PartOne
One
When it storms at midnight, brew a cup of dandelion root tea. Slowly wave the flame of a six-inch candle back and forth over its depths to glimpse a secret you’ve long forgotten.
Spells, Charms, and Rituals,
Tempest Family Grimoire
Legend has itthat the first sentence of a new book is always the hardest.
Although I imagine it’d be easier if I had any idea what sort of story this one’s going to be. I’ve sent four polished proposals to my editor, each neatly shot down for being either too similar to my There’s Magic in Villamoon series, or too dissimilar (“We want all the charm and excitement of Villamoon, but for it to be totally fresh and different”), so when I lower a bucket down the creative well, the only water is insecurity and reminders that I have bills to pay and no reliable prospects on my horizon. Moving to my hometown was supposed to magically (no pun intended) fix this creative dry spell, but here I am sixty-five days after returning to Moonville, Ohio, and I am still staring down a blank page.
Perhaps I could try a spin-off? There are plenty of characters in the Villamoon universe I could write about…but readerswould inevitably compare a spin-off to the original and probably find it dissatisfying. I need to move on.
The thing is, readers might not move on with me.
What if I don’t have any other stories worth telling, and nobody will care about my books if they’re not about Henriette Albrittey, amateur sleuth and heartbreak vampire, who feeds on the anguish of failed relationships rather than blood?
My gaze shoots to a stack of recently procured library books, each title more fascinating than the last:Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. Get Well Soon: History’s Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them. Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. A Grave Robbery. Heir of Uncertain Magic.
I shouldn’t.
But it’s so very irresistible.
But I shouldn’t.It’s been a while since my last novel came out, and I don’t have time to mess around. Sales have been declining, which I am told is natural to happen at the tail end of a seven-book series—and I’ve funneled a fair bit of money into my family’s shop. If I don’t get another contract in the works, I’ll end up needing to findanotherjob (on top of my part-time work at The Magick Happens), which will leave me with even less time for writing, which will make sustaining this career that much harder.
My hand, without permission, snatches upA History of the Habsburg Empire, 1526–1918.
I will draft yet another proposal for a cozy paranormal mystery. It will be brilliant! I promise! But first, it is completelynecessary that I learn everything there is to know about the Habsburgs.
As my thumb smooths over “Chapter I: Toward the Union of the Habsburg Lands,” a soothing peace descends over me like a mist, worries sieving into a distant time and place. Writing has not come easily lately, but reading isalwaysdependably wonderful. This sort of text is my very favorite kind, with maps and an index and appendices. The names of a few rulers—Leopold, Maximilian, Ferdinand—stick to the walls of my brain, happily repeating themselves over and over in the way that, in my experience, select words are oft to do. I look forward to getting lost in new information.
A sputter of lightning draws my attention to the window, my gaze falling eye-level with somebody else’s, looking at me through his window across the street. My heart rate kicks up at the sight of that thick, sleek black hair that tumbles nearly to his shoulders. Dark, clever eyes. Tattoos of constellations spidering up his arms. That incredible jawline alone is the food of poetry.
A slowly considering smile pulls at his mouth.
My phone rings.
Imagine Vallis Boulevard, which is our street, as a thin brick ribbon laid across a giant’s palm. On either side of the brick ribbon are all manner of shops—some of the ordinary variety, like Mozzi’s Pizza or Riddle & Owl (they sell board games, puzzles, and such). Many others play up our homegrown urban legends, promoting the fantastical in some way. Like how Wafting Crescent, the bakery, advertises their Danish dreamcake as “baked with eight drops of love magic.” Or how Dark Side of the Spoon, a new diner that’s just opened up, claims to have been constructed over crossing ley lines, which allegedly gives their establishment a boost of supernatural energy. Imagine creeks that cut through the road every which way, so many of them that some shops are perched over the water on stilts, and ten thousand trees stuffed into every available crevice (including sprouting out of the middle of the road in medians).
Now: the giant crumples all of it in his fist, scrunching neighbors right up next to each other with no room for breath, and you’ve got the reason why I can see what Morgan’s face looks like while I’m safely inside my attic. I could throw a pen and smack his window with it. My building, which is the oldest one in the neighborhood and has been called The Magick Happens since the 1970s, is a three-layer brick cake. My attic is the tart black currant jam that stacks over Luna’s apartment, a dense slab of sponge, mousse, and ganache with so many ingredients fighting for dominance that you can’t tell what the hero flavor is supposed to be; which sits atop a creamy meringue with Pop Rocks exploding whimsically here and there: our shop. Well, I should mention that it’s technicallyTrevor’sshop, as he’s my sisters’ and my landlord, and he bought the property from our mother, who sold it to spite her ex-husband (our father) who’d inherited it from his mother (Grandma Dottie). I won’t get into all of that right now, though—it’s a whole thing.
Back to Morgan and the phone that vibrates itself across my desk, glowingUnknown Number. He’s called my cell before,requesting book recommendations, but always from the special line downstairs in the Cavern of Paperback Gems.
Neon colors fishtail through what I presume is his bedroom, strobing his face. He must have purchased his wall decorations from a Miami motel’s going-out-of-business sale. It’s a stark contrast to my cave: my first priority after moving back home was to paint the attic a deep indigo and adorn it with black-framed artwork: a weeping skeleton with an arrow in its vertebrae; a black goat on a shore, its hindquarters formed from seawater. Not that you can see much of anything besides my books, as they’re stacked and stuffed anywhere they’ll fit. My sock drawer. Under the bed. Sandwiched between terrariums for my vampire crabs, beetles, ghost mantises, and isopods.
My phone continues to ring. Morgan twiddles his device back and forth in a gesture topick up. His body language is self-assured, powerful, as though he knows I’m going to do exactly that.
Today, Morgan is wearing acid-washed jeans, a matching denim jacket with the collar flipped up, and a shirt color-blocked in fluorescent pink and orange. A miniature gold sword dangles from his left earlobe. His wardrobe of exclusively 1980s vintage clothing is so opposite to my own fashion sense that he’s a UFO spotlight demanding my full attention. I have such a fondness for the different and unexpected.
We stare at each other, my vision black and sparkly at the edges from fixating on a bright white rectangle for forty unproductive minutes. And then finally, I answer the call.
My “Hello?” is cautious, suspicious, a quick peek around the corner of a dark alleyway.
His silky voice pours into my ear, coaxing every hair to stand up. “Hello to you, too, gorgeous.”
My pulse races. “It’s one in the morning.”
