Mirrored Read Online Free Page B

what?”
    “That you can take care of yourself. And, of course, she’s right. You can. Self-sufficiency is one of the few benefits of being lonely.”
    “How did you know . . . ?” I stopped. I was going to ask how she knew I was lonely, but of course, I knew: Anyone as ugly as I was would be lonely.
    I started to walk away, then turned back.
    “Once, I saved a bird.”
    I expected her to react with surprise or, at least, interest. Social interaction wasn’t a huge thing with me, but I thought the normal thing to say was, “You did?” or “How did you save it?” Instead, she just nodded, as if unsurprised.
    Maybe I should have walked away. Yet I always felt I owed people an explanation, so I told her the story. “I guess I didn’t really save it,” I concluded. “It just sort of felt like—”
    “No, you did save it,” she said.
    “How do you know?”
    “I was there. You were ten years old.”
    The hairs on my arms stood on end. How was that possible? I remembered the bird, the one I’d seen watching me. Then, the birds today, attacking Nathan and Nick. Were they related? Was it possible that the bird that day somehow remembered me, had told the other birds?
    Crazy.
    But the woman—Kendra—repeated, “I was there.” Then she waved her hand in the air and disappeared. Where had she gone? A crow cawed from somewhere. I looked down. It was right where Kendra had been standing. Then, in a heartbeat, the crow was gone, and Kendra was back.
    “How did you do that?” I felt breathless.
    I knew the answer, though. Magic.
    “There are people in this world who have powers, Violet.” The sun was already beginning to set, streaking the sky behind her in strange shades of purple and orange. “I am one of those people. And so are you.”
    “That’s crazy. If I have powers, why can’t I . . . ?” I stopped, unsure, for once, how to express the thought: Why did everyone hate me, if I was so powerful?
    “Think of what you know of witches. Does anything you have heard or read lead you to believe they are universally beloved?”
    Witches. I turned the word over and over in my head, not understanding at first, as if it was a foreign language.
    I thought about witches in books, the old woman in the gingerbread house, the green-faced crone in Wizard of Oz. But they were evil. The gingerbread witch had tried to bake Hansel and Gretel. The Witch of the West had captured Dorothy with an army of flying monkeys.
    Kendra said, “I was ten when I first started noticing my own powers. But nothing big happened until I was thirteen. How old are you now, Violet?”
    Thirteen. But I didn’t, couldn’t say it. I stepped back. If this woman was a witch, would she try to kidnap me? Bake me? Hold me hostage? I wanted to turn and flee. Yet my feet felt suctioned to the ground.
    And I wanted to stay. I needed to hear what else she had to say.Was she saying that she was a witch? Or that I was?
    Kendra chuckled, not a high witch cackle, but a low sound from the bottom of her throat. “You think all witches are evil, yes?”
    I didn’t know what to say. If she was a witch, I didn’t want to insult her—especially if she was evil. I noticed the street I’d just passed, Salem Court, named for a place where women were hanged as witches. In school, we’d learned they weren’t really witches. Now, I wondered.
    “I’ve only read about witches in books. Are they real?” I said to the woman who’d changed from a human to a bird. “Are they evil?”
    “Witches are all different, just like everyone else. Some are nice, some not. What we all are, however, is lonely.”
    Lonely. The word washed over me like summer rain.
    “But occasionally,” Kendra continued, “I meet a kindred spirit, and when I do, I keep my eye on that person.”
    “Keep your eye on me? Have you been spying on me?”
    I expected her to deny that, but instead, she nodded. “Since that day at the playground, I’ve watched you.”
    “As a