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PROLOGUE

THE FIRST TIME Nola and hercondemned as witches, Nola was five years old Before that, Nola hadn’t even realized she was a witch She’d assumed everybody’s mothers heard voices, and had never suspected there were people who couldn’t change appearances - their own and others’ - siht her mother didn’t want her to read shadowforood at it - she already could call forth brighter and clearer iht herother people who ood at it feel bad

But it’s not showing off if you’re just playing with your best friend, Nola reasoned

So it began

One afternoon in early spring when it was coo cold and rainy to do anything outdoors, Nola and her best friend, Jane, ran out of everything they could agree on for indoors They found the Nola’swith thein che fields, despite the daet underfoot than co be of help, so they’d been left at the house of Jane’s family, under the care of Jane’s older sister, Bav But Bav had left, an eternity ago it see she had a short errand to run; and now there was nothing to do, nobody to tease or torment besides each other, and Jane whined - for the fourth or fifth time - "Where is she?"

"Well," Nola said, "why don’t we go look in a bucket of water?"

"What would Bav be doing in a bucket of water?" Jane asked She was laughing, so Nola thought she was joking

"You get che water," Nola told her "I’ll find a hair on the pillow"

Bav’s hair was darker and longer than any of her sisters’, so Nola was able to cell which were hers in the bed the girls all shared Back in the kitchen, Jane had sec a bucket on che floor and was kneeling before it, peering inside

"What are you doing?" Nola asked

"Looking for Bav," Jane answered, once again laughing, her voice muffled from inside the bucket

"Have you said the words and used a hair?"

Jane pulled her head out of the bucket "What?"

Nola held up the strand of Bav’s hair "Have you said the words?"

Jane hesitated, looking - for some reason - confused Then she shook her head

Nola knelt beside her Despite her silliness, Jane had put some water in the bucket, so now Nola said the words They were in a language she didn’t understand; she only knew they were the words for preparing water for shadowfor her own appearance, and yet another for changing how soht, whether Jane knehere the words came from and what they meant But for now, Nola said the words and, once the water was bespelled, dropped the strand of Bav’s hair into the bucket

She heard Jane’s gasp of surprise, and assumed it was for the clarity of the shapes that formed and danced in the water For a low as though alarmed, but then her curiosity drew her back Apparently Bav’s errand involved the right’s apprentice, for the ies in the bucket showed the two of them in the barn But this couldn’t have been any errand her parents would have approved of; Nola saw that Bav and the apprentice were hugging and kissing and, judging by the straw in their hair and clothes, had been at it quite a while

"Oooo," Jane said in delighted awe, "et fro, and accidentally knocked her knee against the bucket’s handle

Nola lunged forward, but she overreached, so that her hand s across the floor

The iht’s apprentice spread across the floor, oddly elongated and distorted before the dirt floor sucked up all the water and took che kissing lovers with it, leaving only a glistening spot of hted the bucket, but there was only a wee sh for shadowforms co dance Still, she picked the strand of hair out of theto happen

"It only works once," Nola said Hadn’t Jane’s ain, we’ll have to get another strand of hair and ht," Jane said

But this tiet the hair while Nola refilled the bucket When Jane ca a strand of white hair that obviously did not belong on Bav’s dark head

"Is this your mother’s?" Nola asked as Jane settled down beside her, careful not to spill the newly refilled bucket "All she’s doing is planting - that’s not so interesting to watch"

"It’s randmother’s," Jane said "I found it on the shawl she used to wear"

Jane’s grand the coldest part of the past winter

Jane asked, "Will we see her in heaven?"

Nola paused to consider Shadowfor at the ht: They’d see her grandmother in heaven The only reason Nola hesitated was that she had never before called up the spell to see someone who had died, and - as far as she knew - her mother never had, either Not even for Nola’s father

But maybe, Nola told herself, her mother had simply run out of her father’s hairs - since each one could be used only once and he had died so long ago So she said, "I don’t know Let’s see Do you want to say the words this time?"

Jane shook her head, so Nola once more said the spell Then Jane dropped the white hair into the bucket

The water quivered

"It’s too dark," Jane co, but she couldn’t tell what

"You’re doing it wrong" Jane pouted, but she didn’t offer to do it herself After a long while, she began to sniffle "She’s not in heaven," she said, and the words, though barely whispered, released a storht, Nola knew It couldn’t be She threw her arm around her friend, to coue still form in the water She looked, instead, ac the dirt floor on which the bucket sat And there she found the answer

Dirt That hat they were looking at "It’s her grave," Nola said "We’re seeing inside her grave"