"Sherwood, Oregon." I took in a breath of the holier-than-thou air. "I never cared for this place."

"I know you don't have the best memories here, so we're all going to try to make sure that we can get back to campus as fast as we can with as much info as possible," Jack said.

Dr. Reed still hadn't arrived in the parking lot of Bridget Tucker's place where she sold the made-up spirit-cleansers and vibe-fixers and whatever other scams she could pull on people who were just weird enough not to see how ridiculous it all was. Her little shop had a rickety unreadable sign out front, but that was for the aesthetic and not its age or weathering.

"This lady does realize that the Salem witches were from Massachusetts and not Salem, Oregon, right?" Dominic said.

"Who cares about that? I just want to see what kind of crystals she has. I have some energies and vibes that I'm trying to keep away from me," Sierra said.

Dominic let out a sigh. "Don't tell me you actually believe in this shit, Sierra."

"So what if I do? It doesn't hurt you."

"It's stupid."

I thought it was a little silly too, but I wasn't going to tell Sierra that. What she believed when it came to witchy stuff didn't affect me.

Sierra crossed her arms but didn't respond to him. "Is Dr. Reed coming, or are we on our own now?"

"She's supposed to be here. I'll email her and ask where she is," I said.

"Don't you think we're at the point when we should probably have her number? I mean, at least one professor in every department at Tillamook probably has it."

"My paleobio professor offered me an A if I didn't tell his wife about when I saw him with Dr. Reed," Jack said.

"Did you take it?" I asked.

Jack's eyes widened. "What? Of course not. How could I sell out the truth for an A?"

"Oh." I looked down at the ground. "I guess you're just a better person than I am."

The bell at the front door rang, and who I assumed to be Bridget, dressed in a long skirt and a top that draped off her shoulders and with bangs like Stevie Nicks, waved us over.

What the hell did you get us into, Dr. Reed?

"You must be the group with the talisman. You look a little out of place," she said. "I'm Butterfly. Which one of you is Cora?"

"She, uh, couldn't make it. I'm Lindsay, and they're Sierra, Jack, and Dominic," I said and extended my hand.

"I'm getting some vibes from you. Why are you so uncomfortable?" she asked without shaking my hand and with a smile that made it worse.

"I just—" I hesitated and put my hand down. "It's complicated."

"I have some essential oils that will fix that up for you," she said. "But whoever has the real negative energy here, I can't help you with that."

My mother always liked essential oils, but I wasn't going to tell Butterfly that. It wasn't her business.

"So I thought your name was supposed to be Bridget, not Butterfly," Dominic said.

"Legally, I'm Bridget, but spiritually? I'm—" She paused. "It's you." Butterfly pointed at Dominic. "You're the one with the serious negative energy. I can't let you into my shop like that."

"Damn, that's unfortunate," Dominic said.

"Don't you have a purifying candle or sage or something you can burn?" Sierra said.

Butterfly shook her head. "I'm not wasting it on him. He's a lost cause."

Dominic looked over at me and smiled. "I'll wait in the parking lot."

"But the talisman. Don't you want to hear what she has to say?" I said.

"Not really. I don't trust her expert opinion," he said.

"Would you stop being so judgemental for one day and consider that maybe someone who thinks a little differently than you might have a point?" Sierra said.

He shook his head. "Can't do it. Ask Lindsay."

Sierra looked over at me.

"It's true. He can't," I said.

Without another word, Butterfly shut the door between Dominic and the rest of us, and the little bell at the top of it rang again.

"I'm sorry about him. He's the attractive asshole of the group." Sierra looked around the shop. "It's gorgeous in here."

With shelves of crystals, plants, trinkets, bottles, and books, old-fashioned rugs spread across the hardwood floor, and light shining through the windows, it wasn't much different from what I pictured in my head when I heard we were taking a field trip to a witch's shop in my hometown.

Butterfly smiled. "Thank you. It's the product of years of lonely work."

"Lindsay, look at this. I don't even know what it is, but the bottle is so pretty." She held a glass bottle up for me to see. "I want it so badly."

"Too bad it doesn't belong to me. Then you could just take it," I said.

Sierra put it back where it belonged as someone on the other side of the shelf flipped through a book. "Very funny."

"So, Butterfly, is there any way we could discuss this somewhere more private?" I asked.

"Of course. Follow me." She led us into a room with a sign that said employees only, which was good enough for me.

"Anyway, we're here because we found this talisman, and we don't know who made it or where it came from or how to control it. Uh, Cora said that you might be able to help us out," Jack said.

"I might," Butterfly said. "Let me see it."

Why did everyone always want to see it? Why didn't anyone want to help while it was in the safety of my pocket? Even though I didn't want to, I gave the talisman up to Butterfly, but she certainly wasn't going to leave my sight.

"What a beautiful piece. You can just feel the history and the desperation in it," Butterfly said.

"Really? It just felt cold to me," Sierra said.

"I know you know. Don't play dumb with me. What's going on?" a familiar voice said, and my heart sank into my stomach.

Over by Dominic stood the biggest reason I could barely stand to come back. As much as I didn't want to be like her, we had the same brown eyes and fake blonde hair, the same insatiable curiosity with entirely different results in where it took us.

She didn't even know Dominic, and she was all up in his face about something that didn't affect her. How freaking typical of her.

"Leave him alone, Mom," I shouted, and a rumble shook the floor. The shelves rattled, and bottles tumbled to the floor and shattered into smithereens, leaving nothing but shiny glass shards and perfumey liquids behind on the floor.

Shit.

A silence fell over all of Sherwood, even the birds and bugs. There was no fixing this.

"My shop!" Butterfly cried. "What the hell did you do? And you!" She pointed at Dominic. "I told you to stay the hell out of here."

Dominic didn't even look at her. His eyes were glued to me.

"Did—did you do that?" Sierra asked.

I slowly shook my head. "I don't—"

"And how the hell are you going to pay for all of this? It took me years to build all this up. Years," Butterfly said.

"Sure, the glass bottles and liquids are gone, but there's still some stuff left. It's okay," I said.

"You always do this. You always expect someone else to bail you out when you screw up over and over again. We told you, Lindsay, we're done. Done," Mom said.

I shook my head as the first tears began. I wiped my eyes before the sunlight could light them up for anyone to see. "I didn't ask, Mother. I didn't ask for tuition, and I'm sure as hell not asking now."

"Hm." She put the book she was holding on a different shelf that hadn't tipped over and walked out without another word.

"So how long do I have to work here to make up for this?" I asked. A tiny sob choked out of my throat, but I pretended no one heard it.

"It's gonna cost the talisman and a few years of your time," Butterfly said.

"The talisman?" Sierra gasped. "Lindsay, don't give it up. I'll help you work. It'll go by faster with two of us. Or—" she trailed off and held up two fingers.

"What?" I asked.

"The second one. Give Butterfly the second one."

My eyes widened. I forgot about the second silver talisman-like object, and I never felt any sort of connection to it or

I dug the silver one out of my pocket and held it out to Butterfly. "I have this one too. It's a little different, but I haven't been able to make it do anything for me. Maybe we just don't vibe or something."

That wasn't entirely true since I thought that maybe it somehow blocked Dominic's creepy connection to me, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was fixing this situation as best as I could.

She took it from me. "This one is even more beautiful. The tree design is more pronounced, and it feels different. More hopeful. It's been in kinder hands."

"Where did you get that thing?" Jack asked.

"And how the hell can she tell all of that by holding it for a whole three seconds?" Dominic said.

"I love it." Butterfly looked up at me and nodded. "It's no wonder it doesn't want anything to do with you."

I forced a smile and wiped my eye. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"This has all the positive energy the other talisman doesn't. It's gorgeous," she continued. "And the funny thing is that I didn't realize Dr. Hughes had another daughter after Jess."

"Sometimes she doesn't realize it either," I mumbled to myself.

"How is Jess? Is she doing well?"

"Last I heard, she was in Florida. Makes good money."

"That's fantastic."

I didn't know how to respond to that, so I didn't. I just looked over at the glass shards on the floor.

"Your mother has been one of my most consistent customers since I opened this place up. I'd be more than happy to accept this talisman as payment for the damage because of that," Butterfly said.

I shook my head. "I'm not gonna let her pay my way through something again. She did it in middle school and high school, and I'm done living like that. Done."

"Lindsay—" Butterfly began, but I cut her off.

"When do I start?"

Butterfly raised her eyebrows and hesitated for a moment. "Is it too far from your school to work weekends?"

I shook my head. "I'll be here next Saturday at eight."

She gave me a nod, and I headed out to the parking lot for a moment alone.

As I rested my butt on the hood of the car, I let out a sigh. Taking responsibility sucked.

A moment later, Dominic came out of the shop.

"If you came out here hoping that you'd see me cry, you're wasting your time," I said and wiped a little moisture from the corner of my eye.

"Nope, just came out here to tell you it's a damn miracle you turned out as okay as you did." Dominic took the spot next to me by the car with his hands in his pockets. "What the hell was that?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know why I thought that maybe this would end well."

"Well, to hell with her. She acts like you don't even try, which isn't true."

"But it is true. It's easier not to try than to try and fail over and over again."

"Sure, but you're here, aren't you? That's trying. And you try to mooch as much as you can off of me in class because you feel like you'll never catch up on your own."

I hesitated. That was true, but—

"It's not about trying with people like her. It's about tangible results, and you don't have any. Why do you think you're trying so hard with the talisman?"

"Because then maybe I'd have a bit of proof that I—" How did I want to put it? I trailed off instead. He knew what I meant.

He didn't respond to that right away. Maybe he didn't know what I meant, and that was probably better for me. I had an image worked out for who exactly I was, and if it had gotten me to this point, there was no reason to change it.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, you're where you should be at Tillamook. You're better than this town, Lindsay." The way he said my name felt oddly personal, or maybe it was just because for once he wasn't attacking my existence.

"Dominic." His name slipped from my lips without any permission from my brain. What the hell was he talking about? All he ever did was bitch about me.

He looked up from the ground to me.

"What do you want from me? This?" I held out the talisman. "Is that why you're saying all the right things?"

"I don't want that. I just want the person carrying it to be emotionally stable enough to not kill half the people on campus."

"How many people have I killed so far?"

"If you want my honest opinion, I definitely don't think it's zero." He paused for a second. "We should probably get out of here before we do any more damage."

I nodded.

"And we should probably find a way that you can keep the talisman in the correct emotionally unstable hands," he said.

"We're not very good at keeping this a secret, are we?" I smiled to myself. "You would think that the talisman would bother someone a little more qualified than me for whatever it wants."

"That chosen one shit isn't real. This group right here, we're not worthy and it's not our fate or destiny. We're all here for selfish reasons."

I didn't have a response for that, so I kept my mouth shut and took out my phone.

One new email.

I opened up the reply from Dr. Reed. Something came up. I'll see you in class on Wednesday.

As excited as I normally would have been that Monday's class (that I probably would not attend) was canceled, that was a terrible way to leave me and everyone else hanging in Sherwood.

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Hello everyone! Thank you so much for reading! It really does mean a lot, and it keeps me going. So seriously, thank you.

So what is going to come of this situation? What could have kept Dr. Reed from coming to Sherwood?