Safe, he texted at eight o’clock that evening.

Safe, she replied.

In Everwood, after the incident with the labyrinth, Sarah called Sam to tell him they’d had a “magical mishap.” He whistled when he stopped by the next week to check out the lawn.

“I’ll pay whatever it costs to fix it,” Molly offered, heat washing over her face.

Both Sam and Sarah looked at her, amused. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said. “Sarah’s got a lot of social collateral in Everwood. I’ll round up some volunteers.”

Sarah underwent her next chemo treatment. Sam took her and stayed with her for the four-hour appointment. Afterward, Sarah took to her bed for three days. Unable to keep solid food down, she watched TV and napped while Molly brought her cups of tea made with turmeric, ginger, mint, and magic.

Molly’s pendulum began to respond properly after two more days of practicing. As she suspected, it spun widdershins as her positive answer and clockwise as her negative. She started using it to figure out which meals would be the most advantageous for Sarah to eat and focused all her energy on cooking those. After only a week, Sarah began to look and sound as robust as she had before the treatment.

“I’ve never recovered so quickly before.” Sarah gave her one of those smiles that lit her face. “And I have you to thank.”

“Truly, it’s my pleasure,” Molly said. “I’m so glad I can help.”

After her experience with the labyrinth, she had been afraid she might be imbalanced, but with Sarah’s direction, she began to learn how to cook foods, healing potions, and cast healing spells with her right hand, and to practice offensive spells with her left. The more she practiced with both, the more even and balanced her Power became.

“Because you’re both things,” Sarah told her, smiling. “Both healer and fighter.”

When Sarah grew strong enough to walk up the stairs again, she took Molly up to the attic, and Molly got the chance at last to see what Sarah’s workroom looked like.

The attic floor ran the length of the house, and it was massive, airy, and well-organized. The smell of herbs was pervasive, all coming from a tall set of shelves that covered half the room on one side. On the other side, bottles of unknown substances lined the shelves, some of them carrying liquid that seemed to swirl and twist restlessly within the glass.

An extensive library, along with cabinets that were closed and appeared to be locked, covered the shelves in the other part of the workroom. A large fireplace dominated one wall in the middle of the space, and a few Bunsen burners sat neatly to one side of a long table.