“You are,” I say, the dark burn of my feelings leaving a mark on my voice. “Really.”

“Thanks,” Rush says, looking embarrassed and pleased, her eyebrows scrunching in a way that I enjoy far too much.

“Did your parents get mad?” I asked. “When you stopped playing?”

“They don’t really do mad. They do disapproval. They thought that I was going through a phase.” Anger is coming off of Rush in sheets, and after a second of heat, I realize that I’m feeling it, too, for her parents — and mine. They didn’t ever use the word phase, but there were times when it seemed like they were waiting for parts of me to disappear. “When I quit orchestra and skipped all my private lessons and started spending my time with a bunch of queer witches, my parents weren’t exactly happy. My mother said that as long as I was living in their house, I would keep playing. So I stayed with the Grays, couch-surfed for a while. That’s when I learned how to ride motorcycles with Lelia.”

There’s a delicate silence as I realize what Rush just told me: her parents kicked her out, and she would have been on her own if the Grays hadn’t taken her in. I’d thought leaving Michigan for California was a big deal, but I’d never had to leave Mom. She’d stood by me, even when she didn’t understand, well past the time when she had solid reasons to trust me. The anger from a minute ago vanishes, leaving an empty space that I want to fill by running back to cottage nine and finding Mom right there, waiting. But I also have Rush standing in front of me with her pain on full display as she toes the dark dirt under the rough cemetery grass.

I want to find out everything about her, not just gawk at her while she eats muffins. “When you were staying with Lelia, that’s when she decided you’re a rebel?” I ask.

Rush laughs. “I also babysat June’s brothers and sisters and learned how to make desserts from the Philippines with her mom.”

“What about Hawthorn?”

“I was on the farm for a few weeks, but it didn’t feel right to stay long. Ora is . . . a force,” Rush says. “She wanted to train me as a chanter. I loved waking up early and sitting with Ora and drinking this tea she makes, with dandelions and a thousand different herbs in it. But it wasn’t easy for Hawthorn, I think.”

“She probably just didn’t want to lose you,” I said.

“It’s a good thing Ora hasn’t met you,” Rush says, giving me an all-over look. “I think she’d claim you for her coven.”

“Why?”

Rush blinks at me as though she can’t believe I’m making her say it out loud. “You’re powerful.”