So it took me an extra ten minutes. Usually, it wouldn’t matter, but today was Thursday, and on Thursday, early in the morning, the elders met. Not that anyone would ever know that deep in our quaint, picturesque suburban community. The last cul-de-sac on Juniper Avenue was home to one of the most powerful covens in America. How would they know? It looked like any other community—white picket fences, people going on early morning jogs through the neighborhood, and school buses arriving to get the children. Nothing like the American-Gothic or Victorian homes witches were generally portrayed as living in.
I kind of wished we did live in those types of homes, though. Not that I liked them but because they were interesting. Just like I sort of wished I was the witch from movies or shows, the one where all the neighbors were wary of them, that wore all black in the summer and winked to close mailboxes or something! I wanted to sit on my porch on Halloween, dressed as a witch with a pointy hat and mess with kids that came by. Instead, every year, my uncle turned off his lights, and other people left candy out. All the kids from different streets didn’t even bother coming this way anymore.
That was how boring we were. How badly we didn’t want to stick out. It drove me crazy sometimes, and that was why I loved my car, Nightingbug. It was my little rebellion, my way of standing out just a tad, of being myself. Uncle Axel hated it. He told me it would invite interest, and people would ask questions, but it was the first thing I ever pushed for—begged for. So he let it go, though I always had to park it inside the garage and never left it outside.
Because God forbid, it brought attention to our house.
“It’s fear,” I whispered to myself as I pulled into the driveway and then the garage. However, the moment I parked, I felt something—no, someone. The tingle of magic looming in the air. I knew that magic.
It was my other little stalker.
* * *
Smiling, I hopped out of my car, glancing around to see where she could be hiding, and the moment I stepped to the right, I felt a tingle to my left. So I jumped left and then right, shuffling my feet before I dropped to my stomach and looked under my car.
“Magdalena!” I called out at her and snapped my fingers, the cloaking spell she’d used breaking and revealing my eight-year-old neighbor, with a freckled face and brown pigtails, staring right back at me with her big brown eyes.
She grinned. “Morning, Dru! Why won’t you call me Mags?”
“Because I love your full name. It’s cool. Do you know what would also be cool? If you didn’t try playing magical tricks on me first thing in the morning,” I said back to her.
“It wasn’t trying to trick you. I wanted to show you!” she replied as she crawled out from under the car in her school uniform. “It took you three more minutes to notice me this time. I’m getting stronger.”
She was right. Then again, my mind was a little preoccupied this morning.
“It’s good you are practicing, but what do the elders say about doing magic like this,” I said, flicking her forehead.
“Ouch,” she grumbled, rubbing her head then pouting at me. “I don’t know. All the elders ever say is no. No. Practice more and no.”
I bit my lip to stop from laughing as her face bunched up in annoyance. Again, she wasn’t wrong.
“Dru, can you teach me, or can I come out on hunts—”
I put my hand over her lips, silencing her as I bent down to eye level. “Magdalena, you can’t just talk about stuff out in the open. How many times do I have to tell you?”
Her shoulders drooped, and I took my hand off her mouth. “It’s not fair. Why do we have to hide everything? Magic is so cool!”
I remembered feeling like this. “I know! The coolest,” I whined back. “But it is also scary to people who don’t have it. And more people don’t have it than those who do have it. That’s why we have to be careful.”
“You sound like the elders now.” She huffed, crossing her arms. “And my mom. Dru, you are boring.”
I frowned and poked her stomach. “I am not!”
“Are too.”
“Am not!”
“Are too.” She stuck out her tongue, and I flicked my fingers in her face, sending a little wind of butterflies right in front of her. She gasped, backing away and grinning. “Cool! What’s the spell for that—”
“Magdalena?”
I popped back up, standing tall with my hands behind my back to hide the evidence of my magic. However, the older, brown-haired woman, with a furrowed brow and a birthmark on the left side of her cheek, would not be so easily tricked.
“Good morning, Mrs. Reyes. How are you?” I asked with a bright smile.
She looked me over with a frown. “Fine,” her voice flat as her sharp gaze drifted to her daughter, who was now trying to hide behind me.
“Magdalena Varela Reyes, you are going to miss the bus. And if you miss the bus, I’m going to make you walk—again.”