Page 133 of How to Flirt with a Witch

I stare at her, the bright Vancouver metropolis sprawling around us. I’ve been resisting calling this city home, thinking of it as a temporaryarrangement while I finish school. But in the six months I’ve lived here, ithasbecome home. I’ve gotten to know bits and pieces of it—the Granville Island market, the historic town of Fort Langley, the best places for food and drink, thrift stores, pet shops… the Gastown steam clock. I’ve grown and changed here, made memories here, and all with people I recently met.Friends, if I dare to use the word.

A wave of something unexpected washes over me. It’s not just relief, but a rightness I haven’t felt since leaving Toronto. The future I’d pictured, the one that always had me returning home after graduation, suddenly feels blurry and uncertain. What if that’s not the only option? What if the community I’ve been starving for is right here, waiting for me to settle into it?

I smile. “Moving away isn’t so bad. Plus, we’ll have each other.”

We head back to my place to make lunch, planning where we’ll live and how to decorate our home when she moves here. Obviously, we’ll have to be roommates.

As we pass through the gate and around the side of the house, my ankle throbs with every step, begging for more painkillers. I let Hazel go ahead so she doesn’t see me limping. I might’ve been overly ambitious with the amount of walking today.

She reaches the back porch and calls out to me. “You’ve got a package.”

I furrow my brow. “I didn’t order anything. Is it for my roommate?”

“It’s got your name—and there’s a note!” Excitement floods her tone, and she gasps. “Katie, is it from Natalie?”

My heart leaps, a surge of hope catching me off guard. I tamp it down and hobble to catch up, needing to see for myself.

“See you soon, sweetheart,” Hazel reads, squatting down in front of a paper shopping bag. “Aww!”

Cold prickling spreads across my skin. The words, the tone… It’s off. Natalie has never called mesweetheart.In fact, the last time someone called me that was…

My anklethrobs, pulsating, heat licking up my leg. Then, as quickly as it came, the pain gives way to a different sensation—a tug inside me, a desire to step closer to whatever is in the bag.

“Look!” Hazel exclaims, pulling the gift out to show me.

It’s a plush dog. A German Shepherd.

Its glassy eyes stare blankly at the sky, its fur engulfing Hazel’s small fingers.

She turns it, studying it from all directions.

“Do you think she’s—holy hell!” She ducks as a sparrow dive-bombs her, chirping furiously.

“Drop it!” I shriek, jolted into action by the unhinged bird.

I lunge for Hazel and bat the toy out of her grasp.

But even as it falls to the ground, I know it’s too late. She’s already touched it.

The sparrow circles back, chirping louder.

The curse has been unleashed.

Chapter 32

Curse of the Canines

“Hazel, that was meantfor me!” I roar, my voice filling the covered porch. “You weren’t supposed to touch it.”

“I—I’m sorry, I—” Her eyes are wide, startled, as she ducks to avoid the sparrow.

There’s apop!as the lightbulb above us bursts, raining fragments on Hazel’s head. She screams and flinches.

“It’s cursed!” I yank her toward me, my chest constricting. It’s like I think I can protect her, like I can stop all this if I hold her tightly enough.

Hazel brushes bits of glass out of her hair, hissing and shaking out her hands as lines of blood appear on her fingers. “What?!”

Her phone falls out of her pocket and hits the ground, the screen cracking, a web obscuring the photo of the two of us she set as her background yesterday. The music player appears, and “Who Let The Dogs Out?”bursts through the yard at full volume, drowning out the rabid sparrow chirps.