Page 32 of No Charm Done

“Right,” he said. “Just a spell component.”

But when he leaned down to kiss her, it sure didn’t feel that way.

The kiss began simply enough: lips meeting lips, nothing more complicated. But Elias’s hand came up to cup the back of her neck, and something electric shot through Luna’s entire nervous system. Without thinking, she grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss in a way that had nothing to do with spells and everything to do with the fact that he tasted like hot summers and endless possibilities and she wanted more.

Luna was so distracted by the kiss that she barely even heard Myrna/Frank calling out, “Where shall I send them, my darlings? What do we think is the most romantic time of year?”

The actor playing Brad suggested Valentine’s Day, prompting a fresh round of “Asshole!” from the rest of the crowd. A debate about romantic times of year ensued as the world began to blur at the edges and then disappear.

She assumed it was the kiss making her dizzy, because holy shit, when had kissing become this overwhelming?

As the sounds of the crowd faded away, the smell of hot asphalt and garbage surrendered to something cleaner. When they finally broke apart, gasping, they were no longer standing on a darkened street corner in 1977. And she was freezing.

They stood together in the middle of Oak Haven’s town square, in chilly winter sunlight, surrounded by the familiar shops and cafés of her own time. The strains of “Last Christmas” bubbled away in the distance.

Chapter 10

Witch, Please!

At last, the world stopped spinning, a great relief to Elias, who was three seconds away from spewing his remaining dignity all over his wingtip shoes. Time travel, he’d discovered, was quite like going twelve rounds with champion boxer Jack Dempsey. His stomach lost.

He stumbled a few steps backwards, steadying himself against a lamppost that was decorated with enough twinkling lights to power a small city. When and where the hell am I?

The smirk on Luna’s face told him everything. They weren’t in 1926. And they weren’t in Chicago. Not even close.

“Welcome to the future, Shaw,” she said, looking slightly too pleased with herself.

“The future.” He spat the words like they tasted of cod liver oil. “Swell. Just swell.”

During his century in the Void, Elias had developed some very firm opinions about progress. Nothing good happened in the future. He knew this, because each new prisoner in the Void had described a world that was demonstrably worse than the one before. People got stupider, music got worse, and bit by bit, everyone forgot how to dress and how to behave.

Still, a lecture on the decay of modernity died in his throat as he took his first real look around.

The town square looked like it had been attacked by a pack of rabid Christmas elves with unlimited supplies and absolutely no taste. It was worse than the most garish carnival midway he’d ever seen. Signage screamed at him from every storefront: “AUTHENTIC WITCH SOUVENIRS!” and “MAGICAL READINGS! REAL SPELLS!” and “HEX MARKS THE SPOT!” The buildings and trees were draped with more electric lights than a Coney Island arcade. In his day, holiday decorations meant maybe a wreath on the door and some evergreen boughs. Now, it looked like the very concept of Christmas had gotten drunk and thrown up all over itself.

“What in the Sam Hill . . .”

Tourists swarmed everywhere like ants on an ice cream cone. Some wore ill-fitting smocks covered with announcements: “WITCH, PLEASE!” and “MY PARENTS WENT TO WITCHTOWN AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID SHIRT.” Most everyone carried an accessory Elias couldn’t identify: small rectangular devices they kept pointing at one another.

“This is . . .” he stammered, groping for words. “This is horrific.” He turned to Luna accusingly. “This is the present day you were so eager to get back to?”

“Not at all. This is Oak Haven at its absolute low point, which was December of last year. We missed my present day by about five months.”

A group of teenage girls strolled past wearing what appeared to be black bed sheets and pointed hats, all of them chattering excitedly about “witch energy” and “manifesting their best lives.” One of them was carrying what looked like a perfectly ordinary house cat, except she’d somehow managed to dye its fur purple.

“Poor cat,” Elias said.

“Poor everything. And poor us, because I’m due to show up in town any day now, and I don’t know what it does to the timeline if I’m already here.” Luna chewed her lower lip, a nervous habit that Elias was beginning to recognize. “Listen, we should get out of here. My family’s dealing with . . . well, all of this. It’ll all get resolved. But if anybody finds me too soon, there could be some very weird temporal complications. We could create a shift in reality that we can’t repair.”

Elias tried to focus on her words, but another wave of nausea hit him like a freight train. Like getting drunk without the fun part. “Hold up there, sweetheart,” he managed, one hand pressed to his stomach. “I need a minute, maybe five. Maybe thirty.” Looking desperately for somewhere to sit that wasn’t covered in glitter or suspicious stains, he spotted a bench in the center of the park that looked relatively clean. A young man already sat there, swinging his foot absently. Elias lurched toward the bench.

Luna followed, quickening her pace and looking increasingly concerned, her eyes darting between Elias and the crowd. “Shaw,” she called after him anxiously, “we should really just⁠—”

“Excuse me, pal,” he said to the stranger, “mind if I . . .”

“Oh, absolutely! Please!” The man gestured enthusiastically. “Plenty of room!”

Elias collapsed onto the bench and immediately felt slightly more human. The nausea was still there, but at least the world had stopped doing barrel rolls.