Chapter 1
The warm summer air swirls in a cooling breeze as I bike down one of the side streets of downtown Palo Alto. There are some not-so-techy parts to my hometown, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurs swear that their best ideas were created sitting at the corner table of a certain café, and that startups are formed during walks through the Stanford University campus, as sunlight flows down through the leafy green oaks. Some visitors swear that there’s a hint of vibrant energy in the air. People call Palo Alto a little quirky or even hipster …
But I know the truth. This city is magical. There are charms and enchantments hidden all over Palo Alto—if you know where to look.
I take a sharp left onto Ramona Street when I get near City Hall, and the street narrows, edged in by stucco buildings and cardinal-red awnings, marking our connection to Stanford University.
As I turn the corner into the plaza, there’s a shout. “Hey, Ellie!”
I brake, rubber chirping against concrete, and grin. “What’s up, Ana?”
Analise, the twentysomething owner of the trendy Simple Mornings Café, motions me over from where she’s wiping down a table, her tanned skin shining golden under the sun. “Come by to celebrate the end of junior year?”
I point over my shoulder at my backpack stuffed with my laptop, a few sketch pads, and two textbooks for last-minute cramming. “Let me drop this off first. I swear, it’s heavier than Totoro and the Catbus combined. Lia and I will be over here soon to plan our road trip.”
“My new mango cupcakes are the perfect way to kick off your summer break—they’re charmed with a spark of joy. Get back here before they’re all gone!” Ana grins and waves me off.
My best friend, Lia Park, didn’t have a third-period final, so she skipped out of the last day of school early. With my economics final, I wasn’t so lucky, but I think I managed to scrape by with at least a B.
Either way, junior year is fading like the chalk-art sketches that Ana’s drawn on the path outside her café to invite customers in. I’m not wasting any more time worrying about grades. It’s officially the summer before senior year and I am not letting a second go to waste, starting with our epic road trip down to Southern California.
I slide to a stop in front of a seemingly plain oak door and lock up my bike at the rack. The door is covered in cascading ivy, and only the magic-aware can open it. Nothing about magic is plain or simple, but that’s why we sorcerers hide it from the non-magic-aware. Or what Mom diplomatically calls “the general public”—those who don’t know about magic.
The shops of Palo Alto’s Sorcerer Square are in plain sight, but this ordinary-seeming plaza has a secret side. My favorite is my parents’ shop, of course, where they sell the most energizing, freshly made tea in the city—with a hint of a joy charm. Plus there’s Ana’s bakery, where her just-baked cinnamon streusel cupcakes brighten up her customers’ days and give them a shot of courage. We’ve also got what looks like a pharmacy (but is truly an apothecary for everything from bottled charms to elixirs that fix spells that go wrong); a clothing store (useful when you need jeans that have real pockets—and magical ones to hide charms and enchanted vials); an ensorcelled vegetarian South Indian restaurant with the most fragrant spice mixes ever; a cozy gem store filled with healing crystals and magic-gathering mood rings; and an enchanted fruit shop with dragon fruit that burns with a sugary fire.
And there’s another store, opposite my parents’ shop, but …
Let’s ignore that one for now. Believe me, the whole city of Palo Alto would be better off if we didn’t have him—I mean, that place—there.
Still, annoyances aside, I love this cozy plaza, where sorcery meets reality. It’s home.
Sliding aside the curtain of ivy, I push in the wooden door leading to our living area behind my parents’ shop. The bell above lets out a loud ring! An excited yap echoes, then curved nails skitter along the hallway. One second later, a fiery, furry ball launches at my face and into my open arms.
“Mochi!” My Shiba, bright orange-red and shedding more than a spell can contain, leaps out of my arms and prances around me on her long, graceful legs, wagging her curled tail so hard it looks like it might fall off. I try not to trip as she weaves about like I’m her human obstacle course. You’d think I’d been gone for a month, not just the school day. Little Mochi is ten years old now, but her eyes crinkle up the same way as when she was two and I’d found her shivering at Heritage Park, all alone and matted with dirt.
Remy, my fourteen-year-old younger sister, looks up when I pad into the kitchen, Mochi stuck to my legs like she’s trying to become my fur. “Cam’s here.” Remy is just like Dad, with her thoughtful owl-eyes, rounded face, and thin, stick-straight hair, whereas I’m more like Mom, with her cat-eyes, sharp chin, and thick, slight waves that I’m constantly pushing out of my eyes.
Cam nods at me from the other side of the wood table, where he and Remy are working on yet another puzzle. It’s jarring to see him at times, because his light brown hair and tanned coloring are exactly like his older brother’s. But Cam’s always peaceful, and would rather spend time with my little sister than anyone else, like celebrating the last day of their freshman year with this puzzle. With the two of them both being magic-aware, their puzzle isn’t an ordinary one. Whoever puts in the last piece of this constellation-themed design gets a spark of luck that lasts a day. Remy is obsessed with working on these puzzles and collecting little tokens of luck. She won’t tell anyone what she’s saving them up for, but I’m guessing it has something to do with Cam.
“Jack says hi.” Cam grins mischievously. I playfully steal the piece from his hand. Narrowing my eyes, I slide the orange square straight into the section of the sun.
“There. If you win, give me part of your prize,” I say. “With your brother around this summer, I’m going to need all the luck I can get.” I don’t say the truth: that I wish Jack Yasuda was off at an internship like last year.
Cam and Remy snort. They know that Jack and I do not get along.
“Good thing you’re going away this summer,” Remy says. “Jack’s staying here to take care of the shop, so he won’t be at the convention, either. You won’t have to hate-stare at each other from across the booth.”
I glare at them, and they laugh with so-cute-it’s-disgusting synchrony. Jack and I were as close as Cam and Remy all throughout elementary school, but after Mrs. Yasuda passed away, Jack’s dad started butting heads with my parents about the direction of Sorcerer Square (Mr. Yasuda is all for power and fame enchantments, while we Kobatas prefer joy and happiness charms, thank you very much). Jack followed his father’s lead, and we stopped hanging out faster than you can say our friendship is cursed. He’s ignored me ever since.
Somehow, placid Remy and Cam have stayed attached at the hip, even when our families brew up a storm, and they’re usually the peacemakers. I’m usually peaceful too, but not when it comes to Jack Yasuda.
“Mom and Dad want you to check in,” Remy says as I put my backpack on the open seat. “And Jack wants to see you after that.”
My backpack drops out of my hand and off the chair, making a colossal thump on the worn wood floor.
“That was a joke,” Remy informs me, unhelpfully.
“A bad one,” I groan. “Any joke about Jack is not funny. Especially not if my laptop breaks.” Mochi happily runs a circle around my backpack and then back to me, hyper as ever. Hopefully that sound was just textbooks and not my old computer, because then I’ll have to look through the fix-it spell book to figure out how to repair it, and it’s not going to be a pinch-of-magic type of project.
Copyright © 2022 by Julie Abe