Page 51 of Enchanted to Meet You

“Jessica. You live a block from the beach.”

“Yes, but my home’s not vacant. And Idolock my doors. I even sprinkled salt across my threshold, like any decent witch—”

“What about protection against nonsupernatural entities?”

“Who would want to break in here? I don’t have anything worth stealing.” No one wants Limoges anymore. Great-Aunt Ruth’s candlesticks, maybe...

“What about the book?” he asked.

“What book?”

“The one written by the local woman. The grimoire the love spell came from.”

“Oh,thatbook. Don’t worry, I keep it in a safe space. No one will ever find it.”

Now Mark was texting me as well as Dina:

Scungilli:Use protection! You don’t know where that filthy warlock has been!

“Besides, I don’t know that Goody Fletcher was a local woman.” I really needed to switch off my phone. “My mom bought her book at an estate sale in East Harbor, but who knows where it was from originally.”

LegalBeagle:Mark, how many times do we have to tell you that the term witch is gender neutral?

Scungilli:You better hope for Jess’s sake he’s not gender neutral.

“Have you ever researched her?” Derrick asked.

“No, I never bothered. Records from that time period are impossible to find. There was a flood that destroyed most of the town records—”

“Yes, I know, in the early eighteenth century. Then there was the fire that took out most of the town in the early nineteenth century. And I’m not even going to mention the smallpox epidemic in the seventeenth century, or the influenza that wiped out half the population just after the First World War—”

I hesitated as I headed for the wine refrigerator. “What are you saying? You don’t think—”

“That every ninety years or so since it was settled by Europeans, a disaster of epic proportions befalls West Harbor? Yes, I do. And it’s overdue for another one, unless you and Esther can stop it.”

But if that was true, did that mean the rift had nothing to do with me? What about all of those people who’d nearly frozen to death out on the interstate during the blizzard Rosalie had summoned?

Pop!I’d been tugging on the cork of a bottle of pinot noir, and startled myself when it suddenly came free.

“But why?” I asked, trying to sound casual. “What did West Harbor’s early settlers do to put a curse on the town?” I poured two glasses of wine. “If it’s because they slaughtered or enslaved Native Americans, lots of towns in New England did that. Why aren’t Hartford or Greenwich facing a supernatural threat?”

“How do you know they aren’t?”

Thanks to the wall I’d had removed, I had a perfect view of him from my kitchen, prowling around the living and dining rooms, going up to each of my windows and making sure they were completely closed, the locks secured. What he didn’t know, of course, was that half the windows didn’t open at all. The frames were so old, I couldn’t find a carpenter who knew how to fix them.

“Well, obviously I don’t know. But I think I’d have heard about it.”

“Why? You never heard about this one until I told you.”

“Yeah... you have a point.”

Another text:

LegalBeagle:WTH, Jess, why am I only hearing just now from my brother that your car got destroyed by hail at his school today, and towed away by Hopkins Motors?

Scungilli:Jess, did you make a certain someone mad again?

I texted back: