In the Shadows

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