House of Ivy & Sorrow Read online

  “We’re probably okay out here.” I open the box, suddenly starving. “We could wait a little to make sure he’s gone, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t.” He grabs the other slice, and we eat.

  It takes a second for it to sink in, but once I realize we’re alone in his truck, in the middle of nowhere, I panic for very different reasons. “Where are we, exactly?”

  “Our southern field,” he says through a bite of pizza. “Figured we could see him coming from here.”

  “Good idea.”

  “I have them sometimes.”

  I glance over, only to find him staring right back at me. I keep waiting for him to look away, but he doesn’t. “What?” I finally say.

  He shakes his head. “Nothing. Just can’t seem to keep my eyes off you these days.”

  “What a line.” Too bad my smile gives away how much I fell for it.

  “Do you remember the county fair last summer?”

  “Of course.” The county fair is by far the most exciting thing that happens out here. “What about it?”

  “That was the week Chelsea broke up with me. I was bummed and my friends dragged me to the fair so I could see that she wasn’t the only girl out there.” He puts his hand over his face. “I felt so lame that day. We were sitting in front of the band with some girls they’d dragged over. I wanted to be anywhere else. I would have taken the pigsty at that point . . . and then I saw you.”

  I startle. “Me?”

  “Yeah. You were with Gwen and Kat, sitting on the grass eating ice cream and laughing. You flipped your sandals off and leaned back on a tree trunk, like you were completely comfortable and content.”

  I blush all the way to my ears. “I didn’t realize you saw that.”

  “Well, you seemed way cooler than the people I was hanging out with. There was something different about you. I wanted to go over and say hi, but I couldn’t get myself to do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because . . . I don’t know.” He sighs. “I knew who you were, but only barely. You looked gorgeous in that blue dress, kind of intimidating. I almost got up to talk to you a hundred times, but I guess I didn’t want you to think I was on the rebound or something. After that I kept wussing out. Every art class I planned to ask you on a date, and the words never came. Figured if I didn’t do it before school ended I might never get the chance.”

  “You mean this entire school year you’ve been wanting to ask me out?”

  “Basically.” He winces. “Now you know, and I feel like a complete loser for telling you that story. Talk about stalking. This is the part where you ask me to drive you home and never speak to me again, huh.”

  I bite my lip, secretly thanking scary stalker man for getting me alone with Winn. “Well, you do have to take me home . . .” I scoot closer to him. “But I plan on talking to you a lot. You’ll probably get sick of hearing my voice, especially since you gave me your number and everything. You really shouldn’t have done that.”

  He smiles. That smile, oh, why does it make me go all melty? “I shouldn’t have?”

  “Nope. You’re doomed now.”

  His hand comes over mine, and our fingers intertwine. “I think I’m gonna like being doomed.”

  “We’ll see.” I squeeze his fingers, bracing for a freak lightning shock from Nana or something. It doesn’t come. “You really do have to take me home now, though.”

  “Guess I can live with that.” He lets go to start the car, but then his hand is right back over mine. It feels so good, wiping away any chills I still had. Strange, how easy it is to lean my head on his shoulder when earlier tonight it seemed impossible.

  But when he slows to a stop outside my house, I want to shrivel up and die. Nana stands on the porch, waiting to kill me.

  “She doesn’t look happy,” Winn says.

  “If I don’t call you tomorrow, come looking.” I reluctantly let go. “Good night.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks, I’ll need it.” And with that, I open the car door and head to what may very well be my execution.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  FIVE

  Nana doesn’t say anything as we go inside. Or when I follow her to the kitchen. She pulls a chocolate pudding from the little fridge, grabs a spoon, and eats while staring me down.

  I am in so much trouble.

  Gulping down my fears, I say, “I assume you were watching, so you have to admit that I shouldn’t have gone straight home. That guy could have followed, and then he would have known both entrances to our house.”

  She takes another spoonful.

  I hate when she does this. It’s worse than a lecture. Worse than punishment. My guilt is enough of a penalty. I lean my head on the counter. “Nana, I’m sorry. Really.”

  The pudding cup lets out a crumpled cry when she crushes it. “You need to tell me exactly what was said between you and that man.”

  I look up, surprised that she doesn’t sound angry. The spying spell doesn’t include sound unless you want to throw in bat ears, and those are pretty hard to come by so we save them for important things. “He asked if I was Carmina’s daughter—”

  “Did you say your name? Did he hear your name at all?”

  “I’m sure he didn’t.” Then my stomach drops. “But I did say Winn’s name. Is that bad?”

  She sighs. “It’s not good. You may have put him in serious danger—you know the power of names.”

  I suck in my tears and guilt. “I was so scared. I wasn’t thinking straight. The man hardly said anything, but he carried . . . something. Shadows. Darkness. Anger. It kept oozing out of him. Not sure what it was, except it was bad.”

  She nods. “I could see it.”

  “What was it?” I reach out for her hand. “What is going on? I think I have a right to know. It’s after me, isn’t it?”

  Nana is not exactly the kind of grandma who looks young, but with one sigh she ages another few decades. “I hoped this day would not come. Carmina and I worked so hard to prevent this from happening. But those shadows found him—and since his intentions toward us are good, he is not repelled by our barriers.”

  “Who is he?”

  Her look is flat. “Surely you know, Josephine. Separate him from the darkness, and you will see.”

  I do as she says, picturing the man with as much detail as possible. He has dark hair and light eyes, but I can’t remember the exact color. He is tall and lean, and his skin, while tan, has traces of freckles. I gasp. Mom never had a single one, and who else would care so much about finding my mother? He seemed familiar to me because . . . “He’s my father?”

  She nods. “Joseph Johnson.”

  I can’t seem to find air. This is a day I never thought about because witches simply do not know their fathers. We don’t do families like that. We have relationships, but they never result in commitment. We only have girls—girls who possess our bloodline and power. It is the mother, grandmother, daughter, sister bonds that make up our families.

  Romantic love never ends well for us, though we need it like anyone else. The men we choose to be with are always in danger of becoming pawns, leverage. Which must be my father’s case, because knowing who he is makes me want to protect him. Nana doesn’t have to say anything for me to know what’s going on. Someone is using him to get to us. Someone cruel and consumed with darkness.

  “Carmina loved him very much,” Nana says. I can feel the sorrow in her voice, the pain of losing her daughter and her daughter losing the man she loved. “She wanted so badly to stay with Joseph, and she took many risks to be with him as long as she was. But when she found out she was pregnant, she knew she had to protect you and him. She disappeared from his life and came home, though I don’t think she ever got over it.”

  “He never knew where she went?” I ask.

  She hea
ds for the apothecary, and I follow. “Oh, he tried to find her. We did many things to ensure that he couldn’t, since any knowledge he had would only hurt him. When she was Cursed, we put more barriers around him, for fear that he would be used as he is now. It seems our hunters finally found a way through.”

  “If only we knew who they were.” There are other witch bloodlines. Some friendly. Others not so much. The Curse must have come from someone’s magic, but no one will own up to it. Those who go looking for answers end up dead. All we can do is what we’ve done for centuries: Run. Hide. Hope it doesn’t find us again.

  “If only, yes. The shadows around Joseph are similar to your mother’s Curse. I fear they have finally come for us, Josephine.” She grabs the jar of spiders she made me collect. Spiders, which crawl and sneak and kill. What she plans to do with them, I’m not sure yet. “But if we are very careful, we may be able to free him. And if we are very lucky, we could discover your mother’s killer as well.”

  My eyes go wide. “Are you saying we might be able to avenge Mom’s death?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” She grabs a bag of crow ashes and heads for her desk. Crow and spider—this spell must be something with bite. “Of course, it was safer to hide before, since making sure you came of age was far more important than vengeance. But if they’re knocking at our door, they will have hell to pay for what they’ve done to us.”

  “We can’t leave? Find another magical place to hide in?” Not that I love the idea of leaving Gwen, Kat, and Winn, but the Hemlock line is at risk here.

  Nana’s expression is positively grim. “It takes too much time to search and rebuild. When Agatha came here, there were still five witches in the New York house. Only one had been Cursed. By the time she finished this house, none of them were alive.”

  “Oh.” My heart doubles its pace. I don’t have to ask more questions. The Curse has been a plague for generations, slowly killing family lines. The Sages, the Maggis, the Firebrands . . . they are long gone. And we might be next.

  “I don’t mean to frighten you, Josephine, but if this evil plans to snuff us out I cannot sit here and wait for it. Maybe we can find answers—and with those answers we could stop this, save other witching families from the Curse. We might be a small bloodline, but we are strong.” She puts her wrinkled hand on my arms, squeezes once. “What do you say? Shall we fight back?”

  I can feel the smile on my lips, which reminds me too well that I am no mild-mannered, normal girl. Murdering a witch is a grave, evil offense. We should not kill our own—there have been too many years of other people doing that for us. When my mother died, our sister witches gave their condolences, but we wondered which one of them had done the unthinkable and why.

  My mother did not die without pain. I remember her cries, young as I was. I would sit by her bedside, holding her hand as Nana tried everything to remove the Curse. She did all the spells she could think of to stop Mom’s blood from turning black, but it never worked. Whatever that poison was, it wasn’t going anywhere. I remember the moment I knew Mom would die, though she never said it.

  “You’ll be okay, right?” I’d ask every day after school when I’d rush up the stairs to her room.

  And every day, she would smile and say, “Of course.”

  But one cool fall afternoon, as the leaves were turning gold and red and orange, I came in to check on her. I asked what I always asked, and she said, “I don’t know, baby.”

  That’s when I knew, though I told myself she was just tired of being sick. Tomorrow she would say she was fine. It was only a hiccup in the pattern. But after that it was always “I don’t know,” until she couldn’t speak at all.

  Then she was gone, and it felt like I would never quite be whole again.

  Truth is, I’m still not.

  I stand tall, determined, as Nana and I stare at each other. It’s time to fight, and vengeance sounds good right now. “What do I need to do?”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  SIX

  My phone’s chirping wakes me the next morning. I grasp at my nightstand, wondering who in the world would text me at this ungodly hour. Especially on a weekend. It’s barely daylight—like, daylight happened thirty seconds ago—and I’ve told Gwen and Kat they will suffer if they wake me up before ten. Gwen had a very awkward rash the week after she woke me up just to say some boy kissed her at summer camp.

  I squint at the screen’s brightness.

  Still alive? It’s Winn, btw.

  Well, maybe I won’t curse him.

  Yes, but I don’t remember giving you my number.

  Almost immediately, my phone chirps again.

  Asked Gwen. Figured it’s OK, since I’m doomed already.

  I squeal into my pillow. This can’t be real.

  Except don’t text me this early. Gosh.

  Early? I’ve been up for over an hour.

  I laugh. Winn’s family owns one of the biggest farms in the area, and like most farm kids he’s always up before the sun doing chores.

  I feel so lazy.

  You could come help.

  Not that lazy.

  Ha. Gotta go. Field-plowing time. Call me later?

  Of course!

  Nana knocks at my door. “Josephine? Are you up?”

  “No.” I put my phone on vibrate, cursing myself for not thinking of it sooner. No doubt she has a lot of work for me to do, and it probably involves dead animals.

  She opens my door, the light cutting a sliver through my dark room. “I heard the phone chirp. Was that your boy?”

  “He’s not my boy, at least not yet, thanks to you. Last night barely counted as a first date, so please don’t give him warts.”

  “I was thinking more like permanent bad breath.”

  “Nana . . .” I whine. “I really like him, and you know he’s a good guy. You’ve probably been stalking him since I mentioned we were in art together.”

  She sits at the end of my bed. “I keep forgetting how old you are.”

  “Yup, turned seventeen last week, remember? I think it’s high time I be allowed to date. Kissing and all.” I let out a long sigh at the thought, which sounds far more dreamy than I expected.

  “He is quite handsome. Lovely smile.”

  “I know, right?” I say. Nana, despite the evil streak, does have a kind heart. And a soft spot for good-looking men.

  “He reminds me of a young man I used to go out with, when your great-grandmother Geraldine still ruled the house. I was living in Rochester at the time.”

  I give her a surprised look. “I didn’t know you lived in New York.”

  “Only for a summer. I spent some time with the Crafts; we’d grown to be good pen pals.”

  The Craft witches are probably our closest allies, for lack of a better word. Since Mom died, they’ve been the only family Nana has allowed in our house. Maggie Craft is a year younger than me, and she’s visited off and on over the years to learn from Nana. “Is that how we became so close with them?”

  She shakes her head. “Oh, no, we’ve watched out for each other since the crossing. After the fiasco in Salem, we both went over to New York in search of magical places.”

  “I see.” Lots of witching families left Europe to escape the Curse, us and the Crafts included. Many settled in Massachusetts, since there was a huge well of magic in Salem, but fights broke out and the Curse followed. Our families headed to New York. The Crafts have remained safe there, but the Curse found us again. Now we’re in Iowa . . . and hopefully we can find a way to survive.

  Her hand comes down on my leg gently. “I’m getting off track, like always. I meant to talk about Winn.”

  “Please don’t make me give him up. I promise to be more careful. I’ll protect him and us.” I cross my heart. “I swear.”

  She snorts. “That’s not what I was going to say.”<
br />
  I tilt my head. “Then what?”

  Her sigh is heavy. “I wish I could tell you this will be easy, dear, but you are too smart for that. You like him. If I let you be more serious with him, you may come to love him. But there is a part of you that you cannot share, a secret you must always keep. Someday, you will have to say good-bye. It is our way. Don’t ever forget that.”

  A lump forms in my throat. I can’t think about it right now. The present is what matters, as Nana always says. Always enjoy the time you have. Don’t mourn over things that haven’t happened yet. There will be plenty of time for that later. “So you’re saying I’m allowed to date? You won’t interfere anymore?”

  She tries not to smile. “For now. Be careful, though.”

  I sit up and put my arm around her bony, yet strong, shoulder. “Careful? But I should probably get on with making you some great-granddaughters. . . .”

  She digs her knuckle into my leg.

  “Ow!” I say through my own budding cackle. “C’mon! Our babies would be beautiful!”

  She waves her hands in the air, as if she’s trying to unhear what I said. “We need to work on the spells to free your father. Start defrosting the rest of the crows in the freezer. Then prepare them for an obliteration spell.”

  I groan. Maybe I should have gone to help Winn with his chores.

  It takes the entire weekend to prepare for the “exorcism,” and by Monday morning we are nearly finished. First come the amulets laced with lily nectar, dove blood, and our own eyelashes, to protect us from the dark shadows. They should repel the blackness and fear long enough to do our work. Then come the reagents to help free my father from the spell that has been placed on him.

  My father. Joseph.

  It’s strange, knowing Mom named me after him, like I had a piece of him all along. My mother never spoke of him, and I never questioned after she said, “Honey, our kind don’t know our paternal heritage. I don’t know my father either.”