Page 81 of Enchanted to Meet You

“Yeah, but I could have.”

Esther was hugging herself miserably. She’d been less than thrilled when Derrick and Jessica had shown up at her front door. Dressed in her pj’s and fuzzy slippers, the kid had been watching a Marvel movie with her younger brothers, unbothered by West Harbor’s lack of Internet. She surely wasn’t the only teen in townwho’d completely ignored the principal’s plea to come to the village square to help clean it.

“Why would I want to do that?” she’d asked, when Jessica had whispered—unsure whether or not the girl’s parents were within earshot—that today was the day to begin training for Thursday’s supernatural battle with the powers of evil. “It’scoldoutside.”

She wasn’t wrong. Itwascold. The sun continued to remain hidden behind a bank of gray clouds, and flocks of birds that hadn’t already made their way south for the winter were darkening the sky as they fled for a warmer—and safer—location than frozen, doomed West Harbor.

The birds knew what was coming. Birds always knew.

But Jessica kept her tone upbeat, even as she turned up the faux fur collar of her coat against the icy gusts of wind that kept sweeping in from the Sound, tearing at the leaves that still remained on the trees at the edges of the field.

“Oh, come on, Esther,” she’d said. “It will be fun! Don’t you want to see what you could do with your powers if you really tried?”

The kid had glanced uncertainly back at the soft warm couch on which her brothers were piled with a bowl of popcorn, a blanket, and a big slobbery dog. “I guess. But I thought this whole thing was going to be more about learning how to do rune or tarot card readings. Are we actually going to be blowing people up?”

“Manipulating the energy around you,” Derrick corrected her quickly. “No one is going to get blown up.” He hoped.

For a moment the kid had looked disappointed. It was evident she’d have been more willing to come if blowing up people was on the table.

“Well,” she’d said finally. “Gabby’s at the salon all day, getting a blowout and spray tan for the stupid Harvest Princess selectionthing tonight. So I guess I might as well come with you. I’ve seen this movie a hundred times before anyway.”

Which was how they’d ended up in Farmer Frank’s field, the kid having exchanged her pajamas for her usual Converse, sweatshirt, and leggings, this time paired with a down parka and a knit cap with a rainbow pom-pom on the top.

“So,” she said, squinting through the lenses of her glasses at the pumpkins on the fence. “What is it that you want me to do again, exactly?”

“First I want you to feel the magic,” Derrick said.

The kid looked skeptical. “There’s magic at Farmer Frank’s? My parents have been making me and my brothers come here to pick pumpkins since I was a little kid, and I’ve never once felt anything magical about it.”

“There’s magic everywhere,” Jessica said from the warm hood of her new car. Derrick could tell by the dimples at the sides of her cheeks that she was trying not to laugh. “Its energy is present in every grain of salt, the leaf of every tree, every animal, and every person that inhabits the earth.”

Esther scratched her nose. “You mean like the Force?”

“If that’s how you want to think about it,” Jessica said. The dimples deepened. He couldn’t believe he’d never noticed them before. “The ability to manipulate that energy is one that every witch possesses.”

Derrick was startled to hear his own words—or a version of them, anyway—coming out of Jessica’s mouth.

“Magic is similar to the Force,” she went on, “but it’s more complicated than that. Magic is in the sun, the moon, the stars, and the rhythms of the sea. And a good witch learns to harness that magic and create positive things from it—kind of the way a seamstress creates something beautiful out of a bunch of cloth.In some ways, a witch—a good witch—is a seamstress of the universe.”

“You’re already very good at harnessing magic, Esther,” Derrick said. “But I—we—need you to get even better.”

The kid nodded. “Because of the prophecy?”

“Right. Because of the prophecy.”

“Okay. I’ll try.” Esther pulled her hat down more snugly over her ears, then turned toward the pumpkins. “What do you want me to do?”

“Try knocking down one of the pumpkins,” Derrick suggested. “Like when you shut the window in Jessica’s office.”

“All right.” Esther shrugged. “But I’m just letting you know, I’m pretty bad at sewing. You guys probably have the wrong girl.”

A second later, she glanced at the misshapen pumpkin sitting on the fence post to the far right, then lifted a single hand....

There was a flash of light, and then an explosion. Bits of orange pumpkin went flying everywhere, causing crows, perched high in the bare treetops, to take flight with loud, indignant cries.

Even though they were standing carefully out of range, Jessica let out a cry as well, and ducked behind her new car.

Derrick stared at the pumpkin carnage before them. Then he looked at Esther, who had her gloved fingers over her face, clearly as shocked as he and Jessica were by what she’d done.