Page 28 of A Witch's Guide to Surviving Halloween
“I hear you, but just consider it for a second.” Lucy holds out an appeasing hand as she jumps to her feet, suddenly full of frantic energy and a need to help. “All witches know that magic grows stronger every day leading up to Halloween and then falls back to its lowest strength the day after. Grandma cast the curseonHalloween, but tried to reverse itafter. It’s possible she didn’t have the magical oomph to back up what she was trying to do, and then the bakery boy left before the next Halloween came around. She had no reason to believe he’d ever come back, so sheprobably let it be. But we are right around the corner from the biggest magical powerhouse of the year,andthere are two of us.” She flashes me a conspiratorial smile.
“Luce . . .” I start, but she gives me those puppy dog eyes I can never say no to.
“Oh, come on! What’s the worst that could happen?”
I throw my arms out to the side as if one gesture can encapsulate the entire town. “Um, hello? Have you not been paying attention? Flying ballerinas, dancing skeletons, gibberish-speaking tourists, and a total blackout?”
“I know, but . . .” Lucy bites her lip as if holding back words that she might regret.
“But what?” I ask reluctantly.
“But you like him.”
I laugh in disbelief because of all the reasons to risk the entire town’s safety, and the festival, that must be the saddest one. “So? It’s quite literally magic. If this were a young adult book, it’d be the type of insta love people tear to shreds for being too cliché.”
“I just want you to be happy.” Her voice becomes quiet and cautious, as if her next words might break what little composure I’ve been holding on to. “You haven’t been happy for a long time.”
“I’m happy,” I argue, but the rebuttal is weak, my posture falling as I lose all resolve.
“No, you’re pretending to be happy. It’s not the same thing. Ever since Grandma’s health started to decline a few years ago, you changed. You don’t smile or laugh anymore. Not really. Not like you used to.”
My gaze falls to the floor, and my shoulders start to cave in on themselves. Her words punch me in the chest, and tears instantly start hovering on the edge of my lashes. I want to argue, to tell her that she’s wrong. I want to straighten my spine the way Grandma would’ve done, just as I’ve been doing everytime someone asked if I was fine, but I can’t. I’ve been trying to hide it, to bury the emptiness so far beneath my work ethic and fake smiles that no one would find it. But clearly, I’m not as good at hiding my pain as Grandma was.
Just like with everything else, I can’t live up to the legacy Grandma has left me. Not even in this.
“Please,” she pleads quietly, a shadow of only moderately forced optimism behind her small smile. “Let’s just try.”
“Fine.” I push myself to my feet, swiping at my eyes as I shake off the weakness I’d let enter my posture. “But if we blow up the whole block, I’m blaming it all on you.”
Lucy rolls her emerald eyes and throws the diary down on a nearby box. “Oh, please, like everyone won’t be thinking it already anyway.”
We both roll our shoulders and shake out our arms as if preparing for an Olympic event.
She holds her hands out to me, and after one last moment of hesitation, I take her fingers in mine.
“Ready?” She beams, a mischievous glimmer in her eye.
“No.”
“Oh good! On three. One . . . two . . .” We nod in unison as she counts, never breaking eye contact.
“Three,” we say together, and then, as if in a trance, we repeat the curse in reverse.
Reversal spells are always an odd one because sometimes they take all my concentration, and other times, they come as easily as breathing. This time, it feels as though the magic is feeding me the words, placing them on my tongue like precious drops of chocolate. With each one, the air between us starts to hum, a rumble that starts deep in our chests until it becomes a palpable thing in the space between us.
We have to shout the last words at each other as Ashwood Haven’s magic—an invisible swarm of swirling energy—surrounds us. The moment we finish, it explodes.
There’s no white light or deafening noise like in the books. It’s a ghostly force that surges out from where it has gathered in the small space between us. It plummets into our chests and then through us in a wave that has even our hair lifting on a phantom wind.
We share identical expressions of shock and awe as the wave of magic expands out, past the walls of the bookstore and across town with enough force to shake stray dirt and dust from the ceiling. We stand in frozen silence for one second and then another.
“Do you think it worked?” Lucy whispers.
Then Marilyn screams.
Chapter Twelve
We don’t hesitate. Within moments, Lucy and I are bolting up the stairs and through the back room. We burst onto the sales floor of Moonlit Pages and pause long enough to pick our jaws up off the floor, trying to process the utter chaos before us.
