Prologue
December 17
I didn’t have to open the front door to know what waited on the other side. The humming gave it away. I leaned my forehead against the door to my apartment, cold leaking in from outside. My heart was trying to hammer its way through my rib cage, and I took several deep breaths to slow my racing pulse.
This is not happening.
As if in answer to my traitorous thoughts, the humming got louder. The sound was tinny and still just barely perceptible amongst the hum of traffic on my suburban street. I knew it was still dark outside, but the neighborhood was already emptying for the workday. A dog barked outside. Chills ran through me that someone passing by might investigate the noise coming from my porch.
If they could even hear it. It might only be my family that could hear its song.
I steeled my nerve and threw open the door. The little wooden box sat bathed in the porch light. Panic suffused my guts and my stomach tried to reject my morning cereal and pot of coffee. Swallowing hard, I closed the door again.
Damn.
The humming grew in pitch and fever, as if briefly removing the door between us had excited the box. No, not the box itself, but what lay inside. An unwelcome thrill of anticipation rolled down my spine. Cold sweat dampened my shirt.
It’s fine. It’s probably nothing.
I swung open the door and cast a quick glance around. The sidewalk was empty. I snatched the box from my doorstep and slammed the door closed with more force than intended. It vibrated with indignation as I slid down the cool surface and sat on the linoleum floor. The contents of the box sang louder now, almost painfully loud from its position sitting atop my drawn-up knees.
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” I muttered.
Might as well get this over with. Maybe it would be empty. After grading undergraduate final exams until the wee hours of the morning, I deserved a turn of good luck.
I lifted the lid. Light reflected from delicate silver charms. This really wasn’t my week.
According to family lore, not everyone in my family had magic. Entire generations of women never controlled a gust of air or a flicker of flame. No one knew why the power settled on some and not others. They were always a direct female descendant of Jelena, my great, great—I’m not sure exactly how many greats should be in there, but it’s a lot—grandmother.
The necklace was a sign to brace yourself for change. Because ten days after the necklace appeared, magic was going to bulldoze your life.
Most had learned to tame the power, or at least minimize the damage it caused. But eventually they sacrificed themselves for some greater good. Stopping a tidal wave, rerouting a flooding river, nudging a hurricane off track. All to avoid catastrophic loss of life.
Growing up, each bedtime story had been more fantastic than the last. Tales of heroism, protection, and selfless sacrifice. But the ending was always the same. The woman was dead by middle age.
I stared at the glittering silver. Hell of a thirtieth birthday present.
While I’d had plenty of time to get married and raise the next generation, it seemed someone (something?) hadn’t gotten the message about my commitment to remaining single. And I didn’t see that changing soon.
I closed the lid.
I left the box, and its uninvited contents, sitting on my kitchen counter. Swapping my button-down shirt for a clean one, I tugged on the first blazer I found in my cramped closet.
Leftover coffee roiled and bubbled in the coffeepot as I shut it off. Backing away from it, I hurried to the door, shrugged into one of the many coats on the rack and slung my backpack over my shoulder.
Grabbing the keys to my Jeep, I closed the door firmly behind me as I stepped onto my small stoop. I had a faculty meeting at 8 a.m.
Like most mornings in Laramie, Wyoming, the wind was already picking up. I let the howls of the wind drown out the chorus coming from my apartment.
No matter what my faded childhood memories might whisper, I refuse to believe my family has magic. I am a professor, trained in the scientific method, and magic isn’t real.
Right?
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