Page 47 of Never Been Witched (Starfall Point #3)

It was like a needle, poking a hole in their ridiculous rants, even if it was only in Alice’s head.

Her grandparents had lived in an echo chamber for so long, isolated from the rest of Starfall Point, bouncing their opinions off only each other—on how things were on the island, who Alice was, how they were perceived by the locals.

And with no one around to tell the Proctors they were wrong, their opinions became cemented in their own minds.

But just because they believed it to be true, didn’t mean it was so.

And the thought was so ridiculous, it made Alice giggle. She clapped a hand over her mouth and it turned into a snort. Apparently, that was too much for Marilyn.

“If you don’t come back to work for us in the family shop, where you belong, we will never forgive you,” she announced in a shrill tone that had Josh wincing.

“You seem to have mistaken me for someone who gives a fuck,” Alice shot back.

And while the words felt alien and “too big” coming out of her mouth, she knew she needed to say them.

Well, maybe not those exact words, but she wasn’t going to let her grandparents silence her anymore.

The days of timid, long-suffering Alice were over.

“I cannot believe you are speaking to us this way, after all we’ve done for you,” Franklin told her.

Alice moved closer to her coven, the warmth of them, the power humming along her nerves. “Right. You raised me, the child of your own daughter. Congratulations. Do you want a medal? A cookie?”

“We could have left you to the system,” Marilyn hissed.

At that, Riley put her hand on Alice’s shoulder, while Alice replied, “Yeah, and I can see how that could have been awful, living in foster care. But I also would have had some chance of being raised by nice, caring non-assholes, in comparison to the one hundred percent certainty of assholes I encountered with you.”

Speaking to them like this, it felt like poison was being released from her bloodstream. It was a warm flush that hurt, but it needed to be purged from her. Her grandmother didn’t seem to appreciate this.

“How dare you! Do you know how much we invested in raising you?” Marilyn demanded.

Alice cried, “Well, why don’t you do me a favor? Come up with a list of expenses from across the years, write it all in your little ledger, roll it up, and shove it up your tightly clenched ass.”

Riley watched as Alice made several extremely descriptive hand gestures of her own, communicating her instructions. She snickered. “Dang.”

“I’d always wondered what it would look like when Alice finally tapped into all the repressed rage,” Caroline muttered, nodding. “This is pretty much what I pictured.”

Marilyn’s face went paper-white as she struggled to find a response. “Alice, we at least raised you not to speak that way in front of children .”

“The children agree with her. Shove it up your ass, lady,” Mina told her.

“Mina,” Caroline said, smothering a laugh.

“What? She sucks,” Mina insisted.

Josh nodded. “Mina and I have been trained by life to recognize sucky adults. Trust me, they both suck.”

“Young lady,” Mr. Proctor barked. “Remove yourself from the premises. I have no patience for children like you, you poorly raised hooligan.”

Caroline turned on him. “Oh, zip it, Frank, you do suck. And don’t talk to my kid that way.”

“You’re her mother?” He sniffed derisively. “Little wonder.”

“Oh, OK, now you’re getting hurt,” Mina said, rolling up her sweater sleeves as she stalked toward him.

Caroline caught her around the waist. “No, no. You’re reaching the age when you can be charged as an adult.”

“You’re right. I’ll wait until there are no witnesses,” Mina seethed.

“That was not at all the point I was trying to communicate to you,” Caroline told her, hugging her tight. “But thank you.”

“I really hate that the first time you’ve referred to me as your kid is in relation to that dipshit,” Mina told her.

Caroline hugged Mina and Josh close as Franklin gasped in indignation. Caroline ignored him, patting Mina’s back while saying, “I know. Me too.”

“I’m asking you politely to remove yourself from my premises ,” Riley told the Proctors. “Because you don’t have the right to tell anyone here to leave. Alice is welcome to stay here as long as she likes. I am not humoring her.”

“Alice, for the last time, come back to the shop,” Marilyn told her. “At this point, we won’t hold a grudge. But after this, there will be no coming back.”

Alice stared at them, long and hard.

No more of this. No more placating people who never bothered protecting her. No more being afraid.

“Fuck off,” Alice told them. “Into the lake.”

She had to pretend that she didn’t hear Plover cheering for her as she walked back into Shaddow House.

***

Distraction was just what Alice needed to keep her from interrogating the others about what they told Collin during the “grocery trip.” They didn’t offer information, and she figured it was better not to ask, which was how she found herself outside at dusk while everybody else was inside making dinner.

She was crouched by the folly’s base, thinking about what Mina said.

What if Stanford hadn’t been digging?

All the stones at the base of the folly looked the same except one of them, at the farthest corner of the house. It was cold, which was normal in Michigan at this time of year, but this was a different kind of cold. Angry cold, the sort of bitterness you could feel through the skin.

She picked up a rock from the flowerbed border and gently knocked it against the stones. They all sounded the same, plink plink plink over and over, except for the rock that was colder than the others. It was deeper, more open . Plonk plonk plonk.

Oh, dear.

Alice stood, ready to run back inside and alert the others, only to find Paige standing behind her in that stupid luxurious winter coat. “ Gah! ”

They really needed to find a way to ward the property against the living.

“What are you doing ?” Paige asked. Alice began to construct a lie about nighttime gardening as an island pastime, but Paige interrupted her. “Never mind, I don’t care.”

Alice stared at her, silent.

“Well?” Paige threw up her hands.

“I assumed you were about to say something condescending and terrible, so I might as well wait,” Alice replied.

“Everybody on this stupid little island thinks they’re so clever,” Paige sighed, sounding bored. “Just like you all think you know Collin so well .”

Alice shook her head. “No, actually, we only met recently.”

Paige frowned. “I thought you grew up on the island.”

Alice didn’t explain herself because she didn’t want to.

Sphinxlike silence seemed to be the only appropriate reward for this…

well, bullshit. Everything Paige was saying was bullshit.

And Alice had been handling bullshit for years.

She’d dealt with customers like Paige before—bored and frustrated and looking for some joy in life, and bewildered when they couldn’t find it.

“You know he doesn’t belong here, right?” Paige finally said. “He could literally live anywhere. Work anywhere. He doesn’t even have to work. He only does it because he thinks it makes him a better person.”

Alice nodded. “OK.”

Frustrated by her lack of reaction, Paige doubled down. “So, you can see why I don’t want him wasting his life here in this backwater, wasting himself on the people here. People like you, who don’t understand him, who don’t know what sort of person he is, what he needs.”

Alice stared at Paige, long and hard. “Look, Peyton.”

“Paige.”

“Whatever,” Alice said, returning the same sickly smile that Paige had given to her.

“You’re not going to come between me and Collin by trying to make me feel like I’m not good enough for him.

I don’t think I’m good enough for him. But I also don’t think you’re good enough for him.

That’s the difference between us. Well, one of them.

I also think you’re shallow and patronizing—two more traits we don’t share. ”

“It doesn’t matter,” Paige snapped. “I’m what his family wanted for him.

And he’s always going to go back to that starting point because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Why do you think he keeps coming back to me?

Because he knows it’s inevitable. He may fight it, but he knows how this story ends.

He’s disappointed his family in a lot of ways, but he won’t leave this undone. ”

Alice took a deep breath, even as her hand itched to respond with magic or a good smack or something that Paige deeply deserved. “It’s truly offensive, the way you oversimplify him. You’re not doing either of you any credit.”

“Then why do I have this?” Paige asked, pulling out her phone. She showed Alice the screen, which featured a photo of Paige’s immaculately manicured hand wearing a sizable diamond— the diamond engagement ring from Collin’s parents’ photo. Paige was wearing his mother’s ring.

“He’s having it sized, of course,” Paige said, her tone confidential. “His mother’s fingers were a little bigger than mine, so I couldn’t just wear it around the island. I wouldn’t want to lose it, after he trusted me with such a valuable family heirloom.”

And while Alice’s first instinct was to despair, to picture Collin proposing to this woman, she knew…

Collin had told her the ring wasn’t Paige’s style.

He was reluctant to give it to her years before, so he’d bought her a big flashy ring for that last attempt.

He’d told Alice he pictured himself resetting the stones for his future wife.

Fresh start, fresh stories.

Collin wasn’t engaged to this woman, no matter what Paige said, but the real problem was the background of the photo. Yes, Paige’s hand was the perfect model for an absolutely gorgeous heirloom ring. And behind it, barely in focus, was the tub in the Cowslip Suite, filled with bubbles.

“Where were you when this photo was taken?” Alice asked, careful to keep her tone indifferent.