Her shoulders relax the tiniest bit. “Great. Perfect. It’s just that he, ah, doesn’t know everything about my time here. No one does, really.”

My heart thuds, and I feel myself leaning in hopefully. Because even if she’s trying to keep most of it a secret, she has brought me in. For someone as closed off as she is, that’s huge. “Because of your falling-out with Sage?” I prompt. Maybe she’ll finally open the door to me seeing a bit more.

But of course her face hardens, and she swings it right back shut. “The past is the past, right? There’s nothing we can do about it now.” She glances at her wrist. “Oh dear, I need to get on a call right now. I’ll send you Violet’s number, and you can get the details? I’m guessing I’ll be busy most of the day. Let me know if you need anything.” Then she bolts for her desk.

That’s when I realize something. Her blouse is untucked. I realize that sounds silly, but this is my mom, and her daily uniform is never anything but pristine. What’s next? Smudged lipstick? A frayed hem?

No wonder she wants to get out of here; it’s pretty clear that Salem is bringing up all sorts of things for her, and, yes, I’m dying to know what those things are.

Moon ceremony it is.

I’m too nervous that Simon will be at Aunt Sage’s house, so I spend the afternoon flinging myself around Salem in a steadily increasing frenzy of delight. This city is weird. Museums range from the serious (Peabody Essex) to the grotesque (Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery). The witch shops are exactly as quirky and interesting as they seem from the outside, and there are at least thirty restaurants I want to try.

Eventually the cobblestone starts to get to my feet and I head back to the hotel in hopes that my mom will do some more cryptic unveiling of her family’s dynamics.

Instead, I find her in full-fledged party-planning mode—Post-it notes taking up most of the wall next to the desk, her headphones engulfing her ears. I keep waiting for a break between meetings, but every time I press my ear to the door, I’m treated to a litany of topics including “event lighting,” “guest lists,” and something called the “al fresco dining experience.”

It’s like we aren’t in Salem, Massachusetts, with a family curse hanging over our heads and a mysterious aunt who left a book of collected spells that she wrote with my mother.

Let the record show I do not understand my mother.