My phone dings, and I pause for a moment to read the latest installment from Bea, who hasn’t stopped texting me since I told her the news. You are 100% positive your mom never mentioned the fact that she had a twin?

As though I could possibly forget something like that. I text back. 1000000000% positive.

I also have a new text from my dad. Sorry we still haven’t connected, kiddo. Time change is a big deal with the kids, just got them down. Talk later?

A sigh escapes me. If I were stranded at sea and sent my dad an SOS, it would probably still take him two to three business days to respond. I know it isn’t that he doesn’t care; it’s that his capacity always seems to be completely maxed. It’s been forty-eight hours since I sent my help, please text, and I’m losing all faith in him coming to my aid. I honestly shouldn’t have been surprised that he canceled my visit this summer.

Does he even care that we’re missing our summer together? Or is he relieved to have one less thing to worry about?

I swallow back hurt. Thinking this way isn’t helping. He’s out of the country for the summer because he has to be. And it’s not like my visits with him have been all that amazing. I love my monstrous half siblings, but if I’m honest, our visits are really difficult. Not only am I in a constant state of giving someone a piggyback ride; it’s oddly disorienting watching this new family burrow into my old family’s apartment. I get that that old family is gone, but watching it be erased in a physical sense feels…

I look up just in time to see my mom disappear into a crowd of pedestrians, not bothering to check that I’m still behind her. “Mom! Wait,” I yell, but she keeps going.

I have no choice but to break into a run to catch up, which is no easy feat as the air is so thick and muggy, it’s like inhaling pea soup. I can feel my hair frizzing out of my ponytail, but if I stop to tighten it, I’m almost positive my mom will disappear and I’ll be lost forever.

Not that being lost in Salem sounds terrible. Even at breakneck speed, Salem is setting my traveler’s heart aflutter. The street we’re running down is paved in uneven red brick and it’s lined with old-looking buildings, their shuttered windows crammed with fascinating-looking items. CRYSTALS, TAROT CARDS, SPELL KITS, reads one store window. Maybe I could stop for one quick moment… except when I look up, the top of my mom’s auburn hair is now a full four buildings away, and she’s showing no signs of stopping.

My phone chimes again. And she’s never mentioned Salem?