one
THE WORLD SWAYED BENEATH CORA. She leaned her cheek
against the tree’s rough bark, overcome with a dizzy wash
of vertigo that wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
She was in the witch’s tree.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself higher through the
branches. When her straw hat got in her way, she tossed it toward
the ground to wait beside her shoes, stockings, and garters. Once
she’d gone as far as she safely could, she wrapped an arm around the
trunk and leaned out, letting the sun play on her face between
the broad oak leaves. The smell of green overpowered the heavy
salt scent of the ocean, and she could just make out the cross from
the church and the distant top of the lighthouse.
Minnie and the O’Connell boys hovered at the bottom of the
hill, afraid to even set foot on the line that marked the witch’s
property. Cora was fifteen, far too old for climbing trees, but now
she had done something her sister never would. Their summer-
long series of dares had escalated to this, and Cora knew she’d
won. She waved a hand and crowed wildly, flush with her own
triumph.
In response, Minnie’s face went white with terror, and the
boys yelped and turned tail, fleeing into the woods.
Cora slowly turned her head. She’d come level with the second
story of the house, where a single round window looked out like a
dark eye.
The witch was standing behind it, staring right at her. Pale
face expressionless, she raised a hand and put it against the glass,
fingers splayed wide.
At that very same moment, a bird flung itself at Cora, a
cacophony of feathers and screeching. As she raised her hands to
protect her face, Cora’s feet lost their hold.
Before she realized she was falling, everything went black.
Cora awoke to blinding pain, contrasted by a cool hand at her
forehead.
A sweet voice hummed an off-key tune, and Cora peeled
her eyes open to see a dim, curtained room lit by pillared candles.
The walls were lined with stacks and stacks of books, so many that
she couldn’t make out the pattern on the wallpaper behind them.
She was lying on a stiff sofa. Next to her was a woman, hair
dark around her face but gradually lightening to blond at the end
of a braid draped across her knees with the sleek twist of a snake.
She wore merely a slip, no corset or stays or even drawers. A neck-
lace with a dark green beetle charm nestled in the sharp hollow of
her collarbone. The woman’s eyes drifted down and then locked
onto Cora’s. A heartbeat too late, Cora thought to squeeze them
shut again and play at being asleep. Sleep had been safe.
Once caught, Cora could not look away from the black depths
of the witch’s eyes. She was in the Witch of Barley Hill’s house. No
one — no one — had ever been inside.
The witch smiled, but it was disconnected, like her mouth and