Stupid Byron.
“No!” cried out Onny. “They’regone.My poor flower. Cut down in its prime for nothing.”
Byron loudly cleared his throat. “I fully accept that I will regret asking this… but what are you doing?”
“Practicing my lurking. I’m interning with Krampus for the holidays,” grumbled Onny.
“No doubt the Ivy League schools will throw themselves at you.”
Onny glared. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
Distantly, Onny heard a woman’s musical laugh. It could only belong to Ms. Allegra Frost, the school’s warm and friendly music teacher and—by some inexplicable biological quirk—Byron’s mother. Onny often saw him driving them to school in their small, bright blue car. It had always struck her how much the cardidn’tsuit him. He must be here to pick up his mom.
Byron studied her for a moment. “You’re acting weirder than usual.”
Onny shrugged. “Did you know the word ‘weird’ comes from the Old Englishwyrdfor ‘destiny’? Therefore the fates are guiding whatever I’m doing in this second. Which isn’t your business.”
Byron looked annoyed, which meant he was somewhat impressed. Onny briefly gloated before she saw his gray eyes flick to the flower sprig in her hair. His mouth twitched. Made sense. Byron Frost would be allergic to the presence of joyous vegetation.
“You don’t normally wear flowers in your hair,” he said.
“How would you know?” Onny shot back.
Byron opened his mouth, closed it, glared at some invisible spot behind Onny’s head, and then shook his head and left her standing in the hall.
Onny had felt strangely caught out by the whole thing. For a bizarre moment, she found herself wanting to explain why she was bothering with flowers in her hair. But why would she want to tell Byron of all people?
When she got home that day, she put the whole situation out of her head. She needed a new plan to complete this step of Lola’s potion. It tookdaysbefore it finally happened, which meant multiple hours in which Onny lurked around her parents, waiting for them to think she was out of sight when she actually wasn’t, so that they could—revolting as it was—kissin view of the flower.
This, more than anything, was the reason Onny believed love potions were so rare. The ingredients were too awkward and too time-consuming, so that most people probably couldn’t be bothered with them. Or they died of embarrassment trying to make them happen.
“ONNY!” shouted her mother up the stairs. “I need your help! You know how important tomorrow is!”
“Trust me,” said Onny, with one last glance at the potions. “I know.”
The morning and afternoon of Halloween seemed to pass by in a blink. The house was in complete and total chaos, so Onny and her father had hid upstairs in one of the turrets and spent the day reading. Both of them had learned the hard way to stay out of her mother’s war path when it came to day-of-event planning.
By 1P.M., Corazon and her army of decorators had transformed the living room into an autumn fairy’s grotto, the ceiling strung with frosted-pendant lights and the pillars wrapped in ivy and golden leaves.
By 2P.M., the basement became an homage to a ruinedtemple worthy ofNational Treasure–level plundering. Grinning skull chalices perched on the bar at the end of the room; smoke machines crouched inside the gaping mouths of eight-foot-tall sphinxes tucked into the corners of the room. The dance floor had been wrapped in a kind of gold foil, while the DJ, already dressed as a yeti, was beginning to set up the sound system.
By 5P.M., Corazon was hollering that the chef was five minutes late and everything must be set on fire since it was already trash.
Onny and her father peered over the stair railings as Corazon walked in circles, clutching several scheduling binders to her chest.
Onny glared at her father. “Shouldn’t you be helping?”
“I’m too scared.”
As if sensing her family’s presence, Corazon whipped her head up, and Onny and Antonio scrambled backward.
“Did It see us?” he whispered.
“No, I think we’re—”
“ANTONIO!”
“Oh no.”
