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hand. Look at your arms. What’s good about that?”
    “How could it just ‘come together in our favor’ then? That doesn’t make any sense.”
    “There’s a lot of things that don’t make sense in this world. You should know that by now.”
    “See? You pretend to know all about this stuff. But you really don’t know anything.”
    “I know that hurting yourself won’t save Ryan. I know that inside you is a strong, passionate girl that’s tearing herself apart because the boy she loved sacrificed himself to save her.”
    Her lip quivered. The tears streaked down her cheeks. Lockman remembered a time when those tears would have smeared black makeup all over her face. She had stopped wearing makeup altogether. Stopped spending much time at all grooming herself outside of showering and brushing her teeth.
    What had happened to them? He felt more distant to her now than he had the day she showed up at his door in Los Angeles with the news that she was his daughter.
    “Jess, your mom and I are worried about you. You can’t keep this up.”
    She looked at her bleeding palm.
    Lockman chided himself for not taking care of that right away. “Christ. Let me get the gauze.”
    “No.” So soft, Lockman almost didn’t hear her.
    “You’re done with this…” He gestured to her setup. “This crap. You can’t do magic. Face it.”
    She continued to stare at the blood on her palm. “You’re lying.”
    He clenched his teeth and spoke through them. “Blow that candle out and come with me to the bathroom.”
    “I can feel it.”
    He stalked toward her. Scooped up the book and snapped it shut— The Beginner’s Guide to Witchcraft written in a Gaelic font across the cover. Utter tripe. He tossed the book aside and went to grab Jessie by the arm to take her with him.
    “No.” She balled her cut hand into a fist. Blood oozed down along her wrist. A drop of it fell into the candle’s flame.
    A blue spark flashed off the wick, so bright it turned Lockman’s vision white for a second. The light bulb in the ceiling light exploded. A crackling fizz rang throughout the whole cabin, accompanied by more popped lights. The numbers on the digital clock on Jessie’s nightstand flickered out. The hum of the window unit air conditioner in the living room fell silent.
    Lockman heard Kate shriek.
    A second later, the front door opened and shut and Teresa asked, “What happened? My cell just cut out.”
    Lockman stared down at Jessie, a cold, thick feeling rising in his throat. The saliva in his mouth evaporated.
    Jessie looked up at him, eyes wide, body trembling. She opened her hand. The blood had disappeared. The cut itself looked cauterized. “Oh, fuck.”
    When Lockman tried to swallow, his throat closed. Daylight still came through the bedroom window, but it felt like the shadows were closing in on him. “You didn’t do that.”
    His words blew away like flakes of ash, insubstantial.
    Jessie smiled. “Yes I did.”

Chapter Eight
    Hands trembling, Lockman took it all away. The candle, the book, her chalk. He smeared the pentagram Jessie had drawn on the floor with his foot. Then he started checking her dresser drawers.
    “What are you doing?” She leapt to her feet and grabbed at his arm.
    He wanted to shove her away with all his strength. Instead, he turned to her. “I’m searching your room. And anything I find like that,” he pointed at the pile of items he’d gathered up and set on the bed, “I’m taking out back and burning.”
    “You can’t dig through my things.”
    His jaw locked. “What’s it going to take to convince you? This is a dark road you’re headed down.”
    “I can use this power for good. Like I did with Mom. Like I did with—”
    “No.” He slashed a hand through the air as if that could cut off all argument on the subject. “This ends here.” He pulled her top drawer open and rifled through socks and t-shirts. Found nothing. He slammed that drawer shut and went for the