Page 2 of Everything She Does Is Magic (Fableview #1)

Anya

When Emily Dickinson wrote that if your nerve denies you, you need to go above your nerve, she must have known someone like Darcy Keller would someday exist and I would have to find the strength to talk to her.

Darcy Keller attracts attention the way rainbows do after storms. It’s impossible to be in her presence and not marvel at her.

For one, she smiles with all her teeth, right back to the molars.

It’s wide-open, inviting. Enveloping. I’m not sure how her friend Grace can stand to hold dozens of conversations with her every single day.

Grace must forget her train of thought all the time, especially when Darcy laughs so hard that she has to put a hand on Grace’s arm to steady herself.

And Darcy’s eyes . They are a calcite kind of green, so bright they’re almost translucent.

She squints them whenever someone speaks to her, like she’s trying to climb into the words and experience whatever the other person is saying.

It’s not a surprise to learn she’s as confident in her art as she is everywhere else.

She manages to load her brush with the exact amount of paint needed to make an unbroken stroke across her entire canvas.

Staring at her from outside the window at Pam’s Paints is not what I’ve come here to do, but it’s all I’m capable of at the moment.

Grace has given me more than one menacing glare.

It’s turned into an actual, genuine scowl now, like she’s a real guard dog.

Although I don’t think basset hounds are known for being intimidating.

Not that Grace is what’s deterring me. My presence is never an exciting development anywhere in this town.

But I don’t usually have so much to lose by showing up somewhere.

I back away from the window again.

There is too much energy inside me. Adrenaline, pressure, butterflies. I can’t talk to Darcy until I manage to contain at least one of these feelings.

I squat down to examine one of the flower beds along Fableview Boulevard.

This one is filled with asters. They’re sweet-looking flowers, with delicate purple petals and sunny yellow centers.

Most of them are thriving. There are a few near the edge that have been stepped on or rolled over from the foot traffic on the boulevard. Not dead, but close to it.

Cupping one of the damaged flowers in my hand, I take a focused inhale, conjuring up the image of a sky awash with infinite gray. Gentle fists of water drumming against a window. Sulfuric sweetness perfuming the air.

A new heartbeat begins to pulse through me—the undeniable, jittering thrum of magic—traveling out through my breath and into the aster.

It’s a current not unlike electricity, with me as the conduit, using the energy to revive the deadened petals inside my palm.

The first spark of power always makes me feel filled to the brim with purpose and possibility.

We’re so excited!

My mother’s words cloud my focus, snapping the connection to my power. Huffing out a breath, I release my first attempt at mending this flower.

All good magic comes from breathing. Inhale intentions, exhale actions. Steady as a hiss of steam, constant as a moving train. Let the breath mold the mind and move the magic through the body.

I breathe in again, returning to the image of rain, letting it wash over the flower. Over me.

We have to meet her!

I’ve never touched a socket with a wet hand, but it must be similar to this, the way my own power zaps through me, sharp and jagged and wrong.

We’re booking an early flight so we can spend Halloween with you and her before your big birthday! See you at the end of the month!

“Shit!” I exclaim, wincing. Where the aster once lived there is now ash falling from my hand.

Great. I have killed the flower I meant to mend.

This was a mistake. Coming here to Pam’s Paints. Living in Fableview at all. It has been nothing short of a colossal misstep, and it will result in my being the first witch in my bloodline to fail my initiation into our coven next month.

My gift has become a weighted vest, burdening everything I do. My magical instinct is to mend things, but there’s so much that’s broken in the world, and there are too many people who want me to fix it. I can never do enough.

The crunch of leaves beneath my feet provides a soothing soundtrack to my renewed pacing.

I have loved October in many places. It is in my bloodline to do so.

I’m named after the goddess áine, who is known for bringing love, protection, and prosperity to Ireland.

In some ways, she is nature itself, and I am an extension of that.

It’s a lot to live up to, and my family doesn’t ever let me forget it.

Between my storied name and my rare magical gift, it’s impossible to escape the pressure.

Everyone who knows what I can do needs something from me.

I’m the one who mends tattered clothing, patches holes in walls, revives dying plants.

I repair what others cannot, and all it’s done is turn my own life into a mess.

“You have the potential to be the most powerful witch this coven has seen in centuries,” my Uncle Edward once told me. “If only you were more enjoyable to be around.”

He’d muttered that last part to himself, but I’d heard him.

He was frustrated with me for once again sitting quietly through one of his lectures on our family history.

He wasn’t the first to mistake my silence for disinterest, but he was the loudest about it, thinking that if he made enough sly comments on the subject, I would transform into a social butterfly through the strength of his annoyance.

I was twelve years old at the time, and my life was already hard, moving from family member to family member to hone my powers and learn our coven’s ways, never staying in one place long enough to get comfortable.

I’d thought the easiest thing to do would be to give it all up, so I’d asked Uncle Edward what would happen if a witch failed to join our coven.

He’d told me, “We’d use a very old spell in the family grimoire, and we’d strip that person of their power.

No one in the family would ever speak to them again.

It would be a very taxing process for everyone.

It’s only happened once, centuries ago. I would tell you more, but there isn’t more to say.

We don’t know what came of her after the family banished her.

You don’t want that, do you? So why don’t you start acting a little nicer? ”

It scared me so much that I still have nightmares to this day, imagining my entire family locking hands around me, chanting some Doyle spell in Gaelic as they pull my powers out of me like steam hissing from a teapot, until my gift has evaporated into nothing and they’ve left me lying on the ground to fend for myself.

Returning to the flowers, I squat down again, touching the asters that remain. “I’m sorry, I only meant to fix your friend,” I whisper.

No matter what I do, that phone call with my parents can’t be erased from my memory. Nearly a year’s worth of lies all came to a head with a five-word sentence, spoken without consideration.

Her last name is Keller.

For months my mom and dad had been thrilled to hear about my new best friend, Darcy.

Everyone in the family thinks I’m too intense for my own good.

While that’s usually a frustration, it’s made telling this lie much easier, because my parents have been so happy I’m giving them any information at all that they haven’t wanted to ruin the moment by asking too many questions, knowing that with one wrong word, I might stop talking altogether.

At no point had I been consciously withholding Darcy’s last name.

It just hadn’t come up. Probably because this lie has been such a delicate dance, I spend most of my calls with my parents talking around it as much as possible.

But tonight I said “Keller,” and my mother shrieked so loudly, I dropped my phone.

“How wonderful! That’s Pam Keller’s daughter!

” she shouted, audible even from the space between the couch cushions.

“I can’t believe I didn’t put it together with Darcy’s first name.

It’s just been so long since I’ve been to Fableview.

But I know her parents. And her grandmother protected yours.

Oh, this is incredible. I always knew Fableview would be the place where you finally figured it all out.

I bet Aunt Cal is just as thrilled as weare. ”

Aunt Cal is my guardian here, chosen as my final mentor because she has the least patience for young children. She didn’t want to work with me until after I turned seventeen. My mom assured me that Cal and Fableview would make me fall completely in love with my magic.

Cal hasn’t spoken to me out loud in six weeks.

Through a note she scribbled onto handmade paper, written in a cursive so close to chicken scratch I had to use my mending magic to turn it into something legible, she wrote, I am exploring new depths of my magic through limiting access to my senses.

I will no longer be using my voice to communicate.

There are pizzas in the freezer. Do not use my eggs.

Okay , I’d written back.

I knew this Darcy Keller lie would one day come back to haunt me. I had hoped to make at least one actual friend before that happened.

But here I am, guilty, friendless, hovering around the entrance to Pam’s Paints and burning flowers instead of going inside to ask Darcy to come to a dinner with my parents at the end of the month. The usual activity of a brand-new acquaintance. No pressure at all.

Oh, and, by the way, I’m a witch and I need to bring a mortal friend to my coven initiation in November. Are you free?

I’m very sorry, Emily Dickinson, but my nerve will always deny me.

And soon my family will too.