I SPENT the next few days avoiding David. Or maybe he spent them avoiding me. Either way, I hardly saw him, and when our paths crossed, both of us were quick to look the other way. Once, as I watched him cross campus, his shoulders up around his ears, I felt a twinge of . . . something. At first, I thought it was maybe the beginnings of that gut-wrenching pain that meant he was in trouble. But it wasn’t that. I think it was sympathy. Or pity. As hard a time as I was having wrapping my brain around Saylor Stark being some kind of witch, David must have been having it a million times worse.

But I’d done the right thing in walking away from them. From all of it. No matter how awesome I thought superpowers would be, they weren’t worth giving up my life for.

Still, as I perched on a stool in my Aunt Jewel’s kitchen that Friday afternoon, I couldn’t stop thinking about how worried David looked every day, how just that morning, someone had slammed a locker in the hallway, and he had nearly jumped out of his skin.

It was true, what I’d told Saylor; I didn’t want David to get killed by bad guys, obviously. But I still couldn’t see how it was even feasible for me to watch over him forever.

So why did I feel so bad?

“Harper, a bird is going to land on that lip if you keep pokin’ it out,” Aunt Jewel said. She sat at the table with her two sisters, my Aunts May and Martha. The three of them were doing what they did every Friday afternoon—playing cards and smoking. Since I wasn’t married, I didn’t get to play with them, and smoking was out until I was widowed.

Not, I thought as I fanned the smoke away from my face, that that was ever going to be an issue. Smoking was so seriously gross.

“I’m not poking out my lip,” I replied, even though I was pretty sure I had been.

Aunts May and Martha were twins, but seeing them with Aunt Jewel, the three could have easily been triplets. All of them had the same iron-gray hair, permed within an inch of its life, and all three wore the same type of brightly colored elastic-waisted pants, usually paired with floral sweaters, or, like today, holiday-appropriate sweatshirts. Aunt May’s had a turkey on it, while Aunt Martha was wearing pumpkins. Aunt Jewel had what appeared to be a giant pie stitched on the front of hers.

Sipping sweet tea, I watched them play rummy and insult each other. “Martha, I know you’re not going to take that ace,” Aunt May said as my Aunt Martha did just that. May scowled as she flicked ash into an ugly clay dish I’d made for that purpose at summer camp seven years ago.