Chapter Two

Two weeks after receiving an all-caps “WITCH WANTED” message, Mika Moon drives from Brighton to Norfolk, lured by politeness, need for work, and an intuitive tug of magic. She locates the hidden gates to Nowhere House and senses a charged, wardlike crackle. At the cottage, she meets exuberant ex-actor Ian Kubo-Hawthorn and his calm husband, groundskeeper Ken, who say the main house and three children are in their care while owner Lillian is away.

They walk Mika to the big, ivy-clad house. Inside, evidence of children is everywhere. In the kitchen, Mika meets warm housekeeper Lucie and stern Jamie Kelly, a former librarian who now functions as the girls’ primary parent. The adults explain the girls are homeschooled, but they need a live-in tutor for something specific.

Pressed, Ian states they want Mika to teach magic. Mika deflects, testing whether they truly know what she is. Ian insists: they sought her because she is a real witch. When Mika challenges the idea of three witches living together, Ian drops pretense and reveals Lillian told them about witches—because Lillian herself is a witch.

Reconsidering the earlier magical crackle as wards concealing the household, Mika weighs how these children could be hidden from Primrose. Jamie brusquely calls her to the doors, where three unrelated girls—Rosetta (10), Terracotta (8), and Altamira (7)—play in a distant tree house. He recounts Lillian finding each as an orphan across the world and adopting them under new names to protect their identities.

Mika sees golden motes of power around the girls, confirming their nature. Any remaining doubt vanishes when Altamira steps onto the rope ladder and it bursts into vivid green flames, an unmistakable surge of uncontrolled magic.