Page 28 of Witchy Woman

“Making faces at people?” Grandma asks, sneaking up behind me like a ghost.

I grumble, breaking eye contact with Ash. “He deserves it.”

“Of course, dear. He’s a man.” She winks. “He probably deserves worse.”

I laugh, tension melting from my shoulders. God, I don’t have enough fun anymore. I don’t laugh enough anymore. “Can I ask you something, Grandma?”

“I don’t know—can you?”

I glare at her. “How much do you know about Fire witches?”

“Not much, if I’m entirely honest. They’re the rarest of the elemental witches. Forgive the pun, but they also tend to be the most fiery.” She sits beside me at the booth. “Something you’d like to ask specifically about your magic?”

“The whispering,” I admit, lowering my voice.

She gives me a guilty smile. “I don’t know much about that, unfortunately. I vaguely remember seeing something about it in the family history, but I can’t recall the specifics. May I suggest starting there?”

Pretty much exactly what Hazel said.

“Is there any way you’d be okay with Hazel bringing the family history book home so I can read there?”

She appraises me for a moment, eyes trailing over my face. “I don’t love the idea of that book sitting forgotten in your room for months. But I’ll allow it?—”

“Thank you, Grandma!”

“—ifyou tell me why you don’t want to go into the shop.”

Fuck.

How do I explain this to her without ripping myself open?

“Too much has happened there,” I reply. Let it go, Grandma.

She stares at me, her ocean-blue eyes searching me until I’m squirming. “Fine. You have a week with the book. Any longer and I’m coming into your room and getting it.”

“Deal.”

That’s better than I was hoping for, so I’m not going to fuck that up by fighting with her.

Chapter 12

Lonely Beauty

If I had to guess, I’d say this book weighs exactly three million pounds.

The Women of The Pruitt Line. A comprehensive family tree with biographies of the Pruitt line all the way back to Salem.

The leather cover is decorated in flowers and embossed cursive text. It screams old, but considering these women were born four-hundred-plus years ago...Yeah, it’s old.

The scent of magic—smoke, bonfire, and almost burned marshmallows—washes over me as I open it. The rightness of the moment settles heavily on me. Maybe magic is as much mine as it is Hazel’s and Grandma’s.

I flip through the pages. Of course, the witches aren’t actually organized by anything other than timeline, so I’m looking for a fiery needle in a haystack. It may take some time.

Hazel has read a little bit so the pages don’t stick, but they are stiff. This book deserves more love than it gets. Deserves to be seen, learned from. Read.

Frustration blooms in my chest. I would’ve been reading this as a fucking bedtime story if my magic hadn’t been kept from me.

Is this how Hazel felt when she started learning her magic? I remember her being so angry, and I can’t help feeling like I understand her a bit more.