Fifteen. It felt different from any other birthday. Maybe it was the promise that came with the day…the promise of returning to Ambrosia Hill. Mom held a match between her pointer finger and thumb as she lit the striped pastel candles. They were the color of every girl’s birthday—bubblegum pink, sky blue and the pure white of a luminous cloud. The flames sputtered and gleamed like fireflies against a dark sky at Lake Cauldron.

My heart pounded as I thought of home—my real home at Ambrosia Hill. I almost couldn’t believe I would be going back, and that this time it would be forever. The flames danced atop each flickering wick to entwine among themselves in a spirited waltz. I drew in a deep breath to extinguish them, pausing to enjoy the soft crackling of each orange flame, as if they were whispering to me, ‘Happy birthday, Zinnia.’

Mom was precise when she had placed fifteen candles on my cake. Mom always added one for luck, but not this birthday, not this cake, not this time. We grinned at each other over the smoking candles. Fifteen was the sacred number of inner wisdom and harmony, the union of both matter and spirit. It was one of the most fortuitous numbers in a green witch’s life, and Mom wasn’t going to tempt fate by adding a sixteenth.

Our apartment seemed larger now that the furniture was gone. All that remained were our suitcases and my birthday cake that Mom had been keeping inside the empty fridge, along with a set of disposable wooden forks. Everything was gone except the ghosts of our memories haunting the empty rooms and hallways. This year I hadn’t asked for a birthday gift. Mom had already given me a year’s worth of presents when she had informed the landlord we were leaving Manhattan and relocating to Ambrosia Hill. Five months had passed since that fateful day, and I couldn’t believe how, without added effort, each circumstance had fallen into place. Serendipity, fifteen candles on a birthday cake.

My last day at St. Hope’s was everything I had wanted it to be. There were no patronizing goodbyes or intrusive questions, and no scenes ending with me cursing at Liv and getting into a humiliating public display of insults in front of classmates that would no doubt go viral. No, none of that happened because no one knew I was leaving—not even my teachers.

In my formal withdrawal letter to Nancy Church, the school’s administrator and self-proclaimed mascot of St. Hope High School, Mom had made it clear in no uncertain terms that the school should handle my departure from St. Hope’s with utter discretion. My high school transcript, test scores and grades were all to be transferred to Ambrosia High for my sophomore year.

The headmistress was supposed to call for a follow-up discussion regarding Mom’s letter. I fingered the crystal that hung around my neck as I watched my mother’s face during the phone call. She was fighting to keep the repulsion from her expression. We both loathed Ms. Church.

Nancy Church was one of those overweight, middle-aged women who had been pretty in their youth, but had lost that beauty by their thirties due to lack of self-care, bad diet and poor lifestyle choices. My aunts referred to women like that as ‘faded roses.’ I’d been tempted to drop a bar of the aunts’ black soap onto her desk when I would spy Nancy behind her perch, all sharp eyes and pale peach lipstick smeared across her teeth. She’d flash me an animalistic orange smile that left me unsettled, my stomach turning. But I never did offer her the soap. I knew Ms. Church would take one look at the soap’s grim color and throw it in the trash.

Nancy wore the same attire to work every day—a bright tweed blazer with a matching button-up blouse, paired with a patterned pencil skirt and sensible flat shoes. Her chin-length yellow hair matched her canary-colored office walls, creating the illusion of a floating, grinning face in a sea of lemons. The image never failed to make me uneasy in her presence, as if it forced me to think happy thoughts and plaster a fake smile on my face.

The morning of my last day in school, Ms. Church called me into her office. I pasted on a wide smile as I stared up at the framed quote from Peter Pan that hung above Nancy’s desk—“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.” I wondered what spoke to her about that line. Who knew? Maybe if I stayed in her office long enough, Tinker Bell would show up with a pocket full of pixie dust and we’d fly off to Neverland.

It was curious, because the quote I remembered from that book was, “To die will be an awfully big adventure.” That one line resonated with me, and it was all the proof I needed as a kid to know the story was in reality quite dark, not full of light and love like everyone else believed it to be.

But for mindless people like Nancy Church, life was all pixie dust and boyish fun. It made sense. Nancy was unremarkable in every way apart from her boundless source of school spirit that never ceased to make me want to vomit. Although I had to admire her unbridled and mindless enthusiasm for our catty school no matter how much she irked me.

Nancy sat across from me, her presence filling the tiny space and her beady eyes intense as she pinned me with a knowing look. After a long moment, Nancy raised a chubby finger to point at the bloodstone dangling from my neck. We weren’t supposed to wear jewelry at St. Hope’s, a cardinal rule I broke without fail with my crystals, but for some reason, no one had called me out on it.

“I see you are fond of crystals,” she said as she adjusted her thighs to settle into her cushioned chair. “I wanted to give you a farewell gift.” She reached into her desk drawer and withdrew a saffron box. She slid the box across the desk’s smooth wooden surface, watching my face with expectation.

I stroked the soft velvet of the box before opening it. Heat radiated from within and I could sense something powerful sealed inside, waiting for me like a secret to be revealed. I glanced up at Nancy’s face, and her unsettling lipsticked grin widened as I opened the lid to expose a deep scarlet stone glistening inside. A soft gasp escaped my lips as I lifted it in the air by its rose-gold chain.

Nancy leaned closer to me, her stomach pressing into the desk. “Do you like it?” she asked, her voice eager and bright.

“Very much,” I breathed. “Thank you, Ms. Church.” I held the glittering stone up, watching as sunlight caught in its facets and danced. It was beautiful. I felt terrible about all the times I’d disliked Ms. Church. This was such a nice parting gift. I’d had no idea how much Nancy cared about her students.

Nancy waved a dismissive hand in the air as she leaned back into her chair. “It was nothing. I saw it at a Union Square Greenmarket and knew it would be the perfect farewell present for our top student. You’ve given us the testing scores we needed to be listed as one of the top three private schools in the state. Since you won’t be here to claim the glory, I figured you deserved something to take with you to remember your time at St. Hope’s.”

I nodded, unable to take my eyes off the brilliant red glow of the stone. I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. With an overwhelming urge to feel its radiating heat against my skin, I closed my hand around the crystal.

“Do you know what it is?” she asked, her beady eyes bright.

“A cinnabar.” I exhaled.

“I thought you might. Go on,” she said with a smile that pulled her lips together like a duck’s bill. “Why don’t you try it on?”

I nodded as I unclasped my bloodstone necklace and dropped it into the pocket of my uniform blazer before placing the cinnabar’s chain around my neck. It glittered against my chest, radiating warmth. Beautiful. I was flabbergasted by its intensity and touched by Ms. Church’s thoughtful gesture. I hadn’t taken it off since.

The same evening of the day Nancy gave me the pendant, she phoned Mom in a desperate attempt to convince her not to move.

Mom paced the floor in our apartment’s kitchen, multitasking as she stirred a pot of sauce on the stove while eyeballing a pan of boiling pasta. I inched closer to her to listen as I chopped cucumbers for a salad. She tried and failed to scoot away as I leaned into her so close my ear was pressed up against her head, the thin phone lying flat between us. “Put it on speaker,” I mouthed in an exaggerated whisper.

Mom responded with a nudge of her arm as she tried to turn away from my looming presence. Lucky for me, Nancy talked to everyone as if they were hard of hearing, and Mom jerked her ear away from the phone as Nancy’s voice bellowed through the speaker.

I snickered, fingering my new necklace as Nancy Church trumpeted what a loss it would be for St. Hope’s to lose me as one of their students, and declared that the entire freshman class would mourn my departure. My eyes were wide in disbelief as she droned on about how I was a pillar of character for my peers.

Mom rolled her eyes as she swatted me away. I was certain Mom knew as well as I did that Nancy was full of it and her main concern was about numbers. Since I was the smartest student in my grade, tiny St. Hope’s would feel my absence when the New York state exams were given and I was no longer attending the school to contribute to their high-ranking numbers.

Mom couldn’t hide her distaste for Nancy Church and had limited their social interactions to the bare bones of necessity. She made sure to respond with a curt yes, then sidestepped her questions.

The sooner Mom got off the phone with Nancy, the better. Mom didn’t appreciate Nancy’s disrespect of our privacy and lack of awareness of social boundaries. She kept prodding my mom’s decision for the move. “Are you sure it’s wise to uproot your daughter so soon after she’s survived a divorce? Perhaps this escape from reality isn’t in her best interest?” My mouth dropped open and there was a long stretch before she added, “Perhaps it’s reasonable to conclude that this decision is intended for you instead?” Nancy asked in a nasal voice.

Mom’s lips thinned.

Surviving a divorce? My god, she makes it sound as if we had open heart surgery and almost died.

Mom’s fist clenched and her jaw tightened against my cheek, and tension rose in her shoulders.

Nancy babbled on, undeterred. “Is the move a wise choice for Zinnia’s future? St. Hope’s is an elite school, and by transferring your impressionable teen to a public country school, you are limiting the girl’s choices for acceptance into a respectable university.” Nancy released a long exhale and continued. “She could be exposed to anything in the sticks, all manners of illegal substances, underage alcohol consumption. I’ve even heard whispers of hazing in those backwoods towns.”

Mom’s skin began to heat and I pulled away as her face flooded with color. The nerve of this woman!

Mom dismissed Nancy’s intrusive, insulting questions, and ended the conversation with a blunt, “Thank you, Nancy, for the phone call. With regrets, Zinnia will not be returning for her sophomore year.”

I rolled my eyes in response to my mom’s choice of words and mouthed, Not regrettable for me. Mom just shooed me away with her free hand, but a faint smile flickered across her face. After everything we had been through in Ambrosia Hill—surviving a haunted Halloween and her possession by Ursula Geist—the last thing either of us wanted was drama. Announcing we were relocating from a coveted residence in Manhattan to a simple life in Ambrosia Hill would be too tempting for Liv and her mean girl crew to pass up. Nancy Church’s intrusive phone call was proof of that.

After our ordeal at Ambrosia Hill, Mom had returned to the city changed. She was stronger, but tired, and the bags under her eyes had taken on shadows that cast a hollow appearance on her once-youthful face. Her slender frame had become gaunt and lanky with her lack of appetite. Even her platinum hair seemed to have lost its luster and now appeared dreary and gray, no longer resembling stardust but instead the bleak sheen of dull metal.

It was then Mom realized she couldn’t do it on her own anymore, and that I needed more guidance than she alone could offer. I was a green witch. I had magic in my heart and power surging through the tips of my fingers. I needed direction and training, but I also needed protection from things that an ordinary parent couldn’t shelter their child from, no matter how brave and strong-willed they were. Mom came to the decision that I had been right all along—we needed the aunts, we needed the community in Ambrosia Hill, and, what was most important to me, I needed the freedom to live my truth out of the shadows and in the open as a green witch. Until the world was ready to accept witches and not persecute us for being who we were, Mom understood my place was in an old house on top of a tall hill overlooking a silent lake in a sleepy village where my family and friends were.

So tonight we were celebrating my very last birthday in our former home before beginning our new lives together. With a grand whoosh, I blew out my fifteen candles, and gray smoke rose in curls to the ceiling. We sat cross-legged on the floor with my cake on top of a suitcase between us, and I smiled at my mother through the tendrils of smoke. It was a happy birthday. This was my first year to not make a wish. This time I had nothing to wish for. Instead, I saw the faces of everyone I loved waiting for me as the candles smoldered and turned cold. Mom fanned the ashen smoke away before plucking out the spent candles. Each of us held a fork in our hands.

By tomorrow morning, I’d be back home where I belonged. We were traveling light, as Mom liked to put it. Our aunts’ home was already stuffed to the gills with possessions. “Treasures,” they’d say when Mom poked fun at the clutter. It was no secret green witches were collectors of rarities, but for some of us, even the ordinary held purpose. Magic would begin inside a thought, a prayer, a soft word spoken upon one’s lips. It could also bloom from items that appeared profane to an untrained eye, such as a common kitchen spoon. But for the witch holding that utensil, it was transformed into intent, merit and purpose. The everyday spoon was then wielded for the craft. The aunts would argue that the older the witch, the stronger she was and therefore the more treasures she kept. Mom had decided, given the aunts’ hoarding habit, to sell most of our furniture, and the pieces she couldn’t sell, she donated to charity. She had enough money saved from the divorce to “just start over,” as she called it.

Earlier in the day, we had mailed out a few modest boxes at the post office. Most were priceless keepsakes that we couldn’t replace, like scrapbooks, photo albums, a collection of my sketchpads and our most cherished books that neither of us could part with. It wouldn’t feel right moving without our faithful friends and the beloved characters we had bonded with time and time again throughout the years. Anything and everything that held intimate value was sealed up and on its way to the aunts at the Fern House. I had to admit, that wasn’t a lot. The aunts had everything we could ever need. Besides, after Dad had moved to Brazil, anything we had left no longer felt like home. It had been like a dream when Aunt Luna contacted my mom, a conversation that changed both my teenage life and my entire world.

Aunt Luna had phoned my mom on New Year’s Day with some promising news that her ‘friend Frank’ had shared with her. I snorted whenever she referred to him as her ‘friend Frank.’ They’d been dating for months now, but she refused to call him something mundane like ‘my boyfriend,’ or ‘my partner,’ as if those were too young of a term for her to use.

Frank had informed Aunt Luna of a rental space available in town near the post office where he worked part-time. The word retiree didn’t exist for Frank. Supervising that tiny postal office was his own magical tonic to eternal youth.

The vacant office was basic, just four white walls and a counter, but the location was priceless, right in the heart of foot traffic with a view of Lake Cauldron. Frank had decided without a doubt that it was the quintessential location for Mom’s new Green Living environmental law firm. What was even more surprising was that Mom didn’t need convincing to contact the landlord about the available space that would be ready to lease that summer. Mom had dropped down into her chair to watch the snow fall outside the living room window, phone cradled to her ear as she listened with intent to Aunt Luna. I heard her soft murmurings through the phone and I sat upright where I’d been lounging on the sofa, dropping my sketchbook and pencil onto the floor when Mom said, “I’ll take it.”

That was the moment I knew we would be moving back. The moment when my past, present and future came together in a vision. I saw my life play out in a glimpse amongst the soft fallen snow. Images took shapes outside the cold city streets to create a window to the future that was waiting for me. Snowflakes laced together, blending into a hill, and on top sat the Fern House. Everything was going to be different.

Mom was eager to quit her job at the law firm, the one she’d pretended she needed to add value to her life for years. She spent the remaining time in the city interning with a friend at a reasonable-sized environmental law practice while she obtained all the necessary New York qualifications to switch professional focuses.

As she threw herself into her new career, she came back to life. The bags under her eyes began to recede, and her hair obtained some of its former luster, the gunmetal strands turning pale and bright. By the time summer rolled around and my birthday cake was wedged between us on a suitcase, she looked more like her old self. I knew once we were settled in Ambrosia Hill, she would make a full recovery from the trauma that still plagued her.

I heard the familiar honking of an impatient taxi as Mom boxed up the remaining cake and left it on the floor with our forks. “The landlord can throw this away for us,” she said as she reached for her suitcase with one hand and for me with the other.

We’d purchased two overnight train tickets to Ambrosia Hill. Charlie was scheduled to meet us at the station in the morning and, as always, take us to the aunts. It was a strange feeling to realize this was going to be the last time I’d make this trip, the last time ol’ Charlie would be waiting for me at Spellbound Station in his beat-up pick-up truck.

Mom was excited about the VW Beetle she’d purchased through Ben’s girlfriend, Patricia. We’d never owned a car since we’d lived in the city, and all Mom could talk about was the lime-green color of the Bug and how it matched the delicious sour limes that grew in the aunts’ garden. She was even considering painting her new office shelves the same shade of green. Mom said it would be a good reminder to her clients that green living was like walking through a forest. She said that when there were multiple shades of green surrounding a person, each shade was an imprint of the decisions they made when choosing to live their life with eco-friendly intent. I thought that was too profound for the average Joe and figured people would just see it as a pretty color, but I liked her enthusiasm.

I stopped at the foot of our apartment complex steps, my suitcase dragging behind me. I hid a smile as Mom handed her luggage to the grumpy taxi driver, a thick accent curving his speech as he grumbled about us women taking too long and that he’d already started the meter.

I turned my back to him, ignoring his words as I focused on the home I was leaving behind. The building seemed smaller than before, as if I were the one to outgrow this city instead of it outgrowing me. Manhattan had lost its appeal and luster for me. All I wanted to do was perform magic under a clear and starry night in the aunts’ garden, maybe calling the corners with my new sister coven…and of course, my girlfriend.

I shuffled from one foot to the other as my backpack weighed down on my shoulder. The summer air was thick with smog and felt sticky on my bare arms. The forecast called for record-breaking heat waves, and I was reminded again how thankful I was to be spending it in the mountains by Lake Cauldron instead of drowning in a hot smelly sea of cement and fumes.

Mom stepped beside me to wrap an arm around me as we both stared back up at our apartment building. The city lights streamed behind her, blocking out any possible glimpse of stars that I knew were in the sky, yet impossible to see. It reminded me of love… I knew it was real, but I’d never be able to see it or hold it…yet it was with me, following me no matter where I ventured in my life.

Mom reached for my free hand, threading hers between mine. “You ready?” Her voice was soft, almost a whisper.

I took one more look at the home I was leaving behind. Years of memories, both joyful and heartbreaking, stared at me from inside an apartment window on the ninth floor. I was more than ready… I was already gone.