Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Cathy Lamb is the bestselling author of twelve novels, including The Man She Married, No Place I’d Rather Be, What I Remember Most, The Last Time I Was Me, Henry’s Sisters and Julia’s Chocolates. She lives with her family in Oregon and can be found online at cathylamb.org.

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a different kind of normal

KENSINGTON BOOKS

Chapter One

Henrietta and Elizabeth were inseparable from the time they reached across their mother's bosom for the other's hand. Their mother was considered to be the best witch of them all, whatever that silly statement means, and she taught the twins. They practiced their spells in the forest behind the fountains and statues on the manicured estate their mother's wealthy, titled family owned.

The twins eventually, reluctantly, agreed to marry wealthy, titled men. They did not feel it necessary to tell their husbands of a few wild years, sins committed and sins omitted, handsome men here and there, and their mother agreed, she of a colorful past herself. "It's our secret, dears," she told her daughters, a pinky tilted up as she drank her tea. "Husbands don't need to know much."

The twins' elegant estates, with lands adjacent to each other, soon held all the herbs they needed for their spells, plus Canterbury bells, hollyhocks, lilies, irises, sweet peas, cosmos, red poppies, peonies, and rows of roses, which is what their mother and grandmother grew, too.

Together Henrietta and Elizabeth had eight children who would later prove to be both saints and raucous sinners, especially the girls, as is often the case in witch families, or so I'm told.

Sadly, though, in their late thirties the twins' friendship fell apart because of a fight over, of all things, a tea set. At least that's what started it. Henrietta bought the delicate white teacups, pitcher, and creamer with the pink flowers, knowing Elizabeth loved it, coveted it, but Henrietta could not resist. They were elegant, from India, hand painted, and the flowers looked as if they could talk if let loose for but a moment. There was only that one set and when Elizabeth found out what Henrietta had done, so sneakily, she was overcome with anger.

Other rigid resentments and prickly problems, built over decades of twinship started to explode, as if the teapot had cracked in half and exposed the fine fissures between the two women. They stopped speaking to each other entirely, despite their children's pleas that they reconcile, until one pleasant Sunday in front of the church.

It wasn't hot that morning, which was fortunate, as the heat could spread such rancid diseases, like scarlet fever and tuberculosis, and it wasn't cold, which could cause a plain cough to become pneumonia in no time. There was a bit of wind, which carried off the natural odors of raw sewage, animals, rot, refuge, defecation, moldy vegetables, decaying meat, dead bodies, vagrant children, and people who had rarely bathed in their lives.

It was a perfect sunny day with no warning of the generational damage to come.

Henrietta and Elizabeth wore their whalebone corsets, white petticoats, beribboned hats, and elaborate, heavy dresses. They reached out white gloved hands to their proper husbands as they debarked from their horse-drawn carriages. Both couples and well-polished children were ready to show off their devoutness to the Lord, though church bored Henrietta and Elizabeth into an almost comatose state, the vicar droning on and on endlessly until both women thought they were perched on a shelf in hell.

The twins caught a glimpse of each other on the cobblestone path, each with a hand in the crook of their husbands' elbows. Their husbands had been chosen for their kindness, business success, and knuckleheadedness, which would allow the twins to carry on their usual witchery and spells with no interference from an observant male.

Henrietta thought Elizabeth made a face at her. Elizabeth thought Henrietta was haughty and, as if they'd been swept up by the devil's tail and smashed together, it all began.

They left the clueless, cultured husbands, locked elbows with each other to pretend friendship and deflect attention, and a quiet, but intense fight broke out, their fake smiles plastered hard on their furious faces.

Accusations were made about "stealing my precious tea set, I told you I wanted it ..." But then things escalated viciously, as fights between sisters often will. "You're always flirting with men like a peacock ... you are way too prideful about your children ... why you should get Maria married off immediately before she sleeps with another stable lad ... what about your son, Michael? Is there any girl he hasn't tumbled through the hay with? Your gowns are too low cut ... you talk incessantly ... always competing with me ... you think your herb garden is better than mine, it never has been ... you have to be joking, my herbs are always better than yours, stronger, that's why we use them in the spells all the time...."

And then, the source of true bitterness and jealousy, "I should have been married to Oliver, not you, he was interested in me before you wore your purple dress with almost your entire bosom hanging out.... My bosom was not out.... Oliver would never have been interested in you with that nose.... My nose? Dear, a big nose can be hidden with powder, but big buttocks, horse buttocks, balls and tarnation, that's not hideable, is it?"

Oh dear.

Henrietta started to mutter and Elizabeth, knowing a spell was coming forth, slapped a hand over Henrietta's mouth. Henrietta grabbed Elizabeth's flowered hat and Elizabeth clutched a handful of Henrietta's heavy skirt. Soon they toppled to the ground, rolling, whispered curses tossed through the air, uncaring about the lace petticoats flying up, the tearing silks and satins. They were quiet in their fury, because they had no desire to advertise their witchliness. Neither wanted to be burned alive at the stake or flogged or drowned or have their clitorises checked for being too pointy, one irrefutable indication of a true witch.

And they didn't want it for the other, either, despite the delicate tea set with the pink painted flowers and their mutual love for Oliver.

The deadly dull vicar sprinted out of the church, black cassock flying. He was young and naïve, and hadn't a clue how to handle two women locked in a combative fight whispering to each other. My heavens, and praise the Lord, this would not do! Especially on the Lord's Day! He had an important sermon planned, too, about how women must submit to their husbands! Submit to your master!

Their husbands, chatting the pompous chat of self-satisfied, privileged men nearby, rushed over, shock pounding all the way around their lace collars and past their white underthings. What had happened to their demure, lovely wives? What on earth were they doing? This was church, and yes, it was tiresome to be told you were going straight to hell to burn as a sinner, but still! No fighting on the front lawn, surely they knew that?

Their children watched, surprised but highly amused, especially the teenage girls, who had already joyfully learned how to quietly rebel and not get caught. Look at their fighting mothers! Pulling hair and slapping, their dresses flipped over their knees!

The witches' last, frantic roll together marked the beginning of decades of tragedy that affected someone in each generation of one of the witch's families. In the ensuing struggle one witch hissed out a spiraling curse, and before the other witch could deflect it by shooting off a defensive spell, the husbands and vicar were...