The next video is of a teen shifter, making the change from her beast form to her human one. I clap my hand over my mouth. This shit is downright scandalous.
The next is a close up of a female vamp who can be no older than nine, revealing and retracting her fangs.
On and on the videos go, and before I know it, half an hour has passed and Echo has taken to doing more backbend-walk-overs around the living room.
“Good Goddess,” I mumble.
“Am I in trouble?” Echo asks again. “Are you going to tell my mom?”
I realize something and click out of the feed and onto Echo’s personal page. My heart drops as I see video after video of my precious niece performing small, but unsanctioned magic spells.
“Oh, Coco,” I say, shaking my head.
“Tell me what?” Flora asks as she enters the living room, eyes narrowed, steaming cup of tea held in her hands.
I shoot my niece a look that tells her she’s dug her own grave on this one. In answer, the little butt snatches her phone out of my hand and is bounding up the stairs before my sister can utter another word.
“Goddess,” Flora sighs, staring after her youngest child. Then she looks at me. “Do I even want to know?”
I scoff. “Probably not.”
Flora tosses a hand up. Then, she says, “Echo, come here! And bring your damn phone.”
Echo shoots me a look that relays her betrayal.
Then, she heads back to her room—sans phone—with her head hung between her shoulders, grumbles on her lips.
On the list of uncomfortable conversations, the one we just had ranks pretty high. Somewhere just below the Birds and Bees talk, I would say.
Flora rubs her forehead. “She’s only nine,” she says, after we hear Echo’s bedroom door close on the second floor. “We would have been given a scalding if we’d been caught doing half the things those children are doing on that app when we were their age. Not to mention filming it and posting it for the world to see.” She points at Echo’s smartphone where it sits on the nearby end table as though it is something expired and has begun to stink. “Whoever is behind that clever little spell is in for it if they get caught… I wonder if the Sisters Superior know about it.”
I think of earlier this morning—Goddess, how could that have just been this morning?—and how Olympia Owens, our local Coven leader, had shown up at the police station, lawyer in tow. If local chapters had that kind of insight and power, I didn’t doubt the Superiors, of which there were only five in the world, knew about the magical side of the TiMo app.
I say as much to my sister. Then add, “I bet it’s more a question of, they don’t yet know how to stop it.”
“Ugh, fuckin’ kids these days,” Flora grumbles. “Too damn smart by half.”
“That’s the truth,” I agree. I meet her gaze, the worry that’s been spiraling in my gut since this morning is reflected in the hazel of her eyes. “The world’s just changing, sis, and the young ones are rising to meet it.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re about to drop a bomb on me?” Flora asks.
Because she is my sister. Because she knows me too well.
I am afraid even as I speak the words, but I am relieved as well, if only marginally. “I have to let the Pack know what I witnessed… I have to, or I don’t know if I can live with myself.”
I expect her to argue, to mention the contract I signed, or the safety of the children whom we both love so much.
But all she says is, “How do you propose to do that?”
And I’m not sure if I’ve ever loved her more than right in this moment, which is a feat based on the sheer magnitude of my affection for her.
12
9:45 p.m.
“Umm, are you going on a date?” Flora asks as she stands in my doorway, taking in my appearance.
My cheeks go a little red. “Shut up, you butt.” I check my reflection for the hundredth time in the mirror. “Is it too much?”
I’m wearing black skinny jeans (which, Echo recently told me, apparently marks me as an “old person”) and a red v-neck t-shirt with black wedge boots. My blond hair is pulled back into a loose pony, and I’ve gone to the trouble of applying mascara and red lipstick.
“You look beautiful,” Flora says. “I was just messing with you. Sam should be here soon to stay with the girls.” She holds my gaze in the reflection of the mirror as she says, “So we’re really doing this.”
It is not a question, rather a resigned confirmation.
I nod. A lump has formed in my throat that I can’t seem to swallow past.
“Because once the cat is out of the bag, there won’t be any shoving it back in,” Flora says.
“I know.”
Flora nods, looking down in thought, as if she is contemplating trying to talk me out of it. “Okay,” she says at last. “Let’s hit the Harbor.”
We head downstairs in silence. The doorbell rings just as we reach the foyer. The camera poised above the door outside reveals that the caller is Samantha Salazar, a teen witch we pay to babysit the girls on occasion. She is just old enough to be responsible, and young enough for both Echo and Winter to really get along with.
The night is quiet as we step out onto the porch and descend to the sidewalk. “You don’t have to come with me,” I say. “I can go alone.”
Flora snorts. “And what? Pantomime what you witnessed? You can’t speak or write about it, remember? That paper you signed guarantees that. I, however, am under no such constraints. And, anyway, you think I’d let you go into another territory in this city
