Read Online The First Midnight Spell by Claudia Gray - Free Book Online

winter.”
    Elizabeth giggled. “Not cold for long, I bet.”
    Pru pretended to shove her, and the two of them collapsed in laughter. When finally they could breathe again, Pru wiped tears from her cheeks. “Elizabeth . . . I wasn’t fair to you.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Elizabeth leaned against the nearest tree, pleasantly tired from all the fun.
    â€œI didn’t think you’d be happy for me,” Pru admitted. “I thought you’d be—not jealous, exactly, but that you’d feel lonely. Because I can marry the man I love, and you can’t.”
    Elizabeth knew better than to react. “Of course I’m happy for you. Ever since we were little girls, you’ve hoped to marry Jonathan. How could I not want your wish to come true?”
    After all, hadn’t she wished just as long and hard for Nat?
    Pru smiled. “You’ve got a bigger heart than you let on. Sometimes you pretend you’re only a walking Book of Shadows, storing up magic but thinking of nothing else. I know better, though. This is the real Elizabeth, here and now.”
    How silly Pru was. How little she knew anything about anyone—even her precious Jonathan, who loved her, but not enough to cast aside the rest of the world. Elizabeth simply smiled back. “I’m sure I’ll have my day to be happy.”
    â€œOh, you will! I know you will.” Pru hugged Elizabeth tightly, and she returned the embrace, wondering if even now, Nat was watching her from the shadows.
    Â 
    Nat’s appearance began to subtly change.
    It wasn’t as though anything unnatural happened to him: In no way did he look different from an ordinary man. But he began to look less like himself.
    Once he had kept his hair trimmed fairly short; now it had grown well past his collar. Nat had shaved every day, too, joking that he wasn’t old enough to start a beard, but his chin began to sport stubble. Although nobody could have called him a dandy, as he wore the same homespun clothing as everyone else in Fortune’s Sound, Nat had always been careful of his attire. His shirts had been carefully tucked, his shoes and belt shined. Now he looked rougher, almost unkempt.
    Elizabeth found his ruggedness perversely attractive. There was something undeniably delicious in the thought that he was too distracted by her to even dress himself properly.
    By now Widow Porter was distraught. The coven had not met in almost two months—an exceptionally long time, especially with crops in the field. Elizabeth and her aunt went out one night to perform spells of abundance by themselves, just in case.
    â€œWe’re surely not the only ones,” Aunt Ruth said as they stood out under the light of the full moon. “Probably we’ll have a better harvest than ever before, because the fields have been spelled so many times!”
    See? Elizabeth thought. One more reason nobody needs a coven.
    And even then—even in the dead of night—she knew Nat was watching her. He wouldn’t be able to tell they were working magic; probably he wouldn’t have cared if he had. His mind was full of nothing but her.
    She began to have daydreams about slipping out by herself late at night. If Aunt Ruth caught her, Elizabeth could claim she’d wanted to work on her magic. And if she weren’t caught . . .
    Nat would come to her then. Elizabeth knew it. He’d come to her, sweep her up in his arms, and then—and then they’d be as good as man and wife.
    Afterward he’d insist on running away together, and Elizabeth would pretend to bashfully agree.
    Everything was working perfectly. Any doubts she felt from time to time—any odd quiver of fear that went through her when Nat stared blindly in her direction, looking so little like his old self—Elizabeth brushed aside. This was her plan. It was unfolding more or less as she’d foreseen. The journey didn’t