4
“How did that get here?” Yvette exclaimed, every fiber of her being on full alert. That was the book she’d read the day before at the read-along. “Did one of the kids bring it?”
“I have no idea.” Lincoln frowned at the cover. “I’ve never even heard of this before.” With the book still clutched in his hand, he walked out of the living room and into the kitchen.
Yvette followed him as he stepped outside.
Lincoln walked over to Clair, who was busy tying Toby’s shoe. Once she was done, he asked, “Have you seen this book before?”
She studied the book, frowned, and then shook her head. “No. Where did you find it?”
“On the mantel. Glowing with magic,” Yvette chimed in.
Clair blinked rapidly as she processed the information. “That’s unusual.”
“You can say that again,” Lincoln said.
“All the children’s books are kept in the playroom,” Clair said. “And the cleaning service was just here yesterday. Peggy wouldn’t have left that out. So unless one of the children moved it, I don’t see how it got there.”
Yvette made her way through the kids, asking each of them if they’d brought the book. They all said no.
When she got to Poppy, Noel’s little girl looked positively upset. “I put that back on your shelf, Aunt Yvette. I swear I didn’t steal it!”
“No one is accusing you of stealing anything, sweet pea,” Yvette soothed. “I’m just trying to solve the puzzle of how it got here. That’s all. No one is in trouble.”
Relief washed over the little girl’s face, followed by a frown. “Where’s the broom?”
“What broom?” Yvette asked.
“The one that was on the cover yesterday.” Poppy pointed to the illustrated witch who was standing next to a cobblestone cottage. “She had a broom in her hand, and there was magic swirling around it.”
Yvette tried to remember what the cover had looked like the night before, but she was coming up blank. “You’re saying this is a different book?”
Poppy shrugged. “Different cover anyway.”
“Okay.” Yvette wasn’t sure if Poppy was remembering correctly, but there was only one way to find out. She tucked the book under her arm and gave Poppy a hug. “Thanks. That’s very helpful.”
“It is?” Her eyes lit up from the praise before she returned the hug, squeezing Yvette so tight she coughed. When she let go, Yvette gave her niece a kiss on the cheek and gestured for Lincoln to follow her back inside.
“Any luck?” Abby asked.
“Nope,” Lincoln said for both of them. “But I think it’s pretty clear that book is connected to whatever curse has fallen on this family.”
Yvette thought so, too. Why else would it have started glowing when they began speculating that someone had cursed them? She placed the book on the coffee table. Then she said, “Goddess of the light, we seek knowledge. Did we unknowingly unleash a curse from this book? Goddess of the light, give us the gift of sight.”
The book rose from the coffee table seemingly on its own, shimmered with magic, and then suddenly fell, landing with a loud thump back onto the table. The magical light from the book stayed suspended and then swirled and spiraled, forming the word Yes.
Yvette sucked in a sharp breath. Even though she’d been the one to suspect the book was the problem, she was still startled. It seemed impossible, but the spell had revealed the truth.
“Oh, crap,” Abby said as she slumped back against the couch.
“Now what?” Hope asked.
“We could try to break it,” Noel said.
“Yes. Let’s try that.” Yvette picked up the book, holding onto it gingerly as if it were going to bite her.
“Where?” Abby asked.
Yvette wrinkled her nose as she thought of all the kids out back and said, “Better go out front. We need to make a pentagram.”
“Let’s do it.” Abby popped up and led the charge out the front door.
Lincoln walked over to the desk in the corner of the room and extracted a green velvet bag from the bottom drawer. He handed it to Yvette. “You’re going to need these.”
She peeked in the bag, found chalk, salt, and white pillar candles. Smiling up at her father, she said, “Thanks. This will come in handy.”
All of the spouses followed the sisters out to the front of the house.
Hunter was the one who took the chalk and got to work on the pentagram. Jacob joined him while Drew took the salt and made a circle around the area.
Once the pentagram was ready, each of the five sisters stood at a point. Yvette, as the oldest, placed the book in the middle of the pentagram and then stood at the northern most point.
The heaviness of the situation weighed on Yvette. She’d been the one to read the book. The one who’d read the spell out loud and had set everything into motion. Even though she’d in no way invoked her power to cast a spell, that didn’t seem to matter. Whatever magic was infused in the book had been enough. She just prayed that she and her sisters could neutralize it. It would eat her alive knowing that she was responsible for all their businesses suffering.
“We’ve got this, ‘Vette,” Abby said. “If it’s possible to break this curse, we’ll get it done.”
Yvette wished she shared her confidence, but she nodded anyway and held the white pillar candle in front of her.
All of her sisters followed her lead. She met each of their gazes and then called, “Ignite!”
The candles all flickered to life.
Yvette let out a sigh of relief. It had been a long time since she’d led any kind of spell. She’d hoped it’d be just like riding a bike, but she hadn’t been sure.
The familiar Townsend magic flickered over her skin as she said, “Elevate!”
The candles all started to float in the air in front of each of her sisters, leaving their hands free.
Yvette reached each arm out to Abby and Noel, who were on either side of her. Her sister’s followed her lead until each of them had their arms spread wide and their magic pulsing from their fingers.
“Air, earth, water, fire, and spirit, the Townsend sisters call upon you to right a wrong. Combine our powers, use our strength and our will to break an unjust curse. Undo the spell. Release our energy. Banish the curse and neutralize the hold it has over us, our families, and our businesses. Return Keating Hollow to its natural order. Air, earth, water, fire, and spirit, hear our call, right a wrong, banish the curse, return Keating Hollow to the natural order!”
Magical particles sparked all around them, and then suddenly, they all came together to form a large ball of light. It hovered just over the book and then shot right into it, raising the book into the air and opening it right to the curse.
The magic formed the words of the incantation. Yvette was singularly focused when she cried, “Break the curse!”
The words shattered into hundreds of pieces of shimmering light before floating to the ground. The moment the particles hit the dirt the magic winked out.
The book slammed shut and fell once again, hitting the middle of the pentagram. A tendril of smoke rose from the book as the magic faded away into the night.
“It worked, right?” Hope asked. “It looked like it worked.”
“It felt like it, too,” Faith offered.
Noel and Abby shared a look with Yvette, indicating that they weren’t quite sure.
“There’s really only one way to find out,” Yvette said.
“How’s that?” Abby asked, looking at her curiously.
“Go home, get some sleep, and find out what tomorrow brings,” Lincoln said, already picking up the book and the pillar candles. He was a stickler about putting things away where they belonged. Especially anything to do with magic.
Yvette glanced around at her sisters and then motioned for them to gather around her. “I pray this works,” she said. “And I’m really sorry about what’s already happened. No one deserves any of that.”
“It’s not your fault,” Abby said, looking at Yvette with concern.
“I’m the one who read the spell out loud. I should’ve known better. With all of you in the room, I’m sure it made it even stronger.”
“It’s a children’s book. You didn’t know it was activating a spell,” Abby insisted. “It could have happened to any of us. Understand?”
Yvette knew that was true. Still, it didn’t stop her from feeling like she was the one to blame.
“Yvette?” Abby warned.
“I hear you,” Yvette said.
“Good. Now let’s get out of here. We all have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
Everyone except for Yvette. But she kept that thought to herself, nodded, and then looked at Jacob. “Ready to get the kids?”
He shook his head. “Nope. They’re staying here for the night.” Grinning, he added, “Grandma Clair insisted.”
“Grandma Clair is a goddess,” Yvette said. “Come on. Let’s go say goodbye and make sure she hasn’t changed her mind.”
“Can you stop by the store before we go home?” Yvette asked.
Jacob gave her a questioning look.
“I want to see if Poppy was right. If the book that I read from had a different cover.” She’d been thinking about what Poppy had said, how the book she’d brought Yvette had a broom and magic as part of the illustration while the one at her dad’s house didn’t. She didn’t know why it mattered so much, but for some reason, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“Sure. It’s on the way.” Jacob reached over and covered her hand with his. “You were impressive tonight.”
Yvette squeezed his fingers, appreciating the words, but until there was a sign that the curse was broken, she was going to be on pins and needles.
It didn’t take long to realize that not only wasn’t the curse broken, but things had taken a turn for the worse.
The moment Jacob turned down Main Street, it was obvious that something was terribly off. Earlier in the day, the trouble seemed to be only with the Townsend sisters’ family businesses. But now? The entirety of Main Street looked to be cursed.
Most of the gas lamps had burned out, but the few that were still lit were flickering. The one over Incantation Café pulsed, illuminating a crack in the front window.
“Stop here,” Yvette told Jacob.
He pulled into a parking spot right in front of the café, and Yvette jumped out to inspect the store, make sure no one had broken in. The door was still locked, but the inside of the shop was dark. The normal fairy lights that kept the store lit after hours were gone. The magical window to the right of the door was dark as well, and the animated spell that had been magically decorating a gingerbread house in a spring theme was gone. The flowers made of frosting that had been in bloom in the small garden in front of the house were now wilted, and the magical fondant butterflies that had been fluttering around the window were now crashed out on the floor. The display was covered in cobwebs, making the springtime scene look more like Halloween had arrived when a spider skittered out of the gingerbread house.
“This is awful. It looks like all the life has been sucked out of Hanna’s magic.”
“Look,” Jacob said, pointing just down the street.
Yvette glanced over at the Mystyk Pizza parlor and let out a small gasp. Lately they’d had their front window spelled to produce a handwritten message specifically for each person who walked by. The last one that Yvette had gotten had complimented her on saying hello to a tourist that had been walking by and then invited her in for a sundried tomato and pesto special at half off. When she politely declined, the message upped the ante by offering her a slice of her favorite cheesecake. It had worked, and she’s spent that afternoon walking circles around the bookshop to work off the extra calories.
Today the message was anything but welcoming. In bright neon green it read Keating Hollow is dead. The magic well has been poisoned.
As Yvette stared at the warning, the sign began to flash, brighter and then faster and faster and faster until the message finally sizzled out and a puff of smoke appeared, obscuring the window. When it cleared, all that was left was a spiderweb crack all through the glass.
“That was intense,” Jacob said.
Yvette looked at her husband and said, “Let’s go.”
A few minutes later, they were in her store. Yvette searched high and low for the book that Poppy had brought her the night before, but it was nowhere to be found. Finally she stood in the middle of the store and stretched her arms out.
“Jacob, I need your help,” she said.
“Of course,” he said, moving closer to her.
“I want to use your air magic to find the book. Take my hand, will you?”
He did as she asked, and once she felt his magic mixing with hers, she guided his air magic to fill the room. She imagined the book flying through the air and right into her other outstretched hand.
Magic tingled from her fingertips and then shot across the room, straight to the children’s section of the bookstore. It crawled over all the titles, stopped near the end of the row, and then glowed between two books by authors named Walls and Wunders and then winked out.
Her heart began to race with the implication. The author of the book she was searching for was Maeve Woods. Her magic had gone to the spot where the book had last been placed. Where it should have still been.
“The book isn’t here,” she whispered. “If it was, our magic would have brought it to me.”
“Are we sure the one at your dad’s house isn’t the same copy?” Jacob asked.
She shrugged. “Poppy said the cover was different. She might be misremembering, but there’s no telling in a magical town. It could have shifted once the spell was triggered.”
“We need that book, don’t we?” he asked.
She nodded grimly. “There’s only one thing to do. Get the book and then find Maeve Woods.”