Page 13 of Enchanted to Meet You

Dina nearly spat out her drink. “Oh, right! Sorry. I forgot. Your spells always work out great.”

I laughed, but Yasmin looked confused.

“Wait.” She looked from her sister-in-law to me. “I thought there was that whole thing in high school with—”

“Honestly Iama little astonished they picked me and not you,”I said to Dina, to change the subject from Billy. “Your bakes are legendary. I don’t know why you went to law school instead of culinary school.”

“One chef in the family is enough.” Dina meant Mark, with whom she’d moved in after returning to West Harbor post–law school. Mama Giovanni wasnothappy that they’d yet to tie the knot.

“I just want to know what long-ago injustice was committed here in this town that never got rectified, and created this so-called rift.” Yasmin was looking thoughtful. “West Harbor’s crime rate is really low. The only thing I can think of that might remotely qualify is the Valentine’s blizzard of 2006. Do you remember that one?”

Dina and I exchanged uneasy glances, neither of us certain how to reply, but Yasmin, not noticing, continued. “Sal was telling me about it. West Harbor was the hardest hit area in the state. It came on so suddenly, everyone was completely unprepared, and the power went out, and some people got trapped in their cars on the interstate? But I wouldn’t consider that acrime. It was justweather. It wasn’t anyone’sfault. It was...”

Her words trailed off as she finally caught a look at our faces. Then she slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide as she whispered, “Wait.Wasit someone’s fault? Was it... was it witches? Can witchesdothat?”

“Some witches can,” Dina said. “A storm witch, especially. But Jess and I aren’t storm witches. We’re cottage witches. We can both do amazing money spells, but we had nothing to do with that blizzard.” Her dark-eyed gaze narrowed, sending me a clear warning:Do not talk about this with my sister-in-law.

No worries. The last thing I wanted to do was dredge up the memory of the blizzard I—however accidentally—had a hand in causing.

“But that’s terrible,” Yasmin cried. “Does this Witch-Council-whatever-it-is punish witches who do that? Generate giant storms that hurt people?”

“Sure.” I took a big gulp of my drink, hoping the alcohol would help. It didn’t. “It punishes nonmembers, like us, who they don’t consider true witches.”

Now Dina was rolling her eyes at me. “If the witch has a good enough reason—”

“No,” I said firmly, cutting Dina off. “That’s the whole reason the World Council of Witches was formed, back in the eighties. Too many people were running around doing horrible things to other people in the name of witchcraft. Something had to be done to separate them fromrealwitches, so this guy—Bartholomew Brewster, who’s descended from a man accused of witchcraft in Salem—founded the WCW. It started out as a tiny group.”

“But over the decades the group’s gotten bigger and bigger.” Dina took over my explanation, probably because she was worried I was going to start popping off about what really happened that Valentine’s Day. “Especially as people have found out through DNA ancestry research that they’re related to someone who was once accused of practicing witchcraft. And now Bad Old Bart calls himself the Grand Sorcerer.”

“Wait.” Yasmin blinked at us. “So aguystarted it?”

“Yes,” Dina said. “Of course a guy started it. In ancient times, it was usually women who practiced the art of healing. Every society had goddesses to whom they prayed for health, who helped supply the herbs they needed to cure what ailed them, and midwives and priestesses to apply them. It was men who began accusing these women of being witches, and the medicine they used magic, because they were fearful of losingtheir power and status in society. So they had them killed. Because men are and always have been jealous of women’s power, especially our innate psychic power, and always attempt to co-opt it whenever—”

Now I rolled my eyes. “Dina. Come on. Not all men.”

She scoffed. “Oh, really? Fine. With the exception of Mark and Sal and maybe like four other guys I—”

This was the point at which Dina’s brother, Sal, opened the porch door and stepped outside, a bottle of beer in his hand. “Well, the kids are down, finally. I had to read them two chapters of a book about a half dog, half man who solves crimes. What are we talking about out here?”

“Oh, not much.” Yasmin slid over on the wicker couch to make room for her husband. He was as large as Dina was petite. Strangers found it hard to believe the two were related. “I was just getting a history lesson about the World Council of Witches.”

Sal looked puzzled. “The World Council of—?”

“A man came to visit Jess in her shop today,” Dina interrupted her brother, loudly, “and said she was the Chosen One, and that if she didn’t implant the light of magic into a girl, West Harbor is going to be destroyed by Halloween.”

“Oh.” Sal sucked on his beer. “That’s a new one. What girl?”

I pulled out the papers Derrick had given to me. He hadn’t told me that I had to keep my mission a secret, after all. And if there was anyone in town I thought might know Esther, it was Sal.

“Oh, sure,” he said, after giving the photo a quick glance. “I know her.”

Bingo. I feigned surprise. “Youdo?”

“Sure,” he said. “Esther Dodge. Smart kid. Quiet.” After a devastating knee injury that had ended his fledgling pro footballcareer, Sal had surprised everyone by returning to college, getting his masters and PhD, then becoming principal of West Harbor High. He now ruled over our former school like a firm but gentle giant. “She’s a witch?”

“Only potentially.”

“Wait. We know the Dodges!” Dina plucked the page with Esther’s photo on it from her brother’s hand. “They own West Harbor Brewport! Yaz, we helped them with that property line dispute, remember?”