That evening, when all the Corbins got back to Rafi’s home in Boxborough, Naphtali lifted Rosemary up so she could unchain the bicycle from the roof of the car. After Naphtali brought the bike down, he and Rosemary brought it into Rafi’s enclosed porch, where it would stay until it was time to head back to Oak Ridge.

  Rosemary’s immediate family stayed at the home of their Massachusetts relatives until New Year’s Day. During that time, the family took another trip to Boston, during which time they visited the Museum of Science, which Rosemary was eager to visit every time she came to Massachusetts.

  On the days in which the family didn’t go to Boston, she had, twice, the opportunity to ride on her bike into the forest where she could collapse it and her helmet, open up her broomstick, and take flight. Cloaked so that mundies on the ground wouldn’t see her, she went exploring. She made an additional trip to Boston. She couldn’t land, but she got a chance to see the city from the air — unlike the trips she took there with her family, in which she only saw it from the ground. She flew over the much smaller town of Salem — a town which a few centuries before had hanged several people accused of being witches. Interestingly, none of the victims of that moral panic had been real witches or wizards.

  She also flew other places. Once, she even crossed the international border for an aerial tour of Montreal.

  Every night in Massachusetts, Rosemary and Serena slept with Luna and Stella having free rein of the room — yet every morning the cats were packed up and cleaned after, not leaving a trace. And though Rosemary opened her muriphasy alarm box every night, it didn’t go off once for the entire visit.

  On the morning of New Year’s Day, the Tennessee Corbins packed their belongings and had breakfast with their Massachusetts relatives. After breakfast, they loaded bags into their car. Once again, Naphtali lifted Rosemary up so she could chain her bike to the roof of the car. The Tennessee Corbins then exchanged hugs and farewells with their Massachusetts relatives and began their journey back to Tennessee.

  As soon as they were out of sight from Rafi’s home, Rosemary collapsed her bicycle helmet into a peg, and put it in its place in her flying sidepack. Less than an hour after leaving, the Corbins found a sufficiently secluded low-traffic spot where they could park. Again, Naphtali lifted Rosemary so she could unchain her bike from the roof of the car. As soon as she was on the ground with her bike, she collapsed it back into the form of the handheld cylinder and put it in her flying sidepack as well.

  The family continued traveling, and by late in the evening pulled into a hotel in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The next morning, after a continental breakfast in the hotel lobby, they continued their trip, arriving at their home in Oak Ridge by early evening.

  The next day, the Corbins were eating lunch, when an envelope from Misty Peaks floated down and landed right next to Rosemary’s plate. She opened it up and found the boarding pass for the flying carpet the next day as well as the flight information. As had been the case back in late August, the flight was USBME 103 for Misty Peaks, leaving Gate Four of the fifth-and-a-half floor of the Sunsphere at 9:00am. The only difference was that this time the date was Saturday, January 4, 2003.

  Rosemary didn’t have much packing to do, as she had only gotten home from Massachusetts less than two days before she had to leave again for school. Of course, she hadn’t used the travel port for Luna in Oak Ridge. Instead, she had immediately upon getting home expanded the exterior of her cathouse to its full size in her room. However, gathering Luna back into the fully expanded cathouse the next morning was no more difficult than gathering her back into the travel port.

  The vacation was nearly over, and so far, neither Melissa nor anyone acting on her behalf had done anything to out Rosemary to her family. She wondered if that had to do anything with the fact that they had traveled to Massachusetts, but she wasn’t sure that was the reason. After all, couldn’t magical mail reach them wherever they were? Either way, even if they did something at the last moment, it wouldn’t faze her, as now her parents knew everything.

  Before leaving home for the Sunsphere, Rosemary put a granola bar into a Ziploc bag and put that in her purse, so she’d have something to give to Sleet the hobgoblin when she got there. Then, together with her sister and her parents, she got into her father’s car, and he drove them all to Knoxville.

  Once again, after they pulled into the parking lot, the family began walking to the Sunsphere. However, now that Rosemary had her flying sidepack, she didn’t have to lug a suitcase around this time.

  Upon arrival at the fifth-and-a-half floor of the Sunsphere, Rosemary went into a changing room and changed into her school uniform — the girl’s uniform. After she came out, it didn’t take her long to find Sleet. Once she found the hobgoblin, she gave her half of the granola bar she was carrying. As before, the hobgoblin thanked her.

  In very little time after that, she found Clara, Mika, and Jesse. The four of them quickly began talking about how they had spent their winter breaks. Clara had visited relatives in San Francisco. Rosemary felt somewhat envious of Clara, not for where Clara had gotten to go over the vacation, but for the fact that Clara didn’t have to hide the existence of magic from her relatives. It was a painful thought that, even years after Rafi and Elisa would cease to think of her as a different person than the one they had known when she was younger, she would still have to hide from them such a huge part of her life — her life as a witch.

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  Jesse had visited his sister, Rhonda, a dragon trainer in Wyoming. He showed the girls three-dimensional pictures of him riding Milton, a fierce-looking reddish-green dragon, over the Rockies. “He looks mean,” explained Jesse, “but really, he’s a big softie who would do anything for a belly rub.”

  Mika had stayed home for vacation — but had been visited by relatives from Michigan. This, also, caused Rosemary to worry about what would happen the next time the Corbins from Massachusetts decided to visit them in Tennessee. How would they be able to host them if they weren’t allowed to reveal magic to them?

  A few minutes before boarding time, the four of them went to Gate Four. Once they got on board the carpet, Clara, Mika, and Rosemary sat in a row together as Jesse sat in the row behind them. The four of them continued talking about their vacation until Mr. Johnson, the carpet’s conductor, made the standard pre-flight announcements — and before they knew it, the carpet had morphed into its in-flight configuration as it hovered over the East Tennessee countryside toward Misty Peaks Academy in the Smokies.

  This time, when they landed, there were one or two faculty members present to make sure things went in an orderly manner — but there weren’t Student Council officers there to escort first-years anywhere, as everyone pretty much knew where to go. Rosemary, Jesse, and Mika said goodbye to Clara and headed to Hemlock Tower as Clara went her own way toward Hickory Tower.

  When they got to Hemlock Tower, they first had to check in with Professor Hathaway, as were all residents of Hemlock Tower. Then, Rosemary went her own way up to the ninth floor, where her dorm room was, while Jesse and Mika went to their respective rooms on first floor. She got to her room and saw that Sarah clearly hadn’t gotten back from break yet. She sat on the chair in front of her desk for a few minutes, looking around the room, fretting whether to go ahead and unpack now or wait until Sarah would arrive.

  Rosemary knew she wasn’t yet due for a check-in at the infirmary, but she still worried that they might have decided that the check-in rules she was under weren’t tight enough. Rosemary checked around and saw Sarah’s name on everything that wasn’t her own. On an intellectual level, this was enough to confirm that Sarah was still her roommate — but she obsessed compulsively nonetheless. Eventually the day would come when she’d have to learn to sleep in a room by herself — but she still hoped that at least it could wait until whoever had tried to snatch her back in November was no longer at large.

  She went downstairs to the Common Room, where for a moment she considered bringing up her concerns with Professor Hathaway. But before reaching the Professor, she decided that she didn’t want to risk making things worse by bringing the subject up. Instead, she sat on the couch and nervously pushed her feet down on the floor in pulses, even tapping slightly. After a few minutes, Lilith found her there, and started showing her three-dimensional pictures of her trip to Hawaii. Rosemary was nervous about her living arrangement, but she still tried to focus on the pictures Lilith was showing her.

  Slowly but surely, Rosemary’s effort started to pay off. She wasn’t able to fully get her mind away from her obsessive worries — but she was at least able to somewhat appreciate the pictures she was being shown. She had never been to Hawaii and didn’t know if she ever would get the chance to go — though she had heard that her father, Naphtali, had a second-cousin who lived there.

  Rosemary was telling Lilith about her vacation to Massachusetts when Sarah came into the Common Room from the corridor that connected Hemlock Tower to the rest of the school.

  “How’s our room?” asked Sarah.

  “It’s still there,” said Rosemary.

  “And you’re already unpacked?” asked Sarah.

  “No,” said Rosemary, “I thought I’d wait till you get here.”

  “Why?” asked Sarah.

  Rosemary excused herself from her conversation with Lilith and joined Sarah as the two went up to the ninth floor together.

  “I was nervous,” explained Rosemary.

  “Nervous?” asked Sarah. “About what?”

  “That they may have moved you out of the room,” said Rosemary. “Since you weren’t there.”

  “That’s just because my flight comes in later,” said Sarah.

  “But back in the fall …” began Rosemary.

  “Oh, in the fall, Student Council officers come in ahead of the others,” explained Sarah. “That way we can help everyone get settled in. I mean, isn’t my name still on my bed, my dresser, my desk, and everything?”

  “It is,” said Rosemary, “but I still worried.”

  “Well don’t worry,” said Sarah, as the two got to their dorm room. “See?” she said, opening the door. “We’re still roommates.”

  * * *

  Having had it confirmed from Sarah that she was not going to be stuck alone in a room all by herself, Rosemary was finally able to relax her nerves enough to unpack. After she was done unpacking, she put Luna’s pendant-sized cathouse in its slot on her bedside, and got settled back in her dorm for the second semester. After spending a while petting Luna, she went down to the common room. A smile came to her face as she saw not all, but most of her friends. There now was only one friend from school whom she hadn’t seen since her return.

  Rosemary’s heart leapt for joy a few minutes later when she finally saw Tom come into Hemlock Tower, backpack on his back and suitcase in his hand.

  “Hi, Tom!” she said, waving at him.

  “Hey there,” said Tom, coming toward where she and Samantha were sitting on the couch. “How was vacation?”

  “It went very well,” said Rosemary. “I went to my uncle and aunt in Massachusetts — but I couldn’t let them know about magic.”

  “Oh well,” he said, “it’s probably for the best that they don’t know.”

  “I guess,” said Rosemary. “How was your vacation?”

  “Not bad,” said Tom. “Had some cousins come in from Memphis.”

  “Memphis,” said Rosemary. “Is that where Elvis Presley is from?”

  “Not originally,” said Tom. “But that is where he built Graceland.”

  “So you liked having your cousins over?” asked Rosemary, smiling intensely.

  “Yeah,” said Tom. “They can be a bit loud, but who wasn’t at that age?”

  “Who wasn’t,” Rosemary said in agreement.

  She waved at him again as he excused himself to go to his room and unpack.

  It wasn’t much longer till everyone headed to the Great Hall for a slightly later than usual lunch. The meal was slightly more formal than usual, as a few housekeeping announcements needed to be made — but it was nothing like the welcome ceremony at the start of the school-year.