Page 4 of Everything She Does Is Magic (Fableview #1)

Anya

“What are you doing here?”

The question takes me by such surprise that I trip over the tiny barrier lining the flower beds, killing more asters with my clumsiness than I did with my powers.

It’s Darcy’s voice. She’s always the first to raise her hand in class, responding even when she doesn’t know an answer, just to keep the teacher from suffering up there without a participant.

That’s how kind she is. In the ten months since I moved to Fableview, she has never once sounded harsh or judgmental. Until right now.

With me.

I turn my head, and she’s looming over me in her tiny pointed hat and cape.

Is this what she thinks we wear? Anyone who knows a real witch would know that we prefer a hat with broader sun protection.

And that cape would be impractical. The witches in my family need easy access to their hands.

That’s where most of us express our magic.

A Doyle would be batting that off their arm every five seconds.

“I…forgot the French homework,” I say.

French class is the only context through which Darcy knows me.

It’s also all that comes to mind with those sharp green eyes focused on mine.

Maybe she remembers that time I forgot how to speak when she told me she liked my name, and I forgot again when she asked me the next day how I was liking the town.

Or she has nightmares about that day Madame Poncik forced me to stand up and read two full pages of Le Petit Prince aloud.

Darcy’s frustration turns into something worse. She’s curious now, confused, her eyebrows scrunching into the bridge of her nose.

“Do you…do you know it? The homework?” I stumble out.

“Je fais. Et toi aussi.” I do. And so do you.

“Non. J’oublié,” I say, finding it easier to continue this conversation in French. Probably because I am making all this up and it helps to have to take an extra second to translate my thoughts.

“Vous êtes le meilleur élève de notre classe,” she says back. You’re the best student in our class.

My mind goes static, like I’m listening to someone speak a foreign language.

Darcy is speaking a foreign language. But it’s the focus of her attention that stops the processing center in my brain from functioning.

There’s a lag, not for translation but for comprehension of the impossibility of this situation.

Beautiful, confident Darcy Keller, with her shiny blond hair and her pouty red lips, has just told me I am the best student in our class.

And while she is right—I have a 107percent average at the moment, and Madame Poncik has already told me more than once to stop doing unnecessary extra credit—it’s not something I discuss with others.

If anything, I’m embarrassed by my aggressive commitment to learning French.

What else am I going to do in the only class that Darcy and I share?

Stare at her so hard that she gets a sunburn from the force of my admiration?

When I fail to be initiated into my family’s coven, maybe I can move to France.

It might be the most viable option I have.

All the places I’ve already lived are places where my family also lives.

In France no one would know me. No one would care about the legacy of my name.

They wouldn’t mourn the loss of my ability to mend something.

I’d be normal.

But I’d also be alone. And that’s the most terrifying prospect of all.

“You know, you can find the homework on the portal,” Darcy reminds me.

“Of course,” I say, remembering in earnest. All our homework assignments get uploaded to Fableview High’s online portal. Which would have occurred to me if Darcy hadn’t surprised me out here, demanding answers.

She reaches out a hand to help me stand. There’s still ash from my disintegrated flower there, and I feel the rough texture of what I’ve killed between the softness of our linked palms.

Once I’m upright, Darcy stands a good three inches shorter than me, all grit and determination. She puts her hands on her hips, waiting for further explanation.

“I’ll let you get back to work,” I say, walking away. “Sorry for interrupting your class.”

“Wait.” Her heeled boots let out loud clacks, increasing in urgency with every step.

We stop in front of the metaphysical shop a few buildings down from Pam’s Paints. There is a gigantic chunk of rose quartz in the window, framed by a sign that says Witches of Fableview in bright pink neon. The glow washes Darcy’s face in monochrome, turning her into a rose-colored vision.

“I’m actually taking a little breather from my parents right now,” she tells me.

Same , I think, even though my parents are over two thousand miles away, high-fiving each other because they believe my best friend is the girl standing in front of me in a witch’s costume—a descendant of a legacy protector family, ready to take on the role of protecting me for the rest of our lives.

“What have they done now?” I ask.

Darcy surprises me with a laugh. “Have you met my parents?”

“No. But parents are always doing something. Historically.”

She laughs again. “You walked into them announcing my role as the next owner of Pam’s Paints.

Which would’ve been fine, if it weren’t for the fact that no one discussed it with me beforehand.

At least not in a next year you’re going to own this place way.

It’s sort of implied that everyone stays here after high school.

Unless you show some great, impressive talent that requires you to go to a four-year college.

I’m not impressive at anything other than working at Pam’s Paints. ”

Darcy is the president of Fableview High’s art club.

She sings in the school choir, where she regularly performs solos.

Her hair is always perfectly brushed and curled.

She smells like strawberries dipped in vanilla.

She has always given me the impression that she bends to no one’s will.

To me there is not a single other person our age in Fableview who seems more in charge of their own life than Darcy Keller.

And for what it’s worth, there is no one more impressive either.

“Do you not want to own the art shop?” I ask.

She makes a scoffing sound, insulted by the question in a way that would require me to have a lot more context about the situation than I do. She seems to realize this herself, because she unfolds her arms, leaning herself against the Witches of Fableview shop window.

“The thing is, my parents don’t want anything to change. Ever ,” she says. “They’re so obsessed with tradition that they don’t realize how hard it is to perfectly re-create every detail of our lives each fall. Not that I can’t do it. I can.”

“I believe you,” I say.

Her look is laced with mistrust, as if she can’t quite figure out what I have to gain by flattering her.

“It’s just a lot of work. They don’t want me to wear a different costume or hang a new kind of twinkle light in front of our building.

Passing this shop over to me is a symbolic gesture.

They just want to know their only child has security over the paperwork.

And I guess I would’ve liked a little say in the matter. ”

Her life is so different from mine, but her problems still feel like my own.

I’ve never had a job, for one. Learning how to be a witch is my job.

Some of the members of our coven work, but most live on the trust funds every witch gains access to upon initiation on their eighteenth birthday.

Keeping everyone in our coven connected, making sure the communities where we live continue to thrive—that’s the real work of a Doyle.

It’s a tradition everyone in the family is expected to keep up.

Not only am I the first witch in centuries to potentially fail my initiation, but I seem to be the first to not really enjoy being a witch at all.

“They just want to make sure our family’s role as the planners of Fableview’s Halloween festivities doesn’t get snatched up by the Holtzenbergs,” Darcy adds.

The last name is familiar, but I can’t place it, so I say, “That sounds like a lot of pressure.”

“I like pressure.” The challenge in her voice intensifies. “That’s not the problem.”

“I’ve heard Halloween is a big deal around here,” I try, no longer sure where to go with this conversation. Even my kindest words seem to offend her. “Everyone wears costumes every single day?”

“Oh yeah. You haven’t seen anything yet.”

“Surely you could wear a different costume, though? There are thirty-one days in the month. You need to wash that cloak sometime.”

Darcy laughs again. Quick. Full.

I’m not funny.

Am I?

“So take this paint night, for example,” she says.

“We’ve taught the same artwork for longer than I’ve been alive.

A witch on a broomstick, flying over the forest. Grace and I wanted to add a tiny dog to the painting.

Grace came up with a good backstory for it too.

We make all this up anyway, so I’m not sure why my parents care so much.

It’s not like witches are real. Leaning into all this stuff is a business decision that keeps Fableview afloat.

Anyway, the actual change we made to the painting amounts to, like, five tiny brushstrokes.

Still, my parents freaked out about us teaching that version to the tourists. They wouldn’t let us doit.”

It’s not like witches are real.