Page 22 of Enchanted to Meet You

“Well, okay, maybe not while working out, but definitely while doing math and stuff as opposed to vegging out in front of the TV.” I turned to my tote bag and began rifling through it. “Here, I brought you some brownies, homemade by my friend Dina. She’s an amazing baker—”

As a fellow cottage witch, Dina was also as aware as I was that cocoa, butter, and sugar promoted feelings of peace and harmony, both of which came in handy when trying to make friends with a possible teen witch.

For the first time Esther actually looked interested in something I was saying. She leaned forward so that she could see into my tote. “Are they vegan brownies, by any chance?” she asked. “Because I’m vegan.”

I winced. “No. Sorry.”

“Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try one.” Esther shrugged her slim shoulders as I pried the lid off the container, and the scent of fudgy brownie filled the air.

“Here you go. Help yourself.”

“Thanks.” Esther selected one of the smaller brownies and bit into it delicately. A second or two later, her face transformed, going from merely pretty to outright beautiful as she smiled—a genuine smile this time, not one of politeness. “Wow. This is really good.”

Was this it? Was this the light? Had I implanted it merely with my presence and Dina’s good baking?

But no, it didn’t appear so. Butter, cocoa, and sugar were merely making her happy.

“Thanks. So, uh... your parents own the West Harbor Brewport?”

She nodded, concentrating on the flavors in her mouth. “Yes.”

“That’s a great place. I go there a lot. I belong to a team that competes on Tuesday Night Trivia.”

Her smile turned polite again. “Oh?” The median age of attendees of the Brewport’s trivia night was around thirty-five, so I could see how this information was not exactly impressive. “My mom and dad want me to start hostessing there. They want me to ‘come out of my shell’ as they call it.” She made air quotes with her fingers. “And also learn how to manage my money and develop a strong work ethic—which I think I already have, but whatever.”

“Oh, really?” I pointed at the book in front of her. “You look like a hard worker to me. Doing homework at lunch?”

“Oh, this isn’t homework,” was Esther’s surprising reply. She’d finished her first brownie and was now digging into the plastic container for a second, larger piece, her veganism apparently forgotten for the moment. “It’s a book I’m reading for fun. Did you know that the first citizen of America ever to be tried and hanged for witchcraft was a woman in Hartford, Connecticut? And it happened in 1647! That’s almost fifty years before the Salem witch trials.”

I stared at her. “I did know that.” Hadn’t Sal—and Dr. Garcia—said this girl was shy? She didn’t seem shy to me. Also, had she saidwitchcraft? She was reading a book on witchcraft forfun?Had the light been implanted when I wasn’t looking? “Are they teaching that in U.S. History now? Because they sure didn’t when I was in school here.”

Esther snorted. “Oh, please. I only know because I saw something about it in the Tricentennial Celebration stuff. A ton of women were accused of witchcraft right here in West Harbor. Or rather, the settlement that would go on to become West Harbor in the seventeen hundreds.”

“Oh.” Of course. Rosalie was head of the Tricentennial Celebration Committee. She would have made sure that information about her witchy great-great-grandmother got out. “I see.”

“I thought it was so interesting, I went and asked the librarian here at the school library if there were books about it, and she found this for me.” She peeled back the book’s cover so I could see the title:A History of Witch Trials in Western Europe and the U.S., 1500–1700.

“And how are you liking it?” I asked, ridiculously nervous about her reply.

Esther took a swig from her water bottle and shrugged again. “I don’t know. Obviously, it’s pretty upsetting. So many of the people who were accused of witchcraft in those days were women who’d inherited wealth or property from their husbands. When they didn’t want to remarry or sell their property to certain men, bang! They were found guilty of fraternizing with the devil, hanged, and that property suddenly went to their neighbors. Pretty convenient, don’t you think?”

I nodded and broke off a piece of one of the brownies in the container, then shoved it into my mouth to keep myself from saying the wrong thing in reply.

“And some of the other accused,” Esther went on, having gotten a good head of steam going, “were just people other villagers had it out for. Midwives who’d had a baby die on them through no fault of their own, or poor women who spoke ill of the rich men in charge. The whole thing is simple misogyny. One woman got accused because her neighbor saw her dancing under a tree after a couple of glasses of wine. Can youimagine?”

Thinking of Rosalie, who would definitely complain if she saw her neighbor dancing tipsily under a tree, I said only, “I could, actually.”

“And here’s what gets me: people—especially women—are still being accused of witchcraft today, all around the world. We need to set an example that persecuting women for their beliefs is wrong. Massachusetts has officially exonerated everyone who was executed for witchcraft in Salem. That needs to be done everywhere.”

Oh my God. This was it. This had to be it. The light had been implanted—byeducation. All I’d had to do was show up with brownies and listen.

“Maybe that’s something you could help with,” I suggested.

“What do you mean? Like go into politics?”

“Well, no, not that, exactly.”

I was really floundering here. There had to be some way I could find out if Esther was the Bringer of Light before the bell rang, and she had to return to class. Why hadn’t Derrick given me more information about just what, exactly, I needed to do in order to determine whether or not this girl was right for the job of saving West Harbor?