Page 27 of The Folklore of Forever (Moonville #2)

Twenty-Seven

Feed black chokeberries to the household gods in your fireplace every Mabon or they will become offended and leave your home cold in the winter.

Spells, Charms, and Rituals, Tempest Family Grimoire

Morgan and I look to one another, helpless. “Uhh.”

Luna holds up her phone toward me. “Brent texted. He said you didn’t show up to the date.”

My stomach bursts into a swarm. Not again! “Oh no. I’m so sorry, I got distracted and forgot.”

“Date?” Morgan repeats with a frown. “Who’s Brent? Is that Bob’s new name? I thought we were through with him.”

“Meanwhile, you’ve been creating a mess for me to clean up, as if I don’t have enough going on what with running our business and raising a human,” Luna goes on hysterically, inspecting the Crock-Pot and messy cupboard. “You heathens. Do you have any idea how long it took me to brew these potions?”

“Sorry,” we mutter, shamefaced.

Morgan falls upon his sword. “It was my fault. I got carried away.”

I grab a sponge and start scrubbing up. “No, no, it was my fault.”

“ Never Ever! ” Luna exclaims shrilly. “Which one of you touched this?” She brandishes the bottle of gleaming temptation, and a strip of lamplight scythes across the glass like a wicked smile. “You idiots! It explicitly says, never ever ! Now I’ve got to find a stabilizer to dim it.” She ransacks the cupboards, cursing us for rearranging its contents.

“Sorry,” I bleat again. “You have every right to be mad. Don’t worry, we’ll clean it all up.”

“Damned right, you will. Actually, no, don’t touch anything else.” She runs her hands through her short curls; there must be bits of candle wax in there, because her fingers get stuck. “You’re both grounded.”

Morgan steps slightly behind me before asking, “Why do you have a potion called Never Ever if it’s never meant to be used?”

Luna’s shaking her head as she splashes bits of this and that into the Crock-Pot; the purple goo coalesces into a hard rock that, from a certain angle, is sheened green. “I would have expected this from Morgan,” she grumbles. “But you, Zelda? You’re supposed to have a brain.”

“I have a brain!” Morgan insists. “Not my fault it’s upstaged by the beautiful head that surrounds it.”

Luna adds a final dusting of cinnamon, her face mournful. “Poor Brent. He waited over an hour.”

Morgan’s eyes narrow, watching me sidelong. “Yeah. Who’s this Brent fellow?”

Nobody answers him. Luna seizes my sponge. “Not that sponge, I just opened this one from a new package. Grab an old cleaning rag—no, not a yellow one.” I’m digging through washcloths in a drawer. “The yellow ones are for food messes. This is a magic mess. You need a black rag. No, not that black rag, that one’s for special occasions—”

I nearly throw my back out when I jerk upright, arms gesturing wide in frustration. “Which one do I use, then?”

“I’ll do it,” she snaps. “Jesus, Zelda. You always do this.”

What! I most assuredly have never done this. “I haven’t touched your potions before. Give me that rag, I know how to wipe stuff up—”

“No,” she interrupts. “You don’t give these men a chance. Before you moved home, you had a different boyfriend every time I spoke to you.”

Ohhh no. Not this. We are not going there.

Morgan steps in with a warning expression. “So what? Zelda can date whomever she wants.”

“If you didn’t want to go out with Brent,” Luna addresses me, “you should’ve just said no.”

An uncomfortable tension smokes the room. Leaning against the countertop, still wearing the apron she wears for candle making, Luna suddenly looks much older than her age. I am a gremlin for creating chaos magic in our shared kitchen, and she is an angel I don’t deserve. This woman cooks me breakfast. She reminds me to get the oil in my car changed, pick up my medicine from the pharmacy. She set up an appointment with the dentist for the persistent toothache that I’d decided to ignore. She drives me nuts sometimes, telling me what and when and how to do everything, but where would I be without her?

I fold my sister into a hug. Luna stiffens at first, out of surprise: I am notoriously not a hugger. “I didn’t mean to be late. I’m sorry, and I’m going to call your friend and apologize. But I should tell you…” I am keenly aware of Morgan’s gaze on me, so I keep my own eyes pinned to the table. “You and Romina are under the impression that I keep breaking off all my relationships because I get bored in them, or I’m some sort of ravenous maneater. Which I guess isn’t a totally unfair assumption, since I never corrected you. Um. Because the truth was more embarrassing.” I scratch my head. “But, yeah. I’m the one who usually gets dumped.”

I grimace in the beats of silence that follow. This is mortifying. Mortifying. Mortifying.

RTYIO

FG

NM

“Oh.” Luna squeezes me. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s all right. Truly! It’s my own fault it keeps happening—I’ll get so focused on a task that everything else disappears, and before I know it, I’m trying to explain to someone that I haven’t responded to his texts in two days because I was trying to figure out Claymation.” I shrug, backing away. “Not always Claymation. Sometimes it’s translating a handwritten book of Finnish love letters, or speed-reading an entire book series just because I heard the author had a new one dropping the next week and I needed to catch up.”

“Oh, Zelda ,” Luna says softly.

“And I have broken off a couple of relationships myself, for impulsive reasons,” I admit, “but that was usually more to do with where I wanted to live rather than not liking the guy. I kept jumping around from city to city, you know. Restless.”

“I’m sorry I’ve made jokes about you being a heartbreaker.” Her face scrunches as if she might start to cry.

“You didn’t know.” I wave her off. Pity is worse! And being accurately perceived! I would rather exfoliate with broken glass than engage in a vulnerable heart-to-heart.

“Wait a second.” Luna advances on me like a bird of prey. “Why were you using potions in the first place? You don’t even believe in magic.”

“Well.” I look to Morgan for help, but he bites his lip. My hesitation is promptly pounced upon.

“You don’t believe in magic, right?” Luna presses.

“Um.” I pull my hair over one shoulder and start finger-combing it nervously. “Well, you see…”

“AHHHH!!!”

“Oh no.” I shield my face as Luna wraps her arms around me and lifts me an inch off the ground. “Curses, misery, bother, blast. Put me down!”

Luna is squeezing so tight that I can’t breathe. “You’re a witch!” she cries. “You’re a witch!”

“Luna, you’re breaking my ribs.”

“Say it,” she sings, refusing to put me down. “Say you’re a witch.”

“You’re a witch.”

She harrumphs. “Say ‘ I’m a witch .’?”

“Luna’s a witch,” I tell her, which makes Morgan laugh. I flash him a smug smile.

My sister is glowing. “You prideful, pigheaded asshole, you’ve made me so happy! I was beginning to worry this day would never come! You have so much to learn about potions and which cleaning rags to use! We can finally do all those tri-witch spells I’ve been dying to try. I thought I’d have to wait till Ash was grown.” She snaps her fingers. “Oh! And all our rituals! I call them ‘witchuals.’ You’re Cancer, which is a water sign, which means you need to start taking bubble baths at least once a week.”

I grumble incomprehensibly, shoulders up to my ears. “Merghh.”

“Don’t you merghh , you will let me have this. And Romina!” She claps her hands. “I’d better get Romina and Ash over here right now.”

“Nooo.”

Alas, she does not listen. Romina and Ash are summoned from their movie night at Alex’s house to revel in my wrongness, demanding I apologize for ever doubting them. I am force-fed many a crow. “What have you done to our grandmother’s sacred kitchen?” Romina wails upon her arrival, but soon she is hugging me and barking orders, too.

“You’ll need a dream pillow,” she says, digging in the freezer for a celebratory box of French toast sticks.

Ash retrieves a bag of powdered sugar. “And a dream journal. I’ve got an extra one! Be right back.”

Luna’s filling a basket with supplies for me, like a witchcraft care package. “Whenever it rains before noon, I want you to drink ylang-ylang tea. And never buy fresh produce on an odd-numbered day.”

“Merghh.” The onslaught of attention is appreciated, but hard to bear. I toss Morgan another pleading look. He only smiles, resting on the edge of the kitchen table. His gaze is dark and sparkling, but there is a strained melancholy to the shape of his mouth.

I think about our expedition plans. As the Tempests embrace me into their witchy fold and declare today a holiday, my focus is on Morgan, who so wishes he could join our coven, too. I am resolved, here and now, on three things:

Morgan and I are going to find the Black Bear Witch.

He is getting his magic.

Then , I am going to stop messing around with the wrong man and make myself emotionally available for the right one. Whoever and wherever he may be.