“And I’m happy you have Sylvie.You seem… less on edge since you started seeing her.Which is funny, considering a lot of people would have gone the opposite direction after witnessing the shit going on in that bookstore.”
I laugh, running a hand through my hair and considering his words.He’s right.
Two weeks have flown by since Sylvie moved here, and they’ve been full of laughter and joy and the blossoming of… something wonderful and new.
But a sense of awe rushes over me as she takes up a spot at the back of the crowd.At some point, she squashed a black witch’s hat on her head too, and she positively radiates concentration as she murmurs what I know to be the words to the spell.
Brow furrowed, she squints, her lips moving as her recitation continues.
Disbelief makes me shake my head.Seeing was believing, as it turns out, but there’s still a bizarre novelty to everything about this.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever get fully used to this,” I tell Jack.
He smiles at me, following my gaze to Sylvie.
“I think that’s part of the fun of it.You don’t have to get used to it.Life’s a lot more fun with a little bit of the unexpected.”
“Not too much, though,” I say, elbowing him in the ribs.
Jack snorts at that because we both know he prefers his routine.
He’s not wrong, though.
I never expected anyone like Sylvie—pure, unfiltered joy—filling up my life with happiness I didn’t even know I was missing.
I certainly didn’t expect the magical aspect of her.
But now?
“I don’t think I’d ever want to go back to the before,” I say out loud, surprising us both.
Jack gives me a genuine smile, one the grumpy bastard usually reserves solely for Em.“I’m glad, man.Now, let’s kick some ghost ass.”
With that, he raises the cheap twig-and-branch broom Em somehow managed to write off as holiday décor.“Hoist your brooms!”he yells.
Em smiles at him, and Tara and Tilly all raise their brooms.
“Hoist your brooms,” Em says through the megaphone, and the crowd cheers all around us, complying with her directive.
Laughter follows, and the sound is contagious, the autumn air full of anticipation and the sound of happiness.
“And…” Em pronounces dramatically, “sweep away the past!”
It’s a part of the spell, this group sweeping, and Jack and I both begin sweeping the road before us with gusto.My skin prickles, the sensation ofsomethingbuilding in the air all around us.
I can’t hear the spell I know the women are chanting around us, but it dances on the air, invisible but definitely present all the same.
Em leads our strange, pointy-hatted procession down the street towards the main square and the huge cast-iron cauldron centerpiece of New Hopewell’s Halloween display.We’re all sweeping furiously, though many are still dancing and chatting away.
It’s fascinating, really, the mundane nature of this magic—all of us, relatively normal people, doing this strange act of sweeping the road.
It makes me wonder if I’ve ever unwittingly done magic before.
Or maybe, there’s just intrinsic magic in being around other people, in celebrating the day-to-day of life, in the turning of each season.
Either way, I sweep, and Jack sweeps, and we all sweep—until we reach the oversized cauldron at the center of the town square.
Now is when we’ll find out if the spell worked.
