Raven's Hollow. Jenna Ryan

thing I brought my lucky charm. I’ll be sure to get myself out of here and home safe before whatever storm you’re brewing up hits.”

      “I rest my case,” Molly said when the man moved along. “We’re Bellams, he’s a Blume. He assumes we’re all like our ancestor. It’s a battle of sarcastic wills. Hollow witches versus Cove ravens. Whose legends pack a bigger wallop?”

      “Well, now you’re getting weird.” Sadie used the folded preview edition of the Chronicle to fan her face. “We’re not supernatural versions of the Hatfields and McCoys, and we’re definitely not Cinderella’s stepsisters in town form. Besides, the Raven’s Hollow police chief’s a Blume, and he doesn’t believe in legends at all. So pax, and thanks for the Tylenol.”

      Sadie turned to leave, but a tiny sound from Molly stopped her.

      “Problem?” she asked, turning back.

      “No. It’s just—you look very nice today.”

      Sadie glanced down at her green-black tank top, her long, floaty skirt and high wedge sandals. “Thank you—I think.”

      “You seem more city than town to me.”

      “Okay.” Her eyebrows went up. “Does that mean something?”

      “I wonder how long you’ll stay.”

      “I’ve been here for two years so far, plus the seven I put in as a kid.”

      “I’ve been here my whole life. You have a transient soul, Sadie. I think you’ll eventually get bored with the Hollow and move on.”

      “Maybe.” She waited a beat before asking, “Is that a bad thing?”

      “For you, no. But others belong here.”

      It took Sadie a moment to figure out where this was going. Then she followed her cousin’s gaze to the police station and heard the click.

      “Ty and I were only engaged for a few months. We realized our mistake, ended the engagement and now we’re friends.” Her eyes sparkled. “A Bellam and a Blume, Molly. Can you imagine the repercussions if we’d challenged the natural order of things and followed through with a wedding? Although,” she added, “it’s been done before, and neither the Hollow nor the Cove fell into the Atlantic as a result.”

      “Are you teasing me?”

      “Yes, and I’m sorry. Really. I know you like Ty. It’s good. I like him, too, just not the way a potential life mate should.”

      Molly’s cheeks went pink. “Everyone likes Ty. I didn’t mean—I don’t have a thing for him.”

      “No? Weird,” Sadie repeated. She grinned. “Bye, Molly.”

      “Bye, Sadie.”

      With a quick—and she had to admit—somewhat guilty glance at the station house, Sadie started off again.

      The fact that it took her fifteen minutes to make what should have been a two-minute walk no longer surprised her. Ten people stopped her on the sidewalk to jab fingers at the clear blue sky. Thankfully, only three of the ten inquired about the source of the Chronicle’s forecast.

      She didn’t think any of those three actually believed in witches of the warts-and-pointed-hats variety, but more than a few of them probably subscribed to the notion that Hezekiah Blume, founder and first citizen of nearby Raven’s Cove, had, upon marrying Nola Bellam, in reality wed a witch.

      According to Cove legend, the union had led to a fatal fallout between Hezekiah and his younger brother, Ezekiel. Ezekiel had tried to kill Nola, Hezekiah had ultimately killed Ezekiel, and the entire tragedy had ended with the gates of hell blasting open between the two towns—in the literal sense back then and still in a figurative one today.

      Taking her right back, Sadie thought with a sigh, to the beginning of last night’s dream.

      Resisting an urge to swallow more pills, she pushed through the doors of the wood and stone building that housed the Chronicle.

      She’d inherited the newspaper from her uncle two years ago. Next to the techno-sleek environs she’d known in Boston and D.C., it was a New England dinosaur, complete with antique wiring, fifty-year-old basement presses and fourteen employees for whom the word change had little or no meaning.

      It had taken her the better part of a year to nudge the place past the millennium mark in terms of equipment. The employees continued to be a work in progress. But she considered it a major step forward that several of them had gone from calling her Ms. Bellam to Sadie over the past year.

      She spent the remainder of the afternoon reviewing advertising layouts with her copy editor. At seven o’clock precisely, the man creaked to his feet. “My knees have been acting up all day, Sadie. Figure you could be right about that storm after all.”

      “The weather center in Bangor could be right,” she countered. “I’m only the messenger.”

      “Said Tituba to her inquisitor.” With a wink and a grin, he limped off down the hall.

      “I give up.” Rising from her desk, Sadie rocked her head from side to side. “Call me a witch. Call everyone with the same last name as me a witch. Make the nightmares I’ve been having go away, and I’ll accept pretty much any label at this point.”

      She knew she’d be putting in at least another hour before packing up her laptop and heading home. With luck, a little overtime would help her sleep better. Unless the predicted storm arrived with thunder and wound up sparking another dream.

      “Well, Jesus, Sadie,” she laughed, and forced herself to buckle down.

      She had the ad layouts sorted, two columns edited and was endeavoring to make sense of a third when the phone rang.

      With her mind still on the article—who used Tabasco sauce as an emergency replacement for molasses in oatmeal cookies?—she picked up.

      “Raven’s Hollow Chronicle, Sadie Bellam speaking.”

      For a moment there was nothing, then a mechanical whisper reached her. “Look at your computer, Sadie.”

      The darkest aspects of the nightmare rushed back in to ice her skin. Her fingers tightened on the handset. “Who is this?”

      “Look at your in-box. See the card I’ve sent you.”

      Her eyes slid to the monitor. She wanted to brush it off as a bad joke. Wanted to, but couldn’t. Using a breathing technique to bolster her courage, she complied.

      “Do you see it?”

      Her heart tripped as the image formed. The “card” showed two animated ravens. One was locked inside a cage. The other was out. The free bird used a talon to scratch a word in what looked to be blood. It said simply:

      MINE!

      Chapter Three

      “You about done changing that tire, Elijah?” Despite the pouring rain, Rooney Blume stuck his head out the window of his great-grandson’s truck. He squinted skyward as thunder rattled the ground. “Someone upstairs must be working off one big mad.”

      “Someone out here definitely is,” Eli said, giving the lug nuts he’d just put on the tire a hard cinch to tighten them. “What were you thinking riding your bike to the Cove in this weather?”

      “DMV lifted my license last year, and the sun was shining when I started out. Probably good you came along when you did, though. My balance tends to fail me in the wet.”

      As Eli recalled, his great-grandfather’s balance wasn’t a whole lot better in the dry. There’d also been a thermos of heavily spiked tea tucked in the bike’s carrier, and likely close to half of what he’d started out with inside the old man by the time their paths had crossed.

      Right now Rooney was pushing a metal