Page 40 of Impractical Magic

Zahir stood alone in the Stargazer kitchen, feeding orange sections into a juicer one by one. The juicer’s grrrrrr sound matched his expression perfectly.

“G’morning, Z.” Scarlett hoisted herself up on the counter to sit beside him. “How’s the juice business?”

Ignoring her greeting, Zahir thrust a half-filled juice glass in Scarlett’s face. “Taste this.”

She did. “Yum?” she offered encouragingly.

“Tastes like juice?”

“Yep.”

“Not Spam?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Are you sure,” Zahir demanded. “You haven’t just brushed your teeth or anything? That can change the flavor.”

“Zahir, buddy. It’s fine. I’m sure that Spam thing was just a one-time accident. After all, dinner the other night was incredible. Hey, I have an idea! There’s a lot of folks in the lobby, so why don’t you throw some omelets together or something?”

“Oh, sure.” Zahir shrugged, sighed, and rolled his eyes all at once. “Easy for you to say.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Z. The Spam thing. There’s a problem with the oak grove—it was nothing you did.”

“It was nothing I did,” he repeated. “And there’s nothing I can do. I’m a master chef at the mercy of a bunch of trees. You know, that’s what you witchy people forget. You walk around with all that power. You have no idea what it’s like to just be . . .” He trailed off. “To just be.”

“Hey, pal, you forget who you’re talking to? I’ve spent ten years living as a muggle, remember?”

“Yeah, that was dumb of you.”

“What do you know!” Scarlett exclaimed. “It’s been fantastic!”

He grunted. “Liar.”

“Steady there, Z.”

“Scarlett, I know your family doesn’t understand that job of yours, but I do—I read Wired magazine, okay? Your job is all long-tail keywords and crawlability and content optimization.” He spat out the terms like they were Spam-flavored. “What an utter waste of your talent.”

“First of all, it’s more interesting than you’re making it sound—”

“Bah!”

“—and secondly, I have absolutely zero talent as a witch. I proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt when I single-handedly destroyed the oak grove.”

“Wait . . . You did this?”

“Last night, yeah. Delilah, Luna, Nate, and I went up there to try and fix the trees but—”

“Hang on,” Zahir interrupted. “Nate?! What was Nate doing up there? That’s illegal, you know.”

“Oh, whatever—he just wanted to visit the grove, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh . . .” Zahir’s eyebrows bopped up and down. “So that’s back on, is it?”

“Back on? What is ‘back on’?” Scarlett was confident she did an excellent performance of not understanding what he was alluding to.

“Gimme a break. You and Nate.”

“There is no me and Nate. Where is he, anyway? Mama said he was back here.”