As I drove down my mother’s street in the heart of the oldest neighborhood in Portland, early morning life erupted around me. A kid on a bike rode down the street throwing newspapers at the doorsteps of Queen Anne and Victorian homes. A middle-aged man in a silk bathrobe stood on his front lawn with a West Highland white terrier. Commuters pulled their cars out of their driveways, ready to commute to their human jobs.

I cringed as I pulled into my mother’s driveway. The massive periwinkle blue house had been in our family for six generations—seven if you included my sisters’ kids. Set on almost an acre of land in the middle of Portland, the place was worth more than my mother could make in a lifetime. But Nelly Fanning was not one to sell a family treasure.

I cut the engine and pulled off my sunglasses, squinting up at the three stories of historic splendor. A curtain dropped on the third floor and my heart jumped. They knew I was home. No point in stalling any longer.

I pushed open my door and limped out onto the driveway toward the porch that wrapped around the first floor. Baskets of flowers hung from the eaves in pinks and blues and reds. I gingerly took the stairs, my wound aching more with each step. As I rose to the last stair, I could hear the sound of chickens clucking in the backyard and my mother’s voice cooing.

“Peep, peep, peep. Here chickie chickie,” her voice rose around the side of the house. I rounded the corner of the porch and saw her in all her glory.

Nelly Fanning wore a long white nightgown with a flowery silk shawl over her pale shoulders. Her strawberry-blond hair, streaked with white, fell in long waves down her back. She threw chicken scratch at the birds she let range freely in the backyard. I stood silently, crossing my arms, bracing myself for the crash.

Her sea-green eyes moved from the chickens, across the ground, up the porch stairs, to me. Her facial expression didn’t change. She simply stared at me, the deep lines around her eyes and mouth not giving away her feelings. Slowly, she smiled and stepped too quickly for a mortal woman her age across the distance. She closed in on me and up the stairs in the span of a few seconds and had me gripped tightly in her slender but supernaturally strong arms.

“Olivia Malone Fanning!” she said, only loosening her grip to look at me. She tilted her head back to stare me in the eye. I was at least four inches taller than her in flat feet and with the heels on my leather boots, it was more like six. Somehow the tiny woman had me in a death grip, pinning my arms to my sides. “I can’t believe it’s you! We’ve missed you so much!”

I forcefully pulled my arms out of her grip and put my hands on her shoulders as if holding something slightly dangerous away from my body.

“I missed you too, Mother,” I finally said, cringing inwardly. I mean, I did miss her. I wasn’t the worst daughter ever. I was only somewhere in that general vicinity.

“Where have you been? What have you been doing? The last I heard you were working for the Council of Elders as an Executioner. To think, my daughter, an Executioner. It makes the other covens shake in their boots when I mention it.”

I tried to keep from rolling my eyes but only halfway succeeded. I hated the idea of her bragging about my job. For one thing, it’s far from glamorous. I kill things for a living. Secondly, I was no longer an Executioner.

“I’ve been super busy. You know, with my job. It’s hard to get home when you do what I do,” I lied.

“Well, let’s get you inside. What are you wearing anyway, and what did you do to your hair?” she asked, finally giving me the Nelly Fanning inspection. “Are you injured?”

“It’s fine,” I lied again. The wound was deep and I hadn’t stopped to heal it properly or to go to a mortal doctor.

“No you aren’t,” she said, leading me inside. She shoved her quilting aside, pulled a chair from the ancient oak table, and pushed me onto the seat. I looked around my mother’s kitchen. Things hadn’t changed much in five years. Bookshelves full of recipes for both food and magic overwhelmed the space. The Spanish tile floor was swept clean but the counters were stuffed full of knickknacks and potions, implements and tools, and a few things I couldn’t even identify. Pots and pans hung from an iron wheel above the stove and rows of dried herbs hung in bundles against the far wall.

“I should call Iona to come heal that wound,” Mother said, bustling about in the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator to pull out cream before she poured me a cup of coffee and fixed it just the way I liked it. She set the mug in front of me and sat across the table with her own.

“Thanks for the coffee, but you don’t need to call Iona. I’ll be fine.” Iona was my older sister and a talented healer. The oldest of the five Fanning daughters. I hadn’t seen her in five years either. She had always been the family rock, the one who kept us from all simultaneously going crazy or killing each other during a full moon. But the way I’d left didn’t make me overly eager to see any of my sisters any more than I wanted to see my mother.

“I’ve already contacted her through the witch network.”

“What is a witch network?” I asked. I avoided technology like the plague. Most communication led to weakness and heartache.

“Iona’s husband Shane installed it on my phone,” Mother started. “It’s one of his genius inventions and better than texting.” My mother began showing me the magical app on her phone. “Iona says she’ll be here in a jiffy. She’s excited to see you.”

“Great,” I muttered. So it begins.