Read Along with the Audiobook

Brooke silently recited The Code, the creed she had committed to memory over a dozen years ago, cultivating the right frame of mind in preparation for working with magic. It was still amazing to her that she even had magic to work with. She’d been seventeen before she’d stumbled on the power that lived within her.

It happened during her post-grad weekend, when she was camping out with her girlfriends – Morgan, Sharon, Katie, Tina, and George’s twin sister, Lissy. They had set up their tents in the wooded area on Tina’s grandparents’ farm outside of Spokane Valley. The proms were over, the diplomas gathered, the formal dresses packed away. They had this one last weekend together, a gal’s weekend – no guys invited. One last weekend to remember what it was like to be kids together, to swim naked in the pond, and stay up all night, and eat junk food, and drink beer, and talk about their current boyfriends or the ones they hoped to meet. They’d done plenty of camping in this very spot whenever the weather allowed… This time, however, there’d been an urgency to it, a sense that the adult world was closing in on them. In only a few days, they’d be splitting up to go to summer jobs and colleges, and their little group would never be quite the same again.

It was cold and dark when Brooke got up to pee. The fire had gone out but she’d huddled hopefully over the fire pit and stretched her hand towards the blackened pile of spent wood. All she had wanted was to feel a little warmth still radiating from it. Instead, a sudden golden blaze erupted skyward from the ashes as if she’d dumped gasoline on them. Instinct helped her leap backwards out of the way, but not before she’d lost one of her eyebrows and just above it, about a half inch wide strip of hair . She feared to think what might have happened if she hadn’t fallen asleep with her hair still pulled back in an untidy ponytail….

The fire quickly settled down to a low and tidy size, although the flames retained an odd golden color, almost like melting amber. When the girls emerged from their tents in the morning, the fire was still burning brightly despite the fact that Brooke hadn’t added a single stick of wood.

Katie and Sharon pulled out the cast iron skillets and made a reasonable bacon and egg breakfast, with just enough char on the edges to give it an authentic camping flavor. They’d had no idea it wasn’t an ordinary fire they were cooking over. George’s sister, Lissy, made some lumpy pancakes. Afterwards, Tina fed the leftovers to her bad-tempered wiener dog, Jake, although Morgan lectured her on why it wasn’t good for him. Morgan was sure to be right too – after volunteering at the local animal clinic every summer since forever, she was already taking classes in order to pursue her dream: a degree in veterinary medicine. Brooke picked at her own plate, and in the end, Jake got her food too – but not until Morgan wasn’t looking.

Everything was normal, as if nothing had ever happened. Maybe nothing had happened, Brooke reasoned. The fire pit got used a lot. Hell, Tina’s dad burned trash in it regularly, and last year, Lissy had burned her diary in it (along with photos of her cheating ex-boyfriend and six stuffed animals he had given her over the course of their rocky relationship). Maybe something had been buried, some leftover piece of garbage that had flared into life just as Brooke reached towards the ashes. Maybe it was all just coincidence….

She tried to shake it off, joining in the conversation and helping herself to a bowl of Fruity-O’s. But it was hard to ignore the cold spot in the pit of her stomach that said there were no coincidences.

When the tents were struck and everyone had packed up and was heading for the house to coordinate who was riding with whom, Brooke was left alone to stare at the fire. Having volunteered to put it out, she stood ready to “pour and stir” with a five-gallon bucket of water and a stick. She had no idea what instinct prompted her next move. Brooke stretched her hand in the direction of the campfire and clenched her fingers into a fist. At once, the flames died down and vanished as if they had never been. Shocked, she poked at the pit with the stick, and then finally with her fingers.

The ashes were stone cold.

“Pretty good trick.” The voice that had her jumping belonged to her very best friend, George Santiago-Callahan. His hair was platinum blonde and flat-topped that day, his fingernails painted black.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

George rolled his eyes. “Duh, I’m here to pick up my sister. Good morning to you too, sunshine. Say, any good ghost stories keep you awake? I could use some ideas for a new comic.”

She’d stared at him. “Didn’t you just see what happened?”

“Sure I did. It was really cool. So?”

“Did that look normal to you?”

“My grandmamma used to do it all the time. She tried to teach my mom when I was little, but it never worked for her.”