And there it is again—
A gentlecrashemanating from the direction of the kitchen.
“The cats?” I suggest hopefully, as Ash exclaims, “Serial killer!”
We count the number of cats in the bedroom. Snapdragon’sstill asleep at the foot of the bed. I get down on my knees beside it, spotting Jingle’s effulgent eyes beneath. “She’s under here.”
Ash darts to the doorknob, locking it, as Luna rolls off the bed and draws a long sword from the depths of her closet. It’s foam. She made it to wear with her costume forTributalesconventions, dressing like her favorite character, a troll called Byorgilaf, from her favorite fantasy series. While Zelda favors werewolves, hobgoblins, and giant raven-spider hybrids in her fantasy, Luna’s tastes are more of the medieval dragons-and-swordplay variety in which everyone has really long names with lots of vowels.
Aisling wields the remote control. I grab a hardcover copy ofThe Tributales Three, which is so dense (both literally and figuratively) that it doubles as a weapon.
“Stay in here,” Luna orders her daughter, unlocking the door. Ash doesn’t listen, creeping behind us down the hall. I try to gently kick her back into the bedroom with my foot, but she dodges.
“Do you want me to call 911?” she whispers.
“Shh.”
“I wouldn’t be messing around in a house full of witches if I were you,” Luna calls out, voice even. I’m quaking in my gingham socks behind her. I want to be Luna when I grow up.
“Witches, eh?” We turn the corner into the kitchen, where a redheaded woman is rummaging through cabinets. “What are you going to do? Make me fall in love to death?”
We’ve been shrieking and babbling nonsense for the past five minutes. Zelda treads water in the chaos of our arms. “Not asingle normal decaffeinated tea bag in the whole house! Nothing but weird stuff that’s supposed to meddle with my future.”
“Decaffeinated?” I repeat. “Who are you?”
“Aunt Zelda!” Ash cries, attaching herself to my sister’s waist. “You’re here! Just in time. These two are trying to make me play dodgeball, and they won’t tell meanygossip. I have to hide on the stairs to hear anything good.”
“Very rude of them,” Zelda agrees, eyes narrowed at Luna and me. “No one’s been responding to my texts. Do you have any idea how annoying that is?”
“Yes.” I beam at her, my arms around her neck.
“Monsters, I say. Both of you.”
“I knew you were coming, I could sense it,” Luna gloats.
Zelda rolls her eyes. “You could not.”
Hm. Come to think of it. “I must’ve subconsciously known, too. I swear magic’s been planting echoes of you all over the place. Every closet I’ve opened this week smells like the ocean for some reason.”
Zelda turns to Luna. “Well done. You’ve brainwashed her.”
“She’s brainwashed me, too! Save me.” Aisling’s unzipping Zelda’s bag, rooting through it. “Oooh, Pringles! Can I have these?”
I peek through the blinds onto the front street, where a station wagon is parked. “What’d you do with the camper van?”
“Esmerelda was on her last legs, so I had to send her off to the great junkyard in the sky.” She picks up Luna’s foam sword, pokes her with it. “What if I was a robber? What’s this gonna do?”
“Distract you while I getthis.” Luna opens the freezer, retrieving a box of three-year-old freezer-burnt asparagus. A jagged dagger tips out.
I jump back. Aisling tries to grab for it. Luna frowns, rolling the dagger from hand to hand. “Ouch. Keeps sticking to my skin.”
“I’m glad you didn’t attack me in the dark,” Zelda tells us, “or I’d be on the floor right now, dying. From laughter. Luna, it took you, like, six minutes to open that box.” She tears off her jacket and lays it over the back of the couch, revealing a floor-length black dress that makes her look like she’s in mourning. Her fashion sense is self-described as “goth Emily Dickinson meets art curator who’s going through a divorce and trying to rediscover her fun side”—all black with a tiny splash of color. Pearl cameos featuring zombies, miniature cereal box brooches, hot pink panda earrings. Striped pointy boots with spurs. Today’s color pop is a sparkly Pusheen hairpin. “By the way,” she tells Luna, “we need to clear all of your junk out the attic, because I’m moving in.”
Luna blubbers at Zelda that she’s insensitive when it comes to people who just really love to collect stuff and we’ve missed her tremendously. Zelda expels a sigh at the ceiling while we jump around her in a tight huddle. “Curses, misery, bother, blast,” she mutters. (When Zelda is excitable, she becomes a glitching thesaurus.) She stiffens and raises her shoulders up to her ears, but once we’ve disbanded I detect a microscopic gleam in the corner of her eye.
Ash leads our small parade back to Luna’s bedroom. With so many Tempests in Luna’s bed, we have to lie in it sideways. “I can’t sleep without a fan on,” I complain.
Ash whines. “I can’t sleep without the TV on.”
