Page 41

THIRTY-FIVE

The first time Thorn had drunk the potion out of her favorite teacup, she’d been transported to her cottage in the twenty-first century.

Walls had been right outside, setting up a cat trap.

He had then gone around the house to check for more stray cats.

That was why when he circled back and saw Thorn, Pepper had said, He’s still here.

The second time the potion was drunk by Thorn, earlier tonight, it had transported her to just outside Walls’s house in the twenty-first century. And he had been right inside.

The third time the potion was used, minutes ago by Walls, it had transported him to where he stood now, in the middle of his street, ten paces away from her.

All three times, Thorn had actually brewed the same potion, and all three batches had done the same thing: brought her to her true love.

“Your beard…” She trailed off. “Sorry, that shouldn’t be the first thing I noticed.”

He stayed where he was. “You said you were curious to see what I look like without my beard. So I shaved it yesterday, thinking somehow you’d come back just to see it. And here you are.”

“I’m sorry for leaving,” she called out.

“And I’m sorry I let you take me on a date even though I believed you were under the effects of a love potion.

It was selfish and wrong and I shouldn’t have.

I know now that you didn’t drink that lemonade with the potion in it, but that still doesn’t excuse what I did. ”

“Thorn Scarhart, you—” He clamped his mouth shut and took a deep breath. “Did you leave because you felt guilty?”

“I left because I was heartbroken. Because we had such a wonderful date, and at the end of the day I had to face what I thought was the truth—that you’d never love me.”

He walked in circles on the spot. His eyebrows were furrowed and he kept huffing. “You eat a whole tub of ice cream. Cry in the shower. Get a dramatic haircut. That’s what you do when your heart is broken. Not travel three centuries back in time.”

“Walls, are you…” Thorn couldn’t believe it. “Angry?”

“Yes!” he said, not yelling, but raising his voice louder than she’d ever heard it. “You took off without saying a word. And after kissing me! Even if it was only on the cheek, you kissed me, and it meant something!”

She didn’t know what to say. He was acting even more uncharacteristically pickled than when he’d asked her out, and she found it endearing. “I’m sorry, Walls. I’d never felt my heart break that way until I fell in love with you.”

He strode toward her. Before she could utter another word, she was in his embrace. He buried his face in her hair.

Thorn wrapped her arms around him.

“You kissed the witch?” a young voice asked.

Thorn turned her head. Standing behind her was a little witch wearing an oversized pointy hat with a kinked tip. “Charlie!”

“Uncle Walls, I was going to never forgive you for not taking me trick-or-treating and making me go with Mom and Dad,” Charlie said.

With a judgmental expression similar to Bandit’s resting face, she glanced at Meg and Greg standing behind her.

“But if it’s because you had a date with Thorn, then that’s okay, I guess. ”

Meg looked at Walls and Thorn with a grin wider than the creepy carved pumpkins’.

“You know, I thought you two looked good together, but I assumed that if Thorn was interested, she’d have asked Walls out herself.

After all, she wasn’t exactly shy in her pursuit for love.

Besides, Walls warned me a long time ago to stay out of his love life until he was ready. ”

“And you tried to set me up with Michelle anyway,” Walls argued.

“My stupid little brother,” Meg said sweetly, “it’s been three freaking years since your breakup.”

“I have to say, it’s a miracle you held out that long.

Actually, that day, right after I checked the cat trap, I was going to tell you I was ready to date again.

But then I ran into Thorn.” He turned to look at her.

“And I got distracted by this strange woman who talked to cats calling me a mad warlock.”

Thorn’s jaw dropped. So that was why the Bring Me to My True Love potion had brought her to Walls on that particular day. Any time before that, he might not have been ready for a relationship. Any time after, he might have already entered another.

Walls noticed her expression. “What are you thinking about?”

“I don’t want to muddle this”—she pointed to him, then to herself—“with magic. I know you asked me out of your own volition, but there’s no pressure for you to stick to the rules of some potion. If this ends up being just a friendship, that’s its own kind of love.”

He pondered this for a moment, then laughed and ruffled her hair. “Okay.”

“So, Uncle Walls, it was love at first sight?” Charlie asked.

He turned to Thorn and smiled. “No. I knew I looked forward to seeing her, but I didn’t realize anything until I texted her about dropping off a gift basket.

She told me she was going to be out on a date, and I was…

jealous. I wanted to be the one to—” He paused.

“You’re seven, you shouldn’t be hearing this. ”

“Please, Mom and Dad are always kissing in front of me.” Charlie rolled her eyes.

Meg and Greg grinned sheepishly. Then Greg placed an arm around Meg and said, “I love my wife.”

Charlie stuck out her tongue like she was puking, then said, “Uncle Walls, you were yelling that Thorn kissed you. Did you want to be the one to kiss her?”

“Excuse me,” said Meg, putting her hands on her hips. “No more talk about kissing. More important, what is going on?”

Walls tightened his embrace around Thorn.

She had never felt so happy and so sad. She said, “I have to deal with Rose.”

Meg wanted to call the police, but Greg reasoned that they were just going to think the whole thing was a prank.

Charlie wanted to come with and watch a magic duel, but all the adults said no, and Meg took her home.

That left Greg, Walls, and Thorn. Along with Bandit, Pepper, and Pumpkin.

But Thorn made the men and the cats wait on the porch. “I’ll call you if I need help.”

“No way.” Greg started to follow Thorn into the house, but she held out one hand in front of his face.

She flexed her fingers into a claw and held it close to Greg’s face. She hoped she wouldn’t have to hurt Rose, but that would depend on what Rose did. “Can you eviscerate someone with just a hand?”

Greg swallowed. Walls pulled him back, saying, “She needs to do this herself.”

But as she turned the doorknob, she noticed that Walls’s jaw was clenched and his hands were tucked into his pockets. It was all he could do not to run right in after her.

Bandit obeyed, too, but he crouched right by the cat door, poised to spring inside. Pepper and Pumpkin were right behind him.

Thorn stepped inside.

Rose was waiting. Back in her own body, she stood next to the round table among broken glass and puddles of pink potion. The neck of a vial peeked out of her closed fist.

Thorn stayed where she was just inside the door. Her fingers twitched as she readied to defend herself from her sister a second time.

But Rose only smiled sadly. “Congratulations, Thorn. You’ve done what Mother and I couldn’t.”

“It wasn’t just me. You know how it is with spells and potions—I worked from Mother’s formula, but it was also a stroke of luck. I just happened upon the right combination.”

“I’m not talking about the potion.”

“Do you mean Walls? I mean, technically, I did find him because of the Bring Me to My True Love potion.”

Rose shook her head. “What Mother and I couldn’t do was risk getting hurt for love. But even after all the pain we caused you, you took that risk.”

Thorn wanted so badly to pull her sister into an embrace. “Rose…”

“I’m so sorry I hurt you, Thorn. But I’ll make sure it never happens again.” Rose opened her palm to reveal the vial of purple liquid.

“Never Love Again potion? Why?”

“If I don’t love, I’ll stop hurting.” Rose uncapped the vial.

Thorn took a slow step toward her sister. “Rose, please don’t.”

“It’s too late. I almost killed you. And the man you love.” Rose opened the vial and brought it to her lips.

“You made mistakes. And depriving me of a sister won’t fix them.” Thorn lunged for her sister, grabbing at her arm.

Rose yanked it back.

Purple droplets splashed all over them. Two sets of pointy shoes crushed the broken glass underneath their feet, then clicked and clacked against the timber floor as the two witches tussled across the room, until Thorn’s calf hit that damn twenty-first-century coffee table and she tumbled backward, bringing her sister down with her.

The Never Love Again potion, now splashed across the floor, seeped into the cracks between timber panels.

Rose rolled off of Thorn but didn’t get up. They lay side by side, staring at the ceiling and catching their breath.

Thorn was first to speak. “You’d better stick around. You have to make up for all the shit you’ve done to me.”

Rose let out a laugh. “All the shit ?”

Then Thorn laughed, and Rose laughed again, and soon they were both doubled over on the floor, cackling like the witches they were.

And then they fell silent again.

Thorn felt around on the floor until her fingers found Rose’s. “I understand why you did what you did,” she said softly. “I wish you hadn’t, but… all those years we watched Mother…”

“I’m still too afraid to love.”

“But you loved Mother. And you love me.”

“I do. But look at what that led me to do. I can’t stay here. I need to… I… I don’t know.”

Thorn nodded. She, too, had spent so long believing she needed a man to make her life perfect. But even though she was sure of her love for Walls, she still had so much else to sort out. “Will you promise to come back?”

Rose squeezed Thorn’s hand. “I will. I promise.”

It might be the hardest thing Thorn had ever had to do, but she let go.

As they climbed to their feet, they both moaned. “We’re too old for fistfights,” Thorn said, rubbing her back.

Rose massaged her knees. “Next time, we’ll duel with spells.”

Thorn noticed something glint under the coffee table. It was one last unbroken vial of Bring Me to My True Love potion. She pressed it into Rose’s hand. “If and when you decide that you want romance, a little old-fashioned magic might come in handy.”

Rose looked at the pink potion, then up at Thorn. She smiled sadly. “Goodbye for now, Thorn.”

With that, Rose opened the door. Walls and Greg, who’d clearly had their ears pressed up against the door, tumbled in and fell flat on their faces.

Rose looked down at Walls. She chuckled.

And then she was gone.

“We—we weren’t eavesdropping.” Walls had agilely hopped back to his feet but was tripping over his words. “I mean, we were, but just to make sure you were okay.”

“I’ll give you two a moment,” Greg said. Still on all fours, he reverse-crawled his way out of the cottage.

Thorn stood before Walls. She felt so safe with him. She fell to her knees. And the tears started flowing down her face. She grieved for the sister she had missed for so many years and would still miss, but also rejoiced for the sister who would one day return.

Walls rushed in. He knelt down next to her. And he let her feel everything she had to feel.

Suddenly, her pocket moved. And then something leaped out of it. Walls whipped out his leg, ready to kick it.

“Wait!” Thorn yelled.

The frog landed in front of her and just stared at her with those bulging eyes.

“Is that you, Penny?”

“Ribbit!”

“Did you drink my Croak potion again just to hitchhike to the twenty-first century?”

“Ribbit!”