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Daughters. They could cut you with a look.
    She knew Tyler would never look at her that way. Tyler adored her and the feeling was mutual. Joanna now paid for him to attend a fancy children’s year-round preschool, and while his parents shared the morning drop-off it was Joanna who picked him up every afternoon with a snack or a treat in hand. After school they would go to the beach, where Tyler would spend the rest of the afternoon chasing birds and collecting seashells while Joanna watched him.
    There hadn’t been anything odd since the three dead birds a week ago, and Joanna was starting to relax. Maybe that nagging worry in the back of her mind was just a by-product of their history. Perhaps she was just seeing signs where there weren’t any. Life in North Hampton never changed; she herself had seen to that when she first moved into town.
    Oh dear, the pie had burned. She had forgotten to set the timer and now it was black and smoking. If she had been Freya, this would never have happened, but her magic was of a different sort. Tyler’s face crumpled, threatening an avalanche of tears. Lala had promised that there would be pie and ice cream.
    “I’m so sorry, darling,” Joanna sighed.
    “Pie,” Tyler said stubbornly. “Pie.”
    “We’ll just have to make another one . . .”
    “Pie.”
    Joanna put her hands on her hips. She had overheard her daughters talking that morning. Something about how Freya had made a love potion—of the three of them, Freya had always been the bravest due to her natural impulsiveness and daring. But if nothing had happened to Freya, then . . . well . . . wouldn’t it stand to reason that she could do the same? It would just be a simple flick of the wrist, one little incantation and all would be right with Tyler’s world. It wouldn’t use up that much energy, after all, and truly, the oracle had been silent for many years; who knew if the restriction even applied to something so small ? . . . Joanna’s hands began to shake. She wanted to do this. She would do this. It was just a pie, after all, she told herself. It was just part of the baking process. Bake pie. Burn pie. Restore pie.
    “Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered. Recovery and renewal was her brand of witchcraft. She covered the burned pie with a dish towel, whispered a few words, and when she removed it, the crust was golden brown and perfect.
    Tyler’s eyes widened and he began to bounce on his heels. “You’re a witch!” he said with glee.
    “Shhh!” Joanna’s eyes danced but she looked around in fear. No one had called her that for centuries. It brought back too many memories, not all of them good.
    “Are you? Are you a witch?”
    Joanna laughed. “What if I am?”
    For a moment the little boy looked frightened and shirked away from her, probably thinking of witches in fairy tales, ugly hags who shoved children into ovens and baked them into pies.
    Joanna wrapped him in her arms and for once he let her hold him, let her soothe him with a kiss on the nape of his neck. The little boy smelled like baby lotion and sugar. “No, my darling. Never. You have nothing to fear from me.”

chapter eight
    Gift Horse
     
    E xcuse me, Ingrid? There’s someone here for you,” Hudson Rafferty whispered, coming into the back office. The junior librarian raised an eyebrow so that Ingrid would understand this wasn’t a usual patron with a question about toddler storytime hours or whether their library fines could be waived (the answer was always “no,” so why they even continued to ask, Ingrid could never understand).
    “Who is it?” Ingrid asked, taking off the spectacles she used to read the fine print in the design elevations.
    “I don’t know but he is quite fetching,” Hudson said in his usual understated way. He favored argyle vests, engraved cuff links, and bow ties, and was in his seventh year of getting his doctorate in Romance languages at Harvard. Hudson’s family practically owned the eastern shore,