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The sitting room was deserted except for Diana, who glared suspiciously at me from her one eye, tail flicking lazily. I snorted. Even this cat knew I was an imposter. I put out a hand for her to sniff before giving her a good scratch behind the ears.
“So, you’re a witch’s cat, eh?” I murmured to her. She leaned her head into my hand, enjoying the attention. “You’ll have to show Freya the ropes. Wait, are you actually a cat, or did one of my aunts just turn you into one when she got annoyed?”
Diana gave me a look that made me thankful cats couldn’t deliver devastating replies. Then she lifted her nose into the air and sniffed. A moment later, I caught the scent as well—someone had just started frying bacon. I left Diana to her lounging and went down the hallway to the kitchen.
Though I’d been at Lightkeep Cottage since the previous day, I still hadn’t seen any of the downstairs of the house other than the living room. I passed down a narrow hallway encased in white-painted wood paneling and decorated with twinkle lights and a series of black-and-white photographs in gold frames, each showing a different view of the cove and the lighthouse. I lingered over them for only a few moments, long enough to feel relieved that none of them depicted a little girl walking into the sea.
I passed two doors on the right, one leading into a formal dining room, and another into a cozy library lined floor to ceiling with overcrowded bookshelves. On the left only one door led off the hallway, opening into a beautiful solarium full of morning sunlight. It seemed to be part sitting room, part greenhouse, for it was also full of a variety of brightly blooming plants hanging from the rafters and tucked into the corners. I’d never tried to grow anything in my life except a chia pet, and that thing had barely survived a week. The thought of having responsibility for all this lush greenness made anxiety twist in the pit of my stomach. I kept walking toward the doorway at the end, from which the smells of breakfast were wafting tantalizingly. I reached the threshold and froze.
My very first thought was that if I’d seen the kitchen yesterday, I’d already have known I was in a house full of witches. My Aunt Rhi stood in the center, bent over a massive stove, a bulbous cream-colored antiquity that looked to be at least a hundred years old, squatting comfortably on claw-footed legs in a bricked alcove that looked like it might once have been a massive fireplace. Bundles of dried herbs, bunches of feathers, baskets, and corked bottles of every color hung from the rafters overhead. The counters were crammed with antique tins and glass jars of every shape and size imaginable, each labeled in a spidery, faded hand. The sink under the window was a massive double farmhouse sink of cracked white porcelain and was currently full of armloads of blooms. A pair of pruning shears lay abandoned on the sideboard. The refrigerator, tucked into a corner, looked nearly as old as the stove. There was no sign of any modern-day convenience, such as a dishwasher or a stand mixer or even a toaster, but there was a huge mortar and pestle on the sideboard. Rhi was humming to herself, and I recognized Joni Mitchell crackling away on a turntable in the corner.
Rhi looked up and spotted me as she transferred the first batch of bacon to a wire rack.
“Wren! I wasn’t expecting to see you so early. I thought teenagers like to sleep in late,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron and smiling at me. She was still in her pajamas, feet bare and pale on the wooden floor.
“I usually do, but… well, there was a lot to think about,” I said.
Her smile drooped a bit as a sadness crept into her eyes. “My goodness, you said it. I couldn’t sleep either. Come sit down, honey. You want some coffee?”
“Yes please,” I said, and watched, fascinated, as she heated the kettle and pulled out two glazed pottery mugs. She covered each with a cheesecloth filter in a wooden frame, and then ground the beans by hand with a little silver hand-crank grinder. Then she scooped the freshly ground coffee into a little heap on each filter and slowly poured the hot water over each cup.
“I’ve never seen anyone make coffee like that before,” I admitted.
Rhi smiled. “Your grandmother always said it was the only way to drink coffee.” She pushed my cup across to me, along with a little tray that contained a sugar bowl and a little pitcher of cream. She sipped hers black while I added cream and sugar to mine. “Personally, I think there are probably lots of ways to drink it, but your grandmother had a hard time breaking with tradition.”
“Our family has a lot of traditions, I’m guessing,” I said.
Rhi’s smile slipped. “Yes. But you’ll learn them easily enough. If you want to, that is.”
“If I want to?” I asked. “I sort of got the feeling after last night that I might not have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” Rhi said. “Just because you have an affinity for witchcraft doesn’t mean you have to practice it.”
I just sipped the coffee, letting my silence express my doubts.
“Persi said last night that I would definitely have magic, but you said, ‘probably.’”
Rhi looked a little wary. “I did.”
“So which is it?”
Rhi took a long sip of her coffee. “There is always the possibility that someone in a family of hereditary witches could simply… not inherit the same abilities. It’s by no means common, but it does happen.”
“Has it ever happened in our family?”
“Not that I’ve ever heard of.”
“Great. I’ll probably be the first genetic dud of the lot.”
Rhi’s laugh burst from her in a high-pitched giggle. “Why in the world would you think that?”
“I don’t know. I’m just so… ordinary. There’s nothing particularly unique or special about me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Rhi tutted. “Everyone is unique.”
I snorted. “Just wait till you get to know me. I’m pretty underwhelming.”
“That’s nonsense,” Rhi scoffed. “You just haven’t discovered your thing yet.”
