"Don't worry," I said. "It will be fine. I can't wait to meet her."

Sam nodded, but his brow remained furrowed. As I stepped out of the care, I felt the strong, clean breezed coming up off the water, and in the distance I could see fishing boats heading out from the harbor. It was a beautiful sight. My mother must have loved growing up here.

A splintering noise drew my attention. Sam had stepped ahead to pick up a rolled newspaper from the walk to take inside. A branch from the tree right above his head had split and was falling—and it was huge, big enough to cause serious harm. I screamed. Sam straightened, glanced up, and jumped aside. The massive piece of wood made a sickening smack on the stone walkway and cracked in two.

"Goddess," he said, his voice full of awe. He looked from the branch to the tree, then reached down and picked up one of the broken pieces of wood.

"Are you all right?" I asked, rushing to him.

"Fine," he said, examining the branch closely. "But it's a good thing you yelled."

With one last wide-eyed look at the tree, he took me by the shoulders and hurried me to the front door. Branches fall out of trees all the time, I thought. Then again, it seemed like less of a coincidence when you considered a telekinetic girl was passing by when it happened.

Had I just done that? Had I almost killed Sam?

8. Homecoming

August 15, 1950

I've been spending more and more time with Hugh recently. He's a good man, very suitable from a coven in Boston called Salldair. Although he is ten years older than I am, we do seem to make a fine match.

Hugh is a professor of Germanic languages at Simmons College in Boston, and he's written several textbooks. This makes him, more or less, an ideal Rowanwand husband. I know that's what mother and father are thinking at any rate. They're very fond of him.

I don't really feel ready for marriage, but I know I must marry. I did fight when they first suggested it, but now I see that I was selfish and foolish. I am nineteen years old. I must accept my responsibilities. Of course, it's unthinkable that I should leave Gloucester. Our family is the head of Ròiseal. As the oldest child I will take over the coven when Mother and Father are gone. That's the way it always has been.

— Aoibheann

Unlike my friendly reception at Sam's door, my entrance into the Curtis house was spooky from the get-go. The woman who answered the door bore only a passing resemblance to Sam. She was about the same age, and her short hair was completely blond. She seemed taken aback by my presence, as if I were standing there naked.

"This is Sarah's daughter, Alisa," Sam said quietly, forgetting any greetings.

"Goddess," she whispered, drawing back, "it's like looking at a ghost."

"This is Ruth," Sam explained to me, indicating the stricken-looking woman. "Ruth and I are cousins."

Ruth regained her composure, but her stare was still a little buggy.

"Nice to meet you, Alisa," she said.

"Is my mother home?" Sam asked, showing me inside.

"In the study…" Ruth replied. Her eyes full of silent questions. Sam nodded, as if to say that he would explain as soon as he could.

Inside the house, everything was alarmingly clean. The dark, heavy wood furniture glistened. The wood floors glowed. There was nothing out of place—no piles of magazines, nothing on the steps, no stacks of mail. Just cool breezes skimming along the austere hallway, looking fruitlessly for some dust bunnies to blow around.

Sam indicated that I should wait for a moment, and then he took Ruth by the elbow and ushered her back into what looked like a colonial kitchen. I saw a brick fireplace there, along with a large wooden worktable. I could hear them talking in low, urgent voices. When they returned, Ruth looked even jumpier then before. With a final look at Sam, she knocked on the wall. I thought this was really weird, but then she reached out and grabbed two little notched in the old paneling. These turned out to be handles to a pair of ancient sliding wooden parlor doors. In opening them, Ruth revealed another room, this one small and intimate, packed closely with antique furniture. She ushered me inside.

There was an older woman working at a large desk. Even though it was a Sunday morning, she was perfectly dressed in a crisp blue blouse and black pants. Her hair was steel gray with a heavy streak of white at the front. It was cut to just above her shoulder and feathered elegantly away from her face. She had silver rings on four of her long fingers. She tapped one of these on the desk as she worked.

"Sam," she said, without looking up, "I need you to…"

She stopped, and I saw her become aware of my presence. It hit her physically, as if her chair had shifted slightly under her, causing her to jolt. She looked straight up at me. Her pale eyes narrow. She didn't look a lot older than my dad, but I knew she had to be about seventy. This was Evelyn Curtis, my grandmother.

A cordless phone fell from one of the tables, causing everyone but Evelyn to jump. Sam reached for it and put it back in its cradle.

"Sarah?" she said, color draining from her face.

"No, Aunt Evelyn," Ruth said softly. "This is Sarah's daughter, Alisa."

Either they own the loudest clock in the world, or it got really quiet in the study. All I heard was the ticking. This, I thought, is my grandmother. Grandmothers are supposed to want to see you all the time, to run and hug you, to give you presents. Mine scrutinized me, taking me in, head to foot.

"I see," she finally said, her eyes squinting in the corners. "Perhaps you should sit down. Ruth, could you bring in some tea?"

"How did you get here?" she asked. "Are you with your father?"

"No," I explained, feeling my skin grow cold all over. "I came on my own. I wanted to meet my mother's—my—family."

She gave Sam a meaningful, and not entirely friendly, look.

"Alisa contacted me a few days ago," Sam said, reaching over and taking my hand. "She took it upon herself to find me. She wants to learn about us."

Evelyn stiffened and drew herself up even straighter. I was quickly grapsing what Sam had been saying to me out in the car and realizing I wasn't nearly as prepared for this as I'd thought I was. Sam gave my hand a squeeze, as if he could feel my confidence dropping.

"I see," Evelyn said again. "Perhaps we could talk for just a moment, Sam."

Sam shifted his jaw, but he nodded.

"We'll just be a minute," he said, turning to me. "Why don't you go have a look at your mother's old room?"

"Sure," I nodded dumbly.

"Turn right at the top of the stairs," he said. "It's at the end of the hall."

I excused myself and slid the study doors behind me. As I walked up the steps, strange feelings started to flow through me—broken, choppy signals, pieces of emotions—leaving me a quivering mess. My mother's house. Here it was, just like she'd described it. The four-paneled doors with the old sliding bolts. The stairs that Sam tumbled down. I even bent down and saw the thick chip that she had taken out of one of the banisters while she was carrying her bicycle down after Sam had stashed it on the widow's walk. It had been painted over, but the mark was still there.

This was my mother's house.

I found the room at the end of the of the hall and cautiously opened the door. In my imagination, I was about to be swept back to the early 1970s. My mother had described her bedroom in her Book of Shadows. The walls were blue, and she had painted yellow stars on them. There was a braided carpet on the hardwood floor. She had bamboo blinds on the windows and paper lanterns lights. Her bed was covered on an old family crazy quilt. She had a portable record player and a desk with a typewriter. There were pictures of her favorite rock stars on her closet doors.