A Spell for Change E-Book

Nicole Jarvis

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 563

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

In this sumptuous, atmospheric historical fantasy set in post-World War One Appalachia, three outcasts with misunderstood magical gifts search for their place in the world while battling the dark forces that circle their community. Perfect for fans of Katherine Arden and Susanna Clarke. Kate Mayer has always been troubled by visions of the future. No matter what she does, her disturbing premonitions are always realized—often with terrible consequences. But Kate has a secret: swirling, romantic dreams of a strange boy, and a chance meeting in the woods. Oliver returned from the Great War disabled, disillusioned, and able to see the dead. Haunted by the death of his best friend and his traumatic memories of the trenches, Oliver realizes that his ability to communicate with spirits may offer the chance of closure he desperately seeks. Nora Jo's mother and grandmother were witches, but she has never nurtured her own power. Always an outsider, she has made a place for herself in the town as Chatuga's schoolteacher, clinging to the independence the job affords her. When her unorthodox ideas lead to her dismissal, salvation comes in the form of a witch from the mountains who offers her a magical apprenticeship. Yet as she begins to fall for another woman in town, her loyalties pull her in disparate directions. Rumours of a dark force stalking the town only push Kate, Oliver, and Nora Jo onwards in their quest to determine their own destinies. But there are powers in the world stronger and stranger than their own, and not all magic is used for good...

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

1Nora Jo

2Kate

3Nora Jo

4Oliver

5Kate

6Oliver

7Nora Jo

8Oliver

9Kate

10Nora Jo

11Oliver

12Nora Jo

13Kate

14Oliver

15Kate

16Nora Jo

17Kate

18Oliver

19Nora Jo

20Kate

21Oliver

22Nora Jo

23Oliver

24Kate

25Nora Jo

26Oliver

27Kate

28Nora Jo

29Kate

30Oliver

31Kate

32Nora Jo

33Oliver

34Kate

35Nora Jo

36Oliver

37Nora Jo

38Kate

39Oliver

40Nora Jo

41Kate

42Nora Jo

43Oliver

44Nora Jo

45Kate

46

47Legatus

48

49Nora Jo

50Legatus

51Nora Jo

52

53Legatus

54Nora Jo

55Legatus

56

57Legatus

58Kate

59Nora Jo

60Kate

61Nora Jo

62Kate

63

64Nora Jo

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise for

A SPELL FOR CHANGE

“Tense, wonderfully atmospheric, and perfectly paced, A Spell for Change is an excellent blend of history, fantasy, and horror, with a dash of romance thrown in to sweeten the brew. Nicole Jarvis casts a spell with this novel just as surely as her characters do!”

ALYSSA PALOMBO, author of The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel

“Captures the dark heart of rural life at the turn of the century, when three outcasts forge unexpected alliances to challenge the dangerous forces haunting their small town in the shadow of the mountains. With writing so vivid you can taste the sweet tea and smell the cold minerality of underground caves, this is an essential read for anyone who has ever yearned to be more than their circumstances allow.”

ALISA ALERING, author of Smothermoss

“A Spell for Change delivers on all the best aspects of a fantastical Southern Gothic, alive with magic as prickly, painful, and stubborn as the characters learning to wield it. Jarvis’s characters are as vivid in their struggles as their joys: Nora Jo, a witchy bookish schoolmistress hiding her love for the girl next door; Kate, a preacher’s granddaughter and a prophet; and Oliver, a prodigal son returned, forever ravaged by ghosts of war both physical and metaphysical. You won’t be able to look away as lives and loves crash and tangle together in a struggle against powers of darkness as real as the trauma, prejudice, and hard living realities of rural mountain life.”

GABRIELLA BUBA, author of Saints of Storm and Sorrow and Daughters of Flood and Fury

Also by Nicole Jarvisand available from Titan Books

THE LIGHTS OF PRAGUE

A PORTRAIT IN SHADOW

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A Spell for Change

Print edition ISBN: 9781835410943

E-book edition ISBN: 9781835412381

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: May 2025

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Nicole Jarvis 2025

Nicole Jarvis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Typeset in Goudy Oldstyle 10.5/15.5pt

To my sister

April 14, 1920

Dawn crested cool and gray the day the witch from the mountains knocked on Nora Jo’s door.

Heat would come with the sun, but mist still swirled through the schoolyard when Nora Jo peered from the window. Her small schoolhouse sat in the heart of Chatuga, near the town’s main street; a small cluster of businesses before farms and cabins spread out like dandelion seeds in the wind. The building contained only a single room with rows of benches for the students. It was a bare, minimal space—there wasn’t even a hearth, as the school shut down during the lean winter months. With the amount of snow that fell in this part of Tennessee, especially deeper in the mountains, people hid in their homes until spring. School had been back in session for only a month, and Nora Jo knew she only had weeks more before most of her students would be lost to summer planting.

Movement in the tree line caught her eye. She leaned closer to the window.

A stag stood at the edge of the grass. Its broad antlers blended with the branches behind it, and morning haze floated around its legs. It was a large creature; it must have been quite clever to avoid the hunters—human and animal—who would have feasted on it during the recent winter.

It stood frozen, ears flicking, tense, waiting. Nora Jo matched its stillness. Her breath fogged against the glass, as though bringing the mist inside. The moment felt suspended outside of time.

A large bird settled onto a branch over the creature’s head, a black shadow in the morning light.

The stag startled. As it whirled and leapt back into the forest, its right antler slid off its head and crashed into the grass. Unbalanced, it disappeared into the woods.

Nora Jo jolted as well, pressing a hand to her chest. Her heart raced under her palm.

She laughed quietly at herself. So much for the majesty of nature. The deer had been spooked by its own shedding antlers. It would spend the next week trying to rub the other one off. She would take her students out into the grass later to pick up the abandoned antler—one of them would certainly want to take it home as a prize.

She shook her head and looked back out the window to mark the spot.

The bird, a large crow, was still on its branch, staring directly at her. She shivered and looked away. The stag had given her some of its unease.

Enough dallying. She circled the small schoolroom, making sure the benches were in place. The one in the corner would likely be empty today. The Evanses still hadn’t been able to find the dollar-twenty needed to send their two boys to school that month. She had offered them a discounted rate to help them until they were back on their feet, but the Evanses were too proud to accept.

That, Nora Jo could understand. It was families like the Howards and Doyles, who had sneered that schooling was a waste of time and pulled their kids out this year, that made Nora Jo’s stomach curdle.

Sighing, she pulled out her broom. It was long and jagged, the birch wood rubbed smooth near the top, with bristles of broom corn tied at the bottom. It fit in her grasp like the hand of an old friend, solid and familiar.

Starting at the back of the classroom, Nora Jo swept. She hummed a song to focus her thoughts as she moved, a tune she’d heard her ma sing a hundred times. Every day, the students brought with them their troubles from home, the twisting thoughts of youth, the petty romances and fights of their daily lives. That chaos built inside the schoolhouse the same as the dirt and dust from the road outside, carried in by a dozen small feet.

Her ma had told her that the song was a spell of protection, securing and cleansing. The tune reminded her of early mornings in the kitchen, before her dad and brother woke up. The room had been a sanctuary where her quiet ma would share stories of her own mother and grandmother, giving Nora Jo a glimpse at a secret legacy.

Her Granny Rhodes had been a midwife, using everything from herbs to animal guts to get babies safely out of their mothers. More than that, she had been renowned as the help one could turn to when the doctors had given up hope—or, as was often the case, had decided they were too busy to travel through the mountains to tend to a farmer’s wife. Her gift had been shared in whispers; to talk about witches was to draw their attention, and even those who relied on their healing didn’t trust them.

Her ma hadn’t healed anyone but her own children. Though already twenty-six—nearly as old as her ma when she had passed—Nora Jo had healed no one at all. But she could keep her classroom clean and safe.

Her students began to arrive at eight thirty. The girls went to the east side of the room, and the boys sat on the west, settling themselves on the long benches. Many of them came from far outside the town center, walking miles from farms or the surrounding mountains to get to her classroom, but country children knew how to keep a schedule.

Teaching ages six to fifteen, Nora Jo structured her lessons to cover the full class. It was a delicate balance to keep her older students progressing without losing her youngest. In addition to reading and writing, Nora Jo taught basic arithmetic, geography, and history. Any child who worked on a farm learned young some of the math needed to manage their family’s crops and livestock, and she could make the other subjects into storytelling—if she could tell it right, she could make them care.

After their dinner break at noon, the students ran outside. Nora Jo followed at a more sedate pace. “Slow down before you break your fool necks!” she called after them. The morning mist had dissipated, and the April sun brought lazy warmth.

A large patch of lawn bristled before the forest edge. The grass was plush, and several students took off their shoes to enjoy it. Outside of church and school, these children were accustomed to running barefoot during all seasons. Nora Jo glanced down at her own feet, bound in tightly laced boots. Part of her wished she could join them, but she had to maintain her dignity to keep the respect of her students and the rest of town.

Someone cleared their throat. Nora Jo looked up, a flush heating her cheeks. “Gloria!”

Gloria Daley’s loose red curls were tucked under an embroidered kerchief, and her dress was a simple navy that suited her freckled skin. As always, her presence warmed Nora Jo more than the spring sun.

“Hi, Miss Nora Jo.” Gloria held out a dish, lifting the white fabric that covered its contents. “I brought a snack for the kids.”

Nora Jo breathed in the warm, sweet scent of cornmeal and molasses. “Tell me this ain’t your famous rhubarb cornbread cake,” she said, as if she couldn’t have recognized it with her eyes closed. “Why, Gloria, you didn’t have to do that for us.”

“Those rhubarb stalks are the first real pleasure of spring. Teaching is such thankless work, and you do such a good job. I thought you should have a token of our appreciation. It’s the least I could do. Take one.”

Nora Jo plucked the corner square from the tray. A slice of dark pink rhubarb striped the top, soft under her teeth. Licking her fingers, Nora Jo pointed out, “Your brother graduated last year, Gloria. You don’t need to bribe me now.”

“Now that he’s home on the farm all day, I appreciate your hard work even more. I don’t know how you wrangled him. Besides,” she added with a conspiratorial smile, “we don’t want you to take your business somewhere else during apple season.”

During the fall, Nora Jo hired Gloria’s family to deliver a bag of apples once a week. It was a nice snack for the kids, and fall was a time of plenty. Nora Jo wanted them to remember those treats when the winter came.

“Kids, Miss Gloria made some cake for y’all! Come get some—and say thank you!” Nora Jo called, voice booming over the small green space.

Gloria laughed. “You have a voice like a hawk.”

Nora Jo flushed again. “You learn how to speak up with a group like this.” Like a swarm of ants, the students picked the pan clean in moments, taking their spoils back onto the grass. Each one thanked Gloria as they grabbed their squares of cornbread cake. “Little beasts,” Nora Jo said affectionately, rubbing a boy’s hair as he ducked past.

“You’re good with them. They’re lucky to have you.” Gloria tilted her head, like she were noticing an unexpected bloom in her garden. “You know, your shawl makes your eyes look awfully green today.”

Nora Jo clutched the fabric around her neck. “Thank you.”

For a moment, they only looked at each other.

There was a shout as a tussle broke out between two of the students. Nora Jo gave Gloria an exasperated look. “It’s like herding cats into a bath around here.”

Gloria laughed. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thank you,” Nora Jo said, and then turned to her students. “Michael! John Noah! What exactly do y’all think you’re doing?”

By the time Nora Jo ushered everyone back inside for the rest of their lesson, every crumb of the cake was long gone. Aware that her students lost focus after dinner, Nora Jo pulled out a battered paperback from her desk. To learn spelling and memorization, she picked one book for the students to slowly work through together. She was taught to use the Bible, but she chose to use the fiction and poetry she ordered in from the Sears, Roebuck, and Co. catalog, saving her own coins for months for each precious new find. Since first exploring a used bookstore while training in Knoxville, she couldn’t return to teaching from simple Bible verses.

Nora Jo cleared her throat and picked up where they’d left off. “The Scarecrow listened carefully, and said, ‘I cannot understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you call Kansas.’ ‘That is because you have no brains,’ answered the girl. ‘No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home…’”

Nora Jo had always loved that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which grew so fantastical, started with a child on a farm. So many books introduced worlds she couldn’t imagine—not like the fictional yellow brick road, but true stories of big metropolitan cities to the north or castles across the ocean. They were alien and chaotic. Like Dorothy, Nora Jo knew her story would end the same way it began: in a small house in the town of her birth.

*   *   *

At the end of the day, after the students sprinted out of the small schoolroom, Nora Jo swept the room again and emptied the water bucket into the grass. She was gathering her bag when the front door opened.

“Hey there, Nora Jo.” A man walked inside, tracking dust in on his boots. He was in his early thirties, tanned from years of work outside. A head of dark hair was hidden by a felt hat, and the brim’s shadow masked the faint wrinkles etched into his forehead.

Nora Jo crossed her arms. “Beau,” she said. “Have you forgotten how to knock?”

Her brother ignored that, clomping further into the classroom. “How’re you doing?”

“Fine, just fine.”

“You weren’t at supper last night.”

“I’m never at supper, Beau.”

“You said you’d think about coming.” He looked at the books on her desk, casually proprietary, though he’d only come to the classroom a handful of times since graduating. When they had been in school here together, he’d sat with his friends, ignoring the teacher and his sister.

“I thought about it.” Briefly. Last week, when they had passed on the street, he had invited her for a family supper in his new house. It had been a short, stilted conversation. “It was a Tuesday. I had work to finish. I run a classroom here.”

“Nora Jo, this job can’t be that demanding. Not enough to stop you from coming for one meal.”

“You know nothing about my work. Just because I don’t stand at a forge all day doesn’t mean this is easy.”

Having taken over their dad’s business as the local blacksmith, her brother saw his work as the backbone of the town. His steel was, to be fair, at the inception of every dollar made in Chatuga. The town relied on him for everything from wagon parts to the mill’s machinery to horseshoes to farm tools. Still, she wished he’d be less of a pill about it.

“You have to have supper somewhere,” he said. He rapped his knuckles on the desk and turned to her. “You can’t pretend you don’t know us forever.”

“That’s ridiculous. I don’t pretend I don’t know you.”

“It’s been almost a year since you’ve come over to my house. Not since the funeral. I was surprised you even came to my wedding.” Beau had gotten married in the fall, just before the snows arrived.

“I wouldn’t have missed your wedding.” She leaned against the desk. “Supper would have been terrible. We both know it, Beau. Ruth certainly doesn’t want me there. Do you even want me there?”

“Ruth likes you,” he protested.

Nora Jo laughed. “Ruth has never liked me.”

Beau’s new bride was Nora Jo’s age, and they’d known each other since Ruth’s family moved to town ten years earlier. Nora Jo had been prickly and awkward in those days—maybe she still was—but most of her stiffness had been an attempt to protect herself from the mocking comments about her freckles and her passion for learning. Those cruel comments had often been led, in later years, by Ruth. At the wedding, she had come to Nora Jo with a smile like a porcelain doll and welcomed her as a new sister. Nora Jo had mimicked the smile, then left the wedding early. “It’s not a big deal, Beau. We don’t have to like each other.”

“We’re family,” Beau said.

“And what does that mean?”

He looked hurt and annoyed in equal measure. “It’s only you and me now. Ma’s been gone a long time, and now Dad is too. Don’t we have to stick together?”

“You have your own wife, your own home, your own responsibilities. You’ll have children soon.” If Ruth wasn’t pregnant already. “I’m not interested in more lectures about how I’m wasting my life. Be happy with your life and let me be happy with mine.”

“With what?” He waved a hand around the classroom. “This isn’t a life, Nora Jo.”

“There you go again. Teaching is everything I’ve worked for,” she told him. “If you’re done, I need to finish cleaning the classroom. You’ve tracked dirt across the whole floor.”

He sighed. “I’m trying to be nice.”

“You seem perfectly happy without me,” she said. “I release you from your brotherly duty.” She sighed. “Just leave, Beau.”

“Someday, you’ll regret being this way.”

As he left, another clod of dirt fell from his boot, crumbling on the wood floor. He closed the door firmly, and the frame shuddered behind him.

*   *   *

Nora Jo walked along the stretch of farmland outside of town, detouring from her path home to greet the horses from the O’Malley farm that raced over to nicker at her. She pressed her face against the mare’s warm nose, inhaling its musty scent. The apple and plum trees in all the orchards along the valley were bursting with white and pale pink blossoms. Dogwood winter was coming soon, when the petals would fall and coat the grass in a spring snowfall.

She tried to shake off the lingering tension from her conversation with Beau as she walked. He never failed to rile her, but the mild April weather and the long walk helped settle her before she finally entered her landlady’s house.

It was empty. Of course. Wednesday already. Miss Ethel had a standing bridge game with some of the other ladies in town. Time seemed to slip past Nora Jo like a creek, murmuring and forgettable, but always moving.

When Nora Jo finally left her dad’s house, it had been a miracle she’d landed with Miss Ethel. She had asked around quietly if anyone was looking for a boarder, but was turned down over and over. She was a young single woman striking out from her dad, one of the most influential men in town. Her dream of teaching had felt far away, and she was working in administration at the Chadwicks’ gristmill.

But then someone sent her to Miss Ethel. The widow’s spare room had sat empty for years before Nora Jo knocked on her door, but Miss Ethel welcomed her into her home. She’d even held the room while Nora Jo went to Middle Tennessee State Normal School for their two-year teaching program.

Nora Jo didn’t pay enough in rent to justify getting meals as well, but Miss Ethel always insisted. She lifted a kerchief to find a plate of fried chicken and a bowl of green beans. Both were lukewarm now, but she was grateful nonetheless. Left to her own skill, she spent more time burning meals than eating them.

She bit into a chicken leg. Instead of the crisp, hot crunch she would have gotten earlier, the batter was cool and soft. Tomorrow she would need to cut her walk short and come home quicker—she missed the widow’s fresh cooking.

There was a knock at the door.

Nora Jo frowned and put down her supper. There shouldn’t have been anyone coming by, certainly not during Miss Ethel’s regular bridge night.

The man at the door was a stranger. He was tall and lean as an oak tree in winter. Nora Jo was lanky for a woman, taller even than most men, but she had to look up at him. He wore a long black trench coat, and looked at her with bright blue eyes from under the broad rim of a wool hat. “Are you Miss Nora Jo Barker?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, glancing beyond him to see if anyone else was on the road. It was empty. Nora Jo didn’t appreciate unplanned guests. This wasn’t her house, and she didn’t enjoy the company of strangers.

And this man was strange. His clothes were worn and faded, but his jaw was clean-shaven, like a businessman from some big city.

“My name is Everett Harlow,” he said, “and I’m in town looking for an apprentice.”

“Ah, I see. What is it that you do, Mr. Harlow?” she asked. “I assume you’ve come to me because I’m the teacher around here?”

“That’s right.”

“If you tell me more about what kind of boy you’re looking for, I should be able to help match you. I have a lot of bright students.” It wasn’t unusual for craftsmen to hire young apprentices from town, but they rarely asked Nora Jo’s opinion. Most jobs outside one’s own family in Chatuga were acquired through the friend of a friend. If this man didn’t know anyone in town, perhaps he was a trapper. Some men stayed so deep in the mountains that everyone below forgot their names.

“You misunderstand me,” Harlow said. “I’m here for you, Miss Nora Jo.”

Nora Jo frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’m looking for a smart person, an educated person. Someone who can learn quickly and absorb information like land after a drought. I believe that’s you.”

“Do you work at a school?” He didn’t look like a teacher, or even a school administrator, but appearances could be deceiving.

He laughed, a gravely chuckle. “Not as such. I’m looking for an apprentice for my craft.”

“And what is it that you do?”

“Well,” the man said, those pale eyes intent on her face. “I’m a witch. Just like you.”

Kate’s fingers flew over the strings, and the bow sang in her hand. Music soared from the fiddle cradled in her arms, wrapping the room in sound as the setting sun through the window warmed it with light.

She didn’t sing. She didn’t have to. The fiddle eagerly met her direction and called out the fast, joyous tune.

“Girls! Supper is ready!”

The spell broke, and Kate’s sisters scattered. Kate pulled the bow along the strings one last time, letting a note fade in the small room, then lifted her head. Carefully, she tucked the fiddle back into its beaten leather case. The case had taken endless damage over the years, first from her granddaddy, then her daddy, and now Kate herself, but the fiddle inside was polished to a warm glow, carefully tuned to perfection. When she closed the lid, the room felt dimmer around her. Playing her fiddle was the only time Kate truly lived in the moment, and she missed it immediately.

The smell from the kitchen finally hit her nose, and her stomach grumbled.

The rest of her sisters were gone, but the youngest, Mary Evelyn, was hesitating in front of a chair that had been knocked out of place during the mad sprint to the kitchen. Kate nudged it aside with her hip. “Stop leaving things in the walkway!” she shouted into the kitchen.

“Thanks,” Mary Evelyn said, readjusting her weight on the crutch under her arm. Below her cotton shift, one small leg stretched barefoot to the floor. There was no second. When she needed it, she wore a wooden prosthetic, but it was too much effort for home. It chafed, and Mary Evelyn complained the tan color was all wrong—her skin was the darkest in the family, blue-black in the dim light. “They always forget.”

“Just smack them next time,” Kate advised, ushering Mary Evelyn through the door ahead of her. As the eldest daughter, recently eighteen, Kate felt like half a mother sometimes.

A handful of simple dishes were set out on the heavy wooden table—crowder peas and meat from the kettle over the fireplace, cornbread still bubbling in its cast-iron pan—and the smells were rich and mouth-watering. Chairs crammed close around the table. Mama and Daddy sat at one end with Uncle Christopher beside them. Willamae, Betty, and Eileen had already taken the best spots. Kate let Mary Evelyn take the last decent seat. The remaining chair creaked under her weight and left her of a height with Mary Evelyn, the table nearly up to her chest.

Mama grabbed their attention with a sharp cough, and Daddy led the table in a prayer. Kate closed her eyes and rested her elbows on the table, though the height made them splay uncomfortably.

Daddy and Uncle Christopher didn’t have time to come home from the lumber mill for dinner, and breakfast was a sleepy affair, so supper was the family’s biggest gathering. The meal was raucous—Kate had to snatch the last bit of white meat from under Betty’s hand to place it on Mary Evelyn’s plate instead. When Betty whined, Kate chided, “You already had a piece—don’t think I didn’t notice.”

Mama and Daddy were having a quiet conversation with Uncle Christopher at the other end of the table, ignoring their bickering children with the skill only a parent could master. There was a tension among them that set Kate on edge.

Once everyone had finished eating, Mama looked down the table at the children. “Go on,” she said. “Go play somewhere.”

The kids left, only pausing long enough to drop their dishes in the wash bucket. Kate helped Mary Evelyn with hers and ushered her out of the door to the side yard. She watched her limp toward the other girls, then Kate shut the door behind her. She could hear the neighbor’s dog howling. The hound was more silver than black these days, and his howl was gratingly croaky. The sound seemed to echo through the quiet room.

Once her sisters were out of earshot, she turned back to her parents and uncle. “What’s going on?”

Mama sighed. “Kate, go keep your sisters busy. The adults are talking.”

“I’m an adult,” Kate pointed out. “I can help.”

Daddy said, “Listen to your mama. This ain’t your business.”

Kate pointed at Uncle Christopher, whose expression spoiled her parents’ poker faces. His brow was creased, and there was a dimple at the corner of his mouth like he’d swallowed a bitter secret. “Ain’t it? Something’s going on,” she said. “I just want to help. Just because I’m not married yet doesn’t mean I’m not grown.”

Mama and Daddy exchanged a glance. They could have entire conversations without moving an eyebrow.

Finally, Daddy waved her over. “Sit down if you insist, Georgia Kate.” Everyone else called her Kate, but Daddy always used the full name he’d given her.

Kate sat. The divide between the kids’ side and the adult side was invisible, but as firm as the state line. Standing, she was nearly as tall as Uncle Christopher, but all her height was in her legs. Sitting, she seemed nearly as short as Mama.

Uncle Christopher shrugged. “She’s right, you know. She’s a smart girl, and she needs to know this kind of thing.”

Mama rolled her eyes, looking just like Gramma Rae. “Fine, Kate. If you insist on being in grown-up business, you can stay, but you best tell me if you get overheated.”

Daddy folded his hands on the table. He looked older than she remembered, or maybe she just hadn’t looked at him closely enough recently. The lines by his eyes and mouth had deepened like furrows during planting season. His shaved head hid how much of his hair was silver now. The long hours he worked in the lumber mill up on Mount Osborne nipped at his vitality, and coming home to care for five daughters didn’t help. The bottom of the mountain had been stripped of the best wood for nearly thirty years, so the lumber teams were moving further and further up the mountain to search for the cherry, ash, and walnut that manufacturers needed.

“Georgia Kate,” Daddy said solemnly, “we’re moving.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“You heard him,” Mama said briskly. “We’re trying to figure out our plans.”

“And you weren’t going to tell me?” she asked. “Where are we going? Were you just going to pack up and hope I didn’t notice?”

“They’ve been giving me fewer hours at the mill.” Daddy sighed. “Every time I go in, they need me less and less. The new folks are getting all the jobs. They’re pushing me out.”

“The lumber mill can’t be your only option. Surely there’s something we can do. There’s more work here.”

“Only white folks can work in the gristmill,” Mama said.

As though Kate would be fool enough to suggest Daddy apply to work for the Chadwicks. She opened her mouth to suggest the coal mines deeper in the mountains—then closed it again. She had seen what happened to the men who went underground. Nothing withered a man quicker inside and out than the mines.

Mama sighed. “There’ll be more opportunities in the city.”

“The city?” Kate repeated, horrified. “Which city?”

Uncle Christopher spoke up. “I have a friend in Nashville. There’s an automobile factory opening in July that’ll be looking for workers. My friend’s apartment building always has some units for rent.”

“Nashville?” Kate felt like a broken record, repeating unfathomable words. Nashville was far. By train, it would take eight hours. Would they even be able to afford tickets? She turned to Daddy. “You’ve always said Chatuga’s our home.”

“People move,” Mama said, gentler than Kate had expected. “Things change, Kate. We’ve got to go with the times.”

“But it’s not fair. These people shouldn’t be able to come into our town and push us out. This is our home too. What else can I do? I’ll work more hours, find a new client to replace the Addisons.” Kate had been doing odd jobs since she was ten and had realized she could make a dime by hauling water every day for their neighbors. The richer folk in town had water pumps inside their homes, but Kate’s neighborhood, Tolbert-Vance, relied on the well. From there, she’d found a series of odd jobs: doing laundry, delivering vegetables, cleaning windows, and anything else that would bring in money.

But apparently it wasn’t enough.

“I could help on the land, if that would be better,” Kate said. One hand stayed on the table, but the other found its way into the pocket of her dress. Her thumb rubbed over the smooth surface of her wolf fang. She’d learned the hard way to avoid its sharp end, filed to a vicious point by her uncle, and instead rubbed the smooth edges. It was a familiar texture, but the comfort felt hollow. “We could finally get the cows we’ve been talking about.”

“You need money to buy cows,” Mama said.

“They pay for themselves. That’s what everyone says.”

“They pay for themselves once you have them,” she retorted. “I’m busy enough with sewing and the garden, and I don’t need more mouths to feed. We’ve made our decision. We’re moving to Nashville.”

“We can’t give up. Chatuga is our home, the kids’ home.” Kate gestured toward the closed door, where her sisters naively played on.

“Georgia Kate Mayer,” Mama snapped. Kate’s jaw clicked closed, and she clenched her teeth. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

“It should be a hard decision,” she pointed out. “You’re uprooting us for a city that doesn’t want us.”

“Chatuga doesn’t want us,” Daddy said quietly. “We’re not the only family who will have to leave before this is over. Times are changing. Chatuga is growing, and new white folks are taking the jobs. We’ve always known that when they have the choice, they won’t pick us.”

“It ain’t fair,” Kate snarled.

“No, it ain’t,” Daddy said.

“It’s better than what happened to the Wagners,” Mama said. “Sometimes it’s better to choose to leave than to have that choice taken away.”

The Wagners, like a few other families in Tolbert-Vance, had been driven out of the nearby town of Oak Springs back in 1915. Their white neighbors had decided they wanted their houses and jobs, so they beat a young boy nearly to death for stealing some corn. Then, in case that hadn’t gotten the message through, they’d dynamited a few homes. The neighborhood knew they needed to leave before it got worse, and all moved out.

“We’re making the best of a bad situation,” Mama continued. “There are opportunities in Nashville. It’s a better place for all of us.”

“Daddy’s been working for that mill his entire life. He’s one of their best. They owe him.”

Daddy shook his head. “Companies don’t owe anyone anything. You can never trust them. They only look out for themselves, no matter how much time and energy and blood you’ve given them. Never forget that.”

“They don’t deserve all the time you’ve given them,” Kate told him fiercely. “You’re worth more than any ten of them combined.”

“Thank you, Georgia Kate,” he said. “But we have to be practical. That’s what Mayers do. My daddy could have been killed when he snuck out of Georgia, but he ran because it was his best chance. He made his way here, took on the pulpit, and changed lives.”

He’d died before she was born, but Kate had heard stories of her granddaddy a hundred times. Theodore Mayer had been born a slave. Even after he was freed at the end of the war, the landowners tried to trap him in debt. He’d barely been older than Kate when he fled Georgia, and had become a reverend at twenty-five. Folks still said he gave the best sermons anyone had ever heard.

“You said he loved Chatuga. He wanted us to stay here,” Kate said.

“He wanted us safe. Now, we’ll build our own lives somewhere new. We’ll come out of this stronger.”

“I…” Kate trailed off. A bitter, metallic scent filled her nose and mouth, harsh and choking. Her vision swam, shuddering as though she were on a train car. Pain lanced through her left temple, an invisible spike piercing her brain.

She gasped. “Mama, it’s…”

Heavy clouds tumbled over the night sky, briefly allowing the crescent moon to peek down at the valley before it was covered again. The forest shoved its way onto the trail with branches ready to catch and drag any wayward scrap of clothing. In the woods beyond, cicadas thrummed and frogs croaked. Summer was heavy all around, acres of green perfuming the air.

Kate was walking through the forest outside Chatuga, led by the person in front of her.

The man was stocky, slightly shorter than her, and moved with the steady determination of a mountain lion. Muscle shifted under his cotton shirt. Her eyes moved from the broad shoulders in front of her down to their clasped hands. His fair skin was silver in the moonlight, her own blue beside it. He walked confidently over the loose shale, tugging her forward.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. His eyes were shadowed by a lock of hair, but his smile was bright as the sliver of moon overhead.

“It’s okay, baby. Breathe.”

Kate’s eyes opened. She lurched upward, choking against the musky leather in her mouth. Steady hands pressed into her shoulders, forcing her to lie back down. It wasn’t the cold wood of the kitchen floor beneath her back, but the familiar ridges of Daddy’s legs. She relaxed, heaving a sigh.

Mama tugged the belt out of her mouth with a new set of teeth marks in it while Daddy ran a hand over her forehead. His palm was warm and light, draining away the last of the lingering pain in her temples.

“It was him again,” Kate said.

“Him who, honey?” Mama asked.

Uncle Christopher was hovering by the table, face drawn and anxious. “Is she all right?” He still wasn’t accustomed to her visions, even after so long.

“She’ll be fine,” Mama said.

Kate nodded and moved to get up. This time, Daddy helped her to her feet. The haze from the episode was already fading, and she could stand on her own. The room, lit by oil lamps, was bright compared to the dark night of her dream.

Why was that handsome white boy in so many of her visions? She could have traced the line of his shoulders, the twist of his lips, the fall of his hair, but she didn’t know his name. He was hers in a way no one else was, a gift waiting in her future who held her hand and pressed his palms to her cheeks and laughed like sunlight. Her visions were rarely pleasant, and she dreaded the day most would come true. This man was an exception, and her curiosity burned like an ember in her chest.

She knew better than to tell her parents about him. They wouldn’t understand the joy she felt, not when getting entangled with any white man created so much trouble.

“I’ll get you some water,” Daddy said, squeezing her shoulder.

“I knew we shouldn’t have told her.” Mama sighed, patting the front of Kate’s dress to knock away nonexistent dust. “It agitated her.”

“You can’t keep secrets from me because of my episodes,” Kate said. “I would notice if we got on a train to Nashville with all our bags.”

“She’s certainly feeling better,” Uncle Christopher said wryly, though his skin was still ashen. Kate glared at him, and he held up his hands. “Just good to see your fighting spirit.”

Mama hummed and shook her head. Daddy returned with a cup of water, which Kate drank gratefully. His hand hovered at her back to catch her again, but she grew steadier with every second.

“We don’t need to talk about this all now,” Daddy said, taking the cup when she finished. “We still have time to work something out here in Chatuga. We’ll worry about the future when it comes.”

Worrying about the future felt like all Kate was able to do. As she let Daddy lead her out to the yard where her sisters were playing with marbles, oblivious to the changes on the horizon, she wondered again about the man from her vision.

Kate’s older cousins had all gotten married by eighteen and already had kids of their own. So far, Kate remained uncourted. Too many people knew of her fits—and her temper. She was too much hassle for men to show interest. But the man in her dreams looked at her with warm smiles and intimate eyes. It wouldn’t be the same as her cousins, not with a white boy, but he would be hers.

How could that future come if they left Chatuga?

It was only polite to ask the stranger inside, though Nora Jo considered sending him away instead. She wasn’t open about dabbling in witchcraft, keeping it as quiet as her ma had. It didn’t seem right for it to be spoken of beyond her childhood home.

She moved her supper plates to the kitchen counter and set out a cast-iron skillet of cornbread. She poured them each some milk in the heavy silence and sat down across from Harlow. He observed her in silence, ignoring the food.

Finally, she prompted, “You think I’m a witch.”

“I know you are.”

“We’ve never met. How would you know something like that about me?”

No one had ever looked at Nora Jo and seen a witch before. Witches were old women who lived alone. The second cousin who could cure anything with the ingredients she found outside. The strange black cat that lurked outside a neighbor’s barn and made the cows sick. The Cherokee man who could speak with his ancestors. Nora Jo, a quiet schoolteacher, drew no attention.

“I have my ways of detecting people with a connection to magic,” Harlow said. “You leave a mark on the earth around you, more than the other people in this town. Mostly in small ways, from what I can sense, but the world still bends around you. It does for me too.”

He lifted a hand—and the spoon on the table lifted with it, hovering like a cloud. The dull silver glinted in the candlelight, spinning gently over the scarred wooden table.

Nora Jo leaned back in her chair, startled.

That was magic unlike anything she’d seen before. Her ma’s spells were mostly invisible. And more, her ma’s magic was uncertain, understood only in the outcomes. The effects were subtle, if they worked at all. None of the herbs Nora Jo had desperately smashed together into healing tonics during her ma’s illnesses had made a difference in the end. This levitation was undeniable.

“I can’t do that,” she said, mouth numb.

“Not yet. But I can feel your power.”

“I’m nothing special, Mr. Harlow. I don’t imagine you can feel anything about me.” She chewed her bottom lip, then lifted a hand to show a ring on her pinky. The silver was polished to a shine despite its age. A marbled chunk of green agate sat in the middle. “Maybe you’re feeling this?”

He examined it, idle. “Should I be?”

Nora Jo used her thumb to spin the ring. “My ma left it to me. She said it had the power to protect me.”

“Filled with a mother’s love, I’m sure,” Harlow said, voice dry.

Nora Jo frowned. She had treasured the ring for years. It had once belonged to her grandmother and had been one of her ma’s most prized possessions. “It is,” she returned coolly.

“It’s sweet, but trinkets ain’t my specialty,” he said, waving a hand. “You have potential. That’s why I picked you. Teachers understand the need to seek out new information, new wisdom. Them who ain’t looking to learn, won’t. Them who understand there’s still more to know will never stop learning. This type of magic takes effort, Miss Barker.”

“Do you take apprentices often?” she asked.

“No. I haven’t taken an apprentice in a very long time. I’m getting old though, and I want to make sure I’ve passed the craft down as it was passed to me.”

He didn’t look so old. If Nora Jo had to guess, she would have put him close to her pa’s age when he’d died—barely fifty—but she was far better at estimating ages under fifteen. Harlow’s skin was weathered from years outside, and his broad hat could have been hiding graying hair.

“I appreciate you coming to talk to me, but really, I’m happy here. Levitating spoons ain’t quite the career change I’m looking for. It wouldn’t pay better, I’m sure.”

“It’s more lucrative than you might think, Miss Nora Jo,” Harlow said. “People don’t admit it, but they respect the healing powers of a witch more than anyone but their own grandmother. The tinctures I sell are in high demand. I do important work. People turn to me when they’re in need. But I don’t just live off witchery. I’m a trapper. I find the best furs in Tennessee. Call it witchcraft, or call it knowing my land, but that brings me plenty of money. It’s the type of work people yearn for all their lives.”

“Where do you live? I haven’t seen you around here before.”

“I live on Old Blue.”

Nora Jo looked up abruptly from her cornbread. “Old Blue?” She didn’t know anyone who ventured up there. Chatuga was surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains. They loomed over the town and its farms. Plenty of men traveled up the mountains to work every day in the lumber mills, or to hunt.

In her youth, Nora Jo had trekked through the mountains with her brother, exploring the landscape. The mountains were part of everyone’s blood here, even if they lived in the valleys.

But no one climbed Old Blue.

“That’s supposed to be the most dangerous peak in Appalachia,” she said. “I’ve heard there’s a family of bears there with a taste for man flesh.”

“If there are, I haven’t seen them. It’s a beautiful mountain.” Harlow gave a short, reserved shrug. “Besides, witchery can bring protection too. There’s safety in power. I would have no fear living anywhere. You could be the same.”

She shook her head. “I can’t leave Chatuga.”

“Your family’s here?”

“My job is here. I help people too. And my… friends are here.” The widow Whitaker and Gloria were not her friends, precisely, but she had no better word. Miss Ethel gave her a place to rest, a place to make her own, and Gloria… Gloria was a glimmer of sunlight on the horizon at dawn. Not quite seen yet, but holding the promise of something life-giving.

“Luckily, I’m not asking you to move. I’ll stay in town for a while, teach you what I know. You can still work at your job if you find the time. But, Miss Nora Jo? Everyone claims they want money,” Harlow said, leaning forward, “but I know people like you. What you want, what you need, is knowledge. Folks who know things are more valuable than them who don’t, and we all know it. You went into teaching because you care about the truth of things. There’s an entire world you know nothing about. Your schools and your preacher and your family have worked together to keep you in the dark about the limits of this world. I can teach you things you’ve never dreamed of. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime for one such as yourself.”

Nora Jo watched him carefully. No one had seen her so clearly in a long while. People said she was difficult to read, but this man understood her better than her own brother. “Why offer? Why come down here and find me for this?”

“Why did you become a teacher? You had knowledge that needed to be shared—and someone worth teaching.” His blue gaze was electric. “Ain’t there things you want to change? People you want to help? When you know things beyond the limits of your society, you’re not trapped within their rules anymore, Miss Nora Jo. I live as I want on the mountain. I make things no one else can make. I see things no one else can see. No one can control me. By offering this apprenticeship, I’m giving someone else the chance to follow in my footsteps.”

Knowledge had always been Nora Jo’s fuel. It sent her scurrying after her ma in the garden, helping pluck herbs to be ground into medicine. It kept her alert in school while the other students whispered to each other or stared out the single window. It kept her pursuing her career despite people telling her to stop. It drove her to educate the kids of the town.

A small smile tugged at the corner of Harlow’s lips. He watched her with an intensity that suggested a sharp mind behind those bright eyes. “Take a chance, Miss Nora Jo,” he suggested. “You don’t know what it’ll bring.”

In Chatuga, Nora Jo felt like a man on top of a mountain trying to explain a vast landscape to those who had only ever seen the valley. But perhaps to someone like Harlow, Nora Jo was on a small hill, only thinking herself wise. The thought of becoming something beyond what this town wanted from her, to step into the unknown…

“You study the world,” he pressed. “Don’t you want to know what’s out there?”

She looked around the small, empty kitchen. Outside, night had fallen like a curtain over Chatuga. She could hear frogs and crickets singing in the trees. Somewhere beyond the darkness, Old Blue lurked, unseen and unknown.

Folks were scared to even talk about Old Blue. What would people say if they found out she was training with a stranger from the mountain—and a witch, at that?

Nora Jo loved her town, her school, and her students. She was no Dorothy, ready to leave behind her small world for something new and fantastical. She had worked too long and too hard for her position in town.

Witchery may have been her ma’s legacy, but she had lost it a long time ago.

Nora Jo turned back to him. “I do. But I stand by what I said. This is my life, Mr. Harlow. I don’t need your aid.”

He leaned back, sighing. “That’s your choice to make.” He rose, then hesitated. “I’m staying in town for the next week or so anyway. I don’t make it down the mountain very much, so I need to take advantage of my time while I’m here. If you change your mind, I’m lodging with the Lyes on the south side of town.”

“I appreciate that,” Nora Jo said, “but I won’t change my mind.”

He tipped his hat and left. Nora Jo stared at the door as it closed behind him. Then, she took her glass of milk to the sink and rinsed it clean. She shook her head, scrubbing out the glass.

Soon, there was no trace there had been a visitor at all.

Oliver startled awake. The room was dark, and his body seemed far away. He felt like nothing but a ghost, suspended in time and haunted by swirling images he couldn’t quite remember.

Where was he? The hospital? The long boat ride home? The trenches?

God, he could not still be in those damned trenches.

No. He was home. Wasn’t he?

He rubbed a hand over his face, letting his eyes slide closed again, and then pressed it against his chest when his lungs seized suddenly. He coughed explosively. It was as violent as ever, like his organs wanted to smash their way from his body. Could the body have its own nightmares, memories it too couldn’t shake? He fought through the moment until the cough eased.

He fought free from his tangled sheets and stood. His childhood bedroom was small and quaint, a ghost in its own way. His parents had finished building the house when Oliver was five, and the design still expected him to be smaller. A cedar chest of clothes he had outgrown sat against the wall. A thick quilt stitched by his grandmother hung over the end of the bed. Scuffs marked the walls from various boyhood misadventures. It all belonged to a version of Oliver that was no longer here.

He checked the grandfather clock sitting in the hallway. It once stood inside his room, but he’d pushed it into the hall his first night back home. He’d grown accustomed to steady noise while abroad, so the dead quiet of farm life combined with the single, unerring tick had nearly driven him mad.

It was late.

His hands still shook.

He’d learned early in his childhood how to sneak downstairs and out the back entrance of the house to avoid his parents’ detection. At first, he had stolen away to explore forbidden pastures with his friends, laughing and goading each other into pulling a cow’s tail or stealing a few eggs from a henhouse. When they finished school and his friends had either retreated to work on their farms or moved out of Chatuga for better jobs, Oliver used the quiet path to meet girls in haylofts. Flirting was fun, an innocent pastime that made him feel bold and alive.

Now, he had nowhere to go, no one to see. He just didn’t want to be in the house any longer.

The night was brisk, the lingering chill from winter sweeping back in like a thief as soon as the sun was gone. He felt like the frozen mud of France still coated his skin, soaking into his bones.

He went to the fence a hundred paces from the back door that enclosed their four cows. They were sleeping, quiet and still. In the summer, the fields would flicker with the sporadic glow of fireflies. The farm seemed dead without them, even though he knew everything was only asleep.

He leaned against a wooden post and pulled a bronze cigarette case from his pocket. His thumb swept over the monogram etched into the front: The top of the S swooped over the L like a tree sheltering it under its branches. The cigarettes inside rasped against each other as the container moved, but Oliver didn’t open it. He inhaled, remembering the way the warm smoke curled down his lungs and drove away the cold.

He missed it. He missed so many things.

A loud, ragged caw startled him, and he looked up to see a portion of the night detach itself and swoop toward him. He lurched backward, shielding his face with his hands.

The cigarette case slipped from his grasp, pulled upward. He grabbed into the air after it, but the bird—and it was a bird, some dark, quick creature—was already flying away with the case in its claws.

“Bastard,” he growled, and chased after it.

There was a full moon overhead, and the pastures were bathed in silver around him. The crow flew in wide circles, cawing in triumph over its prize. Oliver’s lungs burned as he ran, his throat raw and aching. The strength he’d taken with him to Europe, as sturdy and reliable as his backpack, had been lost during his time away. Before the war, he could have run the length of Chatuga three times over. Now, he was short of breath within seconds.

He stumbled, foot catching in a dip in the field. He fell hard, his hands scraping against the grass and dirt. He bowed his head, fighting for air as his abused lungs begged for rest. He slammed his fist into the ground; even that motion felt weak. The crow would be long gone now, and the cigarette case with it.

He’d failed Tucker Lee again.

A caw made him lift his head. The crow had settled on a nearby fence post, just across the pasture. He couldn’t identify the field—had he been running that long, or was it only his disorientation?—but there were only a few yards between him and the bird now. The bronze case glinted in the moonlight.

Oliver pushed himself to his feet, gritting his teeth and forcing his breathing under control. He crept toward the crow, heart thudding in his ears like explosions across a battlefield. If he could just…

The crow took flight again, the tip of one feathered wing grazing Oliver’s outstretched fingertips. Cursing, wheezing, Oliver gave chase.

The moon was full again.

It felt nearer than usual, looming like an eye overhead. Thin wisps of lingering clouds drifted like cotton through the sky, painted pale blue and purple.

Could this be the night?

It wasn’t the first time she’d wondered. She’d started getting visions of her man years ago. They were only fragments, wisps of a future without context. She’d grown obsessed, waiting to learn how they would meet. Somehow, this stranger would be woven into the fabric of her life. In an uncertain world, it was a promise of happier times to come.

A year ago, she’d finally had a vision that seemed like a glimpse of their first meeting. There had been wariness in the man’s posture instead of their usual closeness. Most of her dreams showed him in orbit around her, but this was a strange encounter. A man, stumbling out of a dark wood into a clearing beside a burbling creek. He seemed lost, fumbling for something metallic in the dirt. And Kate would be waiting for him there. It would be the beginning of a connection that would last far longer.

A meeting on a night with a bright full moon.

She’d already spent five full moons in the past year by that creek, waiting for someone who never came. It had taken two days of wandering to find the exact spot. She’d followed Chestnut Creek as it flowed eastward and bled into the burbling streams that wove through Chatuga like a spiderweb. Finally, she’d found the distinct ovular clearing and massive fallen tree spanning the water.

The other full moons had been cloudy or snowy or rainy. None were the fated night.

For a moment, she thought to let tonight pass as well. She was already in bed, and would need to sneak past her entire family to get outside. If she rolled over and closed her eyes, she could fall asleep and see what next month brought. Her fate would come no matter what she did, after all.

But what would happen if she moved to Nashville?