Girl's Guide to Witchcraft Read Online Free PDF Page A

wasn’t all that much, actually. After all, I’d been a starving grad student for years, and my library job hadn’t paid a fortune, even before my salary was gutted by the board. Before the London Disaster, I’d spent most of my time hanging out at Scott’s apartment, watching his TV, eating off his plates, using his household appliances.
    Mostly, I had clothes. Black clothes. Clothes that I could mix and match in an instant, with a generous apportionment of handmade jewelry to accessorize. My collection ran to necklaces and earrings, although I’d invested heavily in brooches when they were popular a couple of years back. Most of my holdings were cheap, scavenged at yard sales and art fairs, but a few were true treasures, garnered in museum shops and tiny galleries around town. What could I say? A girl has her weaknesses.
    In the end, though, we had to run a third trip back to my old place. Neither Melissa nor I trusted Stupid Fish on a car seat with any other belongings.
    Stupid Fish was the world’s oldest neon tetra. He’d been a college graduation gift from Scott. He’d lasted through English grad school, library school, even through London. When I found out about Scott and the British slut, I almost flushed Stupid Fish. But it was hardly the tetra’s fault that he’d been purchased by a jerk.
    And so he lived on. Stupid Fish the Superannuated Tetra. Stupid Fish, who had a ten-gallon tank all to himself, because I wasn’t about to compound my mistakes by getting him any little fishy companions. Not at this late date.
    We moved the tank by emptying out half the water. Melissa carried it to the car (she’d always been stronger than I). She’d even thought to bring a cookie sheet to cover the tank and keep the water from sloshing out as we drove across town for the last time. After she carried it into the house and set it on the counter in the kitchen, I added some spring water and watched Stupid Fish swim around. As ready as I was to be out of the fish business, I was pleased to see that he made the move without obvious trauma.
    Before long, Melissa decided to head home. She lived above Cake Walk, the bakery that she owned, down by the canal that ran through Georgetown. Mornings started at an ungodly hour for her. I thanked her a million times for helping me with the move, and she shrugged it off, like best friends do.
    She walked down the garden path, and I was alone in my new home.
    I strolled from room to room, a little amazed by the amount of space that was mine. It was the height of luxury to have separate rooms—I had lived in studio apartments for all the years since I’d flown Gran’s nest. I made a cup of tea and sipped it while curled up on my hunter-green sofa.
    I realized that I was exhausted. After all, I’d been up since dawn, packing up my old place, readying this one. It was time to go to bed, so that I could make it to work on time the next morning. Monday was a prime Jason day and I wanted to be rested.
    I changed into my preferred sleepwear, a pair of men’s flannel pajamas cut off at the knees, so faded that I could barely make out their Black Watch plaid. Making one more tour of my home, I turned off all the lights before climbing into the featherbed and putting my glasses on the nightstand. I lay back on my pillow and closed my eyes, but before I could drift off to sleep, I remembered the chilly feeling that I’d encountered walking around the cottage in the past.
    That was not the right thing to think of.
    I told myself to relax. I told myself to give in to the bone-deep exhaustion in my arms and legs. I told myself to go through the multiplication table, to bore my brain to sleep.
    Around six times seven is forty-two, I gave up. I put on my glasses and found the fuzzy bunny slippers that Gran had given me for my last birthday. I smiled at their floppy ears the way I always did. I walked into the bathroom, grateful that Melissa had latched the decorative shutters over the single