I can’t believe Lelia came right out and said that in public. But there’s something satisfying about the way Courtney leaves us alone now that she thinks we’re up to something witchy.

“A dowsing rod?” I ask. I have a vague idea of what that is. “You mean a big tuning fork to wave around?”

“Something like that,” Rush says.

“It was Rush’s idea,” Lelia adds, like she can hear the surprise rattling around in my skull. “But I have somewhere we can go to get started with it. I guess I couldn’t wait.” She puts her fingerless gloves on the counter, hard, startling Courtney, and leans through the order window, sticking her head inside of Coffee Gods and looking around with a proprietary kind of stare, like she might buy the place later. Or rob it.

“Do you get off work soon?” Lelia asks.

I glance over at Courtney, who is dutifully combining frozen strawberries from several plastic containers. They thud, thud, thud as she gives me a tight-faced look.

I want a dowsing rod.

I do not want to lose this job, the last shred of Mom’s trust, and possibly the whole new life I asked for.

“Not really,” I say. “Two more hours.”

Lelia and Rush nod at each other like this is what they expected. They’re going to leave me here. I can feel a trapdoor plummet open in my heart. Maybe they won’t bother to come back.

Lelia stomps to her motorcycle, showing me the back of her leather jacket, scratched with white letters: The Witch Your Mother Warned You About.

“I’ll take one of those muffins,” Rush says.

She inspects the list of baked goods by the order window, peeling off her own ancient leather jacket. No mottoes splashed across the back; instead it’s got moon phases stitched in silver. Rush works her way out of a green flannel layer, tying the sleeves around her waist, a quick knot tugging at her white tank top. It becomes a very not-innocent version of hide-and-seek as I take in her plum-colored bra straps, the first dip of her breasts. The fabric rides up on one hip, exposing a spot above her jeans.

Stop running your eyes all over Imogen’s girlfriend.

I’m supposed to bring Imogen back. I know Rush wants her back. This is every flavor of wrong.

Yet I can’t unglue my attention from that spot on Rush’s hip. I’ve waited forever to meet a girl who doesn’t treat her body like a natural enemy. Someone who moves through the world like there’s more than the troubled surface.

She looks up and catches me noticing her, which was inevitable, since I wasn’t really hiding it. Her eyes gleam under thick dark brows as her lips pinch to a point. They’re freshly glossed, and I can smell black-cherry sweetness.