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  "I do, very much. I'm used to drinking coffee from vending machines at bus terminals, and it never tastes as good as this." He looked up to find Alexandria staring blankly out the kitchen window. "Alexandria?"

  Alexandria continued to stare out the window, lost in her thoughts about the party, and Bran.

  "Alexandria?" Andrew asked again. "Are you still with me, or are you thinking about a particular fellow that completely captivated your heart for the entirety of the party last night? Bran, I think his name was."

  At the mention of Bran's name, Alexandria's head spun around. "I'm sorry. What did you just say?"

  Andrew smiled wryly. "I said, by the look on your face, Bran has won your heart."

  Alexandria blushed profusely. "We're just friends. I mean, who falls in love after just one night, right?"

  "History is full of stories about people falling in love in just one night. Poets and songwriters write endlessly about this particular kind of love."

  "Yes, but-" Alexandria began to protest.

  "The heart knows what the heart wants," Andrew said, finishing his coffee. "Trust me, I know firsthand how powerful the heart is. The heart has its own reasons, whereas reason knows nothing of such things. I read that somewhere. On a wall somewhere in spray paint, if my memory serves me well. What I'm saying is, you're not the first girl to fall in love after one night, Alexandria, and you won't be the last. Just go with it, see where it leads you. What can it hurt?"

  Alexandria nodded her head, rinsed out her mug and placed it upside down on the sink to dry. "Thank you, Andrew. That kind of puts things into perspective in an odd kind of way."

  He shrugged. "Any time. If anyone deserves to be happy, it's you."

  Alexandria tilted her head and frowned, her heart going out to Andrew. "Everyone deserves to be happy, Andrew."

  "Except that bitch that cursed my family," Andrew replied vehemently, his eyes growing dark.

  "Yes, except her," Alexandria agreed fervently. "And I'm going to do whatever it takes to make sure you get your life back, and Eden."

  "I know you will," he replied. "Just don't get yourself hurt in the process, okay?"

  "I promise." She looked at the old clock on the wall, that hadn't missed a beat since it had first been hung by one of the original Harvey witches, Desmond Harvey, in 1779 when he had built Witchwood for his one true love, Emmaleria. "I should get going, if you're okay with everything here. I promised Kat that I'd help her clean up after the party. Then I'll nip into town and pick you up the things you need. Can you write me a list of what you want while I run upstairs and grab my bag? I'll be back down in a sec."

  "Sure," Andrew said, quickly jotting down a list on an old notepad he had found in a kitchen drawer near the telephone. "Phone still not working?" he called over his shoulder, tapping the phone with his pen.

  "Not yet. This week, I hope," she called back, tearing up the stairs two at a time, which was certainly something she had not been able to achieve as a child.

  Chapter 2 – Broken.

  Alexandria pulled up in the driveway in front of the Abbots' mansion and climbed out of the car. There were still a number of cars parked randomly in the expansive driveway. She discovered one of the occupants of the Jeep asleep in the front seat, another in the back, his legs hanging out of the window. A boy was propping open one of the pretentious double doors of the mansion, his legs stretching haphazardly across the entrance. Alexandria recognized him as one of the boys that had been dancing with Kat on the table the night before. She searched her memory for his name. Stanton Jameson, a good-looking rich kid with a God complex. Currently, though, he did not appear very God-like at all. Someone had used a black marker to draw whiskers on his cheeks, and had painted his fingernails with fire engine red nail polish. She could only imagine what he had done to deserve that.

  She stepped carefully over his long legs just as he let out a loud snore, shoved his hand down his jeans and scratched the family jewels.

  "Lovely," Alexandria murmured. "Your parents would be so proud right now." She walked farther into the house, stepping over the occasional sleeping body, realizing that the party must have continued well after Bran had taken her home. She headed for the elaborate staircase leading to the second floor and Kat's bedroom. She climbed the ivory-carpeted steps, careful not to step on any of the empty beer cans, plastic cups, champagne bottles and discarded paper plates with stale pizza crusts stuck to them that littered the steps.

  A smiled stretched across Alexandria's face, and her eyes sparkled even brighter than they usually did, when a memory came to mind of Bran kissing her lightly on the cheek as they stood chatting on these very steps. Last night had been perfect: the party, meeting new friends, talking with Bran ... the kiss at her front door after he had driven her home.

  When she reached the top of the stairs leading to Kat's bedroom, she flicked a black lace bra off the banister with her finger, and was surprised to hear a shriek seconds later. She peered over the balcony just as a girl sprang off the couch she'd been sleeping on, flinging the bra to the ground and stomping on it as though it were a giant spider. The girl looked around in a daze, then looked up and smiled at Alexandria, then she buttoned up her half-open shirt, curled herself back up on the sofa, and went promptly back to sleep without a care in the world.

  A creak came from the direction of Kat's bedroom, and Alexandria turned around. She could see the door to Kat's bedroom opening, then closing, then opening again. Suddenly a loud bang had her jumping backward. It sounded like something hitting the wall inside the bedroom. She stood statue still, pondering her next move. Should she go investigate to see what was happening? Was Kat in trouble? She took a step forward, then halted once again as a tall, semi-naked boy lumbered out of the open door, his t-shirt thrown up protectively over his head as though he were expecting another missile at any moment. He had been correct. Seconds later there was another loud bang, as something ricocheted off the doorframe and cartwheeled through the doorway after him, just missing him by a hair's breadth and slamming into the opposite wall in the hallway. Alexandria recognized the weapon immediately as it tumbled to the floor. It was one of Kat's four-inch designer shoes.

  Alexandria looked away quickly, contemplating turning around and making her way quietly back down the stairs, but what the heck, any second and the boy would see her. Instead, she leaned against the banister and began examining an imaginary broken fingernail, waiting for him to leave.

  "Alexandria?" the boy said, cursing when he stepped on an empty beer can with his bare foot.

  Alexandria's head shot up, her breath catching in her throat, the fingernail instantly forgotten. "Bran?"

  For a moment, she was frozen to the spot, held in place by his captivating dark eyes.

  She turned away, her stomach churning, her mind racing. How could he have done this to her?

  "Alexandria, wait," Bran called, but he was too late, Alexandria was already running down the stairs, tears streaming down her face. She avoided stepping on every can, bottle and plate littering the stairs.

  Bran started toward the steps, only to be confronted by a growing barricade comprising cans, bottles, pizza crusts and plates, all the trash that had littered the stairs.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Alexandria came to a skidding halt in front of a woman standing in the doorway. Stanton, Alexandria noticed, was gone.

  The woman, who had long, fair hair and wore a long, flowing white dress with strands of beads and charms hanging around her neck, spoke first.

  "Hi, I'm Aunt Mindy," she said, holding out her arms. "So nice to—"

  Alexandria shook her head, her lips sealed tightly closed, then, sidestepping the woman, she ran out the doorway to her car. She fumbled with the jammed car door handle, then stamped her foot furiously. The car door flew open and she climbed in, speeding away in a flurry of gravel.

  "And it was so nice seeing you, too," Mindy said, watching Alexandria run across the driveway. She turned and looked ar
ound the disheveled room shaking her head. "Kat, Kat, Kat…"

  Bran heaved himself effortlessly over the banister, landing evenly on his two feet, t-shirt still in his hand.

  "Well," Mindy said, watching him, her gaze like an accusation. "It looks like I got here just in time." She clicked her fingers and the barrier of trash tumbled noisily down the stairs.

  "Mindy," Bran said, dragging the t-shirt over his tousled hair. He looked at the pile of trash at the bottom of the stairs. "That was you?"

  She nodded. "I thought the girl could do with a head start."

  "You look good," he said.

  "For my age, you mean? Thirty isn't that bad."

  He gave her a knowing look.

  "Very well, then, forty."

  "No, I—"

  "Yes, I'm forty, and you are what, a sixty-something-year-old man forever trapped in an eighteen-year-old body—"

  "It isn't everything it's cracked up to be," he retorted. "Look, if you are still angry about—"

  "Me and you? Please, that was years ago. I was just a teenager, and as you can see, I'm not a teenager any more. And besides, there have been plenty of men that have turned my head since, lifted these skirts," she said, swishing her long skirts with her hands. "You, my friend, are nothing more than a forgotten childhood memory."

  "I'm glad, Mindy. I wouldn't want there to be any bad blood between us."

  Mindy looked around the room, shaking her head at memories that echoed the scene before her. "So, what have you done now?" she asked, shaking the girl on the sofa. "Or should I say, whom?"

  "It isn’t like that."

  Mindy raised her eyebrows. "Well, that would be a first, wouldn't it?" She shook the girl harder. "Wakey, wakey, sweetheart, the party's over. It's time to go home."

  The girl moaned and sat up, wiping a string of saliva from her chin. "Really? Already?" She looked about her. "Do you know where my shoes are?" She felt her chest. "My bra. I'm sure I was wearing one…"

  Mindy snapped her fingers and held out her hand. "These shoes?" she asked. In her other hand, she held a black bra.

  "Yeah. Thanks." She looked up at Mindy. "Who are you, anyway? The cleaner?"

  Mindy smiled. "You could say that. I'm forever cleaning up messes around here, it seems. But no, I'm the Aunt."

  "Cool. My aunt's dead," the girl said matter-of-factly while slipping into her shoes. She shoved the bra into a bag beside her feet.

  "How lucky for her that she doesn't have to see you like this," Mindy said, helping the girl to her feet and guiding her toward the door. Bran, of course, was already gone. "Typical," she mumbled.

  "Will you say bye to Kat for me?"

  "I will," Aunt Mindy agreed.

  "How am I going to get home?" the girl drawled. "My ride's already gone home, with someone else, I might add. Bastard."

  "Taxi is already here, dear," Aunt Mindy said, motioning towards the cab that was just pulling up in the drive.

  "Oh, thanks."

  "Don't mention it." Aunt Mindy closed the door behind her and looked around the disheveled lounge room of the Abbots' mansion. "Kat," she shouted. "Get your skinny butt down here. Now!"

  Alexandria drove as fast as she dared, the tall trees that hemmed the road bowing respectfully in her wake as she passed. Turning around a bend in the road, she slowed the car as she passed a girl walking along the side of the road in the shadows cast by the trees. She wore a long, old-fashioned black dress with black leather gloves, and held a black parasol over her head while swinging an old suitcase in her other hand. The girl looked up at Alexandria as she drove past. Their eyes met, and held for a long moment.

  Alexandria watched the girl in her rear vision mirror shrinking as the distance between them grew. Any other day, when tears hadn’t streaked her face, Alexandria would have stopped and offered the girl a ride. "I'm sorry," she said apologetically as she turned the next bend and the girl in black disappeared from her sight.

  Moments later, Alexandria slammed her foot on the brake. Pulling a tissue from her bag, she dried her tears, blew her nose, then turned the car around. She drove back to the spot where she had last seen the girl, but she was nowhere in sight. She turned the car around again, driving more slowly this time as she headed for home.

  Clamenza sat bold upright, waking from a peaceful, revenge-filled sleep, sending an army of flesh-feasting cockroaches spilling onto the ground around her bed. She rubbed her face in her crinkled hands and cursed. "Damn them to the depths of hell," she spat, dragging her old body out of bed. She walked across the small, cave-like room and came to a standstill in front of a painting of her younger self, a young, beautiful woman with long, straight hair the colour of obsidian. A string of marble-sized rubies, a gift from a long dead prince, adorned her forehead.

  "Another witch has arrived," she croaked, pulling a shawl tightly around her shoulders. A large, shiny black cockroach scurried onto her foot and she kicked it away. "Not now," she spat.

  "That makes three," the painting hissed. "This is becoming a problem."

  "Yes," Clamenza agreed. "Two more and the Saken Circle will be complete, and the girl will be more powerful than all her ancestors before her."

  "Then I suggest you stop buggering around, or you will be trapped in that decrepit, God-awful body forever."

  "And you, the painting," she mumbled, turning away and squashing a slow-moving cockroach under her foot.

  Chapter 3 – The Girl In Black.

  Alexandria pulled up outside Witchwood, squinting through the windshield at the roof of the house in utter disbelief. She rubbed her eyes, then looked again. Still there, so she was not having a full-blown hallucination; surely that had to be a good thing. There really was a girl sitting up on top of the roof, waving at her in a morose kind of way, and she looked exactly like the girl she'd seen walking along the side of the road.

  Alexandria climbed out of the car and shielded her eyes with her hand, Bran momentarily forgotten. "What are you doing up there? Please come down," she shouted in a panicked voice.

  The girl stood, her long black dress billowing around her legs. On her lapel was pinned a blood-red rose. She walked confidently down the slope of the roof with ease, not bothering to watch where she was putting her feet.

  Alexandria began to relax. "Good. You are doing great."

  Suddenly the girl lost her balance and she gasped. Her left foot slipped on a loose tile and she began sliding down the roof at an alarming pace. Alexandria clutched her throat, her heart bounding. "Nooooo," she shrieked.

  Then just as suddenly, the girl came to an abrupt halt on the rusty guttering of the house.

  Alexandria caught her breath.

  Then to Alexandria's complete horror, the girl in black bent her knees, as though she were preparing to jump.

  "Nooooo," Alexandria shrieked again, louder this time.

  Andrew came storming through the front door, disappearing as soon as the sunlight hit him.

  The girl in black smiled, then promptly jumped off the roof...

  Alexandria's heart stopped beating, her hands flying up instantly, creating a mountain of white, fluffy pillows to break the girl's fall.

  The girl in black dropped like a stone, landing in the centre of the pillows. On impact, an eruption of white feathers exploded into the air, then floated down to the earth like soft snowflakes, obscuring the girl.

  "No, no, no, no," Alexandria repeated over and over. She ran through the plume of feathers. Kneeling down, she searched blindly with her hands, feeling for the girl but finding nothing.

  Behind her, someone cleared her throat, and Alexandria stood, turning around.

  The girl in black stood there, a tight smile on her face.

  Alexandria glared at her. "What the hell were you thinking? Why did you do that? You scared the bejesus out of me." She folded her arms, waiting for an answer.

  "Bejesus, really?" she asked, taking the rose from her lapel and twirling it in her hand.

  "Who are you?
What are you doing here? What do you want? Did you really try to kill yourself just now?"

  "You know all the questions are going to be really annoying, really fast if we are going to reside together? And no, I was not trying to kill myself. The thing is, I've never been afraid of heights. I was in the circus, once, you know. A trapeze artist, in fact, so I am quite adept at landing on my feet from a great height."

  "Annoying? Reside together? What are you talking about?"

  "Just for your information, repeating everything I say is going to get really annoying, too. Now, let's try this again. This is a boarding house, is it not?"

  Alexandria's arms dropped to her sides. "Well, yes. That is the plan. But—"

  "But nothing. It is either a boarding house or it is not. The sign in the town centre said it was, so here I am. Do you have an available room in this boarding house of yours?"

  Alexandria nodded. "I do. I have one room, but—"

  The girl in black glared at her.

  "Yes. I have a room," Alexandria said.

  "Good," the girl in black said, toying with an antique silver cross hanging on a long chain around her neck. In the center gleamed a blood red, heart-shaped ruby. "I will take it immediately. My name is Nina Rosenberg."

  "Nice to meet you," Alexandria said with a questioning look. "My name is—"

  "I know who you are," Nina said, dismissively. After a short moment she added. "It was on the advertisement. I don't suppose you would be kind enough to show me to my room. I am quite exhausted, and this sunlight is not conducive to my health."

  "You're exhausted. I'm a wreck, thanks to you and your parlour tricks."

  Nina said nothing. However, Alexandria did notice a look of regret on the girl’s face.

  "Very well. This way, then," Alexandria said, leading the way to the front door. "Were you really a trapeze artist?"