Page 1 of Practically Witches

Chapter

One

The house on old Willow Grove Lane is where Aimee and I practice our magic in hopes of passing our final exams to become witches. It’s been a part of the coven’s circle for a century at least. Probably longer. It’s a black house with white shutters, and it was black long before anyone considered that a good color for housing.

It’s a modest two story with an attic and nooks and crannies, built in shelves and hiding spaces. I learned long ago that my mother knew them all.

Now, I live in the house with my mom, my sister Aimee, and our fickle feline Auda.

Today, Mom isn’t home and Aimee is in the attic waiting for me. We’re “crafting” as far as Mom knows. And neither of us is going to tell her any different. If she ever catches a whiff of our real intentions, it’s going to be over really quick because strict and iron-fist are her middle names. She’ll finish both of us.

Mom isn’t a woman who suffers liars or sneaks.And we’re not trying to be either, but desperation made us be the first, and the first made us into the second.

Mom has rules. Strict ridiculous rules for dealing with us. I’m nineteen years old for fuck’s sake. Aimee is twenty-one. But our mother takes it so personally when I break one of her edicts or when I drag Aimee into breaking one with me. Goodness knows Aimee would never break one on her own. She just doesn’t have defiance in her.

I, on the other hand, have never found a rule I won’t break, or at least bend to a solid ninety-degree angle. My motto is, and has always been, that it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

“RJ, it’s about time. I’ve been waiting an hour for you.” She shakes her head like she’s exasperated. But she points to the table. “I set up the glue gun over there.”

Aimee is standing near the window by the wall panel where we hide all the stuff we have to keep from our mother, but most importantly the grimoire we found.

She waves to a card table we’ve set up so that if Mom comes in, it’ll be the first thing she sees. It’ll give us time to hide what we’re actually doing before she finds us doing what we’re not supposed to at all. Ever.

I pull two rhinestone bedazzled oven mitts from a large brown envelope I told Mom was crafting supplies—which is only half a lie. I ordered the mitts already decorated online so they can sit on the table with the glue gun. It’s a shame we have to lie to her, but she isn’t the kind of parent who would understand. So now it’s all a matter of making the lie believable and hoping if she ventures up here she’ll be so wowed by “our” good work that she’ll stop to look, might even think we’re being productive, and it will give us an extra second to stow whatever it is we’re really doing. It’s the thought, anyway.

Well,mythought, the one I convinced Aimee to go along with. She’s the older sister, the smarter sister, the sister who has all the skills, and I’m the one who makes sure that she’s safe and sound, protected and included. She doesn’t give anyone any shit and I don’t take any.

We each have our roles to play—she’s the good girl and I’m…me.

Sheliveshers, and I play mine, usually out of necessity.

Aimee glances at me as I set the oven mitts on the table and walk back to where she is. “Well?”

She knows what I’m asking. I need to know if it’s the grimoire that’s faulty or if it’s me. I’m not usually afflicted with self-doubts. That’s more her thing, but our lives are on the line. Well, mine. She’ll do fine, I’m sure.

“I don’t know, RJ.” She pulls a lipstick-stained napkin from the cubby in the wall where we keep the grimoire when we aren’t using it. “Try the cleaning spell again.”

I’ve gone over it a thousand times. I know the spell by heart. But there’s a block somewhere. And maybe it’s something with the magic, but I doubt it. It works some of the time. Usually when Aimee is around to give me confidence to do it right. When she’s out of the room, I screw it up. I don’t know what I’m doing differently so I’ve decided it has to be the grimoire. It can’t be that I’m so dependent on my sister I can’t do magic without her. It cannot.

“Look, I’m gonna be right here.” She points at a spot beside the cabinet where we are doing the real work we hide up here from Mom. Then she smiles like it’s going to give me the needed boost of magic.

I take the napkin. I know what she wants me to do with it, and I shouldn’t be scared. I don’t get scared. And we’ve already established that in this room, with her beside me, the magic never fails.

But it’s failed enough without her that I’m worried. I don’t fucking like it, so I wipe those thoughts away and focus.

And refocus.

Focus again.

She huffs out a loud, exasperated sigh, snatches the napkin out of my hand, and spreads it on the cabinet’s white marble top. Then she gives me herget with itlook. It’s a combination of one cocked brow and the tight line of her lips. It means business as much as she does.

I breathe in deep, blow it out slow, find my magic center, and rub my hands together. Magic is about being connected to my body, controlling my thoughts and my power. That’s what Aimee says anyway.

So, I give it a go. And the stain lifts. Like magic. Floats through the air then disintegrates with a pop.

“RJ!” She squeals and claps her hands together, even gives a quick jump that shakes the floor in the loft.

“Shh! If Mom hears us, you know she’s going to take the book…” I motion to the grimoire we found hidden in a loose panel in the wall. I love Mom, but I might love the book more since I’ve learned more from the book than I have in five years at the Institute where our mother is an alumna.

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