"Because you're overwhelmed and understaffed… or under-friended."

"Under-friended?"

"Lacking the support of friends. There should be a word for that. Point is, you could obviously use my help."

"To do what, answer the phone? Hold on."

I covered the mouthpiece and turned to Cortez, who was still in the living room.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I really should take this. I'll be back in a few minutes."

I took the phone to my room and told Adam what was going on. I didn't tell him about the grimoires. If I had, I can imagine his response. I'd tell him that I might have finally unlocked the secrets of true witch magic and he'd have said something like: "Whoa, that's great, way to go, Paige… oh, and that reminds me, I finally got my Jeep to stop making that knocking noise." Adam is a great guy, and a wonderful friend, but there are things in my life he just doesn't get.

We chatted until I heard the distant ding of the oven timer.

"Whoops," I said. "Lost track of time. Dinner's ready. I have to go."

"You sure you don't need me?"

"Positive. And don't bother trying to call here. I'll phone you with an update as soon as I can."

I ended the conversation and headed into the hall.

Savannah's voice floated from the kitchen. "-just friends. Good friends, but that's it."

The oven door clanged shut. I walked in to see Cortez taking the lasagna from the oven as Savannah watched from her perch on the counter.

"Supervising?" I said.

"Someone has to," she said.

"While you're up there, grab the plates." I leaned over to turn off the oven. "I'll take it from here. Thanks."

Cortez nodded. "I'll wash up."

Savannah watched him leave, then jumped from the counter and scurried to my side.

"He was asking about Adam," she said in a stage whisper.

I took the foil off the lasagna. "Hmmm?"

"Lucas. He was asking about Adam. You and Adam. I came in, you were gone, he said you were on the phone, so I checked call display on my phone and told him it was Adam. Then I said you'd be a while because you guys, like, talk forever, and he said, 'Oh, so they're pretty good friends,' or something like that."

"Uh-huh." I sliced into the middle of the lasagna, making sure it was cooked through. "I think the lettuce is wilted, but could you check it for me?"

"Paige, I'm talking to you."

"And I heard you. Lucas asked if Adam was a friend."

"No, he didn't ask if he was a friend. Well, yes, he did, but he meant, you know, is Adam a friend. He wasn't just asking, he was asking. Get it?"

I frowned over my shoulder at her. Cortez walked into the kitchen.Savannah looked at me, threw up her hands, and stomped off to the bathroom.

"Mood swings?" Cortez asked.

"Communication breakdown. I swear, thirteen-year-old girls speak a language no linguist has ever deciphered. I remember some of it, but rarely enough to decode entire conversations." I turned around. "Is wine with dinner okay? Or should we avoid alcohol tonight too?"

"Wine would be wonderful."

"If you can get the glasses from above the stove, I'll run downstairs and grab a bottle."

After dinner, while Cortez and Savannah cleared the table, I changed my clothing. Retrieving the juniper might require some backwoods searching, so I exchanged my skirt for my sole pair of jeans. With a mother who was a dressmaker, I'd grown up loving fabrics, the luxurious swish of silk, the snug warmth of wool, the crisp snap of linen, and I'd never understood the allure of stiff jeans and limp cotton T-shirts-unless, of course, you plan to go tramping through the forest for spell ingredients. I considered changing into a sweatshirt, but opted instead to leave on my short-sleeved silk blouse and throw a jacket over it. Some sacrifices are just too great.

Once dressed, I went into the living room and pulled back the curtain, to see whether the crowd was still small enough for us to make an easy escape. But I couldn't see anything. The window was blacked out, covered with paper.

"Well, I don't want to see you people either," I muttered.

I was about to let the curtain fall back into place when I noticed writing on the papers. No, not writing. Print. They were newspapers. Someone had cut out newspaper articles about me and plastered them over my front window.

There were dozens of articles, taken not just from tabloids, but from Webzines and regular newspapers. The tabloids screamed the loudest: "Lawyer Murdered in Gruesome Satanic Rite,"

"Mangled Corpses Return to Life." The Webzines were quieter, but nastier, less constrained by the threat of slander. "Kidnapped Baby Brutally Murdered in Black Mass."

"Zombie Cult Raises Hell in Funeral Homes Across Massachusetts."

The most disturbing voice, though, was the quietest. The somber, almost clinical headlines from the regular press: "Murder Linked to Allegations of Witchcraft."

"Mourners Claim Corpses Reanimated." I scanned the headers atop the articles. The Boston Globe, The New York Times, even The Washington Post. Not front-page news, but still there, tucked farther back. My story. My name. Splashed across the most prominent papers in the nation.

"They're still out there." Cortez tugged the curtain from my hand and let it fall, hiding the papers from view. "Not many, but I wouldn't advise we take the car. The Nasts have undoubtedly assigned someone to watch the house, and we don't want them following us."