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of many, wildly varying accounts that Alice collected over the day. They were so different that she couldn’t even pick out a thread of common knowledge to call truth.
    “Did you hear that it was her idea in the first place? To go swimming? Yeah, she totally dragged her little sister into the pool and then she drowned when Eva was swimming around. God, it’s like she murdered her own sister.”
    “Yeah, when she realized where her sister was, she ran outside and dove in after her, but it was too late. The kid was lying face down, just floating there. Eva totally lost it, I heard. Like she was freaking out so bad, she almost drowned too.”
    “Her mom told her to babysit, but she was making out with her boyfriend in the backyard and neither of them noticed until … ”
    Alice walked across the parking lot, running through story after story. The only thing she’d really managed to do was stoke her already burning curiosity. Not that she would be able to figure out whether there was a curse or not from mere rumors. She would Google the story again as soon as she got home, maybe find a few more facts …
    “Hey!”
    Alice stopped short. She recognized the voice though the only time she had heard it before was in a whisper, and now Eva was almost yelling.
    “Alice, right?”
    Alice turned to see Eva running toward her, backpack slung over her shoulder, jingling. Eva wasn’t exactly smiling, but she looked as close to happy as Alice had seen her, eyes glittering as she slowed to a walk.
    “Are you doing okay? I’ve been wondering.”
    Alice found herself suddenly tongue-tied. She had too many questions to know where to start, what to say. “Yeah,” she finally gasped out.
    “Oh good, good.” Eva nodded and broke into a smile—the first one Alice had seen. When she smiled, Eva looked like a different person; there was an unexpected warmth about her features.
    “Yeah,” Alice said again. An image of Eva pulling her sister out of the pool, cradling the dead girl in her arms, popped into her mind for no apparent reason; she blinked hard, unsettled.
    “I wanted to ask you … ” Eva continued, “what happened? You know … when you …”
    She didn’t need to finish the sentence. Alice knew exactly what she was talking about. As she decided how to answer, Eva’s eyes searched her face intently. Her smile disappeared and she looked more severe than ever before. Alice’s heart raced. What if she told Eva the truth? What if Eva already knew the truth? She had seemed so certain of herself when she helped Alice to rein in the spell, that Alice—at least for a second—had been sure Eva had some knowledge of magic. But now that they were standing face to face, now that Eva had that look on her face, it was easy for Alice to second-guess herself. Maybe Eva had just gotten lucky—given advice without really knowing what she was doing.
    Alice decided to play it safe, to make Eva show her hand first.
    “It was … it was a panic attack,” Alice improvised. “I get them sometimes. Had them ever since I was little.”
    Eva nodded. “Right,” she said flatly. “I thought that it was probably something like that.”
    Alice looked down at her feet. Maybe it really hadn’t been something more. But she had to know for sure—had to push just a bit more. “You really helped me. How … howdid you know what to do?”
    Eva shrugged. “Oh, you know … I just figured. You know, that’s what they say you have to do if you’re having an anxiety attack. Take deep breaths. In and out. I just recognized the symptoms and … ” She was rambling and she seemed to know it. She stopped, bit her lip, and looked Alice straight in the eyes. “Were you warm at all?”
    “Was I warm?” Alice repeated, a little flutter of hope rising in her stomach.
    “There was a moment when I was really hot. And I wasn’t sure if I had a fever or something. Did you feel anything like that? Or was it just me? I just … wonder if I might be