Emily Barker: The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

By way of answer, Nora gathered her little sister in her arms and hugged her, the way she had wanted to the night when Ramona thought she was a ghost. She felt a little better, although embracing her sister did not crush the loneliness she felt. “How did you get to be so smart?” she whispered in Ramona’s ear.

“I could tell from how he talked to you, that night, he likes you. A lot.”

“I wish I’d been smart enough to see that.”

Ramona studied her for a moment. “You have to go back,” she said simply. “You’ll find a way. We could go camping in those mountains where you got lost, and try to get back from there. Or, your ring!” She grabbed at Nora’s hand. “It’s magic, isn’t it? That’s why it broke the clipper at the hospital?”

“But not good magic.” Nora jerked her hand back. That vile ring. How sickening that it was the only tangible connection she had to her other life. Her real life, she could see now.

But if this link survived, she thought slowly, there may be others. There might be other gateways. Going back to the mountains—I could try that. I’ve traveled between worlds twice now. I know something about magic. Surely I can find my way home.

Ramona was still fascinated by the ring. “The only way to get it off is if you cut your finger off,” she was saying. “They’ll call you Nine-fingered Nora.” Delicately she lifted Nora’s ring finger and gave it a nip, her teeth clicking against the gold.

Nora thought of the expression on Aruendiel’s face when she had once made a similar suggestion, and wondered again how she could have been so blind, stupid and blind, she who had prided herself on her discernment. But she only said, “No fighting, no biting,” the way her parents used to when she and EJ were little, when magic was something you only read about in books.

What was it Aruendiel had said? Pick your path with intent. At least, she thought, now I know where I’m going.