Page 83 of Jingle Spells
“Probably the magicians cashing in,” Jasper suggested.
Milo brought their drinks over, and Delilah wrapped her hands gratefully around the warm mug. “So, Milo, tell us. How bad is it out there?”
They glanced around to make sure no tourists were listening. “It’s a nightmare. I’ve had to make up fake ‘witch coffee rituals’ all week. Some guy yesterday wanted me to ‘enchant’ his latte for an extra twenty bucks.”
“Well, I hope you took the cash,” Delilah said.
Milo looked a little embarrassed. “I just put the shape of a star in his foam and mumbled some Latin I remembered from high school.”
“Smart.” Delilah nodded appreciatively.
“Anyway, I should get back to the counter. The Resistance meets at—”
“The inn, I know. Aphra filled us in.”
Milo nodded and headed back to the counter where a woman in a “BASIC WITCH” T-shirt was demanding to know if the oat milk was “moon-blessed.”
Jasper held out his phone. “Check this one out. Nearly three million views.”
A stand-up comedian in a dark club was mid-routine: “So my buddy went to this place called Oak Haven last weekend, right? He comes back and I ask him how it was, and he goes ‘I don’t really remember.’ I’m like, what do you mean you don’t remember? Did you party that hard? And he’s all ‘No man, I just . . . I remember being there, but I can’t tell you a single thing about it.’ So I said, ‘Oh, so it’s like Vegas?’ And he goes, ‘No, because with Vegas, you remember the hotel and the casinos and THEN you black out from drinking. With Oak Haven, you black out FROM JUST BEING THERE!’”
“Great,” Delilah huffed. “We’re a punchline now.”
“At least it sounds like the forgetting spell still works somewhat.”
“Small comfort. Oh, let’s check out this one: relationship drama, from the look of it.” She tapped on a video of a tearful young woman sitting in her car.
“Storytime: I think my boyfriend CHEATED on me in Oak Haven!” she began, dabbing carefully at her eyes to preserve her immaculate eyeliner. “We went there last weekend, and now he claims he doesn’t even REMEMBER going! But I found THIS—” she dramatically held up a lipstick tube “—in his jacket pocket, and it’s NOT MINE! He says he has no idea where it came from because we ‘never went to any witch town’ and now I’m like, did the witches erase his memory to COVER HIS TRACKS?”
“Great, so now we’re breaking up couples,” Delilah groaned. “The divorce attorneys of New England send their thanks.”
Jasper had gone quiet, staring at his borrowed phone with the look of a man witnessing a slow-motion car crash.
“What?” Delilah asked. “What could possibly be worse than—oh.”
It was a famous meme. A wild-eyed, disheveled man stood in front of a conspiracy board covered in photos, papers, and red string connecting everything. But someone had photoshopped “OAK HAVEN TRUTH” across the top, and added witch hats to some of the photos. The caption read: “Me trying to remember literally ANYTHING about my trip to Oak Haven after leaving town.”
“That’ll be me soon,” Jasper said softly. “Down in my basement, losing my mind as I try to piece together what the hell happened to me here.”
Delilah couldn’t even begin to imagine what to say. She laid her hand atop his and squeezed. “Let’s not give up quite yet.” But as she set her mug down, her coffee suddenly tasted like ash.
A group of tourists entered the café, laughing loudly and taking photos of the plastic cauldrons hanging from the ceiling.
“We need to see Louise.” Delilah pulled her hand away reluctantly. “Now. Before #WitchTok turns into #ActualWitchesExposed.”
As if on cue, her phone lit up with another notification. “Louise’s shop is down that way. If she can send us back to the day before Saturnalia, this whole mess would never happen. Let’s just hope she’s in a helping mood.”
“And not a turning-people-into-sundials mood?” Jasper stood up too.
“To be honest, I’m not aware of another moment where Louise has ever helped anyone? I guess that makes us a little bit special, come to think of it. I just hope she hasn’t died from the shock.”
Chapter 24
Frosty the No, Man
The bell above Louise’s shop door jingled with inappropriate cheerfulness. The time witch’s usually peaceful domain now resembled a carnival midway, with tourists clustered around, soaking up the strangeness. In the center of it all stood Louise, her violet eyes blazing with barely contained rage as she dealt with a line of customers.
“No, this bauble shall not reverse the irreversible decay of your mortal flesh,” she was saying to a middle-aged woman in a fanny pack. “It merely marks the ceaseless march toward your inevitable oblivion. Nothing more.”
