The Sawyer residence is something that, on the outside, could be on any sensible real estate website. It's a turreted Victorian with purplish-gray shutters and roofing, white walls, and an expansive stretch of lawn surrounding it on its little part of the hill that makes up Cliffside Estates. If you saw the place on Zillow, you'd immediately think of quaint little houses in quaint little neighborhoods with quaint little people in this otherwise unusual town.

In reality, however, my house--save the picture-perfect outside--could be the thing of nightmares.

When my mother and father bought the house, they said it had a good energy, which topped the cake for my mom. She was very big on people's auras and energies and lived a lot of her life based around whether she could feel if something would be good or not. Turns out, it wasn't the happy neighborhood that radiated the good energy, or the house itself, but rather, something else.

As I walk up the immaculately-paved walkway to the front porch, I can feel it myself.

The ley line, sending little rivulets of energy where it probably shouldn't be. That's what had attracted my mother and father. That's why they moved to Willow's Crest.

That's why, after my father died, my mother stayed.

Basically, ley lines are invisible pathways of energy that criss-cross the earth. Some people go crazy trying to follow them, believing the intersections to be sources of great power and magic. Since they're invisible, you can't see them. Sometimes, people don't even know they're on one. But you can definitely see its effects.

From where I stand before my front door, I can see it. How the flowers lining the walkway seem to be more vibrant, despite the decay of autumn. How the grass is still emerald green and perfectly shorn. How even the thicket of trees surrounding the back of the house appears enchanting, inviting, even in the darkest night or wildest storm. The earth is practically humming through the rattling of the leaves and the windchime near the door and calling of the birds, enticing you to follow it.

The ley line turns people into flies that'll follow until it reaches the fly-trap that is its convergence.

With a sigh, I shove through the front door, shutting it and the ley line's eerie energy behind me. "Mom, I'm home!" I call into the foyer, my voice reverberating along the picture-studded pearly gray walls and polished wooden staircase. The windows up above me cast panes of gray light on the hardwood floor, lined with intricately placed rugs and end tables.

It's a quaint little house. Maybe Zillow isn't wrong after all.

I hear the sound of a door shutting upstairs, and my mom appears in the landing spanning the second floor of our house. She's slender, swathed in matching colors of the house--gray, lavender, black, white--and donning them like a royal coat of arms. Her chestnut hair, a shade lighter than mine, is absent-mindedly coiffed over one shoulder. Her piercing gray eyes see through me even from where she stands.

My mom smiles. "Hey, Stell. How was your day?"

She descends the staircase, and I shrug as I hang up my coat and kick off my shoes. "It was alright, I guess. Hung out with Nick and Jase."

My mom's haunting eyes glint impishly. "Oh, is that so?"

"Mom."

She puts her hands up in mock surrender, walking swiftly towards the kitchen. "Alright, alright, I get it! It's a joke, Stell."

"But is it, though?" I retort, following her.

My mom doesn't answer as we arrive in the kitchen, where my older sister, Evie, is leaning against the marble island. Evie is twenty to my seventeen, and a student at Brown University up in Providence. I'm close with my sister, but in the season of college applications, she's also become the person I try to avoid most. Every conversation easily turns into an argument, and ever since she's left for college, I've felt a little rip begin to form in the rope that keeps us sisters tethered together.

"Hey, mom." Evie nods, her arms folded across her chest. Her inquisitive eyes--a darker gray than our mother's--avert to me, and I get the feeling that she's trying to read me like I'm one of the criminals she will one day prosecute in court. "Hey, Stella."

"Hey," I say swiftly, looking away casually as I shuffle to the fridge. I swing it open, scouring the fridge like I'm hungry even though I just ate.

"Don't eat anything, I'm making cookies," Evie chimes, and I grab a bottle of water just to show her that she can't read me that well. If it works when I turn around and display the water bottle in my hand like Vanna White, she doesn't show it.

"Girls." Mom must sense that we're about to engage in a silent battle of wills, because she snags our attention to where she's sitting at our round kitchen table. Reluctantly, Evie and I take a seat around it; three out of four mahogany chairs filled.

"Let's talk." Mom laces her fingers together, and I wonder if this is what she looked like when she was younger, reading fake fortunes to customers as a way to pay off her student loans. She gives Evie and I each a lingering look, as if to build up the suspense.

"What'd we do this time, mom?" Evie leans into her chair. Evie leans against everything. I think it's to somehow silently assert her dominance, like I am a student of the law. I do not need to confine to perfect posture. Instead, I will examine and observe until I see something incriminating.

"Nothing." Mom smiles. Then she returns her focus to me, and I resist the urge to squirm like a specimen under a microscope. "It's Stella's birthday on Friday."

I furrow my brows as my eyes fly to the dry-erase calendar on the fridge. Sure enough, this Friday, September 22nd, is circled in purple highlighter--are you sensing a theme here--with the words 'Stella's 18th' and a little doodle of a bat.

Oh. Right.

"I might not be able to make it," Evie says airily, glancing at the perfectly-painted nails on her left hand. "I have that thing."

"What thing?" My mom echoes. "It's your sister's birthday. You'll be there."

Evie has her lips pursed and an intransigent look in her slate gray eyes, like she's about to formulate some rebuttal into getting out of my birthday. I don't care much for it--I mean, I love gifts and cake and a day all about me, but I will be eighteen--but I almost dare her to try and get out of it.

Prove it, I think. Prove that you really don't care.

Evie must feel the intense look I'm giving her, because she slides her eyes over to me, and at first, I think it's understanding that changes her expression. But then, she leans back against her chair and when she says, "I'll try my best," I know it was really just apathy.

Something coils around my heart, but I don't let it show. I look away from Evie and back to Mom. Her smile is stretched a little thin--she can read the conflict between the both of us better than we give her credit for--but it's also a little desperate.

"So, Stel, what do you want to do for your special day?" Mom asks, her eyes sparkling.

I give the same answer that I always do: dinner at Cliff's. Ever since I was a kid, we'd celebrated my birthday at Cliff's, because they had endless fries and milkshakes and little bowls of ice cream to celebrate. My mom would bring party hats for us, and we'd look like idiots while having dinner. My sister would bake something for an extra treat. My dad would always surprise me with a little gift--a stuffed bat or bear or wolf--and it became a tradition. When my dad died, Cliff took up the post, since he and my dad were good friends.

The memory puts a melancholy smile on my face, and my mom matches it. Her eyes darken, however. Just like they do whenever she's reminded of her late husband. I almost feel bad for reminding her.

But then, Mom gets to her feet, her smile back on her face. "I'll make the reservation then. Do you want to invite your friends?"

I roll my eyes good-naturedly. "Mom, I'm turning eighteen, not eight."

"So, they'll be there?" Mom asks.

"Of course they will."

Mom and I laugh, and she disappears in a cloud of jasmine-scented perfume. I wait for her footsteps to recede back up the stairs before turning to Evie, my fury already beginning to smolder. But she's slunk back off her chair and over to the oven, peaking at the cookies she's baking.

"Let me guess," I begin, and I see her tense. "You don't actually have anything planned this Friday. You just want to get out of my birthday."

The oven door slams shut, and Evie whirls around to face me. "Don't accuse me of that."

"Is it true?"

Evie hesitates just a bit too long for my hopes to be built back up. Of course, she doesn't.

"That's what I thought." I huff a breath and turn on my heel.

"Stella!" Evie calls after me, but I'm already gone.