Page 15 of A Witch’s Guide to Surviving Halloween

Chapter Nine

The forest is silent for a grand total of half a second before it erupts into chaos.

Radios chirp, whispers turn to urgent words, which quickly devolve into shouts.

It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dark, the waxing moon overhead offering a limited amount of light to see by.

It’s enough for some blurry shapes and gray-blue shadows, though.

Even the solar lights along the edge of the path are out, making the trail ahead almost invisible.

One by one, phones are pulled out, screens lighting up streaks in the night. Flashlights pop up in scattered clumps throughout the trees, and actors prepare to herd everyone back to town.

Oliver’s hand finds mine in the dark, warmth melting into me where our skin meets.

Deep in my chest, the magic stirs once again.

Unlike the previous events, which swelled and crashed like a tidal wave, this is a slow simmer.

The tension is building bit by bit, recharging, but for what, I don’t know.

The prospect of anything else going wrong with the entire festival out in the middle of a dark forest is more than alarming.

I glance up at Oliver and wonder if he, too, notices the flow of energy coursing between our palms. As if to answer my question, he meets my gaze with an uneasy expression.

“Please tell me this is another one of your elaborate pranks that Stacy is going to flip over?” he says out of the corner of his mouth.

I shake my head. “That definitely wasn’t me.”

“Fantastic,” he mutters.

Around us, twigs snap underfoot and boots grind against dry leaves, but no one has taken the lead yet.

If no one speaks up soon, people will start panicking.

And then I remember with a sigh . . . I’m the host. So, I take a deep breath and amplify my voice as loud as it will go.

The magic continues to build until it becomes static in the air around us, making goose bumps pebble across my arms and up the back of my neck.

“Everyone!” I shout, but my voice is drowned out by the growing roar of the crowd.

A whistle pierces the air, so loud my ears start to ring, and I realize it came from Oliver; one of those whistles that only basketball coaches and ’70s moms seem to do right.

“Everyone!” I try again, finally getting the crowd’s attention. “Please remain where you are. Our volunteers will be coming forward to help guide everyone out of the woods safely.”

The throng’s rumbling dampens to a hum. They are still uneasy about the whole thing, but their sudden panic has downsized to a containable concern.

Flashlights weave through the trees as the actors surround the long line of lantern walkers. Radio static and beeping underlay talking, and distantly, I hear, “Do we have them all?”

Beep, and then a staticky reply. “Yup. The Jenkins kid was halfway to the cottage, but we’ve got him back on the path.”

“What is going on?!” a familiar voice screeches.

I sigh. Stacy.

“Just a little outage . . . of candles . . . I guess,” Pat relays into his radio, losing confidence in his report with every word.

“Candles don’t have outages, Patrick!” Stacy replies through the static, and the outline of Patrick slumps with the realization that there is no reasonable explanation for what’s going on.

I can barely register anything they’re saying, though.

The magic is swirling so fast that I can hear it like a roar in my ears.

Oliver’s hand tenses around mine with every passing moment, his grip turning from anxious to strained to almost bone-crushing.

But I can’t bring myself to pull away, because every muscle in my own body has constricted around my bones until I feel like a spring coiled too tight.

Oliver turns his gaze on me the moment I look up at him, and in unison, our eyes widen, and I know he can feel it. I just can’t tell if he knows what it is he’s feeling, but there’s no doubt in my mind that his expression is a mirror of my own.

The swelling surge of magic feels as though it’s about to burst when a booming voice startles me so bad I jump.

“Miss Amelia.”

I drop Oliver’s hand to clutch at my chest in an attempt to keep my heart from leaping right through my breastbone. Oliver holds his head between his hands, trying to catch his breath.

Don appears like a specter in the night, dressed in a wizard costume, complete with a pointy star-embroidered hat, bent in half and flopping as he walks. He stops before me, placing his hands on his hips and eyes Oliver carefully.

“Mr. Oliver,” he mutters. I didn’t even know Don knew how to mutter.

Now that our physical connection has broken, the magic sighs, melting away until it’s as if it had never been about to explode in the first place.

I’m so relieved I’m tempted to burst into tears, but I can’t let myself fall apart when everything is already going so wrong.

So, I allow myself a few deep breaths to compose myself before straightening to face Don.

“What’s up, Don?”

His gaze flicks to me, but his wary expression doesn’t change. “Miss Amelia, you’ve always been a good kid, so I hate that I have to ask, but you aren’t behind this . . . are you?”

I sigh and shake my head. “No,” I assure him, “I’m not. I swear.”

His lips purse beneath his thick mustache. “Because this isn’t something I would put past Stella to set up the moment she learned about Moonlit Pages sponsoring this year. But this isn’t funny anymore, people could get lost or hurt, and after the parade . . .”

I squeeze my eyes shut, resisting the urge to jump to Grandma’s defense because he’s absolutely right. This is the exact type of thing she would have found hilarious, and no one in town would have been able to stop her. Not Don, nor even Stacy.

So, instead, I shake my head. “Don, I can assure you I had nothing to do with this.”

“I see.” His gaze slides to Oliver once again, and I can tell he’s putting together the same pieces Lucy and I did this morning.

I open my mouth to defend Oliver, but my phone chimes, and I’m so confused that the words become lost on my tongue.

I pull out my phone, double-checking the settings, and sure enough, it’s on vibrate.

I’m not sure I’ve ever taken this particular phone off vibrate.

In fact, I’m not sure I’ve taken any phone I’ve owned off vibrate since I graduated high school.

But my messenger app has three notifications nonetheless. All from Lucy.

COME BACK TO MP ASAP!

DO *NOT* brING THE NEW GUY

But ask about the fritters

The moment I step through the door of Moonlit Pages, Lucy comes flying out from between bookshelves.

“Finally!” She grabs my wrist and starts hauling me toward the back of the store before I’ve even had the chance to make sure the door closes behind me. I stumble over my own feet as I wave to Marilyn, who’s so wrapped up in her book, she doesn’t seem to notice my entrance.

“Hi, Marilyn.”

The elderly woman doesn’t even glance up at me from behind the register, her chin resting on a fist as she flips through what looks to be a newly released billionaire romance.

Her brown eyes merely flick to me over the rim of her thick glasses before returning to her story, her fingers flicking in greeting.

“Come on!” Lucy pleads, tugging at my arm like a kid in a candy store.

I let her drag me away, vigorously shaking my free arm in an attempt to rid myself of my coat as we enter the back room. “What in the world is going on with you?”

Lucy comes to a screeching halt before the basement door, stopping so abruptly that I almost smack face-first into it. Thankfully, I trip and manage to plow shoulder-first into it instead, with all the grace of a horror-movie zombie.

“Ow . . .” I groan, slipping the rest of the way out of my dangling coat.

“You’re cursed,” Lucy squeaks before going rigid, her frozen stare searching my face for a reaction.

I pause the rubbing of my now-sore shoulder to mull over her words. Cursed. The very thought of it feels ludicrous, but Lucy looks so serious, I can’t stop the laugh that escapes my throat.

“Yeah, okay. Good one.” My laugh dries on my tongue when Lucy’s wide-eyed alarm doesn’t waver.

“Why are you laughing? It’s not funny.”

I shrug sheepishly, starting to stutter. “I . . . I don’t know, but you can’t be serious. Don’t you think I’d know if I was cursed?”

Lucy huffs, a shadow of her usual self returning as she props her hands on her hips. “How?”

I throw my hands in the air. “I don’t know! That just seems like something a person would notice.”

Lucy takes a deep breath, composing herself before the words rush out of her at the speed of a triple-time audiobook.

“Look. I know it sounds absurd, but I’m right, so I need you to stand there and listen for a second because you’re cursed.

C.U.R.S.E.D. Cursed! Well . . . not just you.

You and Oliver. Well . . . not necessarily you and Oliver, but your families, and—”

“Whoa! Slow down.” I hold up a hand to stop her ranting, and her mouth shuts with a clack. “What does Oliver have to do with this?”

Lucy rolls her green eyes. “I just told you. It’s not really Oliver, but his family. And your family. Really, it’s the two of you together. You’re both mentioned.”

“What do you mean his family was mentioned? How would you even know that?”

“Same last name.” She states it so matter-of-factly that I actually start to question my sanity.

“How do you know his last name? I’m the one who’s been getting to know him, and even I don’t know his last name.”

“Don told me.”

“What?” The question comes out more like a cry, my brain starting to reel at how much new information I’m getting in such a short time.

“I texted him.” Lucy pulls her phone out of her back pocket and holds the conversation up for me to read.

What’s the new guy’s last name?

Miss Lucy, this isn’t the time. I’m busy.

Blackwood

Thanks!

I cradle my head in my palms to keep it from falling right off my shoulders. This conversation as a whole is making my temples throb, and I want to curl up in bed.

“That is way inappropriate! Where did you even get Don’s number?”

She scowls. “Like that’s the important thing right now. You’re cursed!”

“Okay!” I shout back at her, my voice rising with frustration because she’s right.

Wasn’t I just telling Oliver how he’d be the weird one in town if he didn’t have a relationship with Don?

If what Lucy is saying is true, then trying to figure out how she got a hold of the mayor’s personal number is the least of my problems. I take a deep breath.

“Okay,” I repeat at a normal volume, trying my best to compose myself. “Okay, slow down and explain everything.”

“I was downstairs going through Grandma’s records.

You know, as I was condemned to do.” I give her a flat, unamused stare, but she continues, “Anyway, as I was going through them, I found some old pictures of the town, as well as an article from forever ago about the bakery. It used to belong to a long-standing family when the son who had inherited it a few years prior sold it and moved away, which was when Miss Laura took it over.”

“So?”

“Sooo, there was a picture of him from the day he took it over, and I noticed there was a striking resemblance to our mystery man across the street. That’s when I texted Don to confirm, and sure enough, same last name.”

“That is pretty weird . . .” I trail off, recalling everything he’s told me over the past couple of days. “He did mention tonight that his grandfather started his own business away from family and that no one knew why.”

“See!” She squeals, bouncing in delight at her own competence.

“But that still doesn’t explain why you think I’m—we’re—cursed.”

“When I figured out the connection, I started going through Grandma’s old diaries from that time to see if there was any correlation between then and what’s happening with the magic now.” She pauses, worrying at her bottom lip.

“And . . . ?” I prod.

“It was Grandma. She cursed you.”