“Again, that’s all about you.” Molly fought the urge to slap her. “Did you see him after we met for lunch?”

The other woman recoiled. “Only once or twice, and then I ended things. I didn’t even do it in person. I broke up with him over the phone the Friday before he… before he died.”

Only once or twice…

Suddenly Molly felt done with the whole conversation, done with talking with Julia, done with living through the old, bad feelings from the breakup of her marriage. Done.

She wanted to be back in Everwood, cooking healing foods in Sarah’s large, serene kitchen. She wanted to eat lunch at the seafood restaurant on the pier while watching the moody, restless water. She wanted to practice spellcasting with Delphine and train with Lauren. She wanted Josiah to come join her. She wanted to live her new, good life.

“I don’t want to see or talk to you again,” she said abruptly. “I don’t want to think or speak your name. I may never forgive you, and whether I do or not is none of your business. I hope you get your shit together—because that’s a lot of shit, and Drew deserves better from his mother. And I hope this conversation did you some good, because it didn’t do a goddamn thing for me. Maybe I did deserve to know, but I deserved to know months ago. Right now all this did was pull up a lot of old bad stuff I’d left behind me. Get out.”

“No, please. Wait!” Lunging forward, Julia grabbed Molly’s hand.

Such a tiny lunge forward. Julia liked to touch people. Molly had seen her do it a dozen times before.

When Julia’s palm connected with the back of her hand, something flared to life and burrowed underneath Molly’s skin.

A spell.

An unknown spell penetrated her body.

Shock made the rest of the room recede. She snatched her hand away. “What did you do?”

Looking pale and bewildered, Julia stood too. “I didn’t do anything. What do you mean?”

“You touched me!” Molly stared at the back of her hand. Was it poison? Would it kill her? The spell was so subtle, and her skin looked unblemished and smooth.

“I-I just didn’t want you to leave.”

Molly barely listened as the back of her mind ignited. Someone had set a magical trap and laid it quietly. Now it was locked on her. She could feel them. They knew where she was now, in real time, which meant they could track her.

Which meant, if they were close by, they could find her quickly. And they had found her using magic.

She raced to the bathroom to scrub her hands with soap and water. It didn’t help. The spell had entered her bloodstream. She could feel it coursing through her veins, alien and unwelcome.