Page 32 of Everything She Does Is Magic (Fableview #1)

Maybe it would be enough to let me into the coven without a protector. Maybe I’m the one who could teach them a thing ortwo.

“Excuse me,” Mrs.Holtzenberg says. When I turn to face her, she screams. Probably because I’m covered in blood and wearing a weird gown inside this haunted house that’s only ever had two bedsheet ghosts and some old animatronics.

“I’m not a real killer,” I tell her for some reason. This doesn’t make it any better.

“Kevin!” she shouts.

Her husband grabs my arm like I’m the kind of trouble that needs apprehending. Which I guess I sort of am. He drags me toward the back of the haunted house.

“We’re taking you to the tent ,” he says, like I know what that means. We’re already in a tent.

I don’t bother to resist. The only time I even lift my head is when we get back outside, and I catch sight of Grace along the edge of the fence. She starts forward like she’s going to sacrifice herself too, and I shake my head. She’s not going down with me.

Turns out that the tent is some sort of makeshift security center.

There’s one older man in here, not a cop but an employee of some security firm, wearing their logo on his ill-fitting polo as he eats a hot dog while watching a fuzzy livestream of various corners of the carnival on an iPad.

He can’t be watching very closely, since Grace and I snuck in without notice.

His jaw drops when he sees me. I remember that I’m covered in blood, dressed like some kind of low-rent Lizzie Borden. With Mr.Holtzenberg holding me as if I’m dangerous, it seems like I’ve committed a real crime—the kind this guy is probably not at all equipped to handle.

“She was causing a scene in the haunted house,” Mrs.Holtzenberg explains. “Chasing people out. They were screaming in horror.”

The man scrambles to wipe mustard off the corner of his mouth. “Is anyone hurt?” he asks, fumbling with the crumbs that have dropped onto his folding-table desk.

“No,” Mrs.Holtzenberg says. “Just our business.”

If this wasn’t so serious, I could almost laugh. Grace and I were able to go through the haunted house four times in a row without interruption; that’s how slow the business was. By the time we’d finished our last performance, the place was packed.

“Why did you do it?” the security guard asks me.

I’m trying to come up with a reason that’s safe enough to share but also sounds compelling.

I really love Halloween, and I think you guys don’t do it in an interesting way.

Sounds weird.

I’m passionate about haunted houses having genuine scares.

Also weird.

The person I like really wanted this to be a cooler thing than it is, and I took it upon myself to make that happen so that she’s hopefully impressed when she hears about it at some undetermined later date.

I don’t have to answer, because Kyle Holtzenberg himself bursts into the tent. “I put her up to it,” he declares.

The “What?” that flies out of my mouth is involuntary. Unstoppable. In what world is Kyle Holtzenberg trying to take the fall for me?

“This was all my idea,” he tells his parents. “I dared her to dothis.”

“Kyle Kristopher Holtzenberg. Why on earth would you do that?” Mrs.Holtzenberg asks. She’s got that edge to her voice that I recognize from movies—a parent who has had enough .

“I was trying to win Darcy back,” he says, and now I’m twisted all the way around in my chair, in the front row for this riveting piece of theater.

“I know this is usually her parents’ thing, and she was so upset about seeing them lose it.

I thought that if I made sure it was a disaster, she’d maybe go to the Fall Ball with me after all. ”

The Holtzenbergs have their ghost costumes draped over their arms, and Mrs.Holtzenberg sets hers on the security guard’s desk. “Kyle, sweetie,” she says, putting both hands on either side of his face. “You have got to be serious.”

For a moment, I think she knows he’s lying.

Because obviously he’s lying. His story is ridiculous, and she wants him to tell the truth.

But, no, she’s bought the whole thing so completely that she means Kyle needs to shape up his life.

She’s saying he needs to be serious about himself. About his decisions.

It’s Mr.Holtzenberg who still has doubts. He puts a hand on me, pulling the attention back to me after Kyle’s stolen the show. “He really asked you to do this?”

“I did,” Kyle answers before I can. He widens his eyes as much as possible, a face that says, Don’t you dare say it isn’t true.

I do something that might pass for a nod but is really more like a stiffening of my neck, and the security guard says, “Well then, what would you like me to do?”

“Let her go,” Kyle says. “Cuff me instead.”

“No one’s getting handcuffed,” the security guard informs us. He looks to the Holtzenbergs almost like he’s asking their permission for the next part. “But I can keep him supervised in the tent until the end of the night?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Mrs.Holtzenberg tells him, gathering up her ghost costume again.

If both Holtzenberg parents are here, who is supervising the haunted house?

I wonder. Not that it matters. But somehow, I know the Kellers would never have let this happen this way.

Then again, Kyle’s dramatic and unexpected defense of me wouldn’t have worked on them.

There’s no sense in imagining that reality, because the one I’m in is the one where I’m free.

The Holtzenbergs leave first, telling Kyle they’ll discuss this again at the end of the night.

“You’re in big trouble,” Mrs.Holtzenberg says as a final threat, pulling the bedsheet back over her head, leaving me alone with Kyle.

“You owe me five hundred dollars,” Kyle tells me once we’ve exited the tent afterward, back in the land of funnel cakes and Ferris wheels.

“Is that why you did this? Because I’ll go back in there and tell them the truth.” I turn toward the tent.

“Hold on,” Kyle says. “I was just saying, you know, if you felt the need to pay me for my kindness, that amount would doit…”

“Kyle, I have no idea why you just barged into that tent and told your parents an elaborate lie on my behalf, but I do know that I feel no need to give you my apple bobbing contest earnings. You don’t know how tense the final was. You weren’t there. I was bobbing for my life.”

“Fine,” he says, having the audacity to sound annoyed aboutit.

Our walk has synced, and it jars me so much to notice it that I wonder if I should go find Grace and explain to her what happened.

But somehow, I feel compelled to see this through, despite Kyle’s commitment to pestering me in the aftermath.

He’s still annoying, but it’s the kind of annoying I’ve grown to appreciate.

I’m about to say as much when I hear her.

“It was you,” she says.

Julia is here, because of course she is.

All my good feelings fly out the window at the sight of her.

“You used your magic in the haunted house,” she says.

“We saw you.” Her boyfriend stands behind her with his arms crossed.

“I thought you couldn’t use your magic for other people.

Or was that just another one of your lies? ”

“I never lied to you,” I say.

“She’s a witch ,” she says to Kyle.

“Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

“But do you really know? That she has the power to bring people back to life, and she just doesn’t use it?”

For the first time, I really see her. Beneath the anger and the accusations, there is hurt. She didn’t want to lose her grandfather, and she needed someone to blame for it. That someone was me. No matter what I do, I will never be able to change that.

“Julia, I’m sorry I couldn’t save your grandfather.” My apology isn’t about my powers. It’s about life itself. Sometimes it’s cruel. Sometimes it takes the things you love from you and you don’t have any say in the matter. That’s what I’m sorry about.

Her face flushes as red as her hair. “I don’t want your apology. I want everyone to know the truth about you.”

“They already know,” I tell her, for once feeling ready to meet this moment.

“And they don’t care. So now what? You follow me everywhere I go?

You move here and announce to every person who comes through town that I’m a witch?

In Fableview? A town that celebrates Halloween for an entire month?

Which is the whole reason you came here in the first place? ”

“Kinda seems to me like you might be obsessed with her,” Kyle interjects.

I could hug him.

I really, really could.

“Nobody in our town will care what you have to say,” he continues. He’s on a real hot streak now, and he knows it, his voice getting louder and more confident with every word. “We will all choose Anya over you. So maybe get over it. Or just leave. You won’t be missed.”

The strangest thing happens. Tears spring to my eyes. Over Kyle Holtzenberg. He’s defended me so well that Julia and her boyfriend actually walk away.

“Damn. She sucks. How do you even know her?” he asks once she’s gone. He looks down, realizes I’m crying, and gets startled. “Was I not supposed to do that? I was kinda just following your vibe.”

“No, no. That was amazing. I’m just…” I can’t believe I’m about to say this to Kyle Holtzenberg. “It means a lot that you stuck up for me.”

“Oh.” He smiles, proud of himself. “Yeah. I guess I did. That was nice of me.”

“It was.”

“I’m a pretty good dude.”

“You are.”

“Who totally deserves five hundred dollars.”

I roll my eyes. “Finish telling me about how your first rescue mission of the night happened.”

“Not before I get a funnel cake. All this hero stuff has made me work up an appetite.”

What a funny pair we must make—Kyle in a Fableview Basketball shirt, eating a funnel cake, and me in a blood-covered yellow gown beside him, patiently waiting for him to either wipe the sugar off his mouth or tell me the rest of what happened.

He feels the intensity of my stare and clears his throat. “Okay, so when we couldn’t find you, we ran into Grace. She told us what happened. And I don’t know. I just didn’t think you deserved the trouble. I know we kinda bug each other, but really, when you think about it—”

“Hold on,” I say. “Who is ‘we’?”

“Oh. Me and Darcy. She came here to talk to you.” He takes another bite of funnel cake. “Anyway. I was saying that I know we bug each other, but it’s kinda like our deal. Right? Like, that’s just a bit? Like when you pretended you were in love with me?”

I stop him. Put my hands on his shoulders, not very much unlike how his own mother held his face a few minutes ago. “Kyle,” I say, sweet despite my dwindling patience. “Where is Darcy now?”

“Oh yeah. Duh. You probably want to see her.”

“Yes,” I confirm.

“She’s at the Ferris wheel,” he tells me.

I take off toward it. A few steps into my jog, I break. “Hey, Kyle,” I call out. He’s standing exactly where I left him.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

His whole face lights up, the biggest, dopiest grin I’ve ever seen. “It’s no problem. Now go get your girl.”