Natalie Whipple: House of Ivy & Sorrow

Nana is not exactly the kind of grandma who looks young, but with one sigh she ages another few decades. “I hoped this day would not come. Carmina and I worked so hard to prevent this from happening. But those shadows found him—and since his intentions toward us are good, he isn’t repelled by our barriers.”

“Who is he?”

Her look is flat. “Surely you know, Josephine. Separate him from the darkness, and you will see.”

I do as she says, picturing the man with as much detail as possible. He has dark hair and light eyes, but I can’t remember the exact color. He is tall and lean, and his skin, while tan, has traces of freckles. I gasp. Mom never had a single one, and who else would care so much about finding my mother? He seemed familiar to me because . . . “He’s my father?”

She nods. “Joseph Johnson.”

I can’t seem to find air. This is a day I never thought about because witches simply do not know their fathers. We don’t do families like that. We have relationships, but they never result in commitment. We only have girls—girls who possess our bloodline and power. It is the mother, grandmother, daughter, sister bonds that make up our families.

Romantic love never ends well for us, though we need it like anyone else. The men we choose to be with are always in danger of becoming pawns, leverage. Which must be my father’s case, because knowing who he is makes me want to protect him. Nana doesn’t have to say anything for me to know what’s going on. Someone is using him to get to us. Someone cruel and consumed with darkness.

“Carmina loved him very much,” Nana says. I can feel the sorrow in her voice, the pain of losing her daughter and her daughter losing the man she loved. “She wanted so badly to stay with Joseph, and she took many risks to be with him as long as she was. But when she found out she was pregnant, she knew she had to protect you and him. She disappeared from his life and came home, though I don’t think she ever got over it.”

“He never knew where she went?” I ask.

She heads for the apothecary, and I follow. “Oh, he tried to find her. We did many things to ensure that he couldn’t, since any knowledge he had would only hurt him. When she was Cursed, we put more barriers around him, for fear that he would be used as he is now. It seems our hunters finally found a way through.”

“If only we knew who they were.” There are other witch bloodlines. Some friendly. Others not so much. The Curse must have come from someone’s magic, but no one will own up to it. Those who go looking for answers end up dead. All we can do is what we’ve done for centuries: Run. Hide. Hope it doesn’t find us again.

“If only, yes. The shadows around Joseph are similar to your mother’s Curse. I fear they have come for us, Josephine.” She grabs the jar of spiders she made me collect. Spiders, which crawl and sneak and kill. What she plans to do with them, I’m not sure yet. “But if we are very careful, we may be able to free him. And if we are very lucky, we could discover your mother’s killer as well.”

My eyes go wide. “Are you saying we might be able to avenge Mom’s death?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” She grabs a bag of crow ashes and heads for her desk. Crow and spider—this spell must be something with bite. “Of course, it was safer to hide before, since making sure you came of age was far more important than vengeance. But if they’re knocking at our door, they will have hell to pay for what they’ve done to us.”

“We can’t leave? Find another magical place to hide in?” Not that I love the idea of leaving Gwen, Kat, and Winn, but the Hemlock line is at risk here.

Nana’s expression is positively grim. “It takes too much time to search and rebuild. When Agatha came here, there were still five witches in the New York house. Only one had been Cursed. By the time she established this house, none of them were alive.”

“Oh.” My heart doubles its pace. I don’t have to ask more questions. The Curse has been a plague for generations, slowly killing family lines. The Sages, the Maggis, the Firebrands . . . they are long gone. And we might be next.

“I don’t mean to frighten you, Josephine, but if this evil plans to snuff us out I cannot sit here and wait for it. Maybe we can find answers—and with those answers we could stop this, save other witching families from the Curse. We might be a small bloodline, but we are strong.” She puts her wrinkled hand on my arms, squeezes once. “What do you say? Shall we fight back?”

I can feel the smile on my lips, which reminds me too well that I am no mild-mannered, normal girl. Murdering a witch is a grave, evil offense. We should not kill our own—there have been too many years of other people doing that for us. When my mother died, our sister witches gave their condolences, but we wondered which one of them had done the unthinkable and why.

My mother did not die without pain. I remember her cries, young as I was. I would sit by her bedside, holding her hand as Nana tried everything to remove the Curse. She did all the spells she could think of to stop Mom’s blood from turning black, but it never worked. Whatever that poison was, it wasn’t going anywhere. I remember the moment I knew Mom would die, though she never said it.

“You’ll be okay, right?” I’d ask every day after school when I’d rush up the stairs to her room.

And every day, she would smile and say, “Of course.”

But one cool fall afternoon, as the leaves were turning gold and red and orange, I came in to check on her. I asked what I always asked, and she said, “I don’t know, baby.”

That’s when I knew, though I told myself she was just tired of being sick. Tomorrow she would say she was fine. It was only a hiccup in the pattern. But after that it was always “I don’t know,” until she couldn’t speak at all.

Then she was gone, and it felt like I would never quite be whole again.

Truth is, I’m still not.

I stand tall, determined, as Nana and I stare at each other. It’s time to fight, and vengeance sounds good right now. “What do I need to do?”

My phone’s chirping wakes me the next morning. I grasp at my nightstand, wondering who in the world would text me at this ungodly hour. Especially on a weekend. It’s barely daylight—like, daylight happened thirty seconds ago—and I’ve told Gwen and Kat they will suffer if they wake me up before ten. Gwen had a very awkward rash the week after she woke me up just to say some boy kissed her at summer camp.

I squint at the screen’s brightness.

Still alive? It’s Winn, btw.

Well, maybe I won’t curse him.

Yes, but I don’t remember giving you my number.

Almost immediately, my phone chirps again.

Asked Gwen. Figured it’s OK, since I’m doomed already.

I squeal into my pillow. This can’t be real.

Except don’t text me this early. Gosh.

Early? I’ve been up for over an hour.

I laugh. Winn’s family owns one of the biggest farms in the area, and like most farm kids he’s always up before the sun doing chores.

I feel so lazy.

You could come help.

Not that lazy.

Ha. Gotta go. Field-plowing time. Call me later?

Of course!

Nana knocks at my door. “Josephine? Are you up?”

“No.” I put my phone on vibrate, cursing myself for not thinking of it sooner. No doubt she has a lot of work for me to do, and it probably involves dead animals.

She opens my door, the light cutting a sliver through my dark room. “I heard the phone chirp. Was that your boy?”