“This way!” I call, doubtful that anybody but Morgan hears me. “Well, they got themselves here. They can get themselves out, I guess.”
“They’re going to run into that bear.”
“Or the emu.” I lean my head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry about the witch. I really hoped you’d get some magic. Now we’ve lost the opportunity, as well as our tent, and there’s nothing else to do but go home.”
He kisses my forehead. “As long as I’m with you, I don’t care what we do.”
He is the most impossible creature in this whole forest, but a different sort of impossible than the definition I’ve pinned to him so far. He is impossible like a waraver or a unicorn—something you think you’ll never, ever find even if you search your whole life, and then one day, you do. I wrap my arms around him, basking in how right he feels. “You are a gorgeous man, Morgan Angelopoulos.”
“That’s my line.” Morgan smiles, eyes crinkling. “Are you going to kiss me now?”
“That is exactly what I’m—” I stagger when my elbow knocks into something solid, and we turn abruptly. There is a cabin. Right beside us.
“Where’d that come from?” he exclaims. “Did you notice there was a house there?”
“Guess we weren’t paying attention.”
We appraise a steeply pitched roof, black split-log walls, a door with an oak leaf and the wordsThis Is a Tree, Nothing Morecarved into the wood. “What on earth does that mean?” I utter, tracing the grooves ofNothing Morewith my thumb.
“I dunno. Looks abandoned, though.” Morgan checks behind us. “Might be a good place to hide from lions, tigers, and bears.” He brushes his arm against my shoulder, winking mischievously. “And from your sisters, so that we can kiss some more in peace.”
“Ooooh, yes, that sounds like an excellent plan.”
We eagerly tumble through the door, which smells like maple and whiskey, and end up…
In a spring meadow.
“How?”
“What!”
“Why?!”
We’ve teleported to a pastoral tableau of gentle rolling hills, wildflowers, trees pushed all the way back to the edge of the horizon. A topiary spreads before us, glossy shrubs pruned into the shapes of rabbits, cats, bats, and a boxwood creature that might be a mole mixed with a dragon. There are no roads, but there are ponds, and a lone shop that closely resembles The Magick Happens—except without our banner of purple, gold, and green, and the window boxes are overflowing with marigolds rather than Romina’s coral bells. Standing out front of it,clutching a threadbare carpetbag, is a tall man with wavy brown hair and suspenders.
“Hey, there!” Morgan waves at him in greeting.
“Wherearewe?” I call out. “It’s like we’ve landed in another town.”
“And another season,” Morgan remarks. “The temperature must’ve risen at least eight degrees.”
The man sighs, setting down the carpetbag as he ambles toward us. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes.”
Forty
Fablefinding: The supernatural practice of gathering stories lost in nature.
Family Witchcraft,
Tempest Family Grimoire
My favorite timeof year is that dark pocket between autumn and winter, when it isn’t freezing yet but the landscape has ceased to be conventionally pretty, after the trees have caught their deaths and it’s foggy and gloomy and rainy. The sky doesn’t know if it wants to storm or snow. Everyone hates the weather, how the colors of autumn have run together into a blobby gray-brown-black wash. With the leaves stripped, you can see the lovely twists of tree limbs, their unique shapes. I call it perfect tea-steeping, book-reading weather.
“Ihatethis time of year,” Romina declares miserably as we collect our drinks from DeShawn and James. Their seasonal beverage truck, The Sleepy Shrew, is only in operation from Halloween through New Year’s, and whenever they appear on Vallis Boulevard on October 31, the lines for spiced cider are preposterous.
“There, there.” I toast my milky oolong against her hot chocolate. “Spring will be here soon.”
“In one hundred and forty-one days,” she grumbles, sparing a dark glance for Luna. “I don’t know how you can wear that right now.”
