Page 72 of Impractical Magic

“We don’t know precisely what Violet did,” Scarlett pointed out. “Maybe something, maybe nothing. I need to have a word with Max. Or possibly a fight.”

“You don’t need to fight with anybody. Let your mother handle it. Or the EMS. Don’t just take this on alone.”

“But Louise says this is on me to fix.”

“No one should be putting all this on you,” he said. “That’s not fair.”

“Faaaaiir,” Scarlett said, perfectly imitating her mother’s voice. “Child, I have seen a spell turn rain to sun. I have seen a spell turn old to young. But never have I seen a spell to turn the world to fair.”

Nate smiled. “Your mom is extremely wonderful, but she can be extremely annoying.” He reached for her hand, but Scarlett moved away.

“She is. Especially when she’s right.”

Chapter 28: Fat Man and Little Boy

By the time Scarlett returned to the inn, the joint was jumping. Oak Haven’s prominent witches had gathered in the dining room to plot their next move. In the ballroom, the Gilbert and Sullivan Society rehearsed Pirates of Penzance, the performance that was to be the culmination of their gathering. In the lobby—dead in the middle between the scheming and the singing—Delilah manned her post at the reservation desk.

She looked up from her paperwork when Scarlett walked in. “There you are. Big meeting in the dining room—you should probably get in there.”

“If it’s a big meeting,” Scarlett said with a frown, “why aren’t you in there?”

“I never am.” Her big sister gestured at the reservation desk. “Someone has to do this.”

A voice boomed from the ballroom. “I am the very model of a modern major-vegetable . . .”

The piano stopped and the anguished director called out, “Try again, please!”

Scarlett moved toward the dining room—she felt poorly about Del being left out, but she knew it was urgent to inform them about Violet.

But when she reached the doorway, the sight of the witches stopped Scarlett cold. A lot of prominent women were there: Mama, Luna, and Aphra among them, plus Jerusha and Candace, two members of the Oak Haven Elder Council. Also there was Belinda . . . and her daughter Priti . . . and also Polly.

Polly. Oh no. Polly is here.

The idea of bursting into a meeting and saying, “I know whodunit!” was much less appealing when her audience included the mom of the one whodunit.

“Shit,” Scarlett said quietly.

Maybe I need proof—more than just one incriminating conversation—before I go accusing somebody’s kid.

Needing a moment to assess her options, Scarlett drifted back to the reservation desk. From the rehearsal room came the baritone voice again: “About binomial theorem I am teeming with . . . a . . . pot of beans?”

“Defenestrate yourself immediately!” howled the director.

Scarlett wiggled her eyebrows at her sister. “Tough rehearsal, huh?”

“They are driving me crazy,” Delilah moaned. “Performance is tomorrow—it can’t be over soon enough for me. Mandy Patinkin’s understudy is a catastrophe, as you can hear for yourself. Anyway, don’t you think you ought to go—”

“Waaaait,” Scarlett said, laughing. “Wait, hang on. There’s a lot happening right now, but I’m going to need you to pause and explain what you just said.”

“I was saying, you should really get into that meeting because—”

“No, Del. Not that. Mandy Patinkin?! You can’t mean Mandy ‘Inigo Montoya’ Patinkin, surely.”

“Well, duh, yeah. He was supposed to chair the Gilbert and Sullivan conference, but he’s busy doing . . . I don’t know what. Shooting Yentl Part 2 or whatever. I have no idea. So now we’re stuck with that dummy instead.”

From the next room, the singing started up again. “With many cheerful facts about the square of the . . . hippopotamus . . . ?”

Del’s sigh was like a lonely breeze through an abandoned playground. “Good God, he sucks.”