Page 31 of A Witch’s Guide to Surviving Halloween

Chapter Twenty-Two

It takes all my self-restraint not to rush the phantom floating before me, to not pull her into a hug.

All I want is to feel her strong arms around me once again and breathe in the scent of lilac and lemon, touched with the after notes of aged parchment.

The scent I’ve associated with her since before I was old enough to put a name to them.

Because the moment I go to grab her, I’ll pass right through, and my heart will be broken.

The Grandma before me is only half here, transparent and lacking substance, but still so full of life.

Grandma reaches out to me, placing her palm against my cheek to cup my face. Though I can’t actually feel her touch, there’s a shadow of feeling . . . a memory of what it felt like before.

“Bug,” she starts, the nickname slicing through my chest like a villain pulling out my heart. “Every day we spent together, I taught you lessons I fully intended you to ignore. But of all of them, why would you ignore this one and bring me here?”

I can’t stop the sad smile that tugs at my lips, and I can hear the chuckle-mixed sob that busts from Lucy at the same time.

Yes, Grandma taught Lucy and me about magic and all the rules that go along with it, but we both knew her rules were more like suggestions.

She herself wasn’t exactly a straight-laced witch, and she never expected us to be either.

I take a deep breath, preparing myself to delve straight into why I brought her here. There are so many things I’d rather talk about, so many things I’d rather ask, but we only have a few minutes before she’ll disappear from our lives again, and I can’t waste a moment of them.

“Oliver Blackwood, Richard Blackwood’s grandson, has moved to town.

” At the mention of Richard, Grandma’s face falls, a sadness I’d never seen from her before taking over her features until she’s aged years right before my eyes.

“Grandma, I need you to tell us how to break the curse. What are the lies? What do Oliver and I need to admit to, or own up to, in order to break this thing? What did Richard do that was so awful? The magic is trying to run Oliver out of town, and he hasn’t even reopened the bakery yet. ”

Grandma sighs and bows her head. “It wasn’t Richard who did anything. Richard was perfect; he did all the right things for the time. It was me, bug. I was the one who lied, and by the time I understood that, it was far too late.”

I furrow my brows at her, trying to understand. “You . . . cursed yourself?”

Grandma shook her head. “Many things are missing from those diary entries, bug. I assume that’s how you found the curse at all, since that’s the only place I wrote it down.

” I nod, staying quiet to give her the space to explain.

“We don’t have much time, but I think you deserve to know the whole story.

As you know, on Halloween night, 1967, I was hurting.

As the last of my family, and newly broken up from my first and only love, I was more alone than I’d ever been in my life.

I was desperate for one last chance to talk to my family. ”

Understanding dawns on me immediately, because I’m achingly familiar with the feeling she’s talking about. “You did the ‘Through The Veil’ ritual,” I whisper.

“I did,” Grandma admits. “In a drunken fit of pain, I willingly sacrificed a piece of my future in exchange for a chance to talk to my mother one more time. I didn’t realize until the ritual was over that the piece of my future I sacrificed was Richard.

I didn’t cast the curse, bug. The ritual cast the curse on me as the cost to see my mother.

That’s why I never wanted you to even consider doing this.

Not even as a last resort. This ritual will take everything from you, and it will forever be my biggest regret.

Seeing my mother, feeling her love, and hearing one last piece of motherly advice was wonderful, but it wasn’t worth the love of my life. ”

I glance over my shoulder at Lucy. With her hand pressed to her mouth and the other crossed over her middle, she looks as though she’s about to be sick.

I want to run to her, to hold her and apologize, to promise I’ll stay by her side until we figure out whatever the consequence will be for her sacrifice, but as soon as I leave the circle, Grandma will be gone and we won’t have our answer.

If I have any chance of helping my best friend, I need to learn how to break my own curse first.

When I turn back to Grandma, she’s even more see-through than she had been before; she’s already fading away, and I’m running out of time.

“What was the lie, Grandma? I need to know.”

“‘’Til truths unfold, and masks descend,’” she quotes.

“The lie was the mask. It was this facade I forced on myself. I thought I had to pretend to gain respect. That I had to be this strong, independent woman who needed no one and nothing for people to take me seriously. I let my pride get in the way of getting everything I wanted, simply because I thought other people’s expectations of me were more important than what I truly wanted and who I truly was.

I could have had Moonlit Pages, love, community, respect, and everything else.

Instead, I was too narrow-sighted to let myself have it.

But as you probably know, bug, I never let that mask go.

Once I wore it, I never figured out how to take it off. I wore it until the day I died.”

“I’m so sorry,” I choke out, unsure what else to say. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for her. To spend her entire life pretending to be someone she wasn’t, all for the sake of an image. All for the sake of the rest of the town and Moonlit Pages.

“Tell me,” she says, leaning in and studying my face. “Why does it look like you haven’t slept in a week?”

I sigh, rubbing my hands across my eyes as if the dark circles that have recently appeared can be wiped away. “This curse has been exhausting. It started out small, but every day, it gets worse and Stacy is freaking out, because she thinks I’m a bad host and—”

“Bug, you’re hosting the Halloween festival?” Grandma’s eyes are wide with horror.

“Of course,” I tell her, unsure why that’s the part she cares about. What about the people who have been hurt? The money lost? There are so many more important things to focus on. “It’s Moonlit Pages’s year to sponsor, and you aren’t here to host, so I just . . .”

I just put on a mask and forced myself to step up so that I could be someone the town respected. I wanted to appear as though I could handle life without you and be the business owner the town expects.

Grandma shakes her head, her horror fading to a look of sympathy. “So you did exactly what I would have done.”

In more ways than one, I think to myself, my thoughts reflected in her nearly invisible eyes.

“I never meant for you to follow in my footsteps. Not like this. From here on out, I want you to remember one last thing: Never live your life according to someone else’s expectations, not even mine.

You know what you need to do.” Grandma presses phantom lips to my forehead.

The ghost of love washes through me, and once again, I have to stop myself from throwing myself into her arms. “I love you, my little bug.”

“I love you, too.” The words are a barely audible whisper as she fades from view.

A cold wind blows through the circle, taking the flames of the candles and Grandma with it, leaving Lucy and me alone once again.

The breeze picks up the leftover ashes in the burn bowl and they flutter across the floor like sad confetti.

It takes a moment for me to gather myself, but when I do, the first thing I do is rush to Lucy. She’s upright again, black liner streaking her cheeks where dried tears have fallen.

“I’m so sorry,” I start, but she shakes her head.

“Don’t,” she chokes. “Don’t even start. I can’t . . . not right now. It was my choice, okay? It’s not your fault.”

I want to argue with her, but there’s nothing I can say to change it now.

“Just go, okay?” When I don’t leave, she gives me a small, sad smile that’s entirely humorless. “We’ll figure it out later—together—but the curse needs to be broken tonight.”

Again, I open my mouth to argue, to tell her I’m not leaving her side, when my phone goes off again.

Bzzz bzzz.

Bzzz bzzz.

Pause.

Bzzz bzzz.

Bzzz bzzz.

I push a frustrated breath through my nose, torn between my need to stay with my best friend, who has possibly forsaken her future on my behalf, and my desire to break this curse once and for all.

“If you don’t go now, I would have done this for nothing,” she whispers, and that’s what decides it for me.

“Fine”—I grab my phone and back away from her—“but we’re going to figure this out, okay? I promise.”

Lucy nods, but there’s no glimmer of hope in her green eyes as she gazes at the burn bowl in the center of the floor.

My feet almost stop, but she’s right. If I don’t break the curse, her sacrifice would be in vain.

Grandma’s curse wasn’t an immediate thing; it took time to dig its claws into her life and tear it to shreds.

We have time to solve Lucy’s before it gets out of control.

So, against my better judgment, I turn and bolt through the sales floor and out the front door of Moonlit Pages. Weaving through the crowds of people, I duck and bob around children in costumes and parents bundled in warm coats as we all head toward Main Square.

I beeline for the stage, and for the first time, the sight of it doesn’t turn my stomach to lead. Instead, I’m giddy because I’m not going to be the one up there tonight.

Stacy and Don are standing by the steps. Stacy paces with a phone to her ear as she calls me, my own vibrating phone clutched in my hand. The moment she spots me, her expression is somewhere between relief and rage, and I realize . . . I don’t care.