Page 87 of Impractical Magic

Mama rapped on the table, her longtime signal for cut the shit. “If you girls had questions about the bosses, why didn’t you ask Max?”

“Well,” Scarlett said defensively, “we were pretending to be his handlers. So there was a limit to how much ignorance we could show.”

“You don’t know what it was like, Mama,” Delilah said.

“He was already deeply suspicious of us,” continued Scarlett. “We got him talking with this whole ‘handlers’ ruse but he started doubting us pretty quickly.”

“Why?” Mama demanded. “If you’d put a solid hypnotic spell on him, he wouldn’t have doubted you if you’d pushed him into traffic.”

“We did the best we could, Mama!”

“Oh, well, thank you so much, Scarlett. I’ll be sure to let the people of Oak Haven know—when our unpredictable magic has caused all their houses to explode and the magicians have returned to put a McDonald’s in the middle of the town green? I’ll be sure to let them all know that Scarlett Melrose did her best.”

“Oh my God, Mama,” Scarlett groaned. “If you’re such an expert, why don’t you go fucking ask him yourself!”

“Hey,” Luna said gently. “Let’s not—”

“No,” Scarlett said fiercely. “I mean it. Go ahead, Mama. The portal is right upstairs. I’m sure a witch of your caliber will have no trouble locating one sad-sack magician in a town of, what, less than a million people.”

Mama’s expression went stone cold. “You left him out there?”

“What the hell did you think we were gonna do, arrest him?”

“Why the hell not?” Mama shot back. “He could have given us names, locations, all sorts of useful details.”

“We wanted to get home and tell you all about—”

“You were reckless, Scarlett. Reckless and thoughtless, as ever.” She stood up, signaling the conversation was over. “Luna, I want you to figure out which predator we need—perhaps the Myrmex Arcana contains a clue. Aphra, you work on new enchanted cages where we might keep these predators in check for as long as possible. And girls, I want both of you to know that I do recognize the wisdom of your words. You are smart to be cautious. But as Scarlett has so kindly pointed out, we are dangerously low on options at the moment. Priti, I’m sorry but I’m afraid we must depend on you and your EMS service to continue to respond to incidents wherever necessary. Delilah, you see to the guests—even in times of trouble, we are still an inn, and we still owe our customers good service. I will be upstairs in meditation.” She turned and stalked back toward the dining room.

“And what about me, Mama?” demanded Scarlett. “Whatever shall I do?”

“How about you stay out of everyone’s way and not continuously make the situation worse. Can you handle that?”

Scarlett flinched as though she’d been slapped. She stood, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. Without another word, she turned and stormed back inside.

She paced the lobby like a miserable tiger in a roadside zoo. Reckless, thoughtless . . . the same goddamn criticisms her mother had been leveling at Scarlett since childhood. Kelly Melrose needs some fresh material.

After all, if it weren’t for me, we never would have found Max in the first place. Delilah was just standing there in front of the portal, staring into the blankness—like some highwire performer without the guts to go over the edge. I’m the reason we have all this information. I’m the reason we have some idea how to fix it.

Scarlett saw herself reflected in the lobby’s dark windows. You’re also a major reason the town is in this mess in the first place, her reflection seemed to say. So yeah, maybe you sorted out how to fix it. What do you want, a medal?

She was still standing there when Aphra entered, her coat over her arm. “You all right?”

“Fantastic,” Scarlett said bitterly.

Aphra wrapped her arm around Scarlett’s elbow. “Well I’m off—I’m headed home, Dayo’s waiting up for me. You want to come along, just for the walk? A little fresh air might do you good.”

“Yeah . . . I need to visit Nate, anyhow.”

“Ah.” Aphra smiled. “There we go. Nate will cheer you right up.”

But Scarlett shook her head sadly. “No, not this time.”

***

Scarlett and Aphra ambled down Main Street side by side. Despite the current chaos, the people of Oak Haven were embracing the coming of Halloween with a theatrical fervor. Porches were strung with strings of lights shaped like jack-o-lanterns. Cardboard cut-outs of dancing skeletons hung on doors, and everywhere were handmade scarecrows in a variety of spooky get-ups—mummies, Draculas, Frankensteins. Meanwhile leaves crunched underfoot, and bare branches, like skeletal fingers, clawed at the night sky. Overhead, a gibbous moon peeked through the swirling clouds, casting an ethereal glow.

“It’s so beautiful,” Aphra sighed. “I love how everyone gets excited about Halloween. You’d never know there’s so much trouble brewing in the grove.”