Blood Ties by Gina Whitney

disappointed.
    “Yes. It is done. Now we wait.” Evelyn burned the incantation in the chalice. She dumped the ashes into her palm and then blew them into a cauldron in the fireplace.
    And to think, I used to make s’mores in that.

Chapter Ten
    You can’t stop the future. You can’t rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret…is to press play.
    —Jay Asher
    “G race, do you like it? I made that recipe up myself,” said Aunt Evelyn, fishing for a compliment about the dinner spread she had put out.
    “Oh, yeah…great,” I said, pushing my dry meatloaf around the flower-trimmed Correlle plate. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. My fork scraped through the sugary, ketchup-ed snail trails of some strange concoction Aunt Evelyn called a glaze. Whatever it was, two more bites of it would have induced a diabetic coma. That didn’t bother Julie, though. She gobbled down her chunks of beef like her life depended on it.
    Inside I was feeling like the female counterpart to Atlas, and was wondering how I would navigate this new life as some kind of crazy hybrid. Pondering the surreality of it all. On one hand I was being initiated into some hidden magical world, populated with crazy-ass, cannibalistic assassins and Morpheus-and-Trinity-type protectors. On the other I was asking Aunt Evelyn to pass the mashed potatoes and lumpy gravy.
    Because I was still in such a state of shock, my mind had not seen fit to list the thousand commonsense questions it should have…except one. “Why did I dream about Samantha’s murder? You know, as it was happening?” I asked, watching Aunt Evelyn cut her meatloaf into perfect squares.
    She put her fork down and wiped a bit of ketchup from the corner of her mouth. “Grace, that is because we all descend from the original coven. We are all somewhat connected to each other. Some witches, apparently, have more of a psychic tie to the group than others…like you for instance.”
    “Oh,” I said, now prepared with a more substantial question. “Aunt Evelyn, who exactly are we? You gave me a little background, but it’s obvious I need to catch up a wee bit more.”
    Aunt Evelyn pushed back her chair and began to speak like she was a shaman telling little children a story. “In the late 1600s, we were one large coven of peaceful witches, descendants of others who came from many continents. One big family, so to speak. We had maintained the magical traditions of our ancestors even though we were regular mortals. We lived quiet and contented lives, only using our magic for worship and, if the need arose, for continuance of the group.
    “That was until one of our men returned from a long journey speaking about rumors of religious killings in Salem. At first we couldn’t fathom such atrocities being committed by so-called civilized people. But, taking no chances, we decided to sequester ourselves from the general population, not knowing how the Salem executions would affect us. However, that didn’t help. Some of those pious fanatics made their way to the area near our settlement. At first the interlopers came with smiling faces and good cheer…”
    Aunt Evelyn started stroking her hands, as if the recollection of events frosted her skin and she was trying to warm back up. “They began encroaching on the lands of the natives, stealing it through deception and brutality. Justifying their actions by saying it was some kind of divine right…that their lord had blessed them. And maybe what happened to us was some retribution for not taking a stand when others in our midst were in trouble.”
    I watched Aunt Evelyn squirm in her chair, trying to find a position that would somehow make the story easier to tell. None of them worked; she got up and made her way to a large bookshelf on the other side of the room. Her fingers ran across different subjects such as astrology, history, politics, and mythology.
    “Aunt Evelyn, are you okay?” I asked, genuinely concerned about the washed-out