Katia Willoughby, like many a fairy tale heroine, is orphaned before her journey can begin. Fairy tales are meant to prepare us for living on our own — cautioning us about ignoring our Spidey-sense, picking other people’s roses and straying from the well-traveled path.

When Katia is fired and dumped on the same day, she reinvents herself as a dog walker — or, as her LinkedIn profile puts it, an “Animal Byproduct Recovery Consultant.” She loves animals but would prefer to resume her career as a copywriter. Fate, however, has a different position in store.

Katia unknowingly descends from an ancient line of witches who fled Italy during the Inquisition and settled beside the Black Sea. Her grandmother has spent a lifetime trying to prepare her for her destiny. Her mother, a pragmatic ER nurse, called it all nonsense.

They can’t both be right. And deep in a magic forest in Maine, something very old is waiting to find out which one is.