This image was of some kind of school dance. Standing behind the punch bowl in a ruffled formal dress and a big corsage at her neckline was another Elizabeth, equally identical to the one they knew—“Betsy Pike,” maybe a year or so older than the one from 1963.

“Now 1892.” Verlaine brought up one more image, a formal portrait. The caption again read “Elizabeth Pike”; the face was again unmistakably similar. Even with a lacy, high-necked shirt on and her hair caught atop her head in a prim bun, it was undeniably the exact same face. Only one change was obvious: The version in the earliest photo was the oldest. In 1892, she was listed as a teacher, not a student—a young one, perhaps, but no teenager.

For a long moment, nobody could speak. Finally Nadia said, “I don’t understand.”

“It’s a family name,” Mateo insisted. “Has to be.”

“There’s no way four generations all look that much alike.” Nadia’s mind was working fast.

She’d never learned any black magic—never wanted to. Once you started dealing with those kinds of spells, you were in league with demons, maybe with the One Beneath. But she knew enough about it to recognize it when she saw it.

Something like this—it was darker, and stronger, and scarier than anything she’d even heard of before.

“Elizabeth’s family has to have been a part of this for a very long time.” They would all have been witches, of course; the Craft was handed down mother to daughter.

Verlaine said, “A part of what?”

“Black magic.”

Mateo’s eyes darkened; his lips pressed together into a thin line. After a long moment, he said, “You can’t know any of that from pictures in the yearbook. Come on.”

“You’ve seen the pictures,” Nadia insisted. “The same as we have. That’s not a normal family resemblance, at all. It goes beyond that. It’s almost like Elizabeth … like she’s being born over and over …” But how would that even work?

“Okay, I don’t know what the explanation is, but there has to be one,” Mateo protested. “A joke by the kids in detention, Photoshopping some of us into old pictures, maybe. That doesn’t mean she’s evil.”

“But this isn’t as simple as Photoshop. I’m sure of it.” The memory of Elizabeth smiling at her coolly while the entire chemistry class had a meltdown burned in Nadia’s mind, constant as a gas flame, the one real proof she had that Elizabeth was far more than she seemed. What was going on?

Mateo said only, “I’m tired of blaming Elizabeth all the time. Let’s just get this magic … thing you need and go on from there, okay?”

Right then, his father strolled over to them; he had his son’s coloring but a pug-ugly face that suggested Mateo’s aquiline good looks came from his mother. “Mateo, it’s nice that you’re spending so much time with the lovely ladies, but you should also spend some time with your other tables. Especially table eleven, the nice men whose fajitas are ready?”