back,” she muttered in a hushed tone, pushing her golden curls away from her face as the wind picked up, mirroring the internal struggle her words created within me.
“They already know we are here,” I countered, sensing eyes that viewed us as we stood in the crisp evening air, staring out at the town. “We are being watched and have been since the moment we exited the cars.”
“They can watch us all they want. Someone here knows what happened to Amara, and we’re not leaving here until we find her.”
Frowning, I considered her words. Amara had been withdrawn from me for a while now, and I wasn’t so sure she wanted to be found. It hadn’t been unusual for her to be missing for an extended period, but this one felt different. It felt wrong, and everything inside of me said to find her before it was too late to save her.
Turning, I took in the stares of my sisters, who had rallied behind me to come find Amara. Every single one of them refused to stay behind, and I loved them more for it. We were of the original family of witches, born from the same blood that ran through Hecate, the Goddess of Witches. She was my grandmother, and because of her, we had a duty to this town, one we’d escaped from until now. We’d left our mother, Freya, here to deal with the fallout, but Freya was wishy-washy and had a bad reputation for shirking her duties. She vanished soon after we did. Shocker.
Amara, my sister who I had a love-hate relationship with for the last few years, had come back to Haven Falls to secure our family’s place on the council within the Nine Realms when word had reached us that Freya had vanished without a word. It would have been troubling if it was anything new, but it wasn’t. Freya loved men, and she cared little about propriety or reputation when she took them as lovers. She hated being part of the council that oversaw the immortals entering the Human Realm from the Nine Realms.
Only those with the purest of bloodlines could sit on the council of the Nine Realms. Together they decided whether immortals were safe enough to enter the Human Realm and if they could maintain our secrets. In the center of town is the portal between this realm and the entrance to the Nine Realms. Those coming through had to check in with the council, gaining papers that made them legal to be here.
Amara came back to Haven Falls on her own, offering to hold the seat among the council. I pleaded with her to reconsider, but she refused. She’d reminded me that no immortal passing through the portal could gain entrance unless a witch of Hecate bloodline voted with the others. Still, it could have been anyone else. She’d come back soon after that, but more often than not, she missed meetings. She withdrew from everything and everyone, which made waves in this town. Amara had even withdrawn from magic, unwilling to do spells that called for the coven, claiming she was drained or sick on the days they needed them.
Upon her return to the Human Realm, she checked in weekly, letting us know everything was fine. Then weeks turned into months, and then nothing. It was as if she just vanished. We’d called her phone, leaving voice messages and text messages to no avail. Then the day came when her phone was disconnected. Calls to the original families held little to no hope. No one had seen her in weeks, and even worse, the store we ran was closed down. The bond I shared with Amara had severed as if she’d just ceased to exist. For me, it was debilitating to be unable to reach out and sense the presence of my twin. It felt like a part of me was missing, and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t reconnect it.
“Someone in this town has to know what happened to her,” my sister Luna said, slipping her hand into mine and squeezing it reassuringly. “They’ll regret it if they touched one of our own. There are enough of us to wage war if they so much as