Today, though, that feeling had been replaced with something else. It was a small sensation, like catching the faintest whiff of smoke on the wind, but it was there, and it felt almost sinister.

“I don’t like this,” Izzy said, looking up to the window of the room where Constance had stayed.

The sound swelled as we got closer.

Nora pointed. “There, by the thyme.”

I looked over to the cluster of tiny purple flowers. It was late in the year for the herb to be blooming, but the rhythm of the season couldn’t compete with Nora’s skills.

I stepped forward carefully.

It was hard to spot them at first, but they were there.

Toads.

Twenty, maybe thirty of them, right beneath the window of Constance’s room.

Izzy, Nora, and I exchanged looks.

Toads gathering like this where someone had died? That wasn’t something we could ignore.

“We need to bring one of them inside,” Nora said firmly.

No one moved.

“Brynn.”

“Why me?”

“Because,” Izzy said, waving a hand to shoo me toward them, “toads like you.”

“Toads like me?”

She nodded vigorously. “You were always playing with them as a child.”

“I never played with toads.” I put my hands on my hips. “And I’m pretty sure no toad has ever liked me.”

Right then a fat little toad flopped itself onto my boot. “Really?” I asked, looking down at the big-eyed creature.

The toad blinked.

“You have been chosen,” Izzy said happily.

I squatted down to get a better look at the little guy. “What do you say? Do you want to be the one to come inside?”

The toad blinked again.

“Stop chatting with the beast and pick him up,” Nora snapped. “This is serious.”

I looked up at my aunt. Her expression mirrored her words.

I would have had a tough time explaining to an outside observer what it was we were doing scooping up a toad on a bright autumn morning the night after a woman had died, but not being able to explain our behavior was hardly a new experience for me growing up the way I had, in the family I had.

Outsiders always had questions.

Like how did my aunts always know when someone was at the door before the bell rang? Or how did Nora keep her flowers blooming long past the time when everyone else’s had died? Why was it the fire raged when one of us was upset? Or a clear sky clouded over when one of us was sad?

The explanation was simple, but no one would ever believe it.

Magic.

Enchantments and conjurations. Spells and incantations. Divinations and charms. All the hocus-pocus old wives used to speak of in hushed tones by the fire. My aunts could do all of those things.

They could do them because they were witches.

I was too.

Or at least I used to be.

Chapter 3

I gazed at the silvery moon peeking over the tips of the trees visible through the open window in the tower room of the attic. The cold night wind made the apartment pretty chilly, but it was nice where I was bundled up by the antique stove.