Page 14 of Practically Magic

“Since . . . all fall. Since you left,” I insist, feeling my brow prickle with sweat.

Harry’s eyes narrow. “Peter who? I don’t know any Peters.”

“You wouldn’t. He just moved here,” I say. “I mean, he moved over the summer, but we met when school started and . . .” I take a deep breath and try to get it together. “The point is Peter is my boyfriend, and Mom and Dad said we could do the protection spells. We’ve got this covered, Harry. You go enjoy BC.”

“But—” Harry goes to interrupt.

Suddenly the broom leaning against the wall slams to the floor, startling everyone. The screen door outside the kitchen starts to flap back and forth, slamming, as if the wind picked up.

Mom looks at the door curiously. “I should lock the greenhouse. Dear? Can you set the table for me?” Mom asks Dad.

“Of course, my love,” Dad says, grabbing plates and moving to the dining room.

“Any other Broadway stars there?” I ask the aunts, to try to keep them talking so it’s not just me and Harry alone on a call. But the aunts trade a look.

“Hugh’s getting a call,” Aunt Viv says.

“We definitely shouldn’t answer it,” Aunt Diane adds.

The two look at each other, cackle, and then their video chat abruptly disappears, which leaves me alone with Harry on the call that no one seemed to officially end. Despite claiming to have urgent studying to do, Harry doesn’t hang up.

“Kat, who is Peter?” she asks calmly.

“Harry? Why do you even care?” I sidestep. “Just go enjoy yourself in Boston.” I can feel my stomach tighten, my emotions getting the better of me.

Harry glares at me. “You’re lying to Mom and Dad. I know you don’t have a boyfriend. You can’t.”

“Why, because who would want to date me?” I ask sarcastically, but my voice catches so it comes out strangled, whiny.

“I know you don’t have a boyfriend,” she says again, and her voice is so even I want to throw my mom’s phone into the wall. “I know you want one every Halloween, but this time there’s more on the line. You can’t risk all of Mystic Hollow because, what, you have a crush?”

I feel a scream building my throat.

“Have you even asked him to do the rituals?” Harry presses, twitching her button nose. “Have you spoken to him . . . at all?”

I reach forward to end the call before she magically stumbles into any other truths when she says, “Does this one even know your name?”

This one. The screen goes black and I see my own face reflected back to me. I look like a gargoyle. This one. Because I have no shortage of boys who broke my heart.

Boys of Halloween Past

Crush #1: Ryan Elliott

The Year: Seventh Grade

“Please, please, please, please, PLEE-ZE?” I beg my sister, standing behind her in our bathroom giving her zero personal space. “It will take two seconds!”

“Kat! You’ll never learn how to do spells if I always do it for you.” Her eyes are on the mirror, where she is applying her third coat of mascara. Harry has always been great at mascara.

“But you’re just so good at it!” I take a strand of her gloriously soft blond hair and hold it between my thumb and index finger. “I remember what your hair was like when we were kids. And this summer it’s suddenly frizz-free? You fixed this with magic.”

Harry drops the mascara wand, and it bounces into the sink as she spins around to look at me, smelling like a mix of mint leaves and vanilla, a scent she made herself because it was her boyfriend Chris Branton’s favorite. (Chris stats: high school freshman and founder of his very own after-school initiative: Save the Patch, a group dedicated to promoting local pumpkin patches in New England. There has never been such a town outcry as the year Mayor Croft found out some people were buying their Cinderella gourds from Trader Joe’s.)

“No, I didn’t,” she insists, but I can see her cheeks reddening.

“You did,” I sing. “And I know you used mom’s favorite silk shirt!”

Harry slaps her hand over my mouth to keep me from talking, but I am relentless, like all seventh graders are.