As Ellis Oliversen disappeared from the doorway, an arm reached by me and tapped Olivia on the shoulder. We all turned.

The woman was in her late twenties. She had dark skin with a warm undertone that made her almost glow. Her coily black hair was only three inches long and so thick that the wild curls stood off her head like a crown. In contrast to the wildness of her curls, most of her clothing was stark and professional, but her necklace and earrings flaunted a variety of bright, bold colors.

I’ll admit it, I was jealous of the jewelry. And the glow in her skin. And the hair too. Who wouldn’t want to be crowned every morning?

There was a witch’s hat in her hand and a huge smile on her face.

“Well done, Olivia,” she said.

Olivia gave her a real smile in return. That wide, beautiful grin was a rare expression. This was someone that Olivia was genuinely happy to see.

“Miss Langley,” she said.

The other witch shook her head. “How dare you, not-so-little ginger. I heard that report. The only reason you aren’t a master of the arts is because you’re still an apprentice. You’ll call me Autumn.”

“I will?”

“You will! I can still teach you a thing or two.” She tilted her head to the side. “Probably.”

They stood there, smiling at each other, and I had a whole new reason to be jealous.

Olivia turned to Big Jacky. “Mr. Noctis, this is Autumn Langley. She was one of my teachers while I was at Saufgrove.”

As they shook, Jacky said, “Do you prefer to be called Autumn?”

“Most of the time.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Autumn. Most people call me Big Jacky.”

“Big Jacky, thank you for doing right by Olivia.”

“I only told the truth,” Jacky said, his voice pitched slightly higher because of his confusion.

I bit my lip to hide my smile. Poor death. It should’ve been a simple job: stand up and tell the truth. He couldn’t understand why everyone was being so weird about it.

Olivia motioned to me. “And this is Emerra Cole.”

Autumn didn’t even glance at my bald head. She looked right in my eyes, shook my hand, and smiled.

I saw the sadness. And the worry. They were there—in her eyes. I could see them as if they were real things. It looked like a pair of two-dimensional gremlins that were standing sideways in the twilight so only their dim shadows could be seen.

“Oh, geez,” I blurted out. “Are you okay?”

Autumn’s smile faltered.

“Emerra,” Olivia hissed. Her eyes were wide with horror at my socially unacceptable behavior.

I blushed and let go of Autumn’s hand. “Sorry. Don’t listen to me. I’m…uh…yeah.” I cleared my throat.

“No, it’s all right, ” Autumn said (rather generously, I thought). “Are you a witch, darling?”

“Gosh, no. Not even close. I might buy the hat though. Try to fit in.”

Autumn chuckled. “Here.” She handed me her hat. “You can borrow mine.”

“Can I?” I squeaked.

Thrilled to the core, I took the hat, put it on, and knew in an instant why witches wore them. What a sense of power!

I pulled back my shoulders, put one hand on my hip, and used the other hand to tug the brim of the hat down at an angle.

“How do I look?” I asked.

“Like an idiot,” Olivia said.

“Ah-ha! But like a magical idiot, right?”

Jacky said, “Olivia, her hat is nearly identical to yours. Does that mean you look like an idiot?”

I corrected him: “A magical idiot.”

Olivia rolled her eyes.

“Come on,” Autumn said. “Let me take you all out to lunch. We’ll celebrate your report.”

“Is Robin’s still open?” Olivia asked.

“Robin’s will outlast us all,” Autumn assured her.

“Hold on,” I said.

I got a good selfie before returning the hat to Autumn. I figured it’d probably be the only chance I’d ever get to take a picture of me in a real witch’s hat. There was no chance Olivia would ever let me borrow hers.

We walked down Main Street, flowing with the stream of people that’d been released by the meeting. I recognized a few of the faces, and I could see a few hats—but they were all in their hands. Only Olivia was wearing hers.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Robin’s turned out to be a local sandwich pub.

I gazed up at their hand-carved wooden sign. The words were painted a shiny black and the bird’s chest was painted bright red, but everything else was the color of the natural wood.

“What’s a sandwich pub?” I asked.

“They specialize in sandwiches and like the word ‘pub.’” Olivia said.

Autumn held the door open for us.

With my first step inside, the coziness of the restaurant filled me like an unexpected breath of summer air. Part of that atmosphere had to come from their warm neutral decor, set off by the occasional red and blue accent colors. The rest of it came from all the people, smiling, chatting, and filling up the chairs and tables. To the side of the room was a long counter. At the far end, a crowd was waiting to pick up their orders. Near the door was the line of people waiting to give theirs.

Since we wanted to eat in the restaurant, we had Big Jacky go claim one of the few remaining empty tables. Olivia told Autumn what she wanted, then went to join Jacky to get away from the crowd, but I was stuck staring at the over-head chalkboard menus in an agony of indecision.

Why did restaurants have to have so many good choices? Had they no mercy for the resolutionally impaired?

Maybe I should close my eyes and throw a dart.

I was looking around for a dart when I noticed that Olivia, while shedding her cape, had taken off her hat. The incognito witches at the other tables had tucked theirs down by their feet or behind their bags. Olivia put hers up on the corner of the table.

Autumn leaned close to me and said, “Does she still wear that everywhere?”

“The hat?”

Autumn nodded.

“Any time we’re outside,” I said.

Autumn’s smile made the bubbles of her cheeks stand out. “Good for her.”

“Um, don’t you guys have to obey secrecy laws or something?” I asked.

“In this town?” She let out a snort. “If you’re here for longer than a day, you might as well be an initiate. Besides, those rules never apply to clothing.”

“But none of the other witches wore their hats outside of the meeting.”

“That’s nothing but fashion. It’s considered puffed up to wear it when you aren’t required to.”

After a thoughtful pause, I said, “Does Olivia know that?”

There was a longer pause while Autumn regarded me. Her face was unusually still.

“Are you and Olivia close?” she asked.

I didn’t mean to grimace, and I would’ve absolved myself of all association with the expression if I could have. My face had made itself—I had nothing to do with it.

“We’re housemates.” In case that wasn’t enough, I added, “It’s a really big house.”

Autumn’s smile was full of sympathy. “She can be a handful, can’t she?”

“I thought you two were friends.”

“Oh, we are, honey. I love that girl. She’s my hero. But she can still be a handful, and if she heard us, I think she’d be mad that I’d put it so mildly.”

Silence. Then:

Huh!

In the distance, a new idea, peeked around the edge of my consciousness. I’d never asked myself how much of Olivia’s behavior was deliberate.

“How long have you known her?” I said.

“I met her when she was eleven,” Autumn said. “She’d been studying at Saufgrove since she was six, but when you’re eleven or twelve, you test to see if you can get into the secondary program.” Autumn’s face glowed bright. “What a cute little thing she was. She tried to act all brave, but she’d chew on her hair if you looked away.”

I tried to imagine Olivia cute and nervous. It was no good. As far as I was concerned, she popped out of the earth when she was sixteen and already clogged with confidence.

Autumn went on, “I worked with her for five years after that.”

“You were her teacher all five years?”

The way Autumn hesitated made me wonder if I’d said something wrong. Again.

“I was…more like a tutor,” she said at last. “A mentor. She didn’t need me for the last two years, but by then we were in the habit.”

Six years back. And Autumn looked like she was still in her twenties.

Oh, well. There’s nothing like a rude question to really establish expectations.

“How old were you when you met Olivia?”

Autumn’s face scrunched up as she calculated. “Nineteen.”

“They let you teach when you were nineteen?”

She laughed at my amazement. “There’s no certificates for teaching magic, honey.”

“Still—”

“Don’t worry. They had me work with the younger girls, doing all the easy magic work.”

“And you’ve been working there ever since?”

“And I’ll probably work there for a long time yet.” Autumn nodded up to the front of the store. “Do you know what you want?”

The guy behind the cash register was waiting for us. Since his face radiated nothing but patience and friendly customer service, I assumed that his wage was competitive for a small town.

There were still no darts around. I told Autumn to double whatever her order was.

When we brought the food back to the table, Olivia sat forward on her chair.

My butt barely had time to settle on my seat before she said, “Have you heard anything about Kirby?”

Autumn was still standing over the table. She paused for a quarter of a second, then she finished passing Olivia her sandwich and chips.

As she sat down, she said, “Tell me something, little ginger, were you even planning on coming to give your report?”

Olivia took the drink Autumn was holding out. “I hadn’t planned on it.”

“That’s what I thought. I suppose it’s a good thing I wrote you that letter.” Her voice was quiet, and there was a note of sadness in it. Her eyes met Olivia’s. “You know, you have friends that think about you.”

The corners of Olivia’s mouth turned down, and she looked away.

“You came because Kirby’s missing?” Autumn prompted.

“You were worried,” Olivia said.

“That’s a long way to drive because I’m a worrier.”

“No, it wasn’t. I’m worried too. Have you heard anything?”

“Nothing. The only thing we know is that he’s gone.”

Jacky suddenly said, “Nolan Kirby is alive.”

He might as well have tased the poor woman. Autumn’s whole body went rigid, her eyes widened, and she turned to him.

“How do you know that?” she asked.

“I have special insight.”

She leaned toward him. “Can you tell me anything else? Do you know where he is?”

Jacky shook his head. “I’m sorry, that’s all I know.”

The tension bled away, leaving behind a furrowed brow and a confused look on Autumn’s face.

Olivia rushed to ask, “How did you find out he was missing?”

It took a moment for Autumn’s attention to shift from Jacky to Olivia. “I stopped by his shop,” she explained. “It was closed, locked up, and there was a sign on the door, saying that he’d ‘gone on vacation.’”

She didn’t do the air-quotes gesture, but I could hear them surrounding Mr. Kirby’s supposed vacation with contempt.

Jacky couldn’t.

“Then…doesn’t it make sense that he’d be on vacation?” he asked.

“Kirby wouldn’t have gone without telling me,” Autumn said. “I stopped by his store the day before he disappeared. I stop by most days. He would’ve told me if he was leaving.”

“You two are friends?” Olivia asked.

When Autumn turned to her former student, she was smiling, but the weight of her sadness kept the smile from reaching her eyes.

“I went in to buy something about three months after you left. Apparently, some little redhead had mentioned my name to him a few times. He recognized it, and he knew I was from Saufgrove. He asked me if I knew how you were doing, and we got to chatting. That’s how we met.”

The sweetness in Autumn’s voice reached into Olivia, exploiting whatever crack it had found in her armor, and her near permanent expression of cynicism softened.

Autumn reached out and tapped the back of her hand. “I told you. You have friends that think about you.”

Maybe it did make a difference.