The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches - A Novella of Found Family, Forbidden Magic, and the Terrifying Act of Letting People Stay

She had one rule: never stay long enough to matter to anyone. The children had other ideas. Mira Ashwood is a witch with a talent for two things: growing plants she refuses to name and leaving towns before anyone can ask her to stay. When a mysterious classified ad - delivered by a raven, to her moving van, on a Vermont highway - summons her to a crumbling manor to teach three wildly gifted magical children, she accepts for one reason only: six weeks, a contract, and a clean exit.
She will teach. She will not get attached. She has a list of rules. The children set her notebook on fire on Day Three. Seven-year-old Rosie hears everything people mean but won't say. Ten-year-old Felix has fire magic tied directly to his enthusiasm, which is always dangerously high. And thirteen-year-old Noa - who has been quietly holding the other two together since she was nine - looks at Mira the first night and says: "You're already planning to leave, aren't you?" Mira says it's just a job.
The manor starts growing daffodils in October. Then the Society of Witches sends a letter. The law is clear, the threat is real, and the only thing standing between these three children and being torn apart forever is a witch who packed her van at three in the morning and drove away. She had one rule. She broke it. And now she's in a government hearing room with a sixty-year-old legal loophole, a crumbling case, and everything she swore she'd never want on the line.
The question isn't whether Mira is brave enough to fight for them. The question is whether she's brave enough to stay if she wins - and what it will cost her if she finally, for the first time in her life, chooses not to run.