The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association E-Book

Caitlin Rozakis

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 496

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

From the NYT-bestselling author of Dreadful, Big Little Lies goes to magic school, cozy fantasy perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, Olivia Atwater and Heather Fawcett. Featuring orange sprayed and stencilled edges, with magic symbols, unicorns and baked goods from the book. Two parents and their recently-bitten-werewolf daughter try to fit into a privileged New England society of magic aristocracy. But deadly terrors await them – ancient prophecies, remorseless magical trials, hidden conspiracies and the PTA bake sale. When Vivian's kindergartner, Aria, gets bitten by a werewolf, she is rapidly inducted into the hidden community of magical schools. Reeling from their sudden move, Vivian finds herself having to pick the right sacrificial dagger for Aria, keep stocked up on chew toys, and play PTA politics with sirens and chthonic nymphs and people who literally can set her hair on fire. As Vivian careens from hellhounds in the school corridors to demons at the talent show, she races to keep up with all the arcane secrets of her new society—shops only accessible by magic portal, the brutal Trials to enter high school, and the eternal inferno that is the parents' WhatsApp group. And looming over everything is a prophecy of doom that sounds suspiciously like it's about Aria. Vivian might be facing the end of days, just as soon as she can get her daughter dressed and out of the door…

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also by Caitlin Rozakis and Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

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Acknowledgements

About the Author

THE GRIMOIRE GRAMMAR SCHOOLPARENT TEACHER ASSOCIATION

Also by Caitlin Rozakis and available from Titan Books

Dreadful

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The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association

Print edition ISBN: 9781835411407

E-book edition ISBN: 9781835411414

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.

© Rebecca Rozakis 2025

Rebecca Rozakis 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.

The Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data is available upon request.

To my child’s amazing teachers and school administrators—whenever these fictional characters are wise and kind,know that you were the inspiration. When they’re not…it’s because plot needed to happen.

1

Sep 5 10:04 AM

Thank you for joining MINDR, the official Grimoire Grammar School Notification System. These notifications will help you stay on top of school closings, event reminders, and other important information about your child’s class. We look forward to a great year! Reply @STOPALL to cancel.

Sep 5 10:05 AM

If you wish to receive updates via mental summons instead of text, please envision the CONTINUE glyph now.

Maybe it was the bite-sized gingerbread man that waved merrily at her from the half-eaten tray of its fellows, or maybe it was the impossibly elegant woman with the delicate gills at her neck, but as soon as Vivian arrived at the Grimoire Grammar School Back-to-School picnic, she knew bringing the brownies had been a mistake.

Daniel had teased her, both about making something so whitebread American and about making it from scratch instead of using a box mix like a normal person. He’d voted to buy a box of Entemann’s chocolate chip cookies and call it a day. But Vivian was already feeling insecure, and she’d wanted to make a good impression. She’d thought brownies were the perfect compromise—down-to-earth enough not to be ostentatious, yet homemade with high-quality ingredients to show she’d made the effort.

But, just as one should not bring a knife to a gunfight, one should not bring brownies to a magic school picnic.

“Oh,” said the woman behind the table. Up close, her skin had the faintest touch of shimmer. Her voice held haunting resonances that Vivian would have happily listened to for hours. “Brownies. How… quaint.”

It didn’t matter how gorgeous the voice, Vivian knew a slight when she heard one. Her cheeks warmed but she soldiered on anyway. “Well, it wouldn’t be a potluck without them, would it?” she said cheerily. “I’m Viv.”

The elegant woman left Vivian’s hand hanging in the air. “I suppose you can put them over in the corner.”

Vivian lowered her hand, blushing harder. She edged over to the Corner of Shame, and wedged her knock-off Tupperware where it wouldn’t stand out too much. She’d just abandon it, she decided. She certainly wasn’t going home with a full container under her arm, and as Daniel kept reminding her, it wasn’t like their daughter could have chocolate anymore. Next to it was a plate of iridescent cupcakes that were literally glowing and a container of what looked like raw meat carefully cut into hearts. The shape, not the muscle. Although, come to think of it, if someone had cut heart shapes out of cow hearts, she wasn’t sure she would be able to tell. No one was going to notice the brownies.

“Are those brownies?”

Vivian’s ears were hot now. She turned around, waiting for another condescending look.

But the smiling white woman with the mass of brown curls peered around her, eyes lighting up. “They are! No one ever brings chocolate to these things—the werewolves always complain too much. I say, if your child is going to throw up if they eat chocolate, maybe if they throw up a couple of times, they’ll figure out they should stop eating it. You’re very brave. I think I’m going to like you.”

Vivian had not meant to be brave. “Crap, is it that much of a faux pas? I mean, I knew about the werewolves not eating chocolate—my daughter can’t have it—but I thought as long as we stayed away from nuts and alliums it was allowed?” Aria also couldn’t have eggs, according to the last allergy test they’d been able to do before everything got turned upside down, but these weren’t for her. Vivian had a vegan carob thingy in a baggy in her purse for Aria. It was also organic, Fair Trade, sweetened with applesauce instead of sugar, and tasted kind of cardboardy, because apparently people who bought egg-and chocolate-free desserts expected them to be penitential. But she’d also discovered the hard way, with the first round of allergies, that if she brought desserts Aria could eat to a potluck no one else ate them, and she hadn’t had time to make two batches of brownies.

“Most people won’t mind, but you won’t win any friends with the militant crowd.” The other mom’s eyes twinkled. “Tell you what, you and I will disappear these and no one need know about it. I’m pretty sure I can find them a home. I’m Moira, by the way.”

“Viv,” she replied, a little overwhelmed.

“New to the neighborhood, are you?”

“Last week.” It wasn’t proving to be the friendliest of places.

“What class are you in?”

“Uh… Mandrake Room?” Vivian had gone to public school, where her classes had been called the teacher’s name, the room number or the grade level. She’d remembered some of her friends, from before, who had older children in Montessori schools cooing or laughing over classes named after plants or animals. She’d thought it was charming, if a little twee. She didn’t think twee covered this.

“Really? You’re a kindergarten parent?” Moira lit up. “My daughter Cara is in Mandrake, too!”

“Really?” Vivian echoed. Oh, thank God. No one had talked to her since they moved, and she’d started to believe that their little family were going to be total outcasts.

“Oh, this is perfect. Cara will be delighted. She’s known most of the class since they were all born, and she’ll be so thrilled to have a new friend. Where’s yours? Boy? Girl? Something else?”

“Oh, ah, girl, Aria. I mean, her name’s Aria,” Vivian fumbled. She hadn’t been this nervous since freshman year. Frightened, yes, terrified, definitely, heartbroken and lost, too much. But not nervous. Nervous was almost a relief. That the worst to be scared of was what other parents thought of her. “She’s over there, with my husband. Daniel. Is my husband. I mean.”

Moira looked over where Daniel was standing near the playground, a surprisingly normal-looking assortment of twisty metal bars and platforms and plastic slides in primary colors, in the shadow of a school that looked less like the medieval castle Vivian felt a magic school should resemble, and more like the gray stone Neo-Gothic of an elite American university with an endowment and a desperate wish to cosplay as Oxford. The sun caught on his raven hair and gently tan skin, and Vivian had the familiar astonishment that someone so dashing could be hers. Aria was peering longingly at the other kids from behind his legs. She had Vivian’s reddish-brown hair and heart-shaped face, but the same eyes she’d seen in photographs of Daniel’s own father.

“So she’s…” Moira trailed off, fishing. A little boy with an Elmo guitar swung over his shoulder beckoned to Aria. She shook her head and ducked farther behind Daniel’s legs.

Same question as every time. “Quarter Japanese, yes.”

“Ooookay, that’s nice,” Moira said. “But, uh, what I meant is, you guys are…?”

Oh. Even better. “…married?”

The Elmo guitar kid had wandered closer, leaning around to see Aria. Aria yelped and jumped back.

And abruptly rippled, whining in the back of her throat. Her back arched and her knees cracked and there was a weird shiver in the air around her and suddenly instead of a little girl there was a reddish-brown wolf pup sitting in a puddle of shredded clothing.

“Oh,” said Moira. “That answers that. Going with the chocolate so you’re not tempted to break your diet?”

And that was why they were here, at Grimoire Grammar. Because the looks the other parents were giving Daniel were the same kind you’d give the parent of a kindergartner who had just wet themselves—pity mixed with condemnation. Judgment, and relief that the judgment was being rained down on someone other than them. But not horror, or screaming, or fainting, or throwing up, or calling animal control. All of which had happened before. Vivian felt somewhat inoculated to “my kid would never” and “there but the grace of God go I” looks, as long as no one called her child a demonspawn or ever tried to run her over with a truck again.

But. There was another misapprehension there. And as much as Vivian wanted the safety of being accepted in the community, it wasn’t like she could keep up the pretext long. Better to nip this in the bud. She said, dragging it out over her reluctance, “I’m not. And neither is Daniel. Just… just Aria.”

“Oh.” That was what it took to finally dampen the ebullient Moira. “Huh.”

“It was nice to meet you,” Vivian said mechanically. She should have known it would be too much to ask to make a real mom-friend. What did she have to offer anyone? She started to go help Daniel. Aria was cowering behind him once more, now with a literal tail between her legs. Tonight was a full moon, after all, and she seemed to have even more trouble than usual turning back the day of the full moon.

“Let Dad take this one,” Moira said, surprising her. “Hon, you need a drink.”

“Here?” she asked, startled. “I mean, I couldn’t, I should…”

Elmo-guitar boy had settled down on his haunches, holding out his hand like someone familiar with dogs. Aria peered around Daniel’s legs and tentatively took a sniff. The boy waited patiently, as the wolf cub shyly took a step towards him, and then another.

“See? She’ll be fine. Evander’s charming with animals, he had half the birds in the neighborhood following him around by the time he was three. C’mon, you need to hit the wine and cheese table. And maybe skip the cheese.” Moira grabbed her arm and steered her around.

Vivian managed to catch Daniel’s eye from across the milling field of kids and their grownups. He nodded with his chin. He had this. He was the one with the backpack with the two changes of clothes, anyway.

“So your daughter’s a shifter,” Moira said and left a little pause for Vivian to explain exactly how that had come about. She didn’t. Moira continued as if nothing had happened. “Well, you’re in good company. We’re selkies, by the way. I mentioned Cara, my youngest. Ewan’s my husband, and Cara’s older brother Rory is finishing up middle school. I know, quite the gap, what can I say. Time and tide wait for no man and all, but sometimes the tide catches up if you know what I mean.”

Vivian had no idea what she meant, but she could tell innuendo-tone when she heard it. Selkies were, what, were-seals? Something like that?

“Let’s see, who else do you need to know? They’re mostly mages, of course: there’s always been a lot more of them than us. The Cunninghams are nice enough, Mother Ocean knows they’ve got their hands full with twins to begin with, and it looks like the girl’s going to be a pyromancer.” Moira indicated a Black couple, the mother fruitlessly trying to remove something sticky from her fidgeting daughter’s mouth, the father gesturing broadly as he talked with a slim redhead with very fair skin and curls piled just so. They stood under a dogwood tree blooming out of season next to a flaming red sugar maple, both of which shaded the promised table covered with wine and semi-fancy cheese and olives and other things kids generally wouldn’t touch. “Cecily’s a bit more prickly, tends to go on and on about lineage. She’s from one of those old mage families, seems to think we’re all a touch gauche. Don’t let her get to you.”

Wonderful. Her mother would have been thrilled, if she were still talking to her mother. All through her childhood, she’d had the importance of making friends with the right crowd drilled into her. The careful dance of favors granted and owed. She’d tried to leave all that behind. But then, where had it gotten her? Maybe if she’d been a power player, she wouldn’t have ended up a pariah when things went wrong for her family.

But maybe things would be different here. Moira seemed nice enough. Vivian just had to make a good impression. In a town where she was by definition an outsider, in a culture she couldn’t hope to join, with nothing less than her daughter’s entire future riding on her success. She swallowed, her mouth gone dry.

“Who’s manning the dessert table?” she ventured.

Moira rolled her eyes. “Oh, Raidne. Speaking of cold fish.”

“Is she a…?”

“Siren? Yep.”

“I was going to say model.”

“Raidne? Take directions from anyone? Oh hell no. She’s the one who tells the models what to do. Well, not directly, she has people for that. Runs some ad agency in the city, one of the big ones.”

Of course a siren would run an ad agency. It was probably restful, luring consumers to their doom instead of sailors. Less dead fish smell.

Somehow, Vivian found herself with a plate of cheese in one hand and a clear plastic cup of cheap chardonnay in the other, facing the age-old cocktail party dilemma of how to get cheese into one’s mouth when the other hand is full of wine. She awkwardly balanced the little paper plate on the cup. The redhead, Cecily, raised one elegant eyebrow. Very deliberately, she made a tiny motion with her wrist, as if there were an invisible table immediately beneath her own cup. Then she released the cup to float, motionless, where she’d left it, selected a piece of cheese and a cracker from her own plate, popped it into her mouth, and retrieved the cup from its non-existent perch, without ever breaking eye contact.

Vivian gave up on balancing her cheese and took a bigger gulp of wine than strictly necessary by polite society’s rules. She herself found it completely necessary. Who was she kidding? She was never going to fit in with these people.

“I know changing the bylaws are a pain, but the increase in transparency would be worth it,” the Cunningham dad was saying.

“Steve, you and I know that, but a lot of parents seem to think that with Ms. Genevieve being so new to the role and all, it’s more important to preserve a sense of stability. We wouldn’t want to complicate things now, that would hardly be kind to her when she has so much to learn.” Cecily switched her attention back to Steve Cunningham now that Vivian had been properly put in her place. “Not that I would ever dream of saying something; you know I hate to raise a fuss. But don’t you agree, Sasha?”

Sasha Cunningham looked like she wanted to talk about anything else, but the familiar way her head kept turning told Vivian she was too busy keeping half an eye on the twins to force a subject change.

“But with the logistics required now that Banderbridge is no longer keeping things running smoothly, is it really the time…” Cecily had the bit in her teeth and was off to the races.

Vivian smiled and nodded through the continuation of what was clearly a tense-but-civil debate between the other parents clustered around the wine table. As far as she could follow, they were arguing about how often the Parent Advisory Council treasurer needed to present the books to the association, as opposed to the parent board (which was something else entirely?). She recognized the name of Ms. Genevieve, the headmistress, but not Banderbridge, who seemed to have been the former headmaster. She wasn’t sure why people would have preferred the latter to the former—Ms. Genevieve had seemed like the very image of an efficient administrator to her. Maybe it was just resistance to change? This didn’t seem like the kind of place that liked change very much. They bemoaned other departures over the summer, some whose kids had graduated and some families who had moved. Regardless of the parents’ positions on Team Give-Ms. Genevieve-a-Chance or Team Banderbridge-Can-Never-Be-Replaced, it seemed everyone could agree that they were relieved to no longer have to deal with one of the previous Parent Advisory Council members, although no one wanted to talk about why. Vivian nodded and drank probably too much wine, because she wasn’t on Team anybody; fear that that was going to hurt Aria’s social standing was sending her anxiety into overdrive.

“But then, it’s all for the good of the children,” Cecily said for at least the third time. Vivian wondered if she ought to make bingo cards. Steve would play, she guessed. Sasha probably wouldn’t because it would require listening too closely to Cecily, but she’d probably be willing to bet on the outcome if her husband played a card on her behalf.

Was there some way to get caught up without reminding everyone of how very much she didn’t belong here? Or at least show that she was willing to learn? Most of the parents here seemed to be human mages; the cryptid community was small, she had been told, and apparently the number of non-humans capable of procreating with any regularity was smaller still. Vampires didn’t have kindergartners. But the casual use of small magics she saw—a garden outline sketched in the air with colored light, a spilled ice cream resuscitated from the grass to fall upwards back into its cup—made her acutely aware of how very mundane she might be considered even by the non-cryptids. Moira the selkie felt more relatable.

“—and with Brunnhilde’s youngest graduating, she’ll be leaving the Parent Advisory Council, too, and while it looks like I’m going to be pressured into being president and we’ve lined up a volunteer to take my old spot as secretary, I don’t know how we’ll replace… I mean, how we’ll fill the vacancy for treasurer,” Cecily was saying.

“I could do it,” Vivian blurted.

Cecily raised her eyebrow again. There was no way Vivian believed that anyone was pressuring Cecily into taking the president position, other than Cecily herself.

“I was an accountant before Aria,” she said, hating how defensive she sounded. “I was going to go back, until, uh, until. Anyway, I’ve got the time—I’d love to help.”

“It’s a very important position,” Cecily began, “and an extremely demanding responsibility—”

“Excuse me,” Vivian cut her off. She was willing to be talked down to over baking, and not understanding the social mores of the community she’d unwillingly joined, and her own inability to keep her daughter from shredding her clothes in public. But not about accounting. “I was a senior manager on an audit team from one of the biggest firms in the world. I think I can manage the PTA funds.”

“Parent Advisory Council. Not PTA.” The temperature plunged. Vivian was pretty sure it was not her imagination, and would not have been surprised to see literal frost on the grass stems.

“It’s a PTA, Cecily,” Moira butted in, deftly refilling Vivian’s cup. “And I think it’s a great idea.” She gestured the wine bottle in Cecily’s direction, but the mage swiveled the hand holding the cup to cover it from refilling.

“Go for it,” Steve chimed in. “We could always use a little new blood.”

“Excuse me, folks, but I’m afraid I have to steal my wife back.” Vivian nearly spilled her wine. Daniel had come up behind her without her noticing. “Nice to meet you all.”

Never mind he hadn’t met any of them. He steered her away from the group, her elbow in an iron grip.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered. “I was in the middle of something.”

“What’s wrong is that I can’t find Aria.”

Vivian’s heart plummeted into her shoes, and she forced it back up. They were on school grounds. There were dozens of parents milling around. She’d been assured that the grounds were warded and no one from outside the community could even see past the wrought-iron fence, let alone cross the barrier. Aria would turn out to be playing with some of the other children. Hide and seek, or tag. Nothing could have happened to her.

“I thought you were watching her,” she said tightly.

“I was.” The look in his eyes mirrored her repressed panic and she immediately forgave him. How could she not, when she was guilty of so much worse? “She was right there, and then she darted around faster than I could turn, and she wasn’t.”

“Alright.” She needed to stay calm. It would turn out to be nothing. She raised her voice. “Aria? Aria, sweetheart, where did you go?”

Without needing to confer, they split off.

“Aria?” Daniel called.

Vivian saw the kid with the guitar. What was his name? Evan? No, something weirder than that. “Excuse me, have you seen the little girl who turned into a wolf earlier?”

The guitar boy shook his head, suddenly shy.

“If you see her, can you tell her that her mother’s looking for her, please?”

He nodded, and then gave her a radiant smile that left her nearly dazzled.

“Everything alright?” Moira ambled up.

She didn’t want to admit that they’d screwed up, yet again. Great first impression they were making. And everything would be fine. Aria couldn’t have gotten far. But. What if something had happened?

“My daughter managed to wander off while Daniel’s head was turned, and now we can’t find her.”

Moira shrugged. “This place is crawling with kids. She’ll turn up. Don’t worry about it.”

“I can’t not worry about it,” she replied, trying to keep her temper. She was only angry because she was scared; that’s what her therapist had told her. “She’s new to this, this world. She doesn’t know the rules, she doesn’t know what’s safe. And she can’t… she can’t control her change very well yet.”

Moira studied her closely. “I think you’re worrying more about this than you need to. But if you want help looking, I’ll rustle up the other parents.”

Vivian nodded, embarrassed but relieved. “Would you?” She didn’t want to show weakness, to start off looking like an irresponsible idiot. But they already thought it anyway, and Aria was more important than anything else. The last six months, she’d had to force back panic every time Aria was out of her sight. She wasn’t weeping. That was appropriate. It meant the medicine and the therapy were working, and she’d paid a lot of money for those, so it was good to get some kind of return on investment.

She headed for some likely looking bushes. What was it about bushes that was so appealing to kids, anyway? Aria hid in them like she was going to conduct drug deals. Maybe she’d find her daughter crouched behind a holly bush, oblivious to scratches, offering another child grubby handfuls of hard candy stolen from Mommy’s purse in exchange for a turn with a plastic dinosaur. Not that any of these kids would have plastic dinosaurs. They probably all had whimsical marionettes handcrafted by pixies that had been bought at the Goblin Market or something. She was babbling in her head, she knew that, but the running monologue helped keep darker thoughts at bay. For the moment.

She was already that mom. The mom other moms were going to whisper about, the one whose house no one was going to be allowed to go over to. The one who would get the condescending advice, and know she needed it. Like her own mother had said she would be.

The woman from the dessert table, the siren, what was her name, glided over. Raidne, that was it. Her feet moved, she took steps like a normal person, but somehow they were far more elegant than anything Vivian had ever managed. “Would you like for me to call for her?”

Vivian did not want the siren to call her daughter. She would have rather eaten ground glass, or maybe those raw hearts on the dessert table. Part of being a good parent was doing things you really, really didn’t want to do. She nodded.

“Aria, her name is?” At Vivian’s nod, the siren closed her eyes and took a big breath. Her gills fluttered. She sang out Vivian’s daughter’s name, turning it literal. All around the shady lawn in front of the school, heads snapped around. Vivian wanted to throw herself at Raidne’s feet. It was a promise of everything she’d ever wanted, if only she came over. It wasn’t for her—the message was clear—but she couldn’t help wishing it had been her name. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like if it had been. Several of the men and one or two of the women took an involuntary step towards Raidne. One woman stomped her husband’s foot as he lurched towards the siren, snapping him out of it. Steve put one hand on his wife’s elbow as she staggered a little. Moira smacked the red-headed man next to her as he took a step.

Daniel took two.

Raidne sang out again. Several of the children came pelting over, gathering around her. But no Aria.

“Maybe she didn’t hear you,” Vivian said, her voice wavering.

Raidne shook her head, lips thinned. “Believe me, anyone in a two-block radius heard. If she couldn’t hear, it’s because she isn’t here.”

Or she was unconscious. Or dead. The siren was looking at her with genuine pity, mixed with faint condemnation. Vivian tried not to panic. Should she go to the police? Did they even have police in this town?

Daniel was coming across the lawn towards her, his face a frozen mask. Other parents were gathering their children, lest whatever misfortune had befallen her family was catching. She looked around wildly.

Someone threw up on Raidne’s designer shoes.

The air rippled a little, and there was her daughter, naked and shivering, crouched in front of them. Aria looked up, a little greenish. “Mommy?”

She threw up again. The siren stared at her feet in frozen dismay.

Vivian crouched down, rubbing her daughter’s bare back. She would have clutched her daughter to her if the kid hadn’t been actively vomiting. Oh, thank god. She didn’t know what had happened, but she didn’t care that Aria had wandered off or that everyone thought she was the worst mother in the world or that Raidne would never, ever forgive her, as long as Aria was safe.

She took a look at the sticky vomit covering shoes she probably couldn’t afford to replace. The texture was familiar, especially to someone who had become a connoisseur of effluvia.

“Aria Akiko Tanaka, did you eat chocolate again?” Vivian stood up, outraged.

“No,” Aria said. She turned away from the mess. And promptly threw up again, like a rotating sprinkler of destruction. Another parent leaped backward, but not fast enough to save her expensive-looking sandals. “Maybe.”

The damn brownies. Of course, it would be the damn brownies. She was the worst mother in the world.

“And where have you been? Didn’t you hear us calling for you?”

Daniel was hurrying over, the backpack slung in front of him as he dug for the emergency towel. Raidne’s lip curled. She stepped out of her shoes to stand barefoot on the grass. One of the other parents hurried to bag up the shoes and offered the bag to the siren who gestured imperiously towards a trash can, leaving the volunteer to dispose of the offending objects.

“But I was here, Mommy,” Aria protested as Vivian mopped at her face with the wet naps she carried everywhere these days. Wet naps could clean everything. Even poop out of curtains. Vivian was far too experienced in bodily fluids.

“She was invisible.” A little Black boy who looked suspiciously like the girl peeking from behind the Cunninghams spoke up. “She was nakkie and we’re not supposed to be nakkie outside, so I made people not see her anymore. And then she got us all brownies!”

His sister surreptitiously wiped at her own chocolate-covered mouth.

Daniel took the opportunity to wrap the towel around their wayward daughter.

“You cast an invisibility spell?” Steve and his wife exchanged the classic “we’re in for it now” look every pair of parents perfects.

“I just did what Daddy does when he’s eating Mommy’s chips,” the boy said guilelessly.

“Well,” said a thin young woman dressed entirely in black, from soft swishy pants to a stretchy turtleneck to black leather gloves, so that only her face from chin up was exposed. She held a black parasol over her head. Her welcoming smile included a pair of prominent fangs that somehow didn’t reduce the air of comforting competence she projected. “I can see Mandrake Room will have a very exciting year! I’m Ms. Immacolata, and I’ll be the kindergarten teacher. I can see we’ll want to review the school rules on bringing extra clothes, and allergy protocols, and the use of magic on school grounds. Please do read the school handbooks and don’t forget to sign the form in the parent portal. We look forward to welcoming you!”

2

Sep 7 11:32 AM

We’d like to remind all parents that Grimoire Grammar School is a nut- and garlic-free facility. For the safety of all our students, we must insist that students not bring silverware or any other non-ritual silver materials. In addition, please refrain from bringing food containing garlic or nuts of any kind, including peanuts. May we suggest sun butter and marjoram as delicious alternatives to explore?

Sep 7 12:05 PM

Thank you for the many concerns raised about the previous notification. As a clarification—sun butter is made from sunflower seeds and does not involve solar properties of any kind. We regret any perception of insensitivity and assure you that we take the needs of our solar allergy population very seriously.

I’m just saying that, given how much this school apparently costs, you’d think some of this stuff would be included,” Daniel said, frowning at the list.

“It’s not like we can complain, under the circumstances,” Vivian said. She couldn’t entirely disagree with him—the list was ridiculous. Colored pencils and pastels seemed excessive enough, but where was she supposed to get papyrus? And herbs? Half the list could be found in the spices section of one of the better supermarkets, but the other half sounded like something from a botanic garden. Some she’d never even heard of. Was verbena a thing you could actually buy? Monkshood? Why was a Belgian Coticule whetstone preferred over Belgian Blue and why the heck did a kindergartner need a whetstone at all? Ms. Immacolata had said something about “food preparation works,” but Vivian had been picturing something like banana slicing, not knives sharp enough to need whetting.

And the volunteer list—they had to sign up for at least two weeks of providing class sacrifices? The asterisk on that one did helpfully remind them that animal sacrifices were not on the approved list which had been more alarming than soothing. But if they weren’t supposed to supply a biannual goat, she had no idea what would be considered a suitable sacrifice. Wheat? Wine? Copper the parents had personally removed from the earth by the light of a full moon? It all seemed terribly presumptuous. Oh, and look at that, they also had to bring in flowers for the classroom at the same time.

But what were they going to do? Complaining about it wouldn’t change the school’s requirements, it would only get them singled out as the ones who didn’t belong. And now that Daniel has started grumbling, I’m going to have to be the reasonable one, she thought with a little resentment. She knew from experience that if she joined in, he would get wound up. “I guess this way we can pick out our own blank grimoires or whatever.”

“That means we have to figure out which one’s the right one,” he said, rolling his eyes a little. “Whatever the magic spellbook equivalent is of buying jeans from Walmart when all the cool kids are wearing Abercrombie. Everyone knows that unicorn hide is so last season, or whatever. Sweetie, I know that you’re trying to make this work, but you don’t have to jump to defend every decision from an authority figure, OK?”

She didn’t love defending them, but she also wanted to move past the part where they got upset over something they couldn’t control, and get to the part where they figured out whether Whole Foods carried henbane. Surely they didn’t need the full kit on the first day?

“I’ll text Moira,” she said, trying to end what was brewing into an argument.

“Selkies text?” Daniel asked, raising his eyebrows. “You mean we don’t have to train carrier seagulls?”

“Hey,” she said sharply. “She’s the one person who’s been nice to me so far. Don’t be a jerk.”

He stopped. Closed his eyes, breathed through his nose. Opened them. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

He opened his arms and she stepped into them. He nuzzled the side of her head, breathing in the scent of her hair. She let some of the tension drain out of her shoulders.

“Sorry,” he said again. “It’s just… I’ve been this kid, you know? I mean, not like this, obviously, but I’ve been the scholarship student. And it doesn’t matter how much you try, you’ll never belong. Your clothes won’t be quite right, and your references won’t be quite right, and you’ll never be able to ask people to come to your house because your house is absolutely not right. And even if people are nice, even if they want to be nice, you’ll never really fit.”

“You’re saying I should just give up?” she said, trying to pull away a little.

“I’m saying you shouldn’t worry so much about what they think of us,” he said, pulling her back. “She’s an awesome kid. You’re an awesome mom. They should have to prove they deserve to hang around you, not the other way around. So what if they can start fires with their minds or something.”

“You’re biased,” she said, letting him fold her in. It didn’t work like that, but for a moment, she could pretend.

“I can be biased and be right at the same time.” He nuzzled her neck and, despite her worry, she felt a flush of heat race down her spine. They didn’t get nearly enough time alone together these days.

“We need this to work,” she mumbled into his chest.

“Do you need help? With the school supplies?” He stroked her hair, trying to soothe the tension he probably could feel radiating from her.

He didn’t need another thing to deal with, not with the longer commute and the bigger mortgage they’d had to take on with the move. She should be able to handle this: that had been the deal when she’d decided to stay home, even before the complications. That she’d caused. “No, I’ll figure it out.”

“I still think we should consider homeschooling instead of throwing her in with a bunch of wand-waving snobs.” His hand paused, as her shoulders knotted up again. “We know she does better when she gets a lot of exercise, and adding more red meat to her diet helped a lot. I mean, other than the one night a month.”

They both glanced at the old-fashioned paper calendar pinned to the wall, the day in question circled in bright red where all three members of the family could see it.

The sound of four sets of toenails skittering across the floor echoed back from the foyer. Frantic barking indicated that the mail had once again arrived.

“Don’t scratch the wood!” both parents shouted at the same time.

“You think diet’s going to help with that?” Vivian muttered as they disentangled themselves.

Aria had managed to change herself back by the time her parents reached the front door. She had even remembered to pull on the bathrobe they’d started to keep on a hook. She hadn’t remembered to tie it shut, though.

“Aria, pumpkin, we don’t open the door naked,” Vivian reminded her once again.

Her daughter stared uncomprehendingly for a moment, and then a light went on in her head and she clumsily pulled the robe shut. Vivian tried not to sigh. No one wrote parenting manuals about this, but the books that were closest—and several puppy training manuals—emphasized the importance of reinforcing the behavior you wanted to see instead of punishing the problem behavior. Aria got an extra half hour of screen time each day she managed to get through without wolfing out during Human Time. Daniel had promised her the deluxe Lego castle she’d been begging for the first time she managed to go a whole week. Vivian didn’t foresee them ordering it any time soon.

“Is there anything for me?” Aria asked hopefully. There was something weird going on with her butt, Vivian noticed. With some dismay, she realized her daughter was trying to wag a non-existent tail.

Daniel pretended not to notice and retrieved the mail. “Bill, bill, charity I’ve never heard of, cruise catalog, same cruise catalog but with Mommy’s name on it, even more charities who hate trees and want our money, apparently chupacabras are endangered and the magical community charities also want our money, oh hey, here’s something for Aria after all.”

Aria squeaked with glee and grabbed at the whole pile. Daniel handed her a cruise catalog and the chupacabra rescue charity envelope.

“Daddy!” she protested, managing a remarkably world-weary exasperation for someone whose voice was an octave higher than an adult’s. “You’re being very silly.”

“You don’t want to donate two hundred dollars and receive a free enchanted umbrella?” he answered, pretending to be surprised. “Actually, that might not be a bad deal.”

“Daddy!” Aria stomped her foot.

“Oh, wait, you couldn’t possibly want this boring old envelope?” he said, revealing the envelope addressed to Aria. “Instead of sixteen new Mediterranean routes?”

“Mommy, Daddy’s obstructing the mail again.”

Vivian loved when Aria parroted back the ridiculous formalities of adult language. She’d never believe in talking down to her child, and Aria’s multisyllabic vocabulary made her feel like maybe there was one thing she’d done right. She wasn’t a stupid child, for sure. Just not an easy one.

“Who’s it from?” she asked as Daniel handed the envelope to Aria, who promptly ripped into it like a feral animal. Vivian would have seen it as another distressing indicator of wolfish behavior, only she herself hadn’t figured out how to open envelopes without completely destroying them until she was in her late teens. Why couldn’t they all come with little pull tabs like FedEx? She bet Cecily didn’t have this problem. Cecily probably waved her hand and watched the envelope open itself, then maybe fold into a little paper swan or something.

“Birthday party!” Aria’s eyes grew wide and she clutched the invitation to her chest. “Mommy, can I go? I can go, right?”

Sudden tears pricked Vivian’s eyes. The last birthday party Aria had been to was more than six months ago. After the Incident, they’d started declining invitations. Then, as rumors had started to fly, the invitations had stopped coming. By the time it had escalated to potential vehicular manslaughter, Vivian had been desperate to move and leave no forwarding address to which the monster and her parents could be traced.

This was why they had moved—why it was worth any amount of ridiculous shopping lists. Because people here would still invite Aria to birthday parties. And because they didn’t have to say no.

“Can I see the invitation, princess?” Daniel gently extricated it from Aria’s grip. “October. These people seriously plan ahead. Elowen Dragonsbane? Do we even know her?”

“She’s going to be in my class,” Aria said. “I met her at the picnic.”

Dragonsbane? What kind of person had a last name like Dragonsbane? And who named a kid Elowen, anyway? Vivian snagged the mangled envelope from the ground and held the pieces back together to read the return address. Cecily. Gareth and Cecily Dragonsbane. Wonderful.

For a moment, she thought about that raised eyebrow and the hovering wine cup and almost said no, but Aria was looking up at her with shining eyes. So the mom was a snob. She was exactly the kind of person her own mother would have made a beeline for; she could hear her cultured voice in her head, reminding her that some families were simply more consequential than others, and how important it was to mingle with the best if one wanted to be of consequence oneself. Well, she didn’t want to be of consequence. She’d turned her back on her parents and their snobbery, and had never wanted that for Aria.

But just because the mother was a snob didn’t mean the daughter was. And how could she say no to the first invitation to anything that Aria had received in months? Aria deserved friends, and making nice to the local Queen Bees was the quickest way to social acceptance. That was why they had moved in the first place, wasn’t it? To find somewhere Aria could be accepted.

“Of course you can go, cupcake.” Now she had to text Moira about presents, in addition to school supplies. She wasn’t showing up with another tray of brownies, that was for sure.

*   *   *

Driving through the Village, Vivian would never have guessed it held more than picked-over antiques and overpriced coffee. The town’s name, Veilport, seemed a little on the nose, but wasn’t as bad as Mystic, the tourist town a little farther up I-95 from them whose theme was less around mysticism and more around fish. Moira had informed her that everyone called the Main Street area “the Village” and had done so since it was first founded in the 1630s. Now it had just enough quaintness to charm daytrippers passing through from New York on their way to Newport but not quite enough distinctiveness to cause them to stop. There was a bookstore that had a few first editions and a lot of well-bound novels everyone had forgotten and didn’t want to remember; a clothing shop whose windows featured the kind of expensive but shapeless gray tunics favored by older rich women, accessorized by a rainbow of tasteful silk scarves; a toy store whose contents would be cooed over by great-aunts and ignored by children in favor of something plastic; and an ice cream parlor which surely made the bulk of the street’s revenue because everyone genuinely likes ice cream, even werewolves.

Vivian turned at the parking sign, certain that this was a fruitless endeavor. The little municipal lot held five spaces, which were always full, which was why despite three tries she and Daniel still had not managed to walk down Main Street since moving here. Now Daniel was at work and she had to navigate the ridiculous parking situation without a copilot. But Moira had insisted. Vivian positioned the little cardboard placard Moira had given her with its printed symbol that seemed to twist as she looked at it on the dash. In the process, she nearly knocked her right front wheel out of alignment lurching over the viciously high stone curb cut. She cursed, yanking the wheel harder than she’d meant to.

“Mommy, you told Daddy he wasn’t allowed to use that word anymore,” Aria lectured her from the booster seat in the back.

Vivian muttered another of the forbidden words under her breath. She looked up.

The tiny lot was somehow now easily the size of the lot of a suburban Walmart. Which was just as well. It was, at most, a quarter of the way full, but only half of the vehicles could have been considered cars. There was a miniature steam engine, parked neatly next to a very large rolled-up Persian carpet. A black-on-black-on-black carriage decorated with funereal plumes in more black, with a little purple, had two black horses (also adorned with black feathers on their harnesses) stamping at the blacktop. Many of the cars were weird on their own. A 1950s mint green Cadillac with chrome and fins was skewed across two spaces, seaweed dripping from its tailpipe. A fire-engine-red motorcycle gleamed. Two electric cars sulked side-by-side in their designated charging stations.

Of course they had their own magical parking passes. What else did everyone else take for granted, and she didn’t even know enough to ask about?

Vivian couldn’t decide whether to park on the other side of the lot (what happened if one of those massive black horses kicked? Their hooves looked wickedly sharp and could surely dent a door) or if that would be even more conspicuous. She slid her beat-up Volvo in next to the electric cars, hoping that her anthropomorphization of their sullenness was strictly in her head and not actual attributes of the machines themselves.

“Can I pet the horses, Mommy?” Aria breathed, eyes wide.

“No, sweetie,” Vivian said, casting about for an excuse. That carriage looked far too hearse-like, and at this point she wouldn’t be surprised if a flame or two came from the horses’ nostrils. “They’re working animals, like guide dogs. And we don’t distract working animals, remember?”

Fortunately, Aria had spent two whole weeks obsessed with guide dogs (including trying to convince Vivian to make her a vest to wear so she could be a dog in public and still count as being dressed). She quickly moved on. “Is Cara meeting us?”

“Her mom said she would,” Vivian answered. Vivian hoped Moira would hold to her promise. She hadn’t been at all confident about this shopping expedition to begin with, and the parking lot wasn’t helping. It had never looked like this before. She stared at the edges, which somehow felt indistinct, like they were graphics that weren’t rendering properly. It was a similar sense of vertigo as the parking pass gave her, only larger. Maybe it was like seasickness, and would go away when she got used to it? Could she get used to it?

She wished Daniel were here, if only to have someone else to experience the weirdness with.

She clutched Aria’s hand a little harder than absolutely necessary and dragged her back to the sidewalk at the front of the lot before she could demand to examine the locomotive.

One goal, she reminded herself: get the rest of the shopping list, and take the opportunity to try to learn a little more about how this all worked from a friendly local. Two. That was two goals. Ok, two goals: shopping list, information, and make sure that Cara and Aria actually ended up making friends. Three.

To her immense relief, Moira and Cara were loitering in front of the toy store. (The fact that Cara seemed only vaguely interested in the tasteful hobby horse in the window reconfirmed Vivian’s suspicion that the only clientele of the shop had to be maiden aunts and collectors.)

Moira waved cheerfully. “So, tell me what’s still on your list.”

“Basically, all of it,” Vivian admitted as the two girls squealed in recognition and then stopped to admire Cara’s new shiny bracelet. Both the list of supplies and the list of questions. What was a Babylon candle and why was it banned from campus? What was going on with all the PTA politics and why were people so upset that a headmaster who was apparently old had retired? What was no one telling her that she didn’t know enough to ask? What did she need to do to get people to like her? But she barely knew Moira. She stuck to the basics. “I managed the salt and rosemary, but I don’t even know what rue looks like. Can you get it in town?”

“Oh, I order it on Etsy,” Moira waved one hand dismissively. “There are some weird gardener hobbyists out there, they’re not even part of the community. You can get almost any kind of herb if you don’t mind buying it in seedlings. I’d recommend a dehydrator, it’ll pay for itself before they’re in first grade.”

“Oh,” said Vivian. She hadn’t thought of Etsy. Did they sell grimoires? “Then what do we need here?”

“Well, you can get almost everything online these days, but I figured the girls would want to pick out their ritual daggers themselves.”

“So about that. I don’t suppose we’re talking ‘Fisher Price My First Sacrifice’ playset here?” she said, without much hope.

“Nope, full-on athame,” Moira confirmed with a sympathetic smile. “Traditionally silver, but for the kids they usually go with steel. Less sharpening, and less chance of accidents with the shifters. When they hit middle school, the mage kids will switch to silver, but I imagine Aria will stick with the steel. Unless you want to get fancy with obsidian or titanium or something.”

“What are kindergartners doing with sharp objects of any kind?” Vivian protested.

“Everyone gets at least basic magic lessons, even if they’re not mages,” Moira said, starting to drift down the sidewalk, herding the girls in front of her. “It’s like, I don’t know, what do they teach in mundane schools? Like how barely any adults use geometry and we still make them learn it. Except almost nobody needs geometry—but no one here, whether they’re a full mage or a cryptid, can get away without knowing at least the basics of magic. It’s more like, I don’t know, etiquette? Civics? Do they teach those?”

“Not really.”

Moira shrugged. “Explains a lot. I get the impression mundane schools spend a lot of time on Moby Dick, but ours tend to be a little more focused on real-world skills. Fey court manners, Aramaic, shifter genetics. Stuff they might genuinely need. Anyway, there are a lot more mages than shifters, so it’s important to get a good grounding in the basics, and half their social rituals involve at least a tiny amount of blood.”

Vivian couldn’t imagine where they were headed, unless it was to get ice cream. But here was a good chance to get that information she was looking for. “So the mages dominate things?”

“’Fraid so,” said Moira. “Probably because mages are straight-up humans—aptitude runs in families, of course, but it’s mostly just early training. Any human who’s stubborn enough could learn at least a little magic. Think of it like a foreign language. Super easy to learn as a small child, much harder but still possible as an adult if you get the exposure and put in the time. You might want to pick up a book or two yourself, so you know what Aria’s talking about.”

Vivian had already let magic destroy their lives: she was not about to try to perform it herself. But she kept her mouth shut. She was also not going to risk offending someone willing to help.

Moira snagged her sleeve. “Wait, you’re going right by it, turn here.”

There was a little gap between the candle shop and the coffee shop, barely wide enough to walk through. Moira was rummaging through her purse. She pulled out a juicebox, a sunglasses case, a plastic baggie full of sea snails, then finally a gleaming dagger of her own. Hers looked ancient: it was bronze, with greenish tinges in between the whorls of the heavy Celtic knots. The blade was nearly triangular. She made a couple swishes through the air that looked lazy, but Vivian sensed they had their own kind of precision. And then Moira reached out with the dagger, caught the tip in the air like she was lifting a latch with the blade, and opened reality like a door. The alley swung open on a hinge. The dappled shadows, the drainpipes, the empty Coke bottle on the ground, all moved toward Vivian as if it were a flat-screen TV, but without any width. Just an image hanging in the air. The morning glory leaves moved gently in the breeze at a right angle to the street. Behind the door, the alley opened up into a new lane of shops.

If she had been warned ahead of time, she would have expected something more fantastical. She’d been to Prague once and seen the tiny stone cottages in the castle that were now filled with puppet shops and beer-based cosmetics. She would have expected a magical hidden alley to be like that, maybe with witches striding about in pointy hats or people in medieval garb.

Instead, it looked like the mundane street. Tidy, quaint but modern stores. People wearing Nantucket red shorts and poking at iPhones. Although the shops did have cauldrons and neat, branded bottles of eyeballs in the windows, and the lady walking by in the Lilly Pulitzer dress had a doe’s head. Not carried under her arm or something, poking out of the collar of her dress instead of a human one.

“If we can get everything on our list with no whining, we can stop at the candy store on the way out,” Moira told the girls.

Aria looked around with wide eyes, but Cara quickly captured her attention again with an inquiry about ponies.

“Most of the cryptids run in families, too, so it’s all very insular,” Moira said. “And kind of inbred. Besides, most of the non-human folk have some kind of weakness. Mercifully, pure silver or cold iron are a lot less common these days.”

Vivian was glad she’d been cheap with the wedding registry and asked for stainless steel flatware; they hadn’t had to dump their forks, just a few necklaces.

“Anyway, it’s a human world, we just live in it. Here we are!”

Moira held open the door of a store and the girls rushed in.

It was an armory. There was an entire suit of armor right at the door (although it held out a little tray upon which was perched a note about keeping your children close and not touching things, which made the whole effect less menacing and more twee). There were two or three greatswords hung on one wall, surrounded by an array of more kinds of knives than Vivian could have possibly dreamed existed outside the old Air Mall catalogs. There were racks of staves, ranging from lightweight collapsible hiking poles to seven-foot hunks of oak topped by faintly glowing crystals. There were cases of wands: gnarled driftwood wands, twisted horn wands (which she hoped were narwhal, as she was not ready to tell Aria that unicorns were real), delicate golden spindles, lengths of sleek ebony edged with tiny rubies, and white plastic wands rimmed in chrome that would not have looked out of place in an Apple store. There was a rose-gold one that screamed “millennial aesthetic” that had a matching phone case next to it emblazoned with Live Laugh Love.

Cara and Aria went straight for the wand whose handle was some anime character Vivian did not recognize but the girls clearly did.

“Now, girls, we’re not here for wands, we’re here for daggers,” Moira said. “Over here, please.”

Vivian took a discreet look at the price tag hanging from one of the daggers and winced. “They aren’t going to need laptops, are they?” she whispered to Moira.

“Screen-free classroom until fourth grade,” Moira whispered back. “Also, for an extra twenty dollars, they’ll put a locator spell on it so you can find the darn thing when it gets left in the laundry.”

Somehow, they managed to work their way through the list. Moira sent her a couple links to buy the items they weren’t able to pick up in town. She also convinced Vivian to grab a few books on basic rituals for herself. “After all, you’re not going to be able to come back unless you nail the opening spell at the gate.”

“How do you know where to get this stuff?” Vivian asked.

“There’s a class WhatsApp group,” Moira said breezily. When Vivian gave her a look, she shrugged. “Look, there are magic mirrors and carrier pigeons and all, but they’re a pain to operate. The mundanes made some stuff much more convenient, of course we’re going to use it.”

An invite from Moira popped up on Vivian’s phone, and Vivian accepted membership into the group.

“It’s super useful for organizing class events and asking for recommendations for hex tutors, but it’s also the predictable raging hotbed of drama,” Moira warned. “Now, where did the girls go?”

Before Vivian could even start to panic, Moira waved her hand and a tiny little firework of silvery blue popped up over her head.

Cara came running, Aria in tow.

“There you are,” Moira scolded. “Don’t make me use the sigil in stores, OK?”

“The what?” Vivian asked as they shepherded the girls down the sidewalk.

“It’s another little cantrip almost anyone can cast. Most families have one, so you can signal your location to each other from far away. It’s a lifesaver in the school pickup line.”

“What’s ours going to be, Mommy?” Aria asked hopefully. “Can it be purple?”

“Mommy can’t make magic fireworks, sweetie,” Vivian said, trying to conceal the wince. “You’ll have to stay close to me, that’s all.”

Aria looked crestfallen. The fact that she didn’t seem disappointed in Vivian, just sad, made it worse. But Cara whispered something and then they were both all giggles again, disappointment forgotten. They stopped in the promised candy store, and Vivian insisted on buying a treat for both girls. It seemed the least she could do in gratitude, and a little bribery might help get the Cara–Aria friendship off to a good start. She didn’t recognize any of the names of the candy on display, but they both seemed pleased with their self-twirling oversized lollipops that slowly changed color whether or not anyone was licking them.