Page 24 of A Witch’s Guide to Surviving Halloween

Chapter Sixteen

“‘’Til truths unfold, and masks descend,’” Oliver mutters yet again, poring over the curse as if he hasn’t spent the last hour at the coffee bar reading everything we found relating to his grandfather and his family’s history here in Ashwood Haven.

“I mean . . . It sounds like all we have to do is figure out whatever truth it’s referring to and we’ll be all set. ”

“Easier said than done,” Lucy muses as she pours sweet foam over the top of a vibrant green matcha latte. “There’s no mention of a lie or a betrayal in there anywhere.”

She comes around the end of the coffee bar, handing the cup to Oliver, who sits on one of the stools. He takes a sip of the matcha, and I can’t look away as he uses his tongue to clean the light green foam from his lip before setting the cup down on the counter.

Oliver frowns down at the diary, reading over the curse again.

“I don’t think it’s that simple. If it were, it’d be more of a hex or a jinx.

Something easily undone with an apology and a quick reversal spell.

But with the way the magic is acting, this goes way deeper than that.

We have to figure out what it was that happened between our grandparents that was so hurtful neither of them could own up to it, then we might be on the right track. ”

I eye the open diary in his hands from where I’m kneeling on the floor, a stack of self-help books beside me.

From what we’ve gathered over the last few days, the magic seems most upset by our immediate proximity.

So long as we keep ourselves firmly planted several feet apart, with no intention of coming closer, the magic should remain a paltry hum.

“I don’t see how that’s possible.” I mark the top book down in my inventory and reshelve it right beside the bookworm who’s camped out along with us. “It’s not like we can ask her . . .”

When neither of them answers, I glance up to see two identical looks of concern written across both their faces, and I know my tone was more wistful than I intended.

I shake off the weight of their worried gazes and return to the task at hand. “Oh, stop it, both of you. I’m fine.”

“Clearly,” Lucy mutters, that single word dripping with sarcasm.

I prickle, but I choose not to respond and, instead, scowl down at the paperback workbook in my lap, the title stamped across the front in bold letters.

Here’s Your Map, Now Ask For Directions: A Beginner’s Guide to Self-Love

“Well, in lieu of solving the riddle, we’ll need a plan B.” Oliver sets the diary aside, opting instead for his matcha. “Which reminds me, either of you know the moon phase tonight?”

My face scrunches to the side with uncertainty. Usually, I keep close track of the moon, but the past few weeks have been so busy with festival planning, decorating, and anxious worrying that I’ve lost track of the days.

“Half waxing,” I guess, after some mental calculations, though it comes out as more of a question than a statement. I look to Lucy for help, who pulls out her phone.

“Yeah, that’s right,” she confirms. “Fifty-three percent, to be exact.”

Oliver’s eyes lift to the ceiling with his own internal figuring, bouncing back and forth as he thinks. “So, there’s still a week before the full.”

“Thankfully,” I breathe. It’s bad enough that this is all happening just days before Halloween, the day magic is at its peak. I can’t even imagine if it were a full moon as well. We might as well count the town as a loss at that point and move on with our lives.

“But it’s still building, and it’s more than not .

. .” His words are quiet as he trails off in thought.

His eyes squeeze shut, and I can practically see the wheels turning in his mind, reaching back in his memory for anything that might be helpful.

All of a sudden, his eyes fly open, and he points at me with renewed energy.

He begins shuffling through the notebooks, news articles, and diaries spread out across the counter until he finds one he brought from his own stash of family memorabilia.

It’s a thick leatherbound tome that reminds me of our own book of shadows, sitting closed and untouched on our counter since the night of the Witch’s Market.

Flipping through the pages, he scans each one, snapping his fingers as he tries to think.

“Do you have a stock of the basics? Sage smudgers, moon salt, the whole thing?”

I shrug, almost offended, because what kind of a question is that? “Of course, don’t you?”

“I just moved,” he reminds me.

“Still,” I tease.

He rolls his eyes. “Bring them tonight, we’ll need them.”

“For what exactly?”

“A bread-breaking ritual. The whole thing started because of bad blood between families. A bread-breaking ritual might be enough to prove a renewed peace and sort of reconcile what’s gone wrong, counteracting the curse.” He points at Lucy. “You’ll need to come too.”

Lucy shoves a black sparkly fingernail into her chest. “Me? What did I do? I’m an innocent bystander in this whole thing.”

Oliver gives her a flat look. “Oh, please.”

“Well, I am,” Lucy mumbles, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes with a look so pointed it could be a dagger.

Oliver ignores her, which I must admit is pretty entertaining. There aren’t many people willing to go toe to toe with Lucy on her best day, let alone one of her worst. It’s quite a sight to watch someone so easily match her energy and put her in her place.

“We need a third to moderate the whole thing. Plus, you can build a protective barrier to keep any rebound in check if it backfires.”

Lucy hums with thought, already moving on from her death stare to seriously contemplate Oliver’s suggestion. I, on the other hand, am not so convinced.

Lucy glances at the book in Oliver’s hands, reading over the ritual he’s opened to.

“It says the ritual concludes with you each feeding the other a piece of the broken bread. I assume that means it needs to be edible, so that leaves that to Oliver.”

“Rude,” I grunt, but Oliver just snorts.

“I have the stuff for a loaf.”

I chuckle. “Will it be sourdough?”

“That thing still won’t shut up,” he laments, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “At least I won’t have to worry about it tomorrow.”

“What’s happening tomorrow? Aside from the haunted houses.”

“I was thinking I’d open the doors for the night and hand out samples. Chocolate-orange cookies, chai apple cupcakes . . .”

Lucy perks up at the sound of that. “Apple fritters?”

Oliver shoots her a look out of the corner of his eye that suggests she’s already hit her fritter limit for the week, which earns him a pout that he promptly ignores.

“Anyway, since it’s a night of haunted houses and ghost tours, I figured no one would notice a whining, screeching sourdough starter.

That gives me one more day to figure out what to do with the damn thing.

” He lets out a heavy sigh before returning to the subject at hand.

“So, bread-breaking ritual. What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” I purse my lips in thought as I count another shelf of self-help books, marking the numbers on a pad of paper. “Something about it feels wrong. I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad idea, but it doesn’t seem like enough.”

“It’d be more powerful than what we tried. More intentional,” Lucy offers.

“That’s what worries me. Not only is Halloween in two days, but we’re trying a more straightforward approach. Do you realize how badly that could backfire?”

“That’s what the barrier is for,” Oliver reminds me.

“Besides, the whole town will be gathered in the square for movie night. That means we have the place to ourselves, and if something does go spectacularly wrong, maybe no one will notice.” Lucy gives a happy little wiggle as she takes her first sip of her pumpkin-spiced latte, her red curls brushing her shoulders.

I give her a flat glare, shifting my gaze to the worm sitting on the shelf beside me.

“I think this town could use a bit more variety,” our new friend informs us, raising its little nose in the air. “It is the spice of life, after all, and you all seem to be very speciesist.”

I roll my eyes until they land on Lucy once again, who at least has the decency to grimace.

“Point taken,” she mutters as she takes another sip.

If the last few days have taught us anything, it’s that the magic is being anything but subtle.

At this rate, I wouldn’t even be surprised if our next punishment was for the characters on the big screen to step right onto the streets of Ashwood Haven and start terrorizing townspeople; how very Frankenstein.

The movie, not the book.

I turn my attention back to the bookworm. “If a customer comes in here, you’d better hide.”

“Just proving my point,” it declares.

I run my hands over my face, digging the heels of my palms into my eyes.

Between running the bookstore, dealing with magical outbursts, and the worst of them all, hosting the festival, I’m absolutely exhausted.

I can handle everything else, but hosting duties have drained my social battery down to its dregs, and I can tell I’m about to snap.

All the attention, socializing, and responsibilities are wearing me down day by day, and I keep reminding myself that Grandma did this well into her sixties.

Hell, she would have done it from her deathbed if given the choice.

If she can do it, so can I . . . I just need to figure out how she did it.

I can feel both Lucy and Oliver’s eyes on me, and when I look their way, the concerned expressions on their faces make me want to cave in on myself harder.

“I’m fine,” I grit through clenched teeth, snapping at the pair of them.

The two exchange a meaningful look, and I’m starting to think that maybe I don’t like seeing them together after all.

“If you have something to say, then say it,” I snap once more, giving in to the exhaustion wearing on my bones.

Lucy quirks an eyebrow at me, and an icy mask starts to slip across her face.

So much tension builds between us that even Oliver starts to squirm on his stool, looking a lot like someone who’s been caught in the middle of something they didn’t mean to walk in on.

“Fine,” Lucy bites back, balancing her drink on her criss-crossed legs, her spine so straight it could be made of steel. “You aren’t Grandma.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re bending over backward to prove to this whole town that you can fill her shoes, when—in reality—you’re hating every second.

You don’t owe them anything, especially not your sanity.

I think you’d be better off hiding here for the rest of the festival and telling them all to screw themselves. Or better yet, let me do it for you.”

I narrow my eyes at her, refusing to show the way her words spear me right through the chest.

“If you hate this town so much, then why are you still here?” I spit at her, and I can tell by the way her gaze darkens that the words hit their mark. “Oh, that’s right! Because—”

“Amelia,” she cuts me off, her tone slicing across my skin like a dried corn stalk leaf. “I love you. Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

I promptly shut my mouth so hard my teeth clack, holding back the rest of my sentence. I take a moment, running my hands through my black hair and my nails across my scalp as I breathe deep. A few heartbeats later, I’m drained of all my fight.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, just loud enough for her to hear.

The worm peeks around the edge of a book, pointedly turning its attention on Lucy. “Why haven’t you left?”

With a flick of her hand, Lucy sends the book in my lap back onto the shelf, hiding the worm from view and forcing it back to wherever it goes during the day.

The three of us fall into a heavy silence, punctuated by Lucy taking a long, loud sip of her drink.

After what feels like an eternity, Oliver clears his throat and straightens on his stool, using his feet to push against the bottom rung and twist back and forth like a little kid who can’t sit still.

“So . . .” he starts, trying and failing to sound casual. “Where should this all take place?”

“Where should what take place?” I ask, keeping my tone as friendly as possible.

“The bread-breaking ritual.”

“I don’t know,” I admit after a moment.

Lucy hums with thought, swirling her hand over the top of her cup to slowly stir the contents. “Why not the woods?”

“Isn’t that a little too . . . horror movie? Two girls wandering off into the forest on the edge of town with a strange man they met a few days ago?”

Oliver’s brows furrow with exaggerated offense, holding a hand to his chest like a damsel in an old-timey movie.

“Maybe a little,” Lucy admits.

“Crying a little inside over here.” Oliver sulks, though neither of us pays him much attention.

“But it’s within the bounds of the magic and far enough from the town square that maybe the rebound from a failed attempt won’t cause any chaos.”

I contemplate the suggestion. “Okay, that’s fair.”

“So, it’s settled then? I’ll meet you two tonight after you sneak away from the movies.”

“Do I get a say?” Oliver glances between us and waves a forlorn hand in the air to get our attention.

Lucy and I look at each other for a brief moment before returning our attention to him.

“No,” we say in unison.

Oliver takes a long sip of his matcha before setting the half-empty cup on the counter. “I get the feeling I’m going to need a lot more caffeine to keep up with the two of you.”