Witches 101 by de la Cruz Melissa

Author:de la Cruz, Melissa [de la Cruz, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hyperion e-books
Published: 2011-06-08T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3

Old houses had a way of getting under your skin, Joanna Beauchamp knew; not just your skin but into your soul, as well as deep into your pocketbook, defying reason or logic in an ever-elusive quest for perfection. Over the years, the Beauchamp homestead, a stately colonial built in the late 1740s with pretty gables and a saltbox roof located right on the beach, in the older part of town, had been refashioned in many ways: walls torn down, kitchens moved, bedrooms redistributed. It was a house that had weathered many seasons and storms, and its crumbling walls echoed with memories—the massive brick fireplace had kept them warm for countless winters, the multitude of stains on the marble-topped kitchen counters recalled various cozy repasts. The living room floors had been stripped, redone, then stripped again. Now oak, then travertine, currently wood again—a gleaming red cherry. There was a reason old houses were called money pits, white elephants, folly.

Joanna enjoyed putting the house in order on her own. To her, a home renovation was constantly evolving and never quite finished. Plus, she preferred doing it herself; the other week she had personally retiled and grouted the guest bathroom. Today she was tackling the living room. She dipped her roller back into the aluminum tray of paint. The girls would laugh—they teased her for her habit of changing the wall colors several times a year on a whim. One month the living room walls were a dull burgundy, the next a serene blue. Joanna explained to her daughters that living in a static house, one that never changed, was stifling and suffocating, and that changing your environment was even more important than changing your clothes. It was summer, hence the walls should be yellow.

She was wearing her usual tromp-about-the-house attire: a plaid shirt and old jeans, plastic gloves, green Hunter boots, a red bandanna over her gray hair. Funny, that gray. No matter how often she dyed her hair, when she woke up in the morning it was always the same color, a brilliant silver shade. Joanna, like her daughters, was neither old nor young, and yet their physical appearances corresponded to their particular talents. Depending on the situation, Freya could be anywhere from sixteen to twenty-three years of age, the first blush of Love, while Ingrid, keeper of the Hearth, looked and acted anywhere from twenty-seven to thirty-five; and since Wisdom came from experience, even if in her heart she might feel like a schoolgirl, Joanna’s features were those of an older woman in her early sixties.

It was good to be home and to have the girls with her. It had been too long and she had missed them more than she would admit. For many years after the restriction had first been imposed, the girls had wandered far and away, alone, aimless, and without purpose, and she could hardly blame them. They checked in only once in a while when they needed something: not just money, but reassurance, encouragement, compassion.

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