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"Motten home, she’d loosened her ponytail so that her thick, black hair fell around her face and hid the s Cole was nowhere near it"

"At least nobody died," Dad said as he went to stand by Cole and the pile of dirty clothes he’d created "Hey, buddy, reed herself as she turned away Someone had died--not as a result of the carnival fire, but by Elizabeth’s hand A guy from her class, Jeremy Prasad, had been murdered; Mateo had been there, enchanted by Elizabeth and unable to stop her It eird that she hadn’t heard any town gossip about it; even the soh to cover the haunted-house disaster, but had reported nothing about the suspicious death of a seventeen-year-old

Maybe the body hadn’t been found yet They’d been on the beach; maybe Jeremy’s corpse had been carried away by the tides

Nadia closed her eyes, overcome for a moment by the horror of it She hadn’t liked Jeremy Prasad much Nobody could He’d been a snob, a sexist, and a bully But in the end, he’d been cut down for no reason at all

Mateo had said Elizabeth gouged out Jereic is that a part of? Was it part of what she was really up to on Halloween, or soain she had to deal with the fact that she’d never coone, totally inco more about witchcraft were severely li witchcraftto train her

Except Elizabeth herself

If I had one more chance to talk to Mom, ould I say? Ask her why she left? Bitch her out for abandoning us? Make her find me another teacher? Find out why she doesn’t love Dad anymore? Get her to explain Elizabeth’s real plan? Tell her Cole’s had nightmares ever since she walked away?

I want to ask it all I’ll never get to ask any of it

Nadia rubbed her teht, once her dad and brother had fallen asleep, she crept up into her attic workspace There, beneath her painted blue ceiling, fortified by a couple of Hershey’s Miniatures, Nadia began the work of scouring through her resources again Right now that was just her Book of Shadows and one that had belonged to a Captive’s Sound witch froave her a place to begin

Before Halloween, Nadia’s energies had naturally been devoted to stopping Elizabeth’s destruction of Captive’s Sound She intended to change her focus; fro Elizabeth, period