Page 29 of Everything She Does Is Magic (Fableview #1)

Anya

We walk between stalks of corn higher than our heads.

Grace swears this winding dirt path will lead us where we need to go, but the inky night provides little assistance.

It’s hard not to get spooked by the way the corn rustles and sways in random, unpredictable intervals, no connection to the wind or anything we can see.

I expect Grace to be skittish too, but she’s hard-eyed and ready, hands tucked under the gigantic backpack she’s put on for the occasion. She’s dressed in all black. No costume in sight. The most serious person in the world , I think.

She pulls a walkie-talkie out of a side pocket and hands it to me, then takes out another and talks into it. “Doyle, this is Manalo, over and out.”

“We’re standing side by side.”

“Doyle. Please. Whimsy,” she says, still using the walkie. “Don’t ruin this with your cynicism.”

I lift the walkie-talkie to my mouth. “It scares me that you’re starting to make sense.”

“There’s nothing worse than robbing yourself of joy because you think you need to be seen as unaffected.”

Feeling brave or maybe even playful, I set the walkie-talkie on the ground to take a lunging step forward, bringing my arms up straight into the air, my shoulders pressed against my ears. “How’s this for joyful?”

I attempt my first cartwheel in years. Blood rushes through me like a glitter-fueled rain stick, sloshing back and forth. When I try to land, my feet aren’t quite ready for the ground. I end up flopping onto my butt, the dry earth providing me no cushion.

“Excellent,” Grace says, still determined—treating this like a full-scale mission—but also impressed. “I didn’t know you had that in you.”

I catch myself smiling, a little bit proud of myself in spite of the failed landing. “One of my older cousins made me learn basic tumbling when I lived with her.”

“For, like, magical reasons?”

“No. She just wanted someone to watch her do flips all day, and I was the one who was around.”

“Nice. By the way, I have some minor bad news,” Grace says.

I brush the dirt off my butt and pick up my walkie. “You let me do a cartwheel before you told me there’s bad news?”

“I’d do it again if you wanted to try a handstand.”

I stare at her.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of those particular glares. Memories. ”

“Please tell me the bad news.”

“Darcy’s grounded,” she says.

Grace continues walking, and I have no choice but to follow. “Why are we in the middle of a cornfield on our way to the secret back entrance of this carnival if she’s not going to see what we do?”

“Patience, Doyle. Please.”

The cornstalks finally flatten out, and we come up against a fence.

Beyond it are huge overhead lights, like the kind they use at football games, illuminating the clearing.

We can’t see much from where we are, facing the back of what looks to be a fun-house maze, but we can hear the faint hum of waltzing carnival music.

Grace continues leading me around the fence, weaving us in and out of the corn like we’re dodging invisible lasers.

“Why do you know how to do this?” I ask her. When she doesn’t answer, I take out the walkie and try again. “Manalo, this is Doyle. Paging you for an explanation.”

“Parker showed me last year,” she walkies back. “They didn’t want to pay the entrance fee.”

“The famed Parker Holt. A rebel. Will I ever meet them?”

“ Maybe ,” Grace says, but not into the walkie. She looks back to tell me, and it’s small but somehow significant.

We reach a corner of the fence with a gap wide enough to walk through it sideways.

Grace gives me another look, making sure I’m appreciating how well she’s navigated us to this point.

She tosses her backpack in first, then we step through, weaving in and out of the crowd until we reach a large tent with a ramshackle wooden sign at the opening—the words Haunted House sprayed atop it in ominous red paint.

There are red handprints smeared across the tent, and a special effect smoke puffing around the entrance.

“It already looks pretty cool,” I admit.

From the way Grace and Darcy spoke about this, I expected to find something cutesier.

But this is sufficiently creepy, if not particularly detailed.

It’s visibly a tent, not a house, for one.

But all in all, it’s still effective, especially set against the cornstalks.

“Yeah, and then you get inside, and the Kellers are covered in bedsheets pretending to be a married ghost couple, and they follow you around for a few rooms saying ‘Boo,’ and it gets a little less appealing,” Grace says.

“Though they’ve decided to ground themselves with Darcy.

So Mr.and Mrs.Holtzenberg are fillingin. ”

“Kyle’s parents are running this?” I’ve learned enough Fableview town history to process how significant this is. Monumental, really.

Grace smiles. “See? You do understand why we couldn’t cancel.”

“Our mission isn’t to make this better anymore, is it?” I ask. “We’ll be making it worse?”

“Doyle, you are a little sinister, after all,” she says with a grin.

“No, we’re still going to make it better.

But if the town doesn’t like it, they’ll think it’s the Holtzenbergs’ fault, and we’ll keep our identities disguised.

If they do like it, we can come forward as the creators.

Or we can just bask in the private glory of knowing we’ve made a sufficiently scary upgrade to the haunted house.

Either way, we’re safe to really go for it. ”

All this way and we haven’t discussed the plan. When Grace doesn’t move, I suspect she doesn’t actually have one. She’s figured me, plus magic, plus this tent would somehow alchemize into a functioning setup.

There are about a dozen things I could tell her that would let her down in this moment.

I could use my magic to patch up the hole at the edge of the tent, tattered from years of wear.

That’s not the kind of power that’s going to shake up this town.

But Grace has gone through all this trouble to help me without anything for her to gain from it.

She has no motive outside of wanting Darcy to be happy.

And, I guess, wanting me to be happy. So I don’t tell her all the things I can’t do.

Instead I look at her with a smile and say into my walkie, “Manalo, it’s time to begin our first run-through of the haunted house. Copy that?”

“Copy that,” she says.

We walk into the tent.