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think I saw a movie about it once. They burnt witches there, didn’t they?”
    “Yes. They burned witches. What the history books don’t tell you is there were two factions of witches. The ones that lost and the ones that won. The winners stole the powers of the burned witches and escaped Salem. They established a new Salem here on Long Island.”
    “In Sayville?”
    “Yes, in Sayville. Through centuries of witchcraft, the very soil is magical. Especially here. You do know this house is the site of Nathan Gardiner’s original homestead?”
    “So?”
    “Nathan Gardiner was the head inquisitor in Salem. He was a powerful witch.”
    “What has this to do with me?”
    “I don’t believe in chance, Orla, but in destiny. I believe it was your destiny to come to Sayville, to join our coven.”
    “Destiny, my arse. Are you done with your tea? If so, I think you’d better be on your way.”
    She touched my arm again. “Your mother, Mary. She wants me to help you.”
    I snatched my arm from her grasp. “You bitch. You leave my mother out of this!” The buzzing in my head became a roar. I closed my eyes but could not stem the tide of emotion that coursed through me. The pressure behind my left eye built until it popped. I opened my eyes to find the tea cups, the saucers and my mother’s tea pot flying off the kitchen table. They crashed against the opposite wall. Black tea stained the newly painted white wall, and the teapot, the old blue chipped teapot that had belonged to my mother and her mother before her, the only thing of my mother’s I brought with me to America, lay in pieces.
    Tears burned my eyes as I knelt beside the ruined crockery. I cradled the shards of the blue teapot in my arms like a baby and rocked back and forth, the buzzing now reduced to a low murmur.
    Claire took the shards from my hand. Her lips mouthed a silent spell. The air shimmered. Claire presented me with my mother’s teapot: whole, unbroken, perfect.
    “See, Orla, magic doesn’t only destroy. It can heal as well.”
    I said nothing.
    She rubbed my shoulder, the electric current between us now soothing, comforting. “Your magic is too powerful. If you don’t learn control, it will consume you. Please, let me help you.”
    “Can you stop this? Can you really make this go away? Make me the way I was?”
    “No, you’ll never be the way you were. You’ll be better, stronger. Powerful. I will help you fulfill your destiny.” She caressed my cheek with her cool hands. “We will do wonderful things together, you and I.” She gently kissed my forehead. “Wonderful things.”
    As I looked into Claire’s cool blue eyes, I was swamped with emotion. I realized, as she held my hand, that for the past two years I’d been lonely, imprisoned behind a wall of magic and pain that separated me from my husband, my children, my friends. Alone with a power I could not control. That left unchecked, would eventually consume me.
    But Claire...Claire offered me hope, comfort, friendship. I was tired, so tired of fighting this thing alone. I looked into her shining eyes. Unable to speak, I nodded. She squeezed my hand.
    And so it began.
     

 
    Chapter 5
     
    Claire and I started slowly. She told me before I could control my powers, I needed to connect my body with my spirit and the best way to do that was through yoga. For the first two weeks I attended two daily yoga classes at her studio, one in the morning surrounded by the manicured moms who had so terrified me at the children’s school, and the other in the late afternoon, with Claire’s coven.
    My muscles, tight from two years of excessive running and overwrought nerves, soon loosened, the constant buzzing in my head muffled to a soft whir. The beauty, the Devlin beauty that peeked out after my mother’s death, was now in full bloom. Plump lips, thick curling hair, high defined cheekbones. The years fell from me and I looked no more than twenty-five. I was young, strong, calm.
    I was