The first slap on my back scared the living daylights out of me. Then Peter Fairfield held up a hand as he walked by, and it took me a full minute to realize he wanted a high five. I was ready for the next one, lifting my arm, but at the last second Brian Farrell turned away. He waved a hand in front of his face and stepped wide around me. He looked grossed out.

Not this again, I thought, feeling miserable. For the first half of the year, the kids at the Academy had pretended I had some kind of disease that they could catch if I stood too close to them. There was a whole set of rules and everything. The only loser of the game was me.

I turned back to the bulletin board on the wall. Most of the papers stapled up there were sign-up sheets for clubs and sports. Some were just laminated copies of the school rules. But there was a big school calendar for October, with the thirty-first, a Monday, marked with a pumpkin sticker.

Halloween on a Monday? This really was the worst year.

I leaned in. There was a star on the Friday before Halloween—the twenty-eighth. The Thirteenth Annual Production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

I skimmed the board again until my eyes landed on the bright orange sheet labeled CRUCIBLE AUDITIONS.

Oh, I thought. Huh.

Hmm. That, from Alastor. This would be frivolous human entertainment, I presume?

The Crucible was an old-ish play about this guy, John Proctor, set during the Salem Witchcraft Trials. One of the girls—one of the evil ones who start accusing people they don’t like of being besties with the Devil—falls in love with him, and when he shoots her down, she accuses him and his wife of being witches.

I’d never made it through the play without falling asleep. It’s basically a lot of people running around screaming, “I saw Goody So-and-So with the Devil!” which gets real old real fast.

But apparently not to Nell. Her name was right at the top of the auditions list—barely visible under where someone had marked it out with a pen.

Ooohhhhhh. My brain was rapid-firing now. That weird speech she had been reciting when I first met her. Because it is my name! That had been from the play, I was sure of it. She had been practicing even though her name was crossed out.

When Nell finally decided to show up, I pointed out the sign-up sheet. She didn’t say a word, only lifted a small spray bottle out of her bag and aimed it right at my face.

“Did you make a contract with him?” she hissed, still spraying. “Is that how you ran so fast?”

“Ack! Ack!” I sputtered. It tasted so bad, so gross, I tried wiping my tongue off against my shirt. Ugh. “What are you doing?”

“Answer my question!”

What foul treachery is this? Alastor wailed. By the realms, you smell of roses and spring. Find mud, Maggot, and quickly rid yourself of this rotten stench!

Nell moved the bottle down and sprayed the rest of me, not stopping until my shirt was so wet it clung to me.

“Stop, stop,” I begged, trying to twist away from the torture. “Of course I didn’t make a contract. He just—he just gave me a little boost! That’s it. I would never make a contract. Ever!”

“Fine,” she said, returning her weapon to her bag. “From now on you have to shower after PE, okay?”

“What the crap, Nell?” The smell of flowers was already giving me a headache.

“You—” The witch lowered her voice, pulling me away from the girls’ locker-room door as more of the girls spilled out. “You mean you can’t smell yourself?”

“I can now!”

“All right, come on, I need to show you where the library is and I’ll explain on the way.” She raised the spray bottle again and gave it a little shake.

Do not let her douse us with such a vile concoction again! Alastor said, and I felt my speed pick up to dart away from her.

“It’s just Febreze!” Nell wasn’t even gasping for breath as she caught up to us. “I’m just trying to help you, but if you’d prefer to smell like rotten eggs—”

I skidded to a stop on the uneven sidewalk. Rotten eggs. Like the night of the test? I lifted my shirt, and noticed that there was a kind of gross smell cutting through even the flower-power stench.

“That was…me?” I whispered, horrified. Nell took me standing there as permission to spray me down again.

“It’s bad,” she said. “You probably can’t even smell it because you’re so used to it.”

“But what is it?” I asked. I knew I didn’t smell like sugarplums and Christmas after running around and sweating, but it wasn’t even hot outside.

“Fiends are warm-blooded—way warm-blooded. Their body temperatures are much higher than a human’s. That smell, the sulfur, that’s their version of sweat. So when you get overheated you sweat like normal, but…”

“So does he,” I finished. “Awesome.”

I smell of conquered kingdoms and doom and despair, Alastor cut in, proudly. Unlike you paunchy, knotty-pated maggot pies.

“So basically I’m going to smell like a stink bomb until we get him out, or he worms his way out?”

“Well, if that second thing happens, at least you’ll have bigger things to worry about,” Nell offered in a weak voice.

I followed her up the path to the library, where my study hall was being held. “Maybe I could just get out of PE—”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” she said, holding the door open. “Remember, stay here until I come get you after school. We’ll take the bus home.”

“Your home,” I corrected, with a pang.

“If you need anything, I’ll be in the theater,” she said. “And, Ethan? Don’t be an idiot, please.”

“It’ll be a challenge,” I told her. “But I think I’m up for it.”

The library was empty except for a few kids at the row of computers in the center of the stacks. A half dozen more were hunched over tables, scribbling away at their homework. The librarian glanced up at me as I walked through the security thing, giving me the once-over.

“Are you new?” The woman wasn’t old, but she wasn’t young either. Her brown hair was streaked with rivulets of silver. A deep crease marred her forehead as she frowned at me. “You look familiar, but I can’t seem to place your name.”

Crap.

No—there was no way she could recognize me as Prosper Redding. Nell’s glamour spell was still in effect. Stop making dying-animal noises. You are fine. You. Are. Fine.

I could feel myself start to shrink back a little from her intense stare, but I forced myself to stand up straight. “My name is Ethan White. And, yeah, I’m new.”

The woman seemed to measure me with a single look. “All right. Library closes at five. No monkey business on the computers, understand? Let me know if you need help finding a resource.”

I took a seat at one of the worktables, fully intending to ignore the rest of my homework in favor of planning out my project for Mr. Gupta’s class. It was just that the computers were so close to me, whirring, breathing out their hot air as they loaded and printed and processed. They were ancient compared to the thin screens and wireless keyboards that we had at the Academy.

Lucky us, I realized for the first time. I’d just taken them for granted.

I took a seat as far away from the other kids as I could, glancing over at them while I waited for the Internet to load. The librarian left her desk, pushing a cart of books needing to be reshelved into the stacks.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment, itching to type REDDING FAMILY into the search bar. I took a deep breath and shook my head. The most important thing was keeping Nell’s spell intact and lying low. If everything went according to the plan, I’d see my family soon. Right now that had to be enough for me.

But it didn’t mean I had to sit there idly and just stay safe, like Uncle B had instructed. If they didn’t have a computer at home to research, I could do it here for them.

I typed GETTING RID OF DEMONS into the search bar and leaned close to the screen. Instead of pulling up the search page, a white one with a huge red stop sign appeared.

YOU HAVE BEEN DENIED ACCESS TO THIS SITE AS IT HAS OBJECTIONABLE CONTENT. ETHAN WHITE, YOUR INTERNET USAGE IS MONITORED AND LOGGED.

“Craaaaap,” I whispered, clicking back. I tried again, this time searching for EXERCISING A DEMON.

I believe the word you are looking for is “exorcising,” Maggot, Al said, sounding bored.

But I remembered the subject that definitely had not bored him. A DEMON—I deleted that. Something told me demon was a word the school blocked for very obvious reasons. TRUE NAMES AND MAGIC.

Search results finally loaded. I scanned through them quickly, scrolling down. Most of the pages had to do with Dungeons & Dragons or video games. There were a couple of sites dedicated to Wicca, and a Wikipedia page dedicated to “True Names.”

Interesting. Many cultures possess a secret, sacred language from which they derive names which express their true nature… I scrolled down farther. In certain folktales, there is a tradition that if one possesses someone’s true name, that person or being can be controlled or affected magically.

Rubbish, Alastor declared. Which made me instantly print out the page to show Uncle Barnabas and Nell later. There were even a few academic papers linked as references at the end, which I added to the print queue so I could read them later, when I wasn’t scared of someone looking over my shoulder.

NAMES OF EVIL CREATURES. The same blocked page came up. And then again when I tried to search for FIEND CURSE, REDDING FAMILY CURSE MAGIC, and HOW TO KILL THE DEMON INSIDE OF YOU.

I let out an annoyed groan and slumped back in my seat.

“Something I can help you with…Mr. White, was it?” The librarian was standing right behind me, staring at my screen with an unreadable expression on her face. My hands slapped against the mouse, exiting the page and logging out entirely. I stood, grabbing my bag and almost tripping over the chair.

She held out a stack of papers, still warm from the printer. “Here you are.”

“Oh, um, thanks, sorry, just, gotta—do my work. Yup, ooookay, bye—”

I all but ran back to the worktable, nearly dropping the papers in the process. One kid looked up and shushed me as I let out a small noise of frustration.

I tucked those printouts back into my notebook and flipped it open to a blank page. I was halfway through my list of ideas for the Greek mythology project when two guys—friends of Parker’s I recognized from PE—sat down behind me.

“It sounds like it’s broken,” one of them whispered, trying to hide his phone beneath his desk. “He doesn’t need surgery, though. That’s good, I guess. Maybe he’ll be healed in time for track season?”

“He’s definitely not going to be able to do the play. I don’t think the drama teacher is going to let him onstage with crutches. And didn’t the understudy get mono? What are they going to do?”

“Maybe the girl with the glitter glasses will try to audition for the part again.”

Glitter glasses? As in…Nell?

I turned around in my seat to ask them about it, but as I did, I saw the aforementioned glitter glasses and the girl wearing them slip past the library’s window, glance back and forth, and then bolt for the side entrance of the school.

I was on my feet before I remembered standing, scooping all of my things into my backpack.

“Hey, isn’t that the kid…?” one of the guys started to say, but I was already leaving, keeping my head down. The librarian had her back to me as she reached up to replace one of the books on the shelf, and I took my chance to duck outside without her noticing.

“Where did she go?” I muttered, looking around. Nell wouldn’t leave class without a good reason, not unless something was happening.

As soon as the thought floated through my mind, I spotted her, running through the trees on the east side of campus, heading for the side street that ran alongside it.

What is the meaning of this, Maggot? Al demanded as I ran after her. Were you not told to remain here, in this place?

I wove through the trees, my backpack and hair catching the golden leaves as they fluttered down. The faint green magic of the boundary came into view. It stretched like a ribbon as I struggled to push through it. With a pop! it spat me out and I was running again, following the purple of Nell’s sweater like a star as she disappeared between two houses.

On the other side of them, just past the fencing of their backyards, was another small house, this one sitting between two empty maple-tree-filled lots. It looked Victorian, in contrast to the other homes’ sturdy colonial style, with stained glass in the two bay windows on the main floor. A sign hung from the porch: ESSEX BOOKSTORE & OTHER ESSENTIALS.

I was close enough to hear the bell ring as Nell pushed the screen door open and let it slam shut behind her.

Here there be magic, Alastor warned, sounding uneasy.

I crossed the street, keeping behind the old trees weeping their leaves onto the front lawn. A lone swing swayed in the breeze. I cut around it, getting as close to the nearest bay window as I could.

Inside, piles of teetering books filled every corner of the shop, some stacked as high as the ceiling. Shelves were neatly labeled with their contents, and through the green coating of the glass pane, I made out an old-fashioned cash register and a neat pile of bags waiting to be filled with purchases. Behind them was a wall with a wood carving of the shop’s logo, a few framed newspaper articles, and a photograph of Nell grinning between two women. One had dark skin like her, her warm, wide smile and the tilt of her eyes nearly identical—clearly, Nell’s mom. Her hair was braided into a crown around her head and woven with flowers.

The other woman in the picture walked into the room, coming down the spiral staircase behind a grim-faced Nell. Unusually tall, she had long blond hair that poured down around her shoulders like moonlight. Her clothing was loose and silky, weighed down by the heavy silver necklace and earrings she wore.

“Nellie, please—”

Nell kept her back to the woman, stuffing her backpack with a white paper bag and a book.

“At least tell me everything in that house is okay,” the woman continued. “Are you happy?”

Nell, finally, looked at her and said coldly, “What do you think?”

The woman tried to tuck Nell into a hug, but the girl pushed her back. “Thanks for the herbs.”

“Come live with me here,” the woman said, following her again to the door. “I don’t care what your father says, what anyone says—”

“Like the way you fought to keep me before?” Nell shoved the door open, but turned back at the last moment, facing her. “The way you fought to save Mom?”

“You don’t mean that,” the woman said as they stepped out onto the porch. “Come back inside for a moment, we’ll—”

I took one step toward them, meaning to make my presence known. But almost as soon as my sneaker sank into the wet earth and leaves, a nearby rosebush lashed out a thorny vine, snapping it around my ankle and violently jerking me back. I felt myself soar through the air, only to land with a cold, wet splat in the nearby little pond. A hurricane of tiny green frogs suddenly emerged from the muddy banks, their glossy eyes turned toward me.

“No—no! Missy, that’s him! That’s Prosper!”

Nell rushed up, dragging me away from the frogs and whatever else was in the water, slapping the thorny vines that were stroking the edges of the murky water, daring me to try to rush toward the house again. A short distance away, my book bag had split open, spewing everything—papers, notebooks, pencils—onto the ground.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. My ears rang like I’d been clubbed on either side of the head. A lone frog clung to the back of my hand. I felt my good arm start to prickle again.

Tiny, little, delicious, juicy frog legs—

“No!” I said, slamming my left hand down on my right to keep it in place.

“What are you doing here?” Nell demanded. “Why did you follow me? I told you to stay in the library!”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” I said.

“A fiend,” Missy said coldly from behind us. “Checking up on a witch?”

Her unusual violet eyes flashed in warning as I looked up at her. They only softened when she saw that the hem of my jeans had been yanked up during the tussle and a crisscross of angry cuts ringed my ankle.

“Come inside, I’ll clean those for you,” she said finally. “Come in, come in, and let our work begin.”

The barrier, including the vines, shrank back. The line of airy green magic I’d missed yet again fell to my feet, allowing me to step over it.

Nell said nothing as we entered the warm, cozy shop. She barely seemed to be breathing as Missy led me upstairs, to the second floor. There, behind the door at the top of the steps, was a room filled with light.

It was the opposite of the attic in every way. Bookshelves lined every side of the room, each painted a pristine, welcoming cream. The window was large, catching the golden afternoon light through the thinning tree branches. While there were plenty of books up here for purchase, most of the shelves contained bottles in neat rows, or had sachets of sweet-smelling herbs. Here and there, there were copper cauldrons, but they were filled with some of the same black soap I’d used that morning at the House of Seven Terrors, or tiny vials of green liquid for “Aches & Pains of the Heart.”

So. This was the “& other essentials” part of the store.

Nell stood with her back to the door, keeping me locked in, or someone or something else out.

“Have a seat, Mr. Redding,” Missy said, gesturing to a hand-carved stool.

“You know who I am?” I asked, but did as I was told. Missy was gentle as she rolled my jeans up away from my shoes and began to apply a peppermint-scented ointment.

“I know of you, yes,” Missy said, with a look back over her shoulder to Nell. “As a witch, I can see through the glamour Nell placed on you.”

The girl crossed her arms. Said nothing.

Though the cuts were already mending themselves back together, Missy still wrapped a loose white bandage around my ankle and tied it off—with maybe a bit too much force. The way she looked at me now, down the bridge of her nose, eyes never leaving my face, made me feel like I was a feral dog she’d pulled off the street and now had to watch nonstop to keep me from tearing her home apart.

“Don’t come back to this place ever,” she told me.

Dread-bolted flax-wench!

“Missy!” Nell hissed.

“This is sacred, protected ground,” Missy continued. “I can’t have any kind of fiend jeopardizing it, no matter who its host is, or how powerful his family might be. You have no business coming here and forcing Nell to care for you.” She turned to the girl. “And you, as a witch, should know better than to believe whatever lies that man has told you—”

“All right,” Nell snapped, coming across the room to take my arm. “Come on, Prosper, let’s go.” Then, glancing back to Missy, she added, “Don’t worry. We won’t come back here again.”

Missy’s face visibly fell, horror and sadness crashing over her features. “You know I wasn’t talking about you—Nell, please—please, just listen to me. This is still your home.”

We were already outside, Nell dragging me after her down the street, when I finally heard her soft reply. “No, it’s not.”