When Mom introduced us to the witch’s round when we were between five and ten years old, she’d placed us on the wheel at the season in which we were born. It had become our natural place whenever we summoned mother earth’s energy ever since.

“Did you re-chalk?” I asked Jules.

She was already cross-legged, her eyes closed, hands on her knees. She nodded.

I’d asked Mom why we didn’t just paint the wheel on the cement, but she’d taught us that the spell of building the wheel with chalk needed to be refreshed every month to keep the magic close and bound to it.

Since we recharged faster when all six of us were here, it meant we’d need to spell cast a little longer tonight. Not a problem. I was ready for the hex-breaking ceremony right freaking now. Especially since I knew a hot love affair waited for me on the other side of it. Well, I don’t know about love. I just meant hot and sex and Mateo. So, yeah, time to get this show on the road.

Clara opened the little box at her feet and dragged out her ceremonial items. Yes, she had actual props for this shindig. It was entirely unnecessary, but Clara was Clara.

As an Aura, it was always best for her to lead the spellcasting of a round, her magic putting our minds in the positive, calm mindset we needed to seep into the magic.

Clara was a bit theatrical. And ever since she watched the Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood with her sixties-and-up book buddies one wild and crazy Friday night, she decided our witch’s round needed more flair.

She removed the garland from the box and placed it on her head. It was adorned with silk rosebuds and dangling with pink and purple ribbons. She’d bought it on our last outing to the Texas Renaissance Festival to replace the bedazzled, ceremonial crown she usually used. She took out her wand—yes, you heard me—handcrafted according to her Pottermore-assigned wand as 14.5 inches long, made of vine wood with unicorn hair core.

I’d asked her what her craftsman had used instead of unicorn hair, because unicorns weren’t real. She’d just laughed at me like I was silly and naïve. So I left it alone.

“Mother Moon, Goddess Earth.” She raised her hands outward, tilting her eyes to the night sky, pooling her magic so she glowed.

The effect was quite striking. With her waist-length blond hair, sheer white dress, beribboned garland and ornate wand, she looked like a fairy queen about to summon spirits or nymphs or her pixie army.

“To your breast we’re forever bound. Light within, magic out, feed us in your witch’s round.”

“Mmm. I like that one,” whispered Jules, her eyes still closed, her voice almost sleepy.

“Thank you.” Then Clara spun around three times—we never knew what the significance of the spinning was—before she floated down into a sitting position. Her wand in her lap, she closed her eyes, then finally so did I.

The rest required little talk. But sometimes, whatever charms lit up our skin made us mumble nonsense into the circle. The magic had a will of its own, especially when we settled into this kind of trance, pulling magic from the world around us and sucking it into our bodies, our minds, our blood.

“Remember, ladies,” said Jules, “focus on moon magic. She holds the soul of the werewolf.”

For some reason, that made me angry. That any element of nature or the cosmos held power over Mateo. But then again, that’s what he was. A werewolf. The creature condemned to always be part man, part beast, no matter what form he showed the world. And I needed to remember that.

“Careful, Evie,” warned Clara, her angelic voice vibrating along my skin. “Summon only the light. None of the dark.”

That made me wonder yet again what kind of witch had cursed Mateo. Or was it on accident somehow? Had he accidentally stumbled within the circle of a spell-caster and the ricochet effect was this block to shift? A pulse of white serenity punched into my chest, simmering into my limbs. I gasped.

“Okay, okay,” I told Clara. She was getting pushy, slapping me with her happy spell.

Then we were all quiet for some time. Violet mumbled “bridge of black” once, then later “stone flowers…bone towers.” Clara let out a sudden, throaty giggle like she was being tickled, then it went vacuum-like quiet right after. Jules spit out a length of nonsense that ended with, “And then all will walk on Trouble’s heart.” If any outsider ever walked in on this, they’d think we were tripping on heroin or something. Communing with our magic was like a drug, though, pulling us from reality, carrying us into other worlds.

One might ask, what other worlds were there? What we’d learned over the years was that there were many. Just because you couldn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t real.

The humming of the circle building with power resonated between us. I realized that everyone had fallen in deep, but I was still holding back, resisting magic’s pull to the round.

“Let go,” whispered Clara, sounding nothing like her jovial self and more like she’d channeled some serious maternal spirit. She probably had channeled Mother Nature herself.

So I did. Letting my head sag, chin to chest, I stopped resisting and fell.

As always, I stepped through a door of light into the unknown, like Alice through the rabbit hole. Except in this Wonderland, there was always some story to teach my heart. I’d never feared the round until now, when our sole purpose and focus was on my werewolf. I was afraid of what I’d find through the door.

Stepping onto plush grass—no, not grass but green moss—I followed the sound of water trickling nearby. I walked through woods made of purple-trunked trees with blue leaves. Yeah, it was as trippy as always, just like Wonderland, except I wasn’t on an acid trip like the author of that story. I was high on magic. Pure, pooled magic.

Walking over giant tree roots jutting out of the ground, I finally found the source of the water. Except it wasn’t really water. It was shimmering white, a fountain of witch magic streaming through a fantasy forest. For a second, I thought I’d somehow slipped into Clara’s vision because this was totally something her subconscious would conjure. I looked around, waiting to spot a unicorn or fairy or something. Slowly, I waded into the pool, then dove underneath, the sizzle of energy flowing all around me. When I finally came up for air, I looked down to see that I was wearing Clara’s white gossamer dress. Except now it was soaked through and completely transparent.

That’s when I heard the growl. That familiar, chilling sound I knew all too well by now. I stared into the shadows to my right, expecting the frightening form of a werewolf. But what stepped out was worse. It was Mateo, but it wasn’t. He was completely naked, and wow did my subconscious have a wonderful imagination. Sweat was slicked over every flexed muscle as he came closer. His eyes burned fire-gold, but his mouth was twisted at a sinister slant.

“This isn’t real,” I told myself. “So I’m not gonna run.”

He laughed, but the deep-belly sound wasn’t Mateo’s. He waded in toward me, splashing the liquid magic. I was thigh-deep, but I knew this was just some aftereffect of the haunted house. This kind of crap could happen when you went deep into a trance in a witch’s round. Especially when every waking and sleeping moment, you were fixated on a particular werewolf.

“It’s not real?” he asked, his gravelly voice raising goosebumps on my arms.

“You’re just my imagination.”

“Is that so?”

He stood directly in front of me, his heat so intense I started to sweat. But you can’t sweat in a dream, so I was imagining that, too.

“You’re not the real Mateo.”

He wrapped his hand around the back of my loose hair and pulled a little too hard until his sweaty, hard body was pressed against mine, his heat seeping through my transparent, wet dress.

“You don’t know the real Mateo.”

He smiled and leaned in. I thought he was going to kiss me, but his mouth kept widening until a primal shiver shook through his body and he blurred into the werewolf, all wide, fanged mouth and malevolent, piercing eyes.

“No,” I whispered on a shaky breath.

“Too late,” came a voice on the wind. A hissing, feminine voice I didn’t recognize. Then the creature who held me lunged for my throat with a snarl and razor-sharp teeth.

“Evie!”

I opened my eyes to find my head in Clara’s lap and Jules and Violet bending over me with concerned frowns.

“Wh-what happened?” I croaked.

Jules stared at me hard. “Clara broke the round when she sensed your emotions dip into something—what was it?”

Clara stared down at me. “Something icky.”

“Icky?” I sat up, dizzy, sensing the euphoric energy of doing the round, but also having a pounding headache. That wasn’t normal. “Can you be more specific?”

“It was just gray and oozy. That’s how it felt.” She peered deep into my eyes, and I was afraid she would see the images my subconscious had dragged up. All of that was just my fears brought on by that damn scene at the haunted house, and I wasn’t going to worry them for nothing.

“What did you see on the other side?” asked Clara.

“I can’t remember,” I lied, feeling like a total shitbag for it. “But I feel good. Like I’m ready for tomorrow.” I turned to Violet with a smile. “How about y’all?”

Jules leaned back and exhaled a deep sigh. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” I stood and plastered a smile on my face. “That was a good round. I just went deep, I think. Really deep. I don’t know.”

All three of them stared at me. Hard.

“I’m fine! The important question is, are y’all pumped and ready to go?”

Pumped with magic, that was.

“I’m good,” said Violet.

Jules finally gave a heavy nod. “I’m ready. You just have your werewolf at the meeting spot tomorrow night.”

“Sure thing. No problem.” By some miracle, I sounded perfectly normal.