Page 15 of Jingle Spells

“How does it work, though? What’s the mechanism?”

“The spell fills your noggin with trivia,” Twelve explained. “Crowds out the real memories with random facts. You’ll suddenly know which sea creature has three hearts, or which horse won the Grand National three times.”

“So . . . hang on.” Jasper blinked. “The spell doesn’t erase memories, it buries them?”

“More like it interferes with the recording and organization,” Nine corrected. “It fills up your head with useless stuff so there’s no room for what the witches don’t want anyone remembering. You know how it’s impossible to find anything useful in a junk drawer? Kinda like that.”

“This town is turning my mind into a junk drawer,” Jasper repeated unhappily. “That’s . . . not great to hear. Is anyone immune?”

“The witches, of course,” said Ten. “They designed the spell that way. And those of us born here build up a certain tolerance. We can leave for short trips—a few hours, maybe a day or so—before it kicks in.”

Twelve nodded. “I managed an entire long weekend one time. Of course, then I got overconfident, stayed away too long and forgot where I live, even forgot my own name. Nate had to come looking. Eventually he tracked me down in a Macaroni Grill at Atlanta International Airport. So . . . not really worth it, if I’m honest.”

“But if you’re somebody like me . . . if you don’t have magic, and you weren’t born here . . .” Jasper’s voice trailed off.

Nine raised his glass in something between a toast and a condolence. “Junk drawer.”

Jasper’s hand crept to his jacket pocket, where a crumpled piece of cardboard had been bothering him all week. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to throw it away, even though he couldn’t read the water-damaged writing. Now he pulled it out, smoothing the wrinkles. It was a postcard, showing a quaint New England town square. The message side was a mess of bleeding ink, but he could barely make out his own handwriting: “Dear Future Jasper . . .”

“That’s from visit four, I think,” Ten said. “You bought a whole rack of postcards over at Spellbound Books. Mailed them to yourself, your boss, the Library of Congress . . .”

“Oh! Well, maybe somebody got one! Maybe⁠—”

“Guaranteed that none of them arrived legible,” said Nine. “The forgetting spell’s thorough like that. It’s not just your brain, it’ll put a whammy on your writing, too.”

“And your camera,” added Ten.

“And your electronic devices,” Eleven chimed in. “Ohh ho, remember that, boys, back in the Eighties? The witches had to revise the spell to cover emails and such?” The old men all chuckled. “The whole zeroes-and-ones thing was new to our gals, and the spell kinda backfired at first. For three days, that ‘You’ve got mail!’ voice got stuck in everybody’s head like a bad pop song. You’ve got mail, you’ve got mail . . . over and over.”

“I have to go.” Jasper stood so abruptly his chair rocked backward. “I’m going to leave myself a voicemail.”

“What did I just say?” said Eleven. “Stubborn kid, ain’t he?”

“Hey, maybe hire yourself a singing telegram,” suggested Ten. “That’d at least be a new one.”

“How about if you tattoo the details on your arm,” offered Twelve. “You could kinda Memento-yourself.”

“Memento-himself?” Ten stared at his grandson. “The hell does that mean?”

“It’s a movie,” Twelve explained. “Fella has no short-term memory, so he starts tattooing information on himself. His body becomes his memory, if you will.”

“Huh.” Ten shook his head thoughtfully. “How come we’ve never tried that around here?”

“Come on,” said Eleven. “You know tattoos about Oak Haven would never stick.”

“True,” Twelve agreed. “Or they’d all transform into pictures of mermaids. Or infinity symbols—whatever the kids get nowadays. Anyway, Memento, good flick. It stars . . . um . . . ohhh, what’s his name. That Australian fella.”

“Hugh Jackman,” Eleven offered.

“Chris Hemsworth,” said Ten.

“Wrong,” Twelve demurred. “No, it’s um . . . the other one.”

“Liam Hemsworth!” cried Nine.

“Russell Crowe.”

“Mel Gibson.”