Cricket’s life was in danger.

Who would want to hurt my four-year-old granddaughter? Why?

I lost everything in last night’s fire. Except for her, my backpack, her favorite blanket, the clothes on our backs, and the shoes on our feet. And whatever was in my car. That was it. Everything else was gone, so I’d had no choice but to ask for their help. It was embarrassing to have to do it again, but it wasn’t just me this time. I’d do whatever was necessary to keep my granddaughter safe.

After a mostly sleepless night in the most secure hotel in town, I buckled my little bug into her booster seat.

“Where are we going?” Cricket asked.

“To the park.”

“Yay, the park!”

This child was always happy, despite the tragedies that had struck her young life recently. Probably because she was too young to really understand.

Including red lights, it took less than five minutes to get there. Which gave me time to wonder what had started the fire. Or more accurately, what had started the fires? There were two of them. One in my bedroom at the back of the house and another in the garage at the front of the house.

Also, why had I parked on the street last night? I never parked on the street. If I hadn’t, I would have lost my little twelve-year-old hatchback. It could have been an instinct. More likely, my power had kicked in.

“Who is that?” Cricket asked as we crossed the expanse of lush green grass at the park. She stretched her hand and pointed at the gray-haired man in the forest-green anorak.

“His name is Jasper.”

He looked so old. His hair was white gray now, his back hunched, and he looked smaller than I remembered. When had that happened? I couldn’t help but smile when I spotted the binoculars hanging from his neck. No surprise there. It also wasn’t a surprise to see him holding an open book in one hand—surely a guide to the birds of southwestern Wisconsin—while patting his jacket pockets, pants pockets, and then the side of his head with his free hand.

In three, two, one, I counted down to myself.

On cue, he gave up the hunt and held out his hand. A pen appeared on his palm. Or more likely a pencil so any errors in note-taking could be erased and corrected.

“Jasper is my father.” I tapped Cricket’s little button nose. “Which means he’s your great-grandfather.”

Dad saw us nearing him and leaned forward as though trying to bring us into focus. “Dusty?”

As he shuffled toward us, he slid the pencil behind his ear. I almost laughed when it dropped onto the grass behind him. We used to find pencils all over the place—every room in the house, on the floor in the garage, scattered around the yard. My father was a constant note jotter so always had a notebook or two in a pocket, but he was forever losing his pencils. How many times had I told him his ears stuck out too far to hold them in place? Fortunately for him, he could summon a fresh one at will so was never really without.

A tsunami of emotions rose higher and higher inside me as we closed the gap. We’d talked for a literal couple of minutes every six months, give or take, but hadn’t seen each other face to face in twenty-nine years. Shortly before my son, Micah, was born.

“Look at you both.” His smile made deep wrinkles appear around the corners of his beard-and-mustache framed mouth. Crinkles like quotation marks punctuated his tired brown eyes. “I like your hair short.”

I absently touched my choppy blond bob. It had been this way for decades. “Thanks.”

He reached out and trailed a finger down my granddaughter’s forearm. “Who are you?”

Not liking to be touched by strangers, she pulled her arm away. “I’m Cricket.”

He looked at me in question.

“Her given name is Alice, but we call her Cricket because she never stops chirping.” I blew a raspberry on one of her still pudgy cheeks. The nickname Chipmunk would have fit, too, but we figured she’d grow out of her cheeks. They had gotten smaller but were still as adorable as the day she was born.

I set her down on her sandaled feet. “I need to talk to Great-grandpa. Can you go play for a few minutes?”

She frowned and hugged baba, her pink-and-white striped blanket with the yellow and purple flowers she pretended smelled so pretty. Right now, they smelled like smoke. “I don’t have anything to play with.”

My heart ached. As soon as were settled, a toy store run was high on our to-do list. So was a bath for baba. Meanwhile, the park Dad chose didn’t have a playground, and we were the only people here. Which was probably exactly why he chose this location. For privacy.

He held out his hand again, and a pair of child-sized bubblegum-pink opera glasses appeared. “Have you ever looked through binoculars before?”

Her frown intensified, and she shook her head. “What are they?”

Interesting that their sudden, out-of-nowhere appearance didn’t faze her.

He pressed the handle into her little hand and told her to hold on tight. “See how there are small circles on one side and bigger circles on the other?”

Cricket inspected the binoculars-on-a-stick closely. “Uh-huh.”

“Look through the small circles.” He showed her how by raising his non-handled pair to his eyes.

She shoved baba at me, held hers up, and Dad adjusted them until they were the perfect width for her face.

“Everything is huge!” she declared. “Is it magic?”

“There are a set of lenses that—”

I cleared my throat. If left unchecked, we’d stand there for an hour listening to a lecture on how binoculars functioned.

“They’re like glasses,” he amended and tapped the round pair on his rectangular face. “Do you know what glasses are for?”

“Yep. They make things look not blurry.”

He chuckled. “Right. Instead of making things not blurry, binoculars make things look bigger and closer.”

She shifted on her feet with excitement. “What can I look at?”

“Absolutely anything you want.” He pointed up. “The clouds in the sky.” He pointed down. “The grass on the ground.” He pointed into a tree. “I use mine to look at birds. That way I don’t have to get too close and scare them. I love birds.”

“I love birds too.”

That was the first time I’d heard her say that. Looked like my granddaughter and father had bonded.

“I’m gonna go look at . . . everything.” She threw her arms out wide and spun in a circle. Without falling down this time.

“And then you can tell me all about it later,” I replied. “Don’t go too far away. Make sure you can see me and hear my voice.”

We watched as she wandered off, the tulle skirt of her pink ballerina dress bouncing with each skip.

The wrinkles of amusement on my father’s face smoothed away. Creases of concern furrowed his forehead and the spot between his gray eyebrows. “How are you doing, Dusty?”

I’d texted him about the fire last night. “We both made it out alive, so I’m fine.”

“Let’s sit.” He indicated a small picnic table that hadn’t been there seconds earlier. Once we were settled, he said, “I know this isn’t easy for you. Catch me up on everything.”

By everything, he surely meant my life since the last time we saw each other. I’d left home thirty-two years ago when I was eighteen. That was the first time I asked him for help. Or rather, approached The Council for help. Dad was my liaison. The second time, twenty-nine years ago, I was terrified because I was penniless and pregnant. At least this time, my desperate situation wasn’t because I’d made a stupid decision.

Still, humiliation, like toxic sludge, flowed through my veins over having to approach them a third time. But as I decided last night, I had no better option.

“Life had honestly been normal,” I replied. “Until about a month ago.”

“What happened a month ago?”

“Cricket’s mother, Josie, went missing. I don’t know what so-called evidence they have, but they decided that my son is responsible. They arrested my Micah.”

A notebook, labeled Dusty on the cover, and a fresh pencil appeared on the table in front of him. He flipped to about the midpoint. Seemed he’d been keeping notes on me all along. Probably every two-minute phone call we’d had over the decades was documented in there.

“You know he’s innocent?” Dad asked.

“Yes. I had a dream.”

When I was about Cricket’s age, I started having dreams that were far from standard. I came from a family of witches, and we each had a power. Some of us had more than one. For me, if I had a dream that woke me with a start—heart pounding, covered in a cold sweat, gasping for breath—it was a prophetic dream. They always indicated the truth behind something that had already happened. If I was ever going about my day and froze in the middle of whatever I was doing, that meant my second power had just kicked in. Premonitions were about events that would happen in the future. How far into the future was rarely indicated, but like with the dreams, they were always accurate. That had to be what happened last night. I had pulled into the driveway like usual, stopped, and decided it would be better to park on the street.

The problem was, unlike my father’s ability to produce items at will, my dreams and premonitions were not on demand. I’d had my powers for forty-five of my fifty years and had never been able to willfully bring on either. This meant that while I couldn’t see where Josie—or goddess forbid her body—was, I knew my son was innocent because of that dream.

“Okay,” Dad replied with a firm nod. “If you dreamt it, it’s true, but that doesn’t bring home the bacon, does it?”

He meant that didn’t provide the proof I needed to get Micah out of prison.

“No, it doesn’t. He seems to be safe enough where he is, so my concern right now is Cricket.”

I glanced across the field to see my blessing of a grandchild looking at wildflowers through her opera glasses. She looked through them, then pulled them away. Looked through and pulled them away. What an amazingly thoughtful and educational gift.

I opened the main compartment of my backpack and then the interior zippered pocket. “I found this tucked beneath my windshield wiper last night.”

Dad took the folded piece of paper from me. His mouth dropped open as he read the message.

Her mother was first. Then her father.

It would be a shame if she lost her entire family.

Then who will take care of her?

“You’re right. Sounds like a threat but not just against Cricket.” His now worried gaze fixed on me.“Sounds like you’re in danger too.”

Staring across the field at my tiny ballerina, I answered, “I know.”

He refolded the paper and handed it back to me. Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a folder that could not possibly have fit in an inside pocket. “After our discussion last night, I immediately approached The Council with everything you told me, and I believe the solution we’ve come up with will take care of your problem.”

I blew out a breath of relief. “You’re giving me enough that we can get far away, right?”

He shook his head. “We’re not giving you money this time, Dusty.”

The first time, The Council gave me enough to cover tuition and expenses for four years of college. The second loan allowed me to set up a good home for myself and the baby who had been a surprise. That infusion lasted until after Micah was born, at which time I managed to secure a decent job. This time, apparently, was strike three. Was I out?

“We came up with an alternative.” There was a not sure you’re going to like this quality to his voice. “Basically, we’ll scratch your back if you scratch ours. Quid pro quo, I believe it’s called.”

I froze. “What do you want me to do?”

He opened the folder and revealed a contract typed on familiar letterhead. The first two I’d signed simply stated I had to pay back every penny they lent me. No timeframe and no interest. I still owed The Council ten thousand dollars. An embarrassingly large amount after more than three decades. But kids are expensive. So are rent, car payments, and college tuition. And bank loans came with both payment schedules and hefty interest rates, so I paid off those debts first.

“We want you to return to Blackwood Grove.” Dad spun the contract around so I could read it. “Look it over.”

The Council’s solution to my problem was for me to return to the town I left days after graduating high school. If I agreed to return to my family farm, Cricket and I would be protected by the enchanted property my family had lived on for two hundred years.

I had to admit, there was no place in the world safer for us than Applewood Farm. No stranger could enter the property without at least one witch being present. As long as Cricket stayed on our side of the hedge or with me if we went into town, she would be absolutely safe. There was one big problem with The Council’s solution, however.

Pushing the contract back across the table, I shook my head. “I can’t go back.”

“Whyever not?”

“The curse.”

“What curse?”

“You must remember the accident.”

He appeared to scroll back through his memory. “You mean the boat?”

I nodded. Along with the dreams and premonitions, I had a third power. One that gave me the ability to do wrong things for the right reasons. On the day in question, I had reacted to what would have been a horrific accident. I held out a hand, almost like preparing to catch a ball, and unintentionally used this power I had not fully developed. As a result, ten people’s lives were forever changed. Mine too; I hadn’t cast a single spell since.

“They told me to leave town.”

“Who did?”

“The parents of one of my victims. I think.”

“They weren’t your victims, Dusty. You cast a spell that didn’t go as intended.” He said that as though saying, you made toast for breakfast, and it burned.

Talk about a one-eighty turn. I vividly remembered overhearing him and my mother talking about me in their bedroom the night of the accident. I’d gone to them hoping for guidance on how to fix the awful thing I’d done.

“. . . was wrong,” Mom was saying as I reached their door. “I’m not surprised this happened. She shouldn’t have tried. She’s not ready.”

“No,” Dad agreed, “and she may never be. To think of where you were at her age—”

“She’s far too unpredictable.”

The disgust I heard in their voices, especially hers, was like a knife to my heart.

I stared at my father now, leery of this supportive attitude. “I cast a gray spell that went horribly wrong. I stepped in on something that wasn’t my concern.”

“You prevented—”

“There are consequences for gray magic, Dad. You know that better than anyone. Unintentional as it was, I altered people’s lives.”

He waited for me to calm down. “Because of that incident, you lived the last thirty-two years away from your family and without the protection of Blackwood Grove. I’d say that’s a pretty big consequence and you’ve paid your dues.”

Sure hoped so, because while living away from my family had been agony at times, it was only part of my punishment. I also got conned out of all my money by my slimy ex-husband. Was barely able to care for my child after becoming a single parent at age twenty-one. Josie disappeared. Micah was incarcerated. I’d lost my job yesterday morning and my house last night. I couldn’t handle much more.

“I can’t go back.”

He stared at me like I’d just dropped in from another planet. “Why do you believe this so vehemently?”

“This parent told me to leave, which nullified my protection. They told me that if I ever returned, all my troubles would be cast onto the family.” I glanced at Cricket. She was included in that threat.

He slapped his palm to his forehead. “This is what happens when you don’t finish your training and then live in an Ordinary town for thirty years. Our family was given Applewood Farm, our parcel of land, to live on two hundred years ago. Blackwood Grove developed around the farm and was deemed a safe town. One of many across the world. It’s been a couple of decades, but you must remember that witches are protected inside safe towns.”

“I know.” His explanation was unnecessary. I was fully, painfully aware of the differences between safe towns and Ordinary towns.

“This is true for any witch inside any safe town. These towns are where we’re allowed to perform magic at will. Everyone, witch and Ordinary alike, knows and accepts this. You remember that as well, correct?”

“I do.” Ordinary was our term for non-magical people. Also Ords, Ordy, or Ordies.

“You must also know that you’re not a prisoner of the town. You can come and go as you choose.”

“Yes, but if I come back to—”

He reached across the table and took my hands in his. “If you’re a witch in a safe town, you’re protected no matter how many times you leave and reenter. The only thing that can remove, alter, or nullify the enchantment from a family’s parcel and the safe town around it is for the family to sell that parcel or for the wards to be taken down. We aren’t selling, and Blackwood Grove’s wards are securely in place.”

I sat in embarrassed silence, eventually whispering, “So I can return?”

“You can. You’ll be protected instantly and completely. So will Cricket. You’re only vulnerable when outside a safe town.”

My face grew hot as I thought of Micah sitting in a jail cell. “I could have returned long ago.”

“You should have. We would have welcomed you with open arms.” He squeezed my hands and waited for me to meet his eyes. “You went through a lot since you left, but you always figured a way out of your troubles. Being a young single parent was surely a struggle, but you did care for Micah, and he’s become a fine young man. You made a comfortable life for the two of you. Last night, you got yourself and that beautiful little girl out of a burning house, and then you contacted us for help, which is a strength, not a weakness. You, my dear, are a survivor.”

He released my hands and pushed the contract back to me. Then he held up his hand again and manifested a quill and pot of ink. When I reached for the implements, he asked, “Did you read everything? Do you agree to the conditions?”

“Mm-hmm,” I hummed as I dipped the quill into the pot. Cricket would be safe. That was all that mattered. As I signed my name, Dusty Hotte, on the line at the bottom, red ink flowed from the nib. “Tell me that’s not blood.”

“This contract doesn’t require a blood oath.”

“Wait, did you say conditions? What conditions?” As my signature absorbed into the parchment and the ink dried, I saw a line of small print above my signature. Literal fine print that I had not read.

I dug in my backpack for my reading glasses, which I only needed if a font was tiny or the ink faint. These were both. “What does that say? What did I just agree to, Dad?”

He closed his eyes and groaned. “I asked if you read it all.”

I thought I had, but then we started talking about curses and how I could have returned home years or even decades ago. He distracted me. No, that wasn’t fair. I was hyper-focused on Cricket being safe. I shoved my glasses on my face and still had to practically press my nose to the parchment to see the lines clearly. My spine straightened. “Are you kidding me?”

He cleared his throat. “You will receive room and board for both you and Cricket for as long as you wish, and your remaining debt to The Council will be forgiven if you agree to become the witches’ caretaker. Your signature states that you do.”

“Caretaker?”

“They’re getting up there in age, and you know how some folks get when they reach their seventies and eighties. They no longer care what anyone thinks and become a little free and loose. Their magic has gone a bit wonky . . . They sometimes forget that their underwear should go on before their clothes. Although they might have been messing with me that day.”

“Dad? You’re one of them, you know.” He turned seventy-seven on his last birthday. His magic appeared on point, however. Based on what I’d seen over the last few minutes.

“Indeed, I am. On the bright side for you, I’m so busy with The Council I don’t stay at the house very often anymore.” He patted his binoculars next to him on the table. “And there are my birds.”

I hesitated to ask, “What about Mom?”

His hand fluttered in the air like the wings of one of his birds. “Oh, she’s around.”

I paused, not sure I wanted to hear the answer to my next question. “Causing problems?”

His mouth opened, and a few unintelligible noises came out. “She means well.”

Oh, dear lord. “You said witches. How many of them are living in the house?” Last I knew, there were six. Aunt Comfort and her husband, Maks, although he wasn’t a witch. Aunt Gwynne and her husband, Filip. And my parents. Granny Sadie had passed a few years ago. That made six, but Dad said he wasn’t around much. So, five?

He counted on his fingers. All of them. “Nine? Ten?”

“There are ten witches living in that house?”

“The number fluctuates. And the house is bigger now. It added a few rooms. Some of them are ghosts, so they’re on their own. Sometimes there’s a visiting witch or two from another parcel.”

I leaned back, remembered I was sitting at a picnic table—no back rest—and caught myself before I fell backward. “There are nine or ten witches with varying levels of magical stability plus visitors.”

“See why we need your help?”

I was almost afraid to ask, “What about Carly?”

“She’s overwhelmed but will be there to help you.”

If she’d even talk to me. I’d ruined our plans so wouldn’t be surprised if my cousin never forgave me for leaving.

“And Brenda?”

“We have no idea where your sister is. The last time you saw her was the last time we saw her.”

There was a trend with us Warren girls. I left home at eighteen. I was ten when my big sister also left at eighteen years of age. How different would my life have been if I’d had her by my side during my teen years? Because my parents were never around.

I gazed at my hopeful father and sighed. “Caretaker, huh?”

“We need you, sweetheart.”

What had I gotten myself into? I glanced at Cricket, who was looking at the sandals on her feet through the wrong end of her opera glasses, and smiled. It would all be fine. I had survived a house fire. That, however, might prove to be a far easier task than surviving the witches of Blackwood Grove.