Chapter Twenty–One
KATE’S SLIPPERS WERE silent on the cobblestone street as she made her way down toward the only house facing the road. The sound of her aunt’s shoes behind her was reassuring and helped move her forward.
About halfway there, she began to feel something. It was an invisible pull, the vague feeling that there was magic in the air. As she got closer, the feeling grew until her skin prickled with it.
It was when the small, ramshackle little house came into sight that Kate began to sense the sticky ropes of magic winding around her. She tried to brush them off, and then pull them off. The more she fought against them, though, the stronger the ropes became. Within moments, her feet moved of their own volition and propelled her ever more quickly toward the house.
She worked
