Chapters (42)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Prologue
- – 1 – Willow
- – 2 – Mason
- – 3 – Willow
- – 4 – Mason
- – 5 – Willow
- – 6 – Mason
- – 7 – Willow
- – 8 – Mason
- – 9 – Willow
- – 10 – Mason
- – 11 – Willow
- – 12 – Mason
- – 13 – Willow
- – 14 – Mason
- – 15 – Willow
- – 16 – Mason
- – 17 – Willow
- – 18 – Mason
- – 19 – Willow
- – 20 – Mason
- – 21 – Willow
- – 22 – Mason
- – 23 – Willow
- – 24 – Mason
- – 25 – Willow
- – 26 – Mason
- – 27 – Willow
- – 28 – Mason
- – 29 – Willow
- – 30 – Mason
- – 31 – Willow
- – 32 – Mason
- – 33 – Willow
- – 34 – Mason
- Acknowledgments
- More from the Author
- About the Author
- ALSO BY JENNA EVANS WELCH
Something big explodes in my center, sending splinters from my heart to the rest of my body. Even though it’s familiar, it takes me a moment to recognize it. Betrayal. Yet another thing my mom hasn’t told me about herself. Yet another wall that I felt but couldn’t see. Maddeningly, tears well up in my eyes. But this feels like the last straw.
I look up at my mom, and her gray eyes meet mine. All the new information is hot and bubbly in my chest. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I say slowly. “Why?”
“Tell you what, dear?” Poppy says curiously.
“Willow, we’ll talk later,” my mom says firmly, but her eyes are darting from me to the aunts, and she starts fidgeting with her earrings, which is downright un-Mom of her. Whatever she has to say, she doesn’t want to say it. And that thought manages to make the fire in my chest grow even larger.
“Mom, you need to tell me. The truth.” My words rush out from somewhere deep inside of me, and she can’t ignore the intensity in my voice. No one can. Even the tourist in the witch hat looks at me in alarm, then slides off the crescent moon.
“Oh dear,” Poppy says. She hooks her arm through mine. “The truth sets us free, doesn’t it, dear? I suggest we continue, or”—her eyes sparkle—“begin this conversation at the house. No time to lose. Let’s fly, my pretties!”
– 6 – Mason 
Someone is watching me. I know it the way you know when it’s about to storm—the air feels charged, electric, and my muscles are tense, ready to burst into action, carry me from harm. I hope I’m wrong, but when I roll over in my twin bed, I’m met by two sets of enormous brown eyes hovering mere inches from mine, and my body reacts like it got struck by lightning.
“What the f—” I start, but luckily my brain catches up and I swallow down the rest of the word, my heart hammering against my rib cage. It is not a pair of highly trained assassins. It’s the girls, the youngest two, Zoe and Audrey, whose names I remember only because Emma silently slipped me a paper listing the girls’ names and ages after dinner yesterday, when I mixed up the youngest two for the thirtieth time. Names are an ongoing issue. It’s like my brain decided that after so many schools and homes, it’s useless to remember that the next-door neighbor’s name is Henry, or that my homeroom desk mate’s name is Ella, because Henry and Ella will probably be irrelevant to my life in less than six months, and why bother encoding stuff like that?