“It’s never too early to start planning.” Cynthia typed more, then set the phone aside. She clasped her hands in her lap and widened her blue eyes in a sympathetic expression that made Calladia’s teeth itch. That look was normally turned on unwitting constituents. “I understand this must have been upsetting, Calladia, but every setback carries an opportunity if you can control the message.”
Calladia focused on regulating her breathing. Her mother sounded so earnest, like she was imparting essential wisdom to a beloved daughter. It was an act she’d gotten eerily good at since deciding to run for public office, and Calladia hated the mask even more than she hated her mother’s overt disapproval. “I don’t want to control a message,” Calladia said. “I want to get some supplies from the basement and leave.”
“Leave and go where?” Cynthia looked confused. “The guest room is available.”
The guest room had once been Calladia’s bedroom, not that there was any evidence of it now. The soccer posters and athletic trophies had vanished while she’d been away for her first semester at college, and the daisy-patterned bedspread had been replaced with a plain cream comforter. The carpet that had borne witness to a young witch’s mishaps—burn marks, caked-on wax, spices ground into the fibers—had been ripped out and replaced with hardwood.
Calladia hadn’t stayed in the guest room since college. The sanitized version of her childhood bedroom only reminded her that her mother would sanitize her if she could.
“Thank you, but no,” Calladia said. “I just need some of my things from storage.”
Cynthia sighed and rose to her feet, smoothing her already smooth skirt. “I don’t understand why you insist on being spiteful. After all I’ve done—”
“What have you done?” Calladia demanded, the thin thread of her restraint snapping. “Other than constantly shame me for not turning out exactly like you.”
“I don’t need you to be exactly like me,” Cynthia said. The two women were facing off now, shoulders set in the same confrontational angle. They’d always looked alike, eye color aside, with tempers to match. “But I do expect some amount of proper comportment. After all the etiquette lessons, the private schools, your father and I sparing no expense to give you a foundation for a prosperous life, this is how you repay me? With attitude and ingratitude?”
Her voice had risen, and Calladia felt a sick surge of malicious joy at having rattled her unflappable mother. “I don’t need to repay you for anything,” she said. “I just want the freedom to live my life the way I want.”
Cynthia laughed scornfully. “And how is that? Lifting weights until you look like a man, wasting your talents on a menial job, living like you have no responsibilities to the family?”
Calladia flinched. She liked her bulky shoulders and muscled thighs, adored seeing the lines of strength in the mirror, but even if she knew her mother’s idea of what a woman could be was outdated and reductive, the words stung. Sam had flung that accusation at her after a few months of dating, complaining he didn’t like being seen with such a masculine woman. And Calladia, still young and desperate for the affection she’d been denied at home, had reshaped herself for him. Once she was weak enough to fit Sam’s definition of beauty though, he’d found something else to harp on.
Her mother was still talking. “You make a fool of yourself in public. Getting in fights, dressing like a pauper, pulling stunts like mouthing off at the town hall. Now you’re meddling with demons? You ought to be married and contributing to the family legacy, but you drove off your only high-value suitor, breaking off the engagement—”
Calladia’s rage meter maxed out. “Don’t you dare speak about Sam.”
Cynthia made a frustrated noise and threw her hands up. “I want you to have a future!” she exclaimed. “But you fight me at every turn.”
Calladia tugged at the neckline of her shirt as if that could ease the choking feeling. The house squeezed in around her; if she stayed, she would be crushed. “I’m getting my things,” Calladia said through the tightness in her throat.
She turned, ignoring her mother’s protests, and headed for the door leading to the basement. This dark, cluttered space was where the Cunningtons shoved everything not fit for public eyes. Storage boxes, files, abandoned exercise equipment, tacky family heirlooms . . . it was a wonder Calladia herself hadn’t been locked up down here during her adolescence like some subterranean version of Rapunzel, left to rot in the dark.
She yanked the chain for the single bulb overhead, then jogged down the stairs, imagining Mariel at her side. Mushrooms do quite well in the dark, Mariel would say. They clean up waste and toxins in the soil, and they build complex networks underground. They offer a lot more to the world than just looking pretty.
Calladia could be a mushroom. Better that than a delicate flower slowly dying in a vase.
The few boxes of her belongings were crammed into a corner next to a box of old photo albums. The air smelled musty; some other fungus was probably eating the paper. She’d paged through those albums back in the day, marveling at the photos of her as a chubby-cheeked baby. Then she’d wondered why the photos had grown less frequent over the years, and why she had only ever been photographed fresh-scrubbed and wearing a dress, lips twisted in a forced smile.
There weren’t any photos of her past age fifteen.
Calladia ignored the photos and started digging through the two boxes someone—probably Cynthia’s assistant—had written Calladia on in cursive Sharpie. School textbooks, childhood books she hadn’t been willing to get rid of, the ribbons and trophies she’d boxed up before the ones on display had been purged. She’d meant to retrieve them and move them into her house, but she’d always found a reason to postpone returning to her childhood home.
Her chest felt tight as she dug through the memories. There was no need to revisit report cards or the notebook she and Mariel had taken turns scribbling in during middle school, gushing about crushes and complaining about their mothers, but she did it anyway. These were artifacts, telling the story of the girl she’d been before hardening into the woman she was now.
As soon as she found somewhere new to live, she would take them with her.
The second box held college magic textbooks and spare equipment: a collapsible cauldron for potions on the go, a skein of rainbow-dyed yarn, chalk for marking inscriptions, and sachets of dried herbs. She picked up the whole box, not wanting to linger to pick and choose what would be most helpful.
Calladia’s mother was waiting at the top of the stairs, mouth twisted in a frown. There were lines beside her eyes she either hadn’t tried or hadn’t been able to eliminate. “I know you don’t believe me,” Cynthia said, “but I’ve only ever wanted the best for you.”
The worst part was, Calladia knew her mother was being, for once, entirely sincere. There was just one problem.
“Your idea of what’s best and mine don’t match, Mom.” Calladia’s voice sounded as tired as her mother looked. “I just wish you could understand that.”
She left before her mother could say anything more.
NINE