.

In a town called—I glance at the weathered sign again.

ARRHYTHMIA, TEXAS.

“Weird name,” I mutter.

Sparky meows from the carrier beside my feet.

“Like you can talk. Your name is Sparky.”

His responding hiss sounds suspiciously judgmental. I turn toward my inheritance. And my stomach drops.

“Oh, shit.”

The photograph from the attorney is very generous.

The actual house is an enormous old Victorian looming behind a rusted wrought-iron fence. Three stories of peeling paint, crooked shutters, overgrown vines, and enough gothic architectural details to make Dracula himself say, Maybe tone it down a little.

One shutter hangs sideways. Something moves behind a third-floor curtain. I squint.

Nothing.

“Okay.”

The front gate creaks open by itself.

“Not ominous at all.”