Page 74 of Jingle Spells

Louise laughed, if you could call it that. Better to say she emitted a sound like breaking glass and the distant screams of the damned. “You? Master bygone arts of grand portal magic? Impossible. Such knowledge died centuries ago, along with those wise enough to comprehend the terrifying implications of their power.”

“Hold on . . .” Jasper felt a tingle of recognition at the back of his neck. “What about Agnes Bartlett? Would she have known these spells? I mean, I’m just spitballing obviously. But perhaps she might have documented this magic before it was lost?”

Louise’s expression shifted subtly. Was that respect in those eyes? “Agnes Bartlett was the last to wield grand portal magic. But Bartlett has been naught but dust and echoes for centuries. Her secrets died with her, scattered to the winds of oblivion.”

“Not necessarily,” Delilah argued. “My mother found a letter of hers recently. Maybe there’s other things squirreled away in the inn somewhere.”

Jasper nodded encouragingly. “Epsilon said he found all sorts of things up in the attic. Perhaps we should see what he was referring to. Or maybe the town records would have something?”

Louise abruptly stood, and when she spoke, her voice once again reached a thunderous volume. “You have become tedious to me.” She raised her hands, fingers splayed in an intricate pattern that somehow bent light into painful angles.

“Wait!” Jasper cried. “We’re not finished⁠—”

But it was too late. With a gesture resembling a conductor ending a particularly violent symphony, Louise sent Delilah and Jasper spinning into nothingness. His last sensation was a feeling of falling through infinite layers of reality, each one more eldritch than the last.

The last thing he heard was Louise’s voice, oddly normal and almost appreciative: “Nice-looking fella.”

Jasper’s stomach lurched as reality reassembled itself around them. He stumbled forward, grabbing on to the nearest solid object, which turned out to be a tree trunk, to steady himself.

“What just—” he began, then stopped as he realized something was very wrong.

They were no longer downtown. In fact, they weren’t in town at all. They stood in a small clearing surrounded by dense forest. No buildings, no streets, no enchanted decorations. Just trees stretching in every direction, their bare winter branches forming a complex lattice against the late afternoon sky.

Jasper turned in a slow circle, trying to orient himself. The only sounds were occasional chirps of brave winter birds and the soft whisper of the wind through the trees. Gone were the singing snowmen, the magical tinsel, and all traces of civilization.

“Where are we?” His voice felt unnaturally loud against the stillness. “Why would Louise teleport us to the middle of the woods?”

Delilah was staring at the angle of the sun, which hung low in the western sky, casting long shadows across the clearing. Her expression had gone from confusion to a sort of grim resignation. “Yeah no. That’s not it.”

“What do you mean? We’re clearly in some forest. Did she send us to a whole different part of the county?” He gazed around again, searching for any landmark that might help him determine their location. “Well, wherever we are, I suppose we should try to make our way to some sort of civilization before dark.”

Delilah just sighed and gave him a look that was equal parts pity and disbelief. “Jasper, listen to me. It’s not a question of where we are. It’s a question of when.”

Chapter 21

Baby It’s Old Outside

Oak Haven had never been so wild.

The scent hit Delilah first. A sharp pine untainted by exhaust fumes and progress. The earthy richness of soil that had never once been turned, much less paved. The air filled her lungs with a purity that was almost painful. Where quaint colonial buildings should have stood, towering firs and maples reached toward the sky. Instead of cobblestone streets curved through town, deer paths wound between patches of wildflowers and berry bushes.

Delilah took it all in, mentally cataloging the differences between this primeval forest and the town she’d known her entire life. The geography was unmistakable. That sloping hill to the west would eventually become the road up to the oak grove. She could picture herself there, climbing that steep path up to the grove . . . but the path was who knows how many years away from being built.

Same place. Different time.

Beside her, Jasper turned in a slow circle, as if downtown Oak Haven would materialize if he just looked hard enough. “If we’re in the same place, then where’s the clock shop? Where’s the town? Where are all those singing snowmen?”

“This is right where they’ll be,” Delilah gestured at the empty space around them. “Eventually. We’re standing in exactly the same spot we were before. We’ve just been moved to a time before the shop. Before downtown. Long before Oak Haven existed at all. Or . . .” She paused, considering a darker possibility. “I suppose we could be here long after it all existed. Maybe some apocalypse wiped out civilization and it’s all back to wild forest again.” Seeing Jasper’s eyes widen in horror, she quickly added, “But not even Louise would be that cruel. I mean. Probably.”

“She can do that?!” Jasper’s mind reeled with the implications. “Just casually alter our position in space-time?”

“We got off easy.” Delilah straightened her coat, unfazed. “One time when we were kids, Scarlett broke one of Louise’s pocket watches. Louise sent her back to the Cretaceous period, just out of spite. Scarlett was about to become lunch for a swarm of griffinflies when Mama tracked Louise down and forced her to bring Scarlett back. To this day, she still won’t go near anything with more than four legs.”

“Are you telling me—” Jasper’s voice rose with each word “—that we’re in the seventeenth century? Or even earlier than that?” He shook his watch violently. The device made a sad little rattling sound, and when he held it up, Delilah could see that the minute, hour, and second hands had all come loose from their moorings. Just bits of metal flopping around inside the casing.

“Oh God,” he said, genuine panic overtaking him. “Should I be watching out for griffinflies? Or, or . . . God, I don’t remember my prehistory suddenly. Saber-toothed tigers?”

Delilah tilted her head, miming intent listening. “No buzzing so far. I think we’re okay on the griffinfly front. And surely Connecticut has never been a home to tigers, saber-toothed or otherwise.” She found his panic oddly endearing; sort of like watching a cat discover rain for the first time and not liking it one bit.